“It’s precision linework.”
“Precision stabbing,” he says, and pushes a container toward me.
I sit and eat the Pad See Ew, which is annoyingly perfect.
The session starts at seven.
He’s on the chair, shirt off, positioned on his left side with his arm raised. I’ve seen this view four times now between the first session and the follow-up checks, and I have not gotten any more professional about it. The tattoo sits clean on his ribs. We are two sessions in, and it’s healing beautifully, exactly the lines I intended. Tonight, I’m adding the shading that gives the bird its depth, the fine work that makes the feathers read as real.
“Ready?” I say.
“Born ready.”
“You said that last time and then gripped the armrest for forty minutes.”
“I was meditating.”
“You were white-knuckling.”
“Same thing,” he says, and I hear him take the slow breath he uses to settle himself. It’s the same breath I’ve noticed he takes on the mound before a pitch.
I turn on the machine.
There’s a quality to the silence tonight I can’t name.
It’s not uncomfortable. We’ve long passed uncomfortable silence and arrived somewhere on the other side of it, the place where quiet between two people means something rather than nothing. He’s still, good at it now, and his breathing is controlled. I work the shading in sections, building the depth gradually, the way good tattoo work always goes, with patience over speed and layers over shortcuts.
“Tell me something,” he says at the forty-minute mark.
“About the design?”
“About you.”
I lift the needle and assess the section. “You know things about me.”
“I know the surface things. The studio, the coffee order, the fact you reorganize your ink bottles when you’re anxious.”
“I don’t—”
“Three times last week.”
I return to the shading. “What do you want to know?”
“Why you stay here. This city. You could have opened anywhere.”
I consider the question for a moment, the needle steady. “My father is here.”
“That’s the practical answer.”
“It’s the true one.”
“It’s half of one.”
I sit back and look at what I’ve done, buying myself a few seconds. The bird is starting to take on dimension now, the feathers catching fictional light. “The other half is the studio itself. I found this space before I had any reason to take it. Walked past it on a Tuesday afternoon, looked through the window, and knew.” I return to the work. “Some things you can’t explain past that.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I get it. First time I walked out to the mound at a major league stadium, I knew I was supposed to be there. Couldn’t have told you why.”
“And now?”
