Inked

I have a tattoo on my right arm, between my wrist and my elbow. The fleshy side. What’s that called? The tattoo is a woman’s head and neck. Her face is made up of shards of glass. Her hair is in a ‘50s bouffant wave. The base of her neck is closed off with understated pearls. It’s the first tattoo you’d see if I wore a T-shirt. My other tattoos peek from under the sleeve but can be hidden. I always get asked about this tattoo—I suppose because it’s the easiest to spot. This lady tattoo. But I get asked about them all.

"Interesting ink. Who is she?" I make up different answers depending on who I’m talking to.

"She’s my grandmother."

"She’s Zsa Zsa Gabor."

"Oh, she’s me, I suppose."

"Why the glass?"

"I had a terrible fear of broken mirrors as a child."

"You see glass, I see lasers."

The face is the thing that draws people in. Or the fact that there is no face. Not for me, though. I stare at her intently. I focus on her neck. Painted a skin-tone shade, slightly different from my own. Peach. You’d only notice if your eyeball was touching my arm. I bring my arm right up close to my right eye, bending it so it looks contorted. The image is fuzzy and out of focus, but I can still make out the neck colour. The tan gradient on my arm around the head contrasts with the neck colouring.

The colours make me smile. They take me back to the days of colouring in as a child. I would press on the pencils so hard to make the colours more vivid. I learned early on that I could colour inside the lines easily if I used my other hand as a barrier. That way, I could press down hard as I coloured, and the pencil would stop at the line, my hand preventing it from going any further. I remember getting her done. I remember the little pinpricks of blood appearing on my skin. On her neck, like a sponge.

It was in Osaka.

Ben. Benny. Benny the American. Benny who looked like Beck, Mellow Gold days. If you squinted. Benny, who tattooed my leg and my back and my other arm. Benny, who had to shut down his studio for a while because his neighbors didn’t want a tattoo shop in their neighborhood. The police came. Accused Benny of practicing medicine without a license.

Osaka legal loopholes. What’s the opposite of a loophole? That’s what he was in.

He opened it up again. I don’t know how, though.

Benny loved drawing cute, semi-erotic anime girls with an aquatic theme. There was always some sort of sea creature involved—usually an octopus—and something to do with overalls or coveralls. Benny talked a lot. Sometimes I struggled to maintain the conversation, because the pain was at the forefront of my brain. The searing heat of the needles tearing up my skin.

"Where is the most painful spot?" Another popular question.

The truthful answer is, it’s all painful. Sure, there are spots that have twangs of pain, but there’s never been a place that was a walk in the park. My ankles hurt. My back hurt. My thighs hurt. And my upper arm hurt. The skin below your armpit—soft and baby-like—perhaps that was the most painful area.

Benny inked my leg, my arm, and my back. In total, he would’ve spent tens of hours on my skin. As I sit here now, I try to recall some of the things we talked about. But nothing comes. Memory of the pain is fresh, but the hours-long discussions, blank.

My first tattoo, the dragon. Long before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was written or filmed. I certainly wasn’t the original, and I am sure there are many now since. I was eighteen. I’d been thinking about getting a tattoo for some time. I rang a tattoo shop in Canberra and made an appointment. My friends Liz and Anne came along for the trip. It was an hour’s drive from where we lived. We arrived at the shop a bit early. There were two artists in the shop. Two big men with beards, real biker-looking vibes. We each were handed catalogues to flip through. They were all black-inked and quite simple by today’s standards. I wanted something small, but not too small.

I saw the dragon. It reminded me of Mushu from Mulan. A little snake-like. Something made me stay on it. I wasn’t really into dragons or anything, but for some reason, it chose me.

"Where do you want this, love?" the big bearded guy asked.

"On my stomach."

Imagine if I have kids. We all giggled. I scoffed. I’m not having kids, I said confidently. We all giggled again at the idea of having kids. There was no concept of being old. Perhaps it’s callous or frivolous, but when you’re young, it’s easy to live in the moment. It gets harder to remember that feeling, but not impossible. I remember going to music festivals, partying, traveling, feeling euphoria. Promising myself that I would never stop traveling, that I would be a child of the world. Memories can’t be trusted, but the feelings they evoke never sway.

And now, years later, my dragon tattoo remains. Faded, a little worn, but still mine. A marker of who I was, of what I thought I knew. And somehow, the universe played its own joke on me—my son, born in the Year of the Dragon, as if to remind me that some things, no matter how certain we once were, have a way of surprising us.

Who knew the little dragon would change my life?