Ink and Robots

Or, Bad Decisions and Unrequited Feelings

It’s the fall of 1997. I turned eighteen a few months earlier and now I’m away at college for the first time, but I don’t want to be. I want to be my generation’s version of Jack Kerouac, but if I’m being honest, the idea of hitting the road by myself is terrifying, and none of my friends are interested in tagging along. Sure, some of them pay lip service to my ambitions, but they aren’t invested enough to follow through.

I’m already starting to worry I’m no different. I want to write the Great American Novel and explain everything to everyone, but I’m painfully aware I don’t know shit about how the world works, and every time I skim over something I’ve written down, I want to gag. I feel like a genius when my fingers are flying over the keyboard of my cheap word processor, but it never fails to disappoint upon review. Still, I have an image to project, and I do my best to sell it, even if the end result isn’t very convincing. I’m too cool for school, motherfuckin’ James Dean without the good looks or swagger, so what’s a wannabe to do? I need an accessory, something to give me some street cred. I settle on a tattoo.

Tattoos are just starting to creep into the mainstream. They’re still taboo enough to disqualify you from a job if you can’t hide them, so the only people walking around with sleeves all the way down their arms are bikers and rock stars. My parents are dead-set against the idea, and promptly shut me down when I ask them to sign off on one in high school. But I’m officially an adult now. I no longer need them to approve my poor decisions.

The only problem is I don’t have any money. The little bit of cash I saved up working at the movie theater during high school has already been spent on tuition, and despite the regular calls from home imploring me to get off my ass and get a job, I can’t be bothered by such minutiae. How the hell am I going to perfect my prose if I’m spending all my time scrubbing the counter at Taco Bell? Luckily, that’s where Nora comes into the picture.

She is one of the few people I know on campus. Other than the pothead across the hall from me in my dorm, I’m not excelling at the whole making new friends thing. But Nora and I went to high school together. In fact, we are two of four students from our graduating class to attend KU, but she is the only one I’m interested in continuing to see at college. I’m smitten with her, and have been for the last three years, though I’ve never worked up the nerve to mention it. She’s had a boyfriend during most of that time, which is convenient. It gives me the excuse I need to not put my heart on the line, even if it tears me up inside every time I see them together. I tell myself I’m biding my time, waiting for the right moment to sweep her off her feet.

Nora is pretty, in a girl-next-door sort of way, and she has a sense of humor. She is fun to hang out with, but I’m not sure we have much in common. I am the “tortured” artist, or at least that’s how I see myself, and she is the average college student, actually taking advantage of her new environment as she prepares to go to med school. I’m not sure why she gives me the time of day, but she does, and that’s enough to turn me head over heels. She also has a full scholarship and a job, which gives her expendable income. So when she finally gets tired of hearing me bitch about how I can’t afford a tattoo, she offers to pay for one.

“Are you serious?” I ask. I am talking to her on the phone in my dorm room. Nora lives in a different resident hall, and I called to invite her over to hang out. My roommate is at class. I’m supposed to be in a discussion group for U.S. History after 1865, but I decide to take the afternoon off, partly because I knew she was free. Nora doesn’t want to spend yet another day watching Comedy Central in my room though, so she suggests the tattoo instead.

“Sure,” she says. “As long as it’s within reason. I’m not paying a thousand bucks so you can get a dragon on your back or something like that.”

“Are you going to get one too?” I briefly envision us getting his and hers tattoos, but have the good sense not to suggest it.

“Hell no,” she says, laughing into the receiver. “This is your rodeo. I’m just the money.”

I hesitate. “I dunno,” I said. “I feel a little weird asking you to pay for it.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. This is your chance to get one. Do you want it or not?”

I think it over for a minute. “If you’re sure about this.”

“I’m sure,” she says. “Come get me in ten minutes. What are you gonna get anyway?”

The question throws me for an unexpected loop. All the time I’ve spent whining about getting a tattoo, I never bothered to figure out what I wanted permanently etched on my skin. “You’ll see,” I say, only because I don’t have a better answer off the top of my head.

I hang up the phone and go into panic mode. Frantically, I leaf through my books, looking for an inspirational quote. Trouble is, as much time as I spend reading, I don’t have any quotes that stand out to me. That’s not the way my brain works. From my books, I jump to my CD rack. Music is the purest form of artistic expression, I tell myself, so there has to be something in the liner notes I can co-opt. Something obscure and open to interpretation, more than the equivalent of an advertisement, but I’m coming up empty. I’m this close to conceding defeat and booting up my roommate’s dial-up modem to search clip art when I find what I’m looking for. At least, I decide it will do in a pinch, which is a really smart way to select a tattoo.

Nora gets into my car a few minutes a later. I hope she won’t press me until we get to the tattoo parlor, in case I want to reconsider, but no such luck. “So what are you getting?” she asks before I can even say hello.

I hand her a White Zombie CD. I’m a metal kid who has yet to expand his musical tastes. Her expression droops. “Seriously? You’re getting the cover of Astro-Creep 2000 tattooed on your body?”

“No,” I say, taking back the CD case. I open it and take out the disc. “I’m getting that.” I point to the robot drawn across the black disc.

“A robot?” Her expression doesn’t exactly perk up. “Why?”

I do my best to act affronted. “Why not?”

She shrugs, making a modest effort not to offend me. “It just seems kinda random.”

“It’s not random,” I say. “It’s a commentary.”

“On what?”

“On how the world tries to make us all into soulless robots.” I’m spouting some serious Grade A pretentious teenager bullshit, and I don’t know well enough to stop. I get like this when I’m being defensive. “This is my way of beating them to the punch, though their victory is only superficial. They can have a piece of my skin, but they’ll never break my spirit.” I don’t even know who they are supposed to be. Thankfully, she doesn’t ask. I could save myself so much trouble if I simply admitted I don’t know what the hell I am talking about and just wanted to spend the afternoon with her. But I don’t.

“I’m not sure I get it,” Nora says.

I shrug. “That’s fine,” I say. “I don’t have to get it today. It can wait till I can afford it. I don’t want you to pay for something you’re not on board with.” I give her an off-ramp that also allows me to save face, but we’re both in too deep to take it.

“No, I said I would,” she says, and that is that.

The lady at the tattoo parlor has no such reservations. Her face is like a pin cushion shoved full of piercings and she has dozens of sketches across her arms and legs and neck and who knows what else. Most of them make about as much sense as my robot to the casual observer. She is cheery and friendly, however, and when I show her the robot on the disc, she nods enthusiastically. “No problem at all,” she says. “Twenty-five bucks.”

The design is simple, but I’m still shocked by how cheap it is. Part of me was hoping it would be more expensive than either of us expected, and Nora would have no choice but to call it off. The way it works out, I can probably afford to pay for it myself. All I’d have to do is skip going to the movies for a few weeks or stay away from the used bookstore. I offer to foot the bill like a proper gentleman, but Nora lays her cash down on the counter before I can protest any further.

“Have a seat in the chair,” the lady says, taking the disc and making a copy of the design on a Xerox machine that looks out of place in this setting. The realization that this is actually happening hits me like a hammer, and I trudge back to the chair like a death row convict making his way to ol’ Sparky. Nora sits down in the waiting room area, and I do my best to convince myself this isn’t a mistake.

The tattoo artist traces the design on my left shoulder, underneath where my sleeve usually hangs. I figure that is the ideal place to put it. If it is as cool as I hope it will be, I can easily show it off. And if it is as stupid as I fear, it won’t be difficult to hide. Once the design is applied to my shoulder, she swabs it with alcohol and turns on her needle.

Now that tattoos have become mainstream, I hear people constantly talking about how they’re in need of ink therapy. It’s what they do on the weekend to blow off steam. Some people go to the lake, some people smoke a joint or read a book, but these people choose to lie still while a stranger repeatedly jabs them with a needle in order to stencil a Chinese character onto their back, which they may or may not correctly understand.

I don’t get it, if I’m being honest. I don’t find the process to be very therapeutic. In fact, it is a lot like getting a haircut. A lot of awkward silences, which the artist tries to break up by making mindless chit-chat neither of us are interested in. Plus, it seems to take way longer than it should for such a simple design. That should have been my first red flag.

Just as I feel myself nodding off in the chair, she flips off the needle. “All done,” she says, spinning me around in the chair so I can see her work in the mirror on the wall. I catch a quick glance as she holds a towel against my arm below the robot and dabs at the blood. Feeling uncharacteristically squeamish, I turn away as she applies some ointment and covers it with a bandage. She secures the bandage with tape, and hands me the bottle of ointment to take home.

“Apply some of this every couple of hours for the next few days,” she says. “You can take the bandage off sooner than that, if you want, but it might not be a bad idea to keep it on for a while. The bandage will help cover it in the shower. Don’t get it wet until it’s completely healed.”

She gives me a piece of paper with instructions on how to care for the tattooed area, and we are done. Nora is disappointed it’s already covered with the bandage by the time I come out to the waiting area, but I tell her she can help me put the ointment on later, and she can see it then. That mollifies her, and it means I get to hang out with her for the next few hours, so we both walk away happy. All in all, I feel pretty good about myself. I went through with it, which is something, and even if my tattoo isn’t as meaningful as I pretend, I finally did something to set myself apart.

That miniature wave of euphoria crashes to an abrupt halt later that evening. We are in Nora’s room. The two of us sit on her bed, and I have my shirt off. I doubt it feels as intimate to her as it does to me, but I swear I can feel a charge in the air. As she gently peels the bandage off so she can apply the ointment, I debate kissing her. I know I am likely to get slapped, and I would be putting our entire friendship at risk, but I am talking myself into it. That is, until she gets her first look at my tattoo and her face twists in confusion. “What?” I ask, immediately sensing something is wrong. My first thought is it’s infected, but that’s unlikely. Only a few hours have passed, and while my shoulder is sore, I’m not experiencing any real pain.

“Did you mean to get that tattooed?” she asks.

“What are you talking about? It’s the robot from the disc. I showed it to you.” And I’d seen the finished product in the mirror. I knew it was exactly what I gave the artist at the parlor.

“Yeah,” she says. “But did you mean to get this too?”

“What too?” I say, getting up so I can examine my shoulder in her mirror. And then I see it. The words ©1995 Geffen Records, Inc. Manufactured and Distributed in the United States by Uni Distribution Corp. Made in USA. GEFD-24805 tattooed in black ink directly below the robot on my arm. Right in the exact spot where the tattoo artist was holding her towel after she finished. “What the fuck?” The moron made a copy of the disc and then traced everything that was on it onto my arm. Absolutely everything, including the goddamn copyright information. For all eternity.

I turn back to Nora in disbelief. “What did she do to me?”

Nora tries to keep a straight face, but she can’t get any words out. Instead, she collapses and falls off the edge of the bed in a fit of hysterical laughter. I watch her for what seems like a long time, feeling like an idiot and running through a whole gamut of emotions, before I break down laughing too. What else can I do?

About a year later, I go to a different tattoo artist and pay them to fix it. They cover the copyright information, incorporating it into a circular frame around the robot. The design they choose is a bit more tribal than I prefer, but pretty typical for a nineties tattoo. I still don’t love it, but it’s better than having David Geffen’s name tattooed on my arm. And by the time I get the upgrade, the robot has grown on me. He is just a robot now, and I no longer try to justify him with some underlying meaning. I tell people he was probably a mistake, but I think he looks cool, and most of them agree with me. As for those who don’t, I no longer care. I’m not trying to educate or impress anyone anymore. I am simply telling my story, and the robot is a part of it.

Many years pass before I finally get it through my thick skull that I’m not Jack Kerouac or the next great literary hero. If anything, I’m more like a character in a sitcom. And probably a supporting character, if I’m being honest. My life deserves a laugh track, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. That’s real life, and it’s generally goofy as hell, regardless of what else the literature section at the library might be trying to tell you. I have a hundred more ridiculous, embarrassing stories just like this one. We all do. The only question is if you have enough nerve to show everyone your ink.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Pulp. For the purpose of full disclosure, I do have a robot from a White Zombie album tattooed on my arm, but the artist didn’t include the copyright info. I’ll let the reader decide for themselves what else in this story is fact or fiction, but feel free to share your own tattoo stories in the comments. And stay tuned for an exciting announcement about my upcoming book, which is coming very soon!