When Jack and Diane Go Wrong (About a Girl)

Sheena

Part One

(a beginning)

I had been tattooing for about a year; four months on my own, after work every night and another four at my first shop, a place called Custom Creations/Studio 27 in Sioux Falls, S.D. It had two names because it was partnered by two equally talentless and stubborn morons. Larry, being one of them, was the “Custom Creations” end, and I forgot the other guys name. I do remember that he had another shop in a town nearby under the same title. Larry had no business choosing this name as he was anything but a custom artist. I wasn’t much of a tattooer myself at this point but I had already in under a year, surpassed his 15 years of “knowledge” and certainly his ability.

I got fired by Dale, the piercer, and who himself was another silent partner. I had done a piece on a friend for free just to do something bigger and more challenging, more fun. I think he thought I got paid and just ripped him off. This however was not the case. It wouldn’t be the last time I was fired for doing pro bono work after hours. It would be however, my first lesson in the greed of your average shop owner and how it seems implausible to them that an artist could actually do something just because he fuckin’ wanted to, and not simply for the cash.

Dale was a big motherfucker. If I had to guess, I’d say 260. That is exactly two of me to the pound. So when he came in that morning demanding his money (which I obviously didn’t have) and he took my only two tattoo machines and a leather jacket just to be a dick, I didn’t put up much of a dispute. Somehow I got his $400 a couple weeks later and I moved back to Huron.

That’s when I met.. her.

She was already at my friend Joe’s house when I came through the door with all of my gear. She was all that I noticed. Blonde. Sexy-pretty. Blue icy eyes. A slut, straight away. I knew the type well enough. My crux, my cryptonite. I’ve never had all that great of radar when it concerns women and their attractions toward me, but she left little room for speculation with her less-than-subtle fuck-me eyes. It made her even more attractive to me because this meant there was already an unspoken agreement, that there were to be no games played, no maniuplations, no fucking around. She knew. I knew.

I was also maddly in need of a blonde, purely by nature. It’s been somehow engrained into my blood since boyhood, my penchent for golden hair, and it had been since college that I had been anywhere close to intimate with a girl borne of this trait.

The last three girls in Sioux Falls had all been brunettes. I guess the crazy little goth girl had dyed black hair. So make that two browns and a black. For all I know she could have been blonde underneath I guess. She liked to bite, that one. Hard. Too hard for my liking anyway. Hard enough that I nearly punched her one night while we were messin’ around on the couch. Fuckin’ goth girls.

Anyway, Sheena was blonde and easy. I liked her from the start. I ate some pills and tattooed my friends. Afterwards we smoked a blunt in the basement and she asked for a ride home. Naturally I offered.

The next day she called me at my parents house; once again I was staying with them while I figured out my next move. My initial intent was again to head west, just me and Riggs. Now, I had a piece of blonde pussy on the line and my poor, dumb dick took over. I went and got her at her parents house-a trailer out in Prarie Villa. She had come from a long line of drug addicts and alcoholics; she’d been arrested a few times for minor shit, maybe even been locked up for a minute, I forget. The point is that she came from a fucked up family but I didn’t give much thought to it at the time. I was 25. She was 19 and blonde. What the fuck did I care if she was a mess? I had dealt with my share and I wasn’t such a catch either. It wasn’t like we were getting married or anything.

We drove around most of the day getting high on the county roads. Somewhere along the line she got wasted drunk. I took her back to my parents house, an old two-story square box with a semi-finished basement. That house is always quiet at night and the smallest sound radiates through it as if an echo within canyon walls. My childhood room and the one I was currently occupying again between the hours of 2 and 11 a.m., was a thin wall away from where my parents slept. I couldn’t take her up there. I opted for the cool, damp basement.

We were both lightyears beyond horny and barely made it past the last step going down before we were half naked and pressed up against the deepfreeze where my old man kept the venison he blew away the previous fall with his 30-06. I sat her up on top but it was just a tad too high to have a proper go at it. I felt like I was 16 again. It was great. I ended up pulling a bunch of blankets off the couch and took her down on the floor. She was loud and liked to talk dirty. As much as it turned me on, I couldn’t erase the fact from my mind that my mother was possibly hearing every word, every pleasureful moan of ecstacy and the muffled screaming.

If she didn’t that night, I know for certain there were others in that tiny little bedroom next door when she did. That girl just could not contain herself. And I guess I couldn’t either because she was just worth the risk at the time. I’d hold my hand over her mouth and be yelling at her to shut the fuck up in my loudest whisper. The first fuck is always the best if theres no awkwardness involved and this one was pretty good. I knew if nothing else, I at least liked fucking her and decided with no other immediate plans that I would continue doing so for a while. Until I got my shit figured out ya know.

She passed out on the basement floor that night. So drunk that all of my attempts to wake her had failed. I myself wasn’t drunk and had no intentions of sleeping on that cold fucking floor, first date or not. I left her down there and went upstairs to bed.

My dad woke me up the next morning, with the astute observation that there was a “pretty blonde girl who looks like she had a rough night” downstairs. “I’ll be down in a minute Pop.”

___________________

I of course, without the slightest doubt knew that this girl was trouble. Every instinctual, gut reflex in my body told me to run ahead and alone. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had no where else to be you see. I had not been tattooing that long and was still very ignorant to its inner-workings. I knew no one else in the industry at all except for Larry and he was just another below-average hack with no real connections himself. So I was stuck. I had finally succeeded in gaining the neccessary equiptment needed to fulfill my dream, still had the desire and ambition, and despite my little time in an actual shop, I was still no further than when I had started a few months before. A nice piece of ass to take my mind off of survival and failure looked pretty ripe.

We each got jobs and I moved into a 3 bedroom house with my friend Adam. The rent was cheap and I couldn’t pass it up. I’ve never particulary liked sharing my domecile with anyone I wasn’t screwing; friends make the absolute worst roommates in my opinion.

My job was as a steel saw operator. I just cut lenghts of pipe all day. The boss was a long-time friend of my parents so it was an easy in. It lasted for about two weeks until waking up at 5 a.m. no longer suited me. Hell, neither did the job for that matter. It was boring piece-part shit and I had already been down that road once before. I had no real desire to go back, so I told John I had found something different, changed the bandsaw and went home. I didn’t really have another job, but couldn’t stand the thought of doing that for one more day. The State Fair was in town the next week and I was anxious to fulfill a teenage fantasy that never really saw its full fruition back then. I’d get a job after that, I told myself.

We drove out to the fairgrounds the second night with Riggs in tow. He loved all the people and it was the happiest I’d seen him in a while. My mind that night was not on survival, or money or anything else. It was fixed on fucking my girlfriend in one of the campers on display. As kids, we would sneak off with the girls in to the camper lot, check for unlocked doors and procede to make out with them once inside. A real lucky kid was the one to go all the way whilst illegaly inside. I had only succeeded once at messing around in one and once in the “Governors House” which was a pre-fab structure always set out on display on 3rd Street. I was finally, 10 years later going to fulfill that mission. I grabbed Sheena’s hand with Rigg’s leash in the other, and dragged them both towards the campers.

She was down for it and put up no argument. She was wild and spontaneous, a bit crazy and unnerved. She didn’t give a fuck. I liked her as much as I didn’t. You see, I’m a bit of a contradiction as we all are. I’m overtly attracted to the psychos, knowing full-well the depths of their insanity and also aware that I would never give serious consideration into perhaps marrying a girl like this. No, what I want in that instance, is a good girl. Not too good, but not Sheena. You don’t marry a girl who is totally willing to let you fuck her in a tresspassed camper in the middle of a couple thousand people. Remember that.

We split up to check all the doors. I remeber thinking that there were a lot less unlocked ones than when in my youth. I guess times change. Nevertheless, I came across a little pop-up trailer camper that was good to go. Those types have two beds on either side with a little kitchenette in the middle. I put Riggs in and called out for Sheena. We entered the trailer, stripped down and I fucked her brains out as I don’t think I had ever done before. A half hour later, we dressed, mission accomplished. Fuck, I felt 17 again. I opened the door only to be welcomed by the bright light shining down from the pole. It lit the inside of the camper as I turned and stooped down to get Riggy, and that’s when I noticed it. The blood.

There were doggy foot prints all over the floor in what I at first assumed to be mud. It was so hot and humid in that thing already and coupled with the sweaty act of coitus, that I guess I didn’t notice she was on her rag. The bed on the right side looked as if Ted Bundy had killed some bitch on it. How it ever got onto the floor still remains a mystery to me. Both sets of clothes were stained and we walked out of there looking like we just beat the hell out of one another. I didn’t care. I had just reached victory, I couldn’t be bothered by a little blood.

The next day I went down to the Plainsman office and put in an application for a layout person. I had not only worked there once before in the mailroom as a teenager, but had worked in the copy room at the Gallatin Examiner while in college. It didn’t hurt that my degree was in Commercial Art and I had knowledge of Quark and Illustrator, the programs they used to layout the paper.

There was a new editor there; a 30 year-old girl from Florida. She and her husband, some dorky Nascar type had moved to the snowy plains of South Dakota from the warm beaches of the Gulf. I remember during my interview with her that the fact was hard for me to fathom and made some reference to it. She gave an answer I’m sure and while it was probably credible enough, it really made no difference to me. I just needed the fucking job, and I could tell she was going to give it to me. I felt good that day. There would be no more industrial wharehouses, no more cutting up my hands and waking up at 5. For a while at least. I went home and banged my girlfriend. No blood this time.

Sheena was working at Holiday Foods, the lower-end grocery store on the lower-end of town. Actually, it was the first building when you crossed over the proverbial, “wrong side of the tracks”. She hated it. She wasn’t a worker either. Unlike me, she had no drive, no goals. I hated working all these goddamn blue-collar bullshit jobs too, but for different reasons. I had ambition and work ethic but I felt that I was destined for bigger and better things, but at the same time, would never allow myself to believe that too much for fear of losing what little control I did have. I could only keep tattooing when I was able, try to educate myself the best I could and take each miserable day as it came. And thats what I did; what we did. Sheena moved into the house with me and Adam and naturally, I began to see less and less of him and his brother.

It continued this way for a while-I was marginally happy, although uncontent. Fall and winter came and passed, I was still working at the newspaper and had just talked Stacey, my editor, into letting me write a bi-weekly column. She probably knew better by this time, but allowed it anyway. I called it, “Beyond the Confines” and wrote mostly about how much the town was letting itself be destroyed and how none of the young people wished to stay around due to the close-mindedness of the rest. I cant believe she actually published them. I only wrote a couple of those because I quit soon after. The reason escapes me, but its a nice little memory I have. All the articles I wrote and those columns are still in a binder somewhere in the old mans garage. I can say that I don’t miss writing obituaries or reporting on school board meetings. That sort of work only brings you closer to death, faster.

It does sound cool to say that I once wrote obituaries for a living though.

Sheena quit the grocery store too and we just bummed around for a couple weeks. It was as close to living like Bukowski as I think I ever had, minus the booze. Adam was fired from another job and couldn’t pay his share anymore so he moved back home. We owed a shit-ton on the gas bill and couldn’t stay there either. Sheena with her lack of pride and ever-diminishing sense of dignity, applied for low-income housing and two weeks later we were sharing a studio apartment behind Burger Plus. I had never felt so setback. So worthless, so not in control. Riggs wasn’t allowed there so he was staying with my mom and dad, which he didn’t mind all that much. He had lots of room over there, a nice yard and good food. He was by all accounts living better than me. Some nights we’d sneak him in but he was better off over there.

Sheena got a job out at the Jack Link’s factory in Alpena, working on the line somewhere with about a million or so Mexicans. She boxed and stacked cases of beef jerkey all day. It was trivial work but it paid well for an unskilled 19 year-old girl; I was getting bored of just waiting for something to happen so in the meantime, I too took a job there. I had forklift experience from my machine shop days so that’s the gig I got, thank god. It was at least tolerable. Loading trucks with pallets. Could’ve been worse.

It was during this time that her and I began discussing leaving.

I had been out there already, served some time on the road, been to some places, seen some things. Sheena however had barely ever left the borders of South Dakota. She had been to Iowa once or twice but that was about all and didn’t count for shit. Now, I was already long since locked in to Captain Save-a-Ho mode and was more determined than ever to not only get myself out of there once again, but her as well. I did love her. And cared for her more than I knew anyone else ever had. I wanted to share what little I had with her. We were really just those two small-town kids, looking for a better life. We were scared but zealous. Prepared to take on the world. When I looked at her in those first few months together, I heard Springsteen songs.

I was still tattooing when I could and was getting better, slowly. But I knew I needed further training. I had no idea as how to go about this task. I barely knew anyone who tattooed, and those I did had already lied to me or fucked me over some other way. I wasn’t feeling very positive about much.

It wasn’t all roses of course. What love ever is? We fought at lovers do, made up the same way. When it’s just you to decide what happens, that power also becomes your weakness. You are free to do whatever you want but you are always the victim of circumstance. You must make your decisions wisely. I came home from work one day determined to quit the jerkey plant. She was of the same mind set. We were again broke and aimless. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, literally and figuratively. All we had was each other. We fucked to pass the time and to temporarily cure our feelings of abandonment. She was a good lay, Sheena. That was still enough for me. It was all I had anyway.

It was at her suggestion that I took to the library to look for a tattooing job. I can honestly say, that this may have been the first time I had ever used the internet. I didn’t know what I was doing, much less where to look. I did a Google search. Seriousy. “Tattoo jobs + help wanted” was exactly what I typed into that little, skinny rectangle.

It brought me to Tattooz.net, which at the time was in its infancy. There, I found two ads for what I was looking for. Just two. Both were posted by a guy called Casper. The first was advertising a spot in Woodstock, NY, working for Bruce Bart. The other was a spot in Tampa, Fl. I of course opted for Tampa. I wrote Casper a short email detailing myself and what I was looking for and included a small portfolio of my work at that point. He replied a bit later saying that the Tampa spot had been filled, but that there was a different opening for another of Bruce’s shops in Pompano Beach, Fl.

All my life I had wanted to live by the ocean. I chose Florida, again. I never fuckin’ liked hippies anyway.

Part Two

(a middle)

I had seen Bruce Bart’s ads in the back of some old Skin Art’s which basicly served as my apprenticeship. While I was excited that the correspondence was set in motion, I wasn’t pinning much hope on it actually panning out. I just recognized the name and thought that there was no shot in Hell that I’d ever be hired. Who was I? Just another kid from nowhere trying to tattoo on his own and not getting too far. This guy could have any artist he wanted, I told myself. Surely, there had to be a crop to pick from in, where again…? Pompano Beach, Florida? Yeah, he aint gonna hire me.

I had professional equipment, including a stove-top sterilizer, I was taking sanitary precautions and not biting off more than I thought I could chew, but I was stuck. I had no way of contrasting my work against others’, wasn’t using the proper needle setups and I just didn’t really know that much about tattoo art. I had always been into realism and usually preferred black and white as a pallete up till then. I loved tattooing from the first moment I set foot in a shop, but also got that very distinct feeling that it was a sort of underground club not unlike the Masons or Hells Angels, and you must be invited to join. There was going to be no one asking me to join and I knew that. This would probably be my only hope and I could only silently wish that something came of it.

Casper told me that he would forward my email to his boss, Bruce, and that he would be getting in touch with me by the next day. I left the library feeling I had at least accomplished what I set out to, regardless of how it panned out. I wasn’t holding my breath about it. I went back to our shitty, little apartment and gave Sheena the good news. I remember us feeling rather optimistic about it all.

The next day, just as promised, Bruce Bart called me from Ft. Lauderdale. He wanted me to overnight my entire portfolio to him in Florida, as he was preparing to fly back to New York the following day. He said once it arrived, he and his son Damien, a tattooer and manager of the Lauderdale store, would look it over and make a decision. He would call me the next day, in any event. I remember being quite nervous on that call; I gave him a brief description of myself, where I had been and where I wanted to go. I thanked him for the time and consideration and hung up the phone, all smiles. It had actually fucking worked. The goddamned internet. I was sold.

We went out to celebrate a little, then headed over to her parents house. They were out so while Sheena fumbled around, looking for something or other, I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote Bruce a very kissass (but honest) letter expounding on what I had briefed him on earlier. It read verbatim as follows: (Although it was written in all caps so as to be legible. I have awful penmanship)

Bruce-

To be quite honest, I’m not sure where to begin. Just having the opportunity to be sending this to you is a complete honor in and of itself. Let alone a chance at possibly working in one of your shops, surrounded by other artists with talent and ability I can’t even fathom. There are a billion things on my mind but I’d like to keep it simple. I’m finding this whole experience, (while exciting and beyond my dreams) a little scary and humbling. I mean that I’m not fooling myself by thinking I’m something I’m not. You could have your pick of any artist I’m sure; I can only tell you that I believe I have what it takes (spiritually, mentally and ability wise) to work amongst the creative people you obviously have in your employ. I have no doubt that you all are very close and full of respect for one another. That is the very environment I wish for myself. I have every confidence in my ability to grow and learn as an artist. Well Bruce, the first few pages are what I consider to be my best work. Most of it is also my most recent. The rest, I would ask you to please consider “self-training”.

The way I see it Bruce, is that the work I presently do is an extention of what I saw other artists do on me. I just imagine what my work would be if I had 10 other highly motivated, talented and trained people to learn technique from. Or if I had somone to to show me how to properly use a Mag needle. There’s just so much I want to do in tattooing! I really feel in my heart that this is my calling; that getting the chance to write this letter is not by mistake. I once wrote, “Some feel their calling, just as others feel no need to be called.”

Well, I guess you know what its like to be in my shoes-seen it a million times I’m sure. I would only ask that when making your decision, you keep in mind and heart that this is my passion, my obsession, my love, my life. And should you choose otherwise, I thank you graciously for talking with me and taking the time to look at my stuff. It’s been a pleasure!

Artfully,

Cody

I would later find out that Bruce loved to have his ass kissed and that the writing of this very letter may have well indeed sealed my fate. I spent the last thirty bucks I had to my name to send a half-assed, mediocre portfolio to Florida. I included some artwork as well because I wasn’t very impressed with my own tattooing either. To the average person it probably appeared to be pretty good. To me it was shit. I knew I could do better, I just didn’t know how.

I think Bruce did see the artist in me and what difference did it make to him if he hired me anyway? He wasn’t risking anything. He had been through a hundred artists in his time and to him, I was just another who was going to make him money. As long as my work was passble to the public, it didn’t make much of a difference I don’t think. He was very well aware that tattooing was blowing up and that if I bombed out for any reason at all, that there would be five more eager fucks ready and willing to take my place. I was still very naive to the politics of tattooing, but I was smart enough to know that too.

He called the next day, again as promised. I thought that was very professional and I sensed good news. He told me that he and Damien looked my work over and while it was still very rough and indelicate, it did show promise and with the advantage of being around a great crew, he thought I would be a great addition. He also mentioned the letter and thanked me for it. We discussed matters a little further. He told me that a fellow named Doug Patrom was moving to Durango, Colorado and that if I wanted the sopt, we would have to be down there by May, 16. He also went on to add that Doug rented a small one bedroom apartment a block east of Federal Hwy and that it was close to the shop. I could possibly get hooked up with Doug’s landlord and have a place to directly move into. Fuck all if this didn’t sound to good to be true. He gave me Doug’s number whom I called the next day. He and I exchanged our last sets of pleasentries and I hung up the phone. I looked at her. Sheena. My girl. I was smiling like I had just experienced a thousand Christmases all at once.

“We’re moving to Florida!” I said.

__________________________

Sheena had picked up a job at the Best Western, cleaning rooms. I had called an ad in the paper which was asking for a labor helper-setting up irrigation pivots in cornfields. There weren’t a whole lot of people busting down the door for that job so I got it rather easily. It would just be myself and some old-timer out there during the day. I sort of liked that as I’ve never been that fond of people.

Like a lot of the jobs I’ve had since I was 14, this one didn’t last all that long either. Not because I was lazy or even because it required waking up early, but because the old-timer didn’t like me. It wasn’t really me he didn’t like, but rather just the fact that I was some “towny” covered in tattoos. I guess he didn’t figure me for the farm boy I was at heart. I don’t think we even said so much as ten words that first week. He was an asshole, that guy.

One morning as we were building one of the towers, I scaled the thing to wire up the sensor which went on top. I hollered down for a 7/8″ wrench which the old bastard flung up to me like a rocket. It whizzed by my head and hit a little of my shoulder on its way past. That was the last straw for me. I jumped off the pivot, grabbed the nearest piece of metal I coud find and threw it at him with all the force and ability of a minor league pitcher. I played baseball for 13 years. I could throw anything straight, including this pipe fitting. It nailed him right in the gut and knocked him back a couple feet. I jumped in the old farm truck we had driven out there, turned it over and left that old asshole out in the middle of the field, alone.

I drove it back to the concrete facility that we were working from, parked it and went inside. The receptionist, a middle-aged woman, polite, was sitting at the desk. I flipped the truck keys onto the counter.

“I hope someone knows where that bastard is ‘cuz I left his ass out there when he started throwing shit at me. Send my check to the address on my application.”

I got back in my car and went home. It was the last “job” I ever had.

_______________________

During the month or so that we were preparing to leave, I just tattooed as much as I could. Sheena still had to get her GED and made an appointment at the Career Counceling Center. She took the pretest later that week and finished the final on the very morning we left.

I ended up tattooing a group of people one day and was paid with a quarter-pound of brown, Mexican brick weed. I was 26 years old and just about every single person I knew or grew up with had long since disappeared from Huron. I had no idea how or who I was going to sell this garbage to. I’d of course keep a little for myself, for the road, but I was at a loss as to who to turn to to dispell of the rest. I ended up giving it to the little brother of a friend of mine and within the week he had sold it all, minus a quarter for his trouble. It was enough money for the gas, if not a little extra for good measure.

I had already sent Doug’s landlord in Florida a cashier’s check for the deposit and rent. He was a lawyer in Pompano and owned this little property off of Federal. He was a good guy, for a lawyer and during a telephone conversation mentioned that Riggs was no problem and that the keys would be under the mat waiting for us. It was really happening. In a few weeks we were going to be Florida residents-a lifelong dream for two, landlocked South Dakota kids. I can’t remeber ever feeling so sure, so positive that this would be it-the end result of years of trying and failing.

I had left home many times before but always returned with tail between the legs. I was determined, no matter what happened between her and I, that I would remain out this time. I was not coming back home a failure ever again. And I didn’t.

The rest of the days dropped from the calendar at an ever-increasing rate and our stomachs were full of butterflies. It was an exciting time, that spring. I had always loved roadtrips, packing up the car, living off your wits, but this time was going to be different. This time I had a partner and we weren’t coming back. She looked at me like I was in some way holy. I guess she thought of me at the time as a sort of saviour, and I suppose I was in a sense. I was going to take her away from all this bullshit; the drugs, the family, the drama, the sheer boredom of that place. It was all she ever knew and most of what I knew and we had a golden ticket out. We were the only two kids in the world that week and we were in love.

Of course it wouldn’t stay that way.

I woke up early the morning of May, 11, 2004 and packed the little black S-10 as full as I could get it. Mom bought us some space-saver bags for our clothes which I layed down across the extended cab, with blankets over top for Riggs to sleep on. The rest of our belongings were loaded in the back and Dad and I threw two tarps over it all and locked it down nice and tight. There was only so much that would fit in a single truckload so we had to pick carefully what we needed and had to leave or discard the things we didn’t. I hadn’t been that nervous up until this point. It all began to settle into my brain and suddenly I was hit with the solid realization that it wasn’t just me anymore. My parents had seen me off more than once to be sure, but that day, they were seeing the both of us off and I was going to be taking care of not only Riggy, but a girl now as well.

I was her world and she would’ve followed me to bumfuck Arkansas if I had asked her to. It seemed so surreal to me that morning. That in 3 or 4 days, we would be living by the ocean. We would have a whole new life to begin. It was a fresh start for the both of us. It probably meant a great deal more to me, seeing as that I was not only achieveing one dream of living near the beach, but a greater one all together. I was going to be a real tattooer. I couldn’t fucking wait to rearview that town. I had to go pick Sheena up at the testing office, come back home, load Riggs and say goodbye. I checked the map once more, shook the old mans hand and slowly crept up 11th Street to the stop sign, turning left. South. The weight of our world in the back of the truck.

I somehow knew this time that I would never see my hometown in quite the same light ever again. It would change by the time I got back, whenever that would be. And I would change too.

We drove the first 45 minutes to Mitchell and stopped at McDonald’s to grab us all a bite. Plain hamburgers for Riggs. I came back out, got in the truck, turned it over. Nothing. Dead. Fuck.

I wasn’t shocked. Pissed off real good, but not shocked.

I had never known the best of luck and true to typical fashion, this was going to be no different. It hadn’t actually been a matter of my bad luck, so much as it was someone else’s stupidity.

The week before, I had taken Sten (the S-10) in for a checkup. The only thing it needed was a new altenator, which I had them replace. When I opened the hood in Mitchell, I first checked all the fuses. The ignition fuse had blown. It wasn’t just the type of small fuse I could go to Walmart (which was within walking distance) and buy, no, it had to be a bigger one that could only be found by someone with more knowledge of cars than I had. I called dad, asked what I should do, and was told I didn’t have much of a choice. I’d have to get it towed to the Chevy dealership in town. It was mid-afternoon at this point and we got it towed just before the shop was closing. One of the guys stayed late to fix it and I tipped him twenty bucks for the effort. If I know mechanics, and I do, that 20 came in pretty handy at the bar later that night. Turns out, the moron who had installed the new altenator back in Huron had put it in backwards and it was shorting out. About 8 p.m. we were back on the road, aimed south once again.

__________________________

After 8 years and a few more women since, certain details escape me, such as where we stayed the first night. It was for the most part as I recall, pretty uneventful driving. I had made the same journey down to Tennessee a few times alone, so it was nice to see her face beaming when we entered St. Louis and her gaze met the Arch. It felt good being able to share the experience with someone else. To be quite honest with myself, I wouldn’t even have been on that journey if it weren’t for her. She was the one who mentioned sending pictures of my work to people. I wouldn’t have taken that inititive on my own I don’t think, not right then. I didn’t think I was ready to be taken seriously I guess. Despite where this story goes, I can assure you, that I owe its beginning and every good thing I’ve had and done since, to her.

I had given myself some extra time in case we wanted to stop off somewhere and just have some fun. I was eager to show her Nashville, where I went to college and still had friends. She was more eager to see the ocean for her first time and it hadn’t been so long ago, that I remembered that same feeling myself. I told her we would visit some friends in Nashville, stay the night for free and take a detour from Atlanta to Savannah the next morning. She could meet the sea.

We met up with my friend Sra and I was very happy to see him again. He’s one of those best friends that you are able to pick right up with, even after a number of years and no matter the changes. Sheena was being a total bitch. I don’t know what her problem was; if it was seeing me happy without her being the cause, the fact that my attention had been divirted somewhat from her to my old friend, or if it was purely just the weariness from the road. In any case, she was being a cunt and I felt embarrassed. Sra sensed this also and felt bad for me I think. Like this was the way it always was or something. The strange thing is, it wasn’t normal. She didn’t want to stay there so I got us a hotel room at the Days Inn near my old school in Rivergate. I snuck Riggs in right past the night manager. I went to bed angry.

The next morning the sun was shining and I forgot all about the night before. I was in Tennessee. I was moving. Fuck, I was happy. About all of it. I love Tennessee and will always consider it a piece of “home”, even if I never reside there again. That state imparted on me something I’ve never recieved from another and I relish any opportunity I get to visit.

With Sheena and my dog loaded up, we pointed my little, black pickup truck east towards Chattenooga/Knoxville. She was feeling better that morning and once again I was looking forward to her experiencing something new, the Smokey Mountains. My fully-loaded 4-cylinder truck was not having as much fun as we were and I was thankful to return to a flatter surface heading to Atlanta.

In normal Atlanta fashion, it was hot as fuck and traffic, even with eight goddamn lanes was at a crawl. We were both in high spirits again so I didn’t mind as much as I normally would have. Anyway, I was becoming more focused on the job at hand as we crept further south, toward the destinations end. Palm trees. Fuckin’ Jimmy Buffet and Hemmingway.

I had these visions of tattooing that were becoming more and more translucent. In the matter of a few days, I’ll be setting up my own station in a well known shop in South Florida. It still seemed unreal. I was so green. Greener than green soap.

I imagined how our life would be there and compared that scene to the one we just left together. It was night and day. Cold to hot. I had been to Florida a couple times before while in college, but only to the Panama City/Destin area in the panhandle. Some friends and I made an “acid run” down there one time and slept on the dunes. We stole gas from Nashville, all the way through Alabama, down to Florida and back. And pulled one of the most classic dine n’ dash’s in history on our way out. It was a pretty epic weekend in Lester’s Geo Tracker.

But, I had never been further south than that and I wondered all the way through Georgia what South Florida would look and feel like; in every way and all at once.

I was also very curious about Savannah. I had never been there but always the history buff, I knew a little bit about the town’s culture and past, including the architecture and Civil War stories. Both fascinated me. It was just a bonus that it lied near the beach. It began to sink into Sheena just how close we were getting when the first palms started to appear out the window on 95. Those really pointy ones that look like a ball of thorns utop a pole. I forget their name. Her smile revealed what little pureness she had left. She was happy and so was I in return.

We entered Savannah city limits around 8 or so, with just enough time to make it to Tybee Island before the sun completely set for the evening. It was golden orange fading into the Georgia pinks the first time her eyes saw the ocean. The mighty Atlantic. We parked near a restaurant where families were finishing their seafood meals and walked down to the sand.

I maybe loved her more in that moment than I ever had before, or ever would again. I think that day may have been the last time where she actually felt freedom; what that feels like.

Her feet met the water and I followed her in. We walked down the coast a little ways, just enjoying what the world looked like from that certain position. We talked a while and walked back to the truck to let Riggs have a go at the big pond. He had never seen waves crash like that. Lake Byron back home just didn’t have the nerve to be that pushy and the salt through him a curve as well. He ran back and forth, biting, no, chomping rather, at every wave he could get his small, Boxer snout on.

She had loved it and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I’m glad the sun was on my side that day.

_____________________________

I decided to make the attempt at driving straight through the night to avoid another hotel bill and having to sneak Riggs in again. I’ve since wisened to always stay at Super 8′s when traveling with the dogs; not because they are pet friendly, which they are for a fee of course, but because they all have back entrances. Fuck their fee.

I made it until about 3 a.m. when I could no longer see straight. I had been doing all of the driving for three days because Sheena couldn’t drive a stick. Not in that sense. I tried to teach her once but it wasn’t worth my transmission. We passed Daytona and I exited at New Smyrna Beach a little ways further down. It was pitch-black out, not even the moon and I was lost. I just wanted a bed at this point. I headed east until I saw the first hotel. It was on the beach, a big high-rise job with a north and south wing. It looked expensive. I’m not cheap mind you, but I don’t come from money and was raised to earn a living. This meant I most definitely had a budget. I had a couple grand and the hopes of earning soon, but I knew how shit could sometimes go and was thinking long-term. Semi-long-term anyway. Until she found a job, I was going to be supporting us both, something I wasn’t used to or fully agreed with. Where we come from, both parties contribute and you’re fuckin’ lucky if you just stay afloat. The room was $150 and if we wouldn’t have rolled in at 3 o’clock in the fucking morning, it would have been worth it.

I still had to sneak Riggs in. Luckily, it was an open-air hallway up to the room so it didn’t neccessitate too much covertness. It was a suite with a big kitchen, complete with dishes, two bedrooms, and some really nice leather couches. I took one look at the room, went to the master bedroom expecting the beds to be as soft as the furniture. I did a big backwards dive into that Queen-size mattress. It felt like I just hit a bus. A big, steel, 4-ton bus on the floor.

We ended up pushing the two twin beds together in the other room. We woke up to the Atlantic Ocean and happy people’s voices outside. Three more hours would do it. The butterflies once in our stomachs had now turned into angry bats as we careened down 95 on a hot Tuesday afternoon, on our way to the future. She and I were both giddy with excitement and were all smiles into Pompano Beach.

I found the apartment with only a little bit of trouble and was very pleased to arrive in what looked to be a nice neighborhood, considering what an absolute shithole Pompano truly is. It was an “L” shaped building on the corner which housed 5 small apartments; a 2 br, two 1br, and two efficiencies. Ours was the middle one on the longer side. The place was nice for kids like us. There was a mansion across the street on the Intercoastal for fuck’s sake! You can’t imagine how we felt. Like we went to the moon. It was incredible.

The key was there as promised and we soon took to unloading Sten. It was nightmarishly hot and I was thankful now that we only brought as much as we did. The inside was as nice as the out; Doug had painted the living room walls red, the bedroom was this seafoam green that at first, I despised, but soon grew to love, and the tiny bathroom was a bright, aqua blue with these swirls on the ceiling.

We walked around back to discover the laundry room which was home to a colony of little geckos, and two utility sheds. South Dakotans don’t see too many lizards on a daily basis. We thought it was pretty neat that we’d get to see stuff like that everyday. I opened one of the sheds and discovered a faux-leather loveseat which someone had left behind. I cleaned it up some and brought it inside along with another folding chair I had found. It was real ghetto there for a bit, real Pompano let me tell ya. But it was new, and it was fun. It was ours. And we weren’t going back home. This was home now, and we had fuckin’ palm trees with coconuts in our front yard! I felt like sending postcards with pictures of mai thais and dolphins and shit, that read simply, “fuck you. we did it.”

I felt like Bill Kilgore standing out there on that little blacktop driveway of ours, the Florida sun now disappearing over the Everglades to the west as Sheena began to set up the house, my dog at my side; I smelled that very distinct salty breeze coming from my left and it did smell like victory. Fuckin’ right it did.

_______________________________

I took the next day to unwind and explore a little bit. The day after I went to work. I couldn’t wait to be back in a shop. I met a few of of my co-workers and we all got on really well. Jeff Jeffers was managing the Pompano store at the time, and there was Bobby Chichester from New York, Lawrence Pennington, a Korean guy from the heart of Mississippi, and a part-timer who went by Nina Rose. She was a painter and owned a small gallery in Lighthouse Point. She was a pretty good tattooer and a helluva watercolorist. Not a tattoo watercolorist mind you, but a true-to-life, professional watercolor painter. I wanted to be able to paint like her. Her work is incredible.

I set up my station with the few things I had; just the essentials really. David Boltt had served his apprenticeship there and had airbrushed all the walls. It was a bit overwhelming and I couldn’t help but sense that I was way undertalented to be there. I felt like an imposter who had faked his way here and now was going to be expected to produce what he had assured them he would. I used it to my advantage though and made it work for me; it pushed me to do my best and that’s what I tried to do.

I let Sheena have the first week to get settled and time to deal without the burden of too much stress. It was understood that she would look for a job in a few days. I would help her any way that I could but I stressed how important it was for her to take most of the control herself. I was going to be ovewhelmed with my new job and the stresses that put on me alone, and that I may not have much time to be that involved in her employment search. She did a good job with it and found one pretty fast. It was a receptionist position at a chiropractor’s office in Coral Springs, about 20 minutes west of Pompano. That was with no traffic. At 10 o’clock at night.

Doctor’s offices open in the morning.

She had the job for about 6 or 7 months if memory serves. For the first 4 of those, I drove her the 45 minutes there every morning at 7:30. By the time I fought traffic all the way back to Pompano, I’d get home at around 9:30, go back to bed for an hour and usually have to be at the shop at 11. We worked on shifts there, so sometimes I wouldn’t have to go till 1:00. In any event, I also had to pick her up at 5 everyday, which meant another double-dose of congested, Florida traffic with no a/c in my truck I might add. I had to leave work at 4:30, drive to Coral Springs, back to Pompano, drop her off and go back to my job. Bruce didn’t particulary like this arrangement but he liked Sheena and I and let me do this until she got a car of her own.

___________________________

That first week in the shop was a crazy one and shall never be forgotten. One of those first nights, it was Jeff, Bobby and myself there. I was up front, drawing, they were hanging out the back door smoking bats. Jeff came to the front and asked me politely if I’d do him a favor. I replied that I would and he threw me his keys.

“Go out to my truck and grab my camera?”

“Sure dude,” I said. “Which one is it?”

“The big green one on the end. Thanks man.”

I walked out the back door to a dimly lit alley that we shared with the rest of the strip mall. There was a head shop, Grateful D’s on the far end, followed by a generic store front which was later raided by the feds for money laundering, next to that, an adult video store (there was another one actually on the other side of D’s as well, just not attatched to our mall) then an arcade for geriatrics who gamble the slots for store coupons and shit (a pretty popular thing for the older retiree crowd, particularly the Jews from New York and Jersey) then the tattoo shop, then a jack shack that went under the guise of South Florida Models, and lastly, a small electronic repair shop.

I walked towards the big, green truck in the corner, not suspecting a thing yet. Half way there I hear Jeff and Bobby snickering like two school girls on the steps. I stop mid-step, turn around, now a little leary.

“don’t go over there dude!” Jeff said over his own laughter.

“You want the fuckin’ camera or not?” I was confused. Green like green soap.

“Dude,” said Bobby, “look on the other side of it!”

Like I said, it was dark and because I wasn’t expecting anything, I wasn’t as vigil as maybe I should have been. I walked closer to the truck, took a few steps to the right to peek around the side, and saw what they were laughing about; what the assholes sent me out there for.

It was one of the hookers from next door, bent over on all fours on the disease-infested ground, being railed by some Puerto Rican motherfucker. I was about five feet away from the action when I turned back around. So close I could’ve had a boom mic held over them, catching every little whimper and gascious grunt as if on a porno set. I was close enough to smell it. They both looked at me and continued what the money had been exchanged for.

“Welcome to Florida man!”

Those first few months were really happy times for the most part. I was right where I needed to be at the time and work was going really well for me. I got to tattoo nearly everyday which was a nice change of pace and the chance to build my skill by watching my co-workers.

Sheena was doing well at the chiro’s office and her pill habit had decresed steadily since leaving home. She had always been an addict is some fashion since her early teens. Weed, pills, booze, meth. During the year and a half we were together back home, I had pretty muched weened her off pills altogether. She was perhaps the most manipulative girl I’ve to date, ever met and whether or not there was any truth to it at all, she claimed to have Chrones disease and liked to play the pain card. I’ve seen enough episodes of Intervention after the fact to say fairly confidently that it was a farse. When you’re dealing with an addict, you are relatively powerless and there are only lies.

I enjoyed my recreational drugs as well but I was never an addict. I never felt that degree of compulsion. I still smoked a lot of herb and took a xanex every once in a while, but I’ve never been a drinker and hadn’t touched speed since high school. I was glad she didn’t know a lot of people and I was cautious about who I let her meet out of fear of her habits. It now seems as if I was being overbearing and protective but it’s what the situation called for. I didn’t like having to play that role either and I privately resented her for making me have to.

After the first month we decided to get another dog. I mostly wanted this because I didn’t want Riggs to be lonely while we were both at work all day. She called me at the shop one afternoon saying she wanted a Pug. It wasn’t my first choice, being more of a big dog sort, but I was fine with a Pug. It was better than the Shi-Tzu Brandy brought home in college. *My friend Cameron and I were tripping mescaline the day Brandy and her friend April brought Iree home. We tossed the little furball back and forth laughing hysterically. She was never in any danger but it was hilarious messing with Brandy.

I looked in the paper and called a number in Hollywood. The lady said she had two left, a male and a female. We drove down there, found the house by looking for “a boat in the front yard”. I wasn’t expecting much as the lady kind of sounded like a nimrod on the phone, but it was a nice house and you could tell they were decent people. The two little pug puppies came running around the corner and we both fell fast in love. The woman said she was going to keep the female so if we wanted the boy, it would be $500 cash. I only had $200 on me and my checkbook. She was very hesitant to take the $300 check I offered with the two in cash. In fact, I had to pretty much convince her that I had money in the bank and wasn’t some con artist. I gave her my business card, assuring her that I wasn’t trying to rip her off and told her that this is where she could find me if the check bounced. She finally conceded and we left with a little worm-filled Pug we named, Koi.

Then came our first dealings with a bonefied hurricane. Awesome.

Hurricane Charley knocked on South Florida’s door at the end of August, 2004. A category-4 who moved in and out with a swiftness. We lived east of US 1 and had to be evacuated. It was definitely an experience and anybody whose been through one knows the feeling during, and after. It’s chaos. And somehow beautiful as chaos usually is to the right set of eyes.

We stayed with my friend Mac and his mom at her house out west for three days, one of which I had a splitting migraine and was in bed for 20 hours. Charley had been a motherfucker and definitely destroyed some shit. Our power was still not on but we were cleared to “re-enter the zone”. Everywhere you looked it was like Saigon after a bombing raid. Power lines down and sparking, roofs blown off of buildings, glass and palms everywhere. A war zone. The heat was oppressive. I looked around and thought of my old man. This must have been what Vietnam felt like.

It was sort of fun in a weird way..the power out and feeling like it was the end of the world. Like the zombie apocolypse was happening or something. We started fires outside and grilled hotdogs and potatoes, took the boys for long walks, smoking joints and went to explore the beach. It’s incredible what nature can do. We played board games and fucked in the humidity. We took cold showers.

As soon as the roads were cleared and the power came back on, grid by grid, normalcy resumed. We both went back to work and we were still reeling from the experience we had shared together. It bonded us in some, small way. Two weeks later, on September 5, some other dick named, Frances came calling. What an asshole, that guy. He made Charley seem like what he was; his little brother.

We decided we’d ride this one out in the apartment, whether we were evacuated or not. It was probably a stupid gamble now that I think about it. I went outside the morning it was due to land, and in fat, white masking tape, wrote on the front window: FRANCES DONT COME HERE!

And he didn’t. He left our house alone. Others weren’t so lucky and the damage seemed much greater. Frances was a very slow storm, taking two days to reach the west coast from the east and it dumped an average of 20 inches of rain all over South Florida and there was massive flooding. He was the size of Texas and wasn’t fucking around. In fact, the meterologists “retired” the name basicly out of respect. There will never again be a Hurricane Frances. That’s a fact. Our power stayed on this time and I felt pretty grateful about that. I was beginning to not like Florida all that much.

No sooner that that was over and the water began to shrink in its puddles, Ivan, a category-5, hit shore with more rain and luckily, disapated over the Gulf. Then came Jeanne not far behind to really make for a nice, memorable Halloween. Four major, fuck-your-entire-life-up hurricanes in three months and a couple little tropical storms thrown in, had pushed me about to my limit. Sheena was long past hers and it was all becoming far too overwhelming for her. I was doing my best to take care of her, but I couldn’t do everything. I felt her changing somehow. I felt myself changing.

Christmas was better and we were still happy. We got a little tree and some lights and made an occasion out of it. It was our most strange Christmas ever. Palm trees with lights just didn’t seem proper and I think the weirdness kind of got to her a little bit. I’ve never personaly been that big on holidays and had already spent many away from home; but then, I was an adult, of sorts, and she wasn’t. I often forgot that. Her childhood had been a rough one and it had caused her to be jaded at a fairly young age. Not teenage jaded, adult jaded. She had already lived too fast.

Winter, if that’s what you wanna call it, came and went, and it was spring. There was little difference and the lack of seasons was already having a profound effect on my my moods. And hers.

I had recently moved to Bruce’s Ft. Lauderdale shop on Oakland Park, down by the beach. Jeff had been fired at the beginning of the year for stealing money and Casper had been brought to Pompano to replace him. I didn’t like Casper and he didn’t like me. I thought he was a pompous asshole and I refused to work with him. An interesting sidenote is that he was the one who introduced me to watercolors. Funny how the universe works.

I didn’t mind the move at all, considering Lawrence had moved back to Mississippi with some whore who he had tattooed a couple months before, (her ex’s name on the back of her neck. He did it in light green, covered it up the next week and stole the chic. He had also done her name on the recent ex; on his forarm in big, bright, orange and green tag-style letters is forever emblazoned: Angie) and Bobby was as good as gone, heading back to New York. I didn’t really know many of the guys down there, only Damien, who I didn’t really care for either, but the locale was much better entirely. Pompano was too ghetto and while watching fucked up junkies and whores all day at times served its purpose and once held an appeal, I longed for the beach and the crowd, tits and ass as far as the eye could stretch. Yes please.

After almost a year, I was still the low man on the totem and I could live with that. I was learning and making money and having fun. I was making the tattoo thing work. I never even thought of home. But I wanted to do something bigger, more advanced. I had been drawing like an animal and had started painting; I had to watch Damien do these massive, gorgeous Japanese pieces everyday and I was getting envious as hard as I tried not to be. I drew up a dragon sleeve for my friend Mac who had been the only true friend to me down there at that point. I didn’t see anything wrong with tattooing him for free, after my shift once a week.

Greener than green soap.

This is how we learn our lessons in this business. It’s how we come to earn what we do, our status, our livlihoods. Simple perseverence. It’s what you can’t learn until you go through it, the hard way. I never served a traditional apprenticeship, though not for lack of trying, so I wasn’t privy to every rule or that it was widely known that most owners don’t like you not charging. Even after hours, even if the boss’s kid, your manager is there. Damien himself knew I was doing this and never said so much as a word to me about it, yay or nay. One morning I came to work and Bruce was in from New York.

He strolled up to me in his designer blue jeans, his floral-print bahama shirt and sandals, his scruffy chin pointed up from under those stupid blue-lensed glasses with his arms crossed and that smirk. Bruce fucking Bart.

“So, Damien tells me that you’ve been tattooing a friend of yours after hours?”

“Yep. My friend Mac. I just wanted to do something bigger, work on pulling big lines and stuff..” I said

“How much has he given you for these services?” he asked.

“Nothin’.” was my reply.

“Well, I want you to estimate the total time you’ve spent on it, divide it by half and I want that amount in my box tomorrow or you can pack your stuff.”

I was blown away. He had never spoke to me so matter-of-factly before. So shrewd, so business-like. I mean don’t get me wrong, he’s a business man before anything. An MBA from Syracuse or some shit. But I wasn’t prepared for that discussion that early in the morning, nor did I have much to say about the matter.

“Well Bruce,” I said, “Zero percent of zero is still zero, so I’ll just pack my shit right now.”

I loaded the S-10 up and went home. I loaded a bowl and called Sheena. She had flown home for a funeral and if I ever needed her, it was that day. I was heartbroken. I was made to feel like a member of the family and then just kicked out for reasons I felt were unjust. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only that I was not willing to admit defeat. I was not going back home.

I had another year of busy, street-shop tattooing under my belt and had definitely started growing as an artist and a professional tattooer. I treated the time at Bruce’s like my apprenticeship. A working one at that. I could find another job here I thought. I was shaken by the abrupt ending but determined to have something in the works by the time Sheena got back to Florida.

I wasn’t yet aware of most of the shops in West Palm County so I began my searches in Broward. I drove to Lauderhill where I knew about Rock-a-Billy and talked to Dave Poole. I showed him a slightly less mediocre portfolio and we talked just very briefly. He said that he may be looking for another artist soon but was still unsure. I didn’t find him to be that interested in what I was showing him and could not really blame him. I was familiar with his own talent and that of his artists and I figured it would be a longshot to get in there anway. I thanked him for his time and left.

But I still needed a job.

Sheena was still working at the Chiropractors office and I remembered from my daily drives to Coral Springs, that there was a little tattoo shop on 441 and Atlantic Blvd. called Voodoo Doll Tattoo. It was in a ghetto-ass strip mall in Margate but it was on the way home. I had to at least stop and check it out.

It was a tiny little place with only two stations in the front and a piercing room in back. I was greeted by some kid who called himself, “Maui.” I got the impression that he was a fucking retard and his portfolio made mine look like Filip Leu’s. There was another guy, mid-40′s, wearing cut-off jean shorts and a Ramones t-shirt, white sox with black combat boots, rocking a biker bandana. He had long, black hair tied in a ponytail, with a dark beard and moustache to match. Oh, and thick glasses. I thought he was one of those really weird, annoying shop people who just come in and linger, unaware of how akward they are. It wasn’t. His name was Mark, the piercer. Of course. He ended up being really cool and one of the nicest people I’d meet down there but his appearance left something to be desired I guess.

Brett Spickard was the owner and a really incredible tattoo artist, although an absent one most of the time. He was sitting in his salon chair reading comic books when I approached him about a job. We walked outside, abandoning the air conditioning and Mark and Maui.

“You say you were just down at Rock-a-Billy and Dave didn’t hire you?”

“Yeah man, he didn’t seem all that interested.” I said.

“Did he say if he needed anybody?” Brett asked.

“He said he might be looking. Wasn’t sure yet.”

“Well,” continued Brett, “You shouldn’t even be here right now. I just hired this kid off the street yesterday and I dont even really need him. So I have to hire you. I’ll put Maui in the back with Mark and you’ll be up front with me.”

“Oh, he was here first man, I don’t wanna step on any toes,” I said, “I’ll go in the back, that’s fine with me.”

“No,” he replied, “It’s my shop and you’re much better than him. I want you up front. When do you wanna start?”

It was Sunday.

“How about Tuesday?”

I felt relieved. I was taking a step backwards and I was keen to that, but at least I’d have the chance to keep tattooing and make an income at the same time. I went home to the boys and enjoyed my night alone. Sheena would be back in a couple days.

The day before I started, I got a phone call from Dave Poole at Rock-a-Billy, offering me that job I had asked about a couple days before. He and Brett had worked together at Bulldog in Hollywood years prior. They didn’t get along. Being a man of honor, I thanked him but respectfully declined due to Brett hiring me that day. I fought with myself about what to do and often wonder where that road may have taken me. I’ll never know.

Part Three

(an end)

I wouldn’t say I “worked” there for very long. I showed up everyday for about three months or so and probably did fewer than 20 tattoos. Brett was not coming to work, leaving just Mark and myself there, and I was becoming less idle in my talk of derision. I was obviously disgruntled. How could I not be? A few weeks ago I was in a beautiful and busy, custom shop on Ft. Lauderdale Beach and now I was stuck in a cramped box in fucking Margate with just a piercer. I was already formulating plans in my head by the third week on my escape. I would check into some shops up north in West Palm.

Brett as I learned had some issues and was not one to be tested in the slightest. My first day, I came in early to set up my station and Maui was an hour late. It was his second day. Now, Brett was intelligent and figured the kid for what he was-a fuckup-but gave him the benefit of the doubt when he eventually rolled in. He gave Brett some story about losing his keys and was then told that all of his stuff had been moved to the back. He was going to be sharing Mark’s room. I felt akward standing there, watching his look of disbelief, but it was kinda funny in a way. The kid said he had been tattooing something like 10 years but the work suggested more like a very rushed 10 months. He was a dope and hung his head a little as he walked through the swinging doors to the back.

About a minute later, I guess he thought of a biting remark he thought was humorous and walked back through the saloon doors. He was standing in the doorway, holding one of them open with his weight when he said, “I hope you don’t hire anyone else or I’ll be tattooing in the bathroom!”

He said it with a child’s abandon and really didn’t mean anything by it, but it flipped a switch in Brett and he went from 0 to 60 in about half a second.

I don’t remember his exact vernacular, but that kid definitely got fired on the spot. I thought then and still do, that since I showed up a day later, Brett was just waiting for Maui to fuck up. Just needed a reason. I guess he chose insubordination. It was good as any other and it was quick and easy.

As I was nearing the end of my time at Voodoo Doll, I was very boisterous about my feelings regarding the way the shop was ran, or wasn’t run. Brett refused to buy a massage table for the shop and this hindered me greatly. I had grown used to having one and now found it absolutely neccessary. There were also some other issues such as never having what we needed on hand. I was constantly running over to Walmart for papertowels and shit. I was pissed that I even had to go outside. Having to do even the most simple task in that oppressive humidity was like torture to me. Fuck Walmart, fuck Florida, fuck this constant heat, fuck Margate, fuck all these immigrants, fuck Voodoo Doll and fuck Brett.

Mark, nearly Brett’s only friend, of course as I suspected he would, correlated all of this to him one night. The next day he actually came to work. His jeep pulled up as I was tattooing some Cherry Creek bullshit on some Guatemalans back. I remeber being kind of shocked. That’s how little I saw the guy.

He came over to my station and bent slightly against the divider wall. He was using that fake, chipper voice that is laced heavily with sarcasm. Something was about to happen I figured.

“Soooo! Mark tells me you’re unhappy here and are looking for somewhere else?”

I took my foot off the pedal, rested my machine hand on my leg and looked up, unphased.

“Yeah, I am Brett,” was all I said.

“Well then, after that tattoo, you can pack your shit and go.” he told me.

I never knew tattooing would involve so much “shit packing”. I was about to do something you only hear about. The woman I was tattooing didn’t even speak English and South Florida was really testing my racial tolerance anyway. I didn’t give a fuck about any of it.

“Tell ya what Brett, how bout this? I pack my shit right now and you finish this fuckin’ tattoo!?”

I had next to nothing to haul this time. I hadn’t allowed myself to become in any way comfortable and I knew the first day this was only a temporary solution. I was glad it was over to be quite honest. I cleaned up the station, boxed my things and went home.

__________________________

The summer of ’05 would bring a nice change and I got hired at Big Kahuna in Boca Raton. It was everything I wanted in a shop. The crew was great and I really thought I had found a place of permanence. Dave and I had our little issues but that paled in comparison to getting to work with Shane, Joe, Lea and Jason. Shane was and is a phenomonal tattooer and painter and I took to him like a little Jedi, eager to learn the ways of the force. He’s far too humble to admit it, but he taught me everything I know about great tattooing and remains to this day my unofficial mentor.

Sheena was again a functioning addict and had returned from home with a freshly aqcuired habit which steadily grew as the weeks went by. I could feel it all ending soon. We were fighting a lot more and I was very adament about her getting off the xanex and hydrocodones she was taking in excess. I always got the typical junky response, saying they were needed for the pain. She had quit the Chiropractor office and was now doing God knows what during the day. I was now in a work environment where I could grow once again, and the more agitated I became with her, the more of myself I poured into my art. I was heavily influenced by Shane and began really concentrating on becoming not only a better tattooer, but a great painter.

I would come home most nights, to her nearly passed out, drooling on herself, the works. She was just gone. The girl I knew almost 3 years before had changed almost seemingly overnight and I knew I didn’t have the power to help. I was tired. I didn’t want to babysit anymore. I didn’t want the worry, the burden. The fucking drama. I secretly prayed for an end, swift like my recent firings. But I didn’t know what was going to happen or when. I hung in there out of concern and the fact that I felt she was entrusted to me in some way. I had brought her with me on this journey, stripped her of everything she ever knew and had become her only dependent. I felt that I just couldn’t with a good heart, leave her out there in the wilds of South Florida to fend for herself. I couldn’t end it without a major reason and for all the grief I was going through, just didn’t think being stoned stupid was enough. Not with her being so far away from home.

I had forgotten all about the hurricanes last year. They were in season again. I wondered at random times what 2005 would bring. It brought Katrina and Wilma, the fuckin’ bitches.

We were barely speaking, Sheena and I. We played nice for the most part, but I ignored her when she was high. I didn’t fuck her as much either. I was losing my attraction in the face of the pills and while she sensed this, it mattered little. She had gotten a job at an Italian bistro place through a friend unbeknowst to me, down on Atlantic by the beach. I didn’t trust her anymore and confided in her as little as possible. I was left in the dark as well, but was well aware of this. We watched Hurricane Katrina blow right around us as it took a sharp hook up into the Gulf of Mexico. Another goddamned hurricane was the very last thing I needed right now.

I got a different storm instead. It came in the form of a phone call at work.

“I was just raped!” exclaimed the voice on the other end. Sheena’s voice.

“What!?! What the fuck are you talking about!? I was completely hysterical. A man is never ready to hear those words come from a woman he loves, or at the very least, loved once. I told her to meet me at the house and I flew home in a rage. I was confused and angry and almost expected this to be a lie. But how do you not give any woman the benefit of the doubt when it concerns such matters? Of course you do. You have to.

She was crying when I got there, saying that she had went in for a massage and they guy had started forcing himself on her. Some foreign bastard. I flipped, called the Broward Sherriffs and sped down Atlantic Blvd to the massage place to wait for them. I remember pacing back and forth for what seemed to be all day. I met the officer at the door (which had a buzzer), told him what I knew (which wasn’t much) and he went in to make the arrest. I saw them take the guy away but didn’t feel any better. While the dude looked shady, my gut told me he was innocent. She was supposed to go to court a few weeks later but blew it off as if nothing had even happened. That’s because it didn’t. She had made the whole thing up as a sympathy plea, a reason for her to do more drugs. While I can’t prove any of that and she never admitted to it, I know that’s what happened. Sheena was a textbook sociopath who kept it well hidden for a long time. But now I was privy. I handled her very loosley after that and was completely out of love. I had nothing more to give the girl. Empty tanks.

That fall, our cool, lawyer landlord sold the property to some scumfuck Russians and then the tide really turned for the worse. The place was full of good tenants when we first arrived a year and a half ago. Decent people. Our neighbor Billy was the best. He was a New Yorker. A mechanic. He looked like he just crawled out of the 70′s with his curly mullet and goatee. He had an old mutt dog named Max and was really one of the handfull of people I truly liked down there. He was genuine and wasn’t trying to impress anybody. When Sheena and I would fight, he was a good ear to the both of us.

Like everyone else though, including myself, she had Billy fooled into thinking she was something she wasn’t. That being, stable. She was just waiting for her chance to blow. I saw it coming a mile away but I was powerless to stop the maddness which was beginning to fuel her once again. I was about to see the side of her I never quite had before, the one I knew was there and was doing my best to supress. I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to cut my fucking losses.

Very quickly, the complex began to fill with dregs. Our cute, little Florida beach apartment was being devoured by greedy, apathetic Eastern Europeans who were willing to rent to anyone at all. There seemed to be no filter whatsoever. Billy moved over to the 2 bedroom and some drug addict, junky motherfucker moved into his old place. The young professional girl who drove the Beamer moved out of the efficiency and was replaced by my nemesis-a 40 year-old, overweight, white-trash parolee bitch named Joan.

Joan was an addict with a massive pill habit. She was the epitomy of loser and many times down the road I thought of killing her. I really wanted to kill her. Naturally, sharing such tight quarters, Sheena and her began to mingle and discovered their mutual love for being worthless. Joan is who I blame for the downward spiral Sheena eventually sent herself on, but that’s only because she’s my easiest target. She was there. It could have been anybody, and sooner or later, would have been somebody, but that’s who I’ve got left to like for it. It was Joan who told her about the Brazilian doctors who would write scripts for whatever you wanted, no questions asked. Just tell ‘em your symptoms and what you want. If you got the cash..

It was Joan who introduced her to John.

This guy was something else. A white guy, about 65 if I had to guess his age. A real run-down 65. Not the 65 where you’re out sailing boats down in the Keys and sipping cocktails at the PGA Club.  The kind of 65 where you can barely walk because you’ve done more drugs than the entire cast of The Rolling Stones and Motley Crue put together. He lived in a crappier apartment in Pompano than we did and had a series of crackwhores for lack of a better term wait on his every whim. I didn’t find out about him until much later, near the end. It’s where Joan’s pills came from, which is where Sheena’s pills came from. Another canidate for the gators.

____________________________

It was now late October and we were not speaking at all. I suspected she was fucking someone else and refused to stick my dick in her. Either way, I couldn’t know for sure so I played it safe. I just woke up everyday, went to work and tried not to think about it. I hoped she would just disappear somehow. I didn’t care how. And then came the answer to my wish in a very round-about way. Another hurricane. Wilma. She would be the one to end it for me.

We had little choice but to stay together out of neccessity. I had bought us some groceries the day before landfall, but after three days, we were a mess and running low. We were sick of each other, sick of the apartment, everything. This time the power was out for over a week and there was a boil water alert. I still took the cold showers.

Wilma had brought really strong winds and was the worst of the lot if anybody asked me. The marinas were nearly completely destroyed along US 1 up towards Boca and Delray. It was the most miserable of all of them, everything was shut down. The steady whine of people’s generators at all hours. I saw two German Shepards walking side by side down Federal one day as I was going up to check on the shops damage, if any. As I was about to turn around, a truck had stopped to pick them up. I was more worried for two dogs I didn’t know than I was for my girlfriend. We both drove up to where the Red Cross was handing out ice and water one of those days and nearly witnessed  a shootout between a cop and some black guy arguing about gas containers at the pump. It was fair now to say that yes, I very much indeed hated Florida.

She was completely fucked up the entire time and I could feel her loathing for me like it had a temperature. A few weeks after the Wilma debochle, I barely even saw her. When she was at home, she was so pilled out I couldn’t have talked to her in any serious manner even if I had wanted to. But I didn’t. She made me sick just to look at her. I was ready to leave her now. I no longer cared about her well-being in any regard. The fucking wolves could have her.

One night around Christmas, 2005, I came home to a note lying on the stovetop. I had never before in three years with this girl come home to a note of any fashion and I felt my stomach knot and swell with both anger and relief. A funny feeling that one. I’d like very much not to repeat it if possible. Whatever she did during the hours I was at work, shaping a life for appearently only myself again, I don’t know. I didn’t honestly want to know. I was trying to surround myself with good people who took value and pleasure from their lives, not ajoining myself with the likes of crack whores and nigger pimps. If that’s what she wanted, so be it. I had made my decision even before I read the damn thing. We were supposed to go to Walk the Line that night.

Cody-

Went to a club, be back between 11-1.

Sheena

Went to a club to strip maybe. I went to K-Mart. Bought two new sets of locks. It was pouring that night. That torrential, heavy, sub-tropical rain. The real wet shit, coming down in giant sheets across Federal Hwy and the little S-10.

Those same vaccum-sealed bags we used for our clothes almost 2 years ago would come in quite handy that night when I returned home. I switched the locks first, just in case she actually did come home. After that, I took those three big bags around to every corner of that red and blue and seafoam green apartment and filled them with whatever wasn’t mine. I opened my newly deadlocked door and threw them out into the driveway to catch a good soak. Not everything fit into the bags.

The next day she hadn’t come home. Or if she had, she didn’t think her shit was important enough to grab yet. I looked out the window. It was a shitty, rainy day and it fit my mood alright. All the shit was still out there. I went to the junk drawer and found some numbers written down with the names of people I either didn’t recognize, or familiar names I had warned her about. I called them all until I found her. It was some Russian dude who answered.

“Is that fuckin’ cunt with you!? If she is, tell her to come get her shit out of my fuckin’ driveway.”

He knew who I was talking about.

“We’ll be there,” said the accented voice.

An hour later, a white van pulls up to the L-shaped complex and its occupants both get out. It’s almost sunny now as the rain had stopped and there were Guatamalan workers across the street doing landscape work on the surgeon’s mansion. You have any idea what it takes to make 8 migrant workers stop working? I’ll tell you. It takes two white boys, one big, one thin, both swinging at each others’ face. I landed a few, he landed a few and we were both red and purple by the time the Guatamalans picked their rakes and tree trimmers back up.

Sheena had tried to interfere, high on who knows what-heroin probably, definitely crack. I pushed her hard enough from the sternum to make her lose balance and fall onto the asphalt. I was wearing my favorite t-shirt that day-a black Sturgis shirt from 2000, with a cow skull on the front and the sleeves cut off. It had those washing machines holes in it from years of faithful service and fit me in a way that only a favorite t-shirt does. During our scrapping, his hand caught it under my armpit and tore it down the side. I kid you not that I was more pissed about that than anything. If he wanted her, fuckin’ have her dude. But I would’a traded another punch to the face to save that shirt. Bitch.

They grabbed a few things from the driveway and sped off. The rest of it sat out there for a week before I dumped it. It was starting to mold and it was all basicly destroyed. It was weird being in that place alone. Not being alone, mind you, but being there alone. The year and a half there together was full of memory, some good, mostly bad and I knew I wasn’t staying there much longer.

The Kahuna crew really rallied around me and made me feel better about it all. If it weren’t for their kindness and support, I don’t know what I wouldv’e done. Two weeks later I was standing out back of the shop when I got a call. It was her. But barely discernable. There was no question she was fucked up and I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since the Rocky 4 showdown. From what I could make out, she was threatening to send some fuckin’ crackhead, nigger motherfuckers to my house to break in and steal Koi. I believed her. She would do that. I had no doubt.

I called my friend Steve who had been an early client of mine in Pompano. I had him meet me at the apartment with a gun. Joe came over and helped me take the important stuff from inside to Delray where Shane was living with Brian and Dariah and Joe’s girlfriend, Allie. I put nearly all of my belongings into the garage and the boys and I stayed there for a week. I’d drive by the apartment and once it looked as if someone had tried to get through the front window. It wasn’t broken but had definitely been tampered with.

I didn’t like imposing and I figured a week was long enough for her to get it out of her system. I wasn’t giving her this dog. She was a fucking crackhead, I told her. You’d sell him for dope. There was no fuckin’ way she was getting the last piece of my heart. It was a very serious thing. My dogs are my sons. I’d protect them at all costs. And she was in with some of the scummiest, debased people one could possibly find. I couldn’t put it past her to do exactly as she promised in her drugged-out lunacy. No one ever came.

_________________________

Steve and I made plans to rent a place in Ft. Lauderdale. He liked to party and be near the clubs. I didn’t give a fuck, so long as it wasn’t in Pompano. Even the four more years I lived in Florida after that, I always avoided Pompano at any cost.

A month had passed and us boys were doing well, considering. Koi missed her for a while and would just sit by the door in the saddest way. I felt bad for him. We were moving in a few days and I was feeling a little better after the Kahuna crew returned from Orlando. We had gone for New Year’s 2006 and while still very depressed and melancholy, I had hopes that this year would certainly be better. I was going to find out what it was like to be single in South Florida. A whole other fuckin’ story, believe me. I was coming around though and the days started to look brighter as each one rolled into the next.

I got a call one morning from South Dakota. It was Tammy, Sheena’s mom. She asked me if I would do her a favor and give Sheena a ride to the airport. She said that if I didn’t, the next phone call she was going to have to make, would be to the funeral home. She laid it on real thick. I didn’t owe that whore a single, goddamn thing and Tammy knew it.

“This is the last thing I’ll ever do for her Tammy. And only because of you an Bill. Tell her to come to the apartment, ready to go.”

An hour later she knocked on that familiar door, the one we used to share as happy kids a year ago. I didn’t recognize her. It was disgusting how far down she had gone. A once beautiful, if not stunning girl with an incredible gift for inspiring laughter had turned into Mrs. Hyde. I felt pity and sickness all at the same time. A bullet would have been a better cure than a plane ride home. I took her all the same.

I pulled to the top of the Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood airport parking garage and parked. She was jokingly saying something, obviously too far gone to comprehend how much I hated her, and I asked her if she had her ID.

“You don’t have your license!? You cant fly without a fuckin’ ID Sheena.”

“My car got stolen the other night and everything was in it,” she said.

Translation: I sold my car for crack.

Looking at her now, sitting in my front seat for the very last time, I couldn’t believe she was alive. I had a pretty good idea where she had been and it’s shocking that she didn’t get sold as a sex slave or something. She must have gotten in pretty far over her head to have called Tammy asking for help. I probably can’t imagine where she was at, come to think of it. The bottom of the barrell to be sure.

I called her mom from the parking garage. Told her she didn’t have an ID. Car had been “stolen”. After calling my Delray friends who worked in rehab centers and not being able to find her a bed for the night, she asked if I could take her to the bus station. I agreed. Tammy said she’d call Greyhound and have the ticket waiting for us. Fifteen more minutes down Sunrise Ave. and I’d have her at the station. I walked her in, briefly spoke to the attendant about her ticket, handed her ten bucks and said goodbye. She was apologizing as the door closed behind me.

That night I went and watched the Johnny Cash movie by myself.