Tits and Tats

 “When are you going to get a real job?” Uncle Ron asked for the seventh time this week.

But I DO have a real job.  I am a full time musician!

This running dialogue had reached its pinnacle of frustration.  When Uncle Ron painted the living room last year, the very long drive home daily to his home in the milky white Stepfordesque la la land of the far north suburbs precipitated his need to spend the night.  She dreaded those sleepover painting jobs because the statements, questions and conversations that ensued were always the same.

“There are a lot of coloreds in this town.  They cause trouble?”

  No, they own homes here, Uncle.  It’s safe to walk our streets.

She knew each afternoon when she arose after getting to bed at 4:30am that he would give her that sideways looks and then grief about her employment.  At least he gave her time to yawn and open her eyes before he barraged her with the carbon copy conversation of last time.  She had learned to race downstairs in stealth fashion, grab a bowl of yogurt and blueberries and race back to her room before he could form his not so clever quips. 

Uncle, you need some new material.

But he didn’t understand her sarcasm, raised in a small monochromatic town where sons followed in the footsteps of fathers becoming painters and carpenters, mechanics and electricians.  This afternoon was different.  Uncle did have some new material.  He chose to focus on her tattoos today, catching a glimpse of one peeking out from her jersey running shorts she threw on after the gig last night.

“Do you know what those are going to look like when you get my age?”

You mean 78? 

She wanted to throw a dig back at him in retaliation every chance she got.

“You should have thought twice about drawing that, what the fuck is that thing on your thigh?”

It’s the universal goddess figure.

Oh, what the fuck am I trying to explain anything to this archaic dinosaur, she whispered through clenched teeth under her breath.

But this comment, unlike all the others she regularly dismissed, hit her like a brick.  It was something she had thought about actually.  She would be the first one to point out old women with old tats on their tits or chest or neck.  She would repel in disgust at how the legs and torsos of sailor tats were longer and leaner, eye sockets hollow and black, smiles now frowns.  These faded pictures ink a former life of the dyed bleach blonde now yellowed with age and sporting a raccoon stripe of grey down the middle.  The once gorgeous blonde bombshell was now forty eight pounds heavier, which is way apparent in the kumquat shaped, stretched out strawberry tat now pink from years of skin sloughing, the skinny fat juxtaposition that was baby making, now reanimating these ink creatures, giving them new form.

She thought of the women at Walmart, especially that braless redhead, whose nipples now brush her hipbones.  Sticking out the top of Red’s low scoop neck tank was the long ago faded ice cream tattoo with cherry atop sitting in a partially hidden waffle cone and she wondered if the cone’s bottom now drips the ‘melted’ ice cream concoction down those baby ravaged udders and onto her hipbones and then down her legs.  That vision repulsed her to even imagine it.

Where do old tats go?  Do they slip off bodies at an age society deems is taboo and inappropriate for an aging human?  What age is that, she wondered?  Is there a tat cemetery where old eagles and pin up girls and dragons are put to rest?  A tat retirement home where they can all sit around the popcorn machine after dinner at 4pm and tell old glory stories of how they came to be?

Maybe, she thought, human history could be mapped using body art as the language once a person can no longer remember which drug induced spring break or double dare produced which tattoo.

Does ink re-liquefy at cremation temperatures?  Would her goddess return back to the earth after her own children cremated her remains?  She had always been a recycling type of person.  The thought of her earth goddess returning the earth from whence it came made her smile.

“What are you smiling for?  Your kids are going to be really embarrassed at your wake if you show that thing.” Uncle barked at her.  “Just sayin’.”

You just say a lot of things, Unc.  But you got me on this one.  Got me thinking.

“It’s about time you were thinking.  Thinking about getting a real job.”

Sure thing, Uncle.  Sure thing.