revolting pheasants
i had an appointment with my tattooist on Monday.
my apprentice tattooist.
Kyle.
the plan was to meet after school, 1:30, but he was running late because his alternator broke.
that's what you get for driving a car from the Eisenhower administration.
you might think it's retro and hip and rockabilly, but really, it's just impractical.
all the time and money you spend ratcheting up your hotrod, you could buy a Ford Focus and be done with it.
naw, i'm just kidding.
Ford Focuses are for fags.
a nice Cadillac or a Lincoln Towncar would be nice, though.

so i sat around the tattoo shop for a half hour flipping through magazines and making small talk with three obnoxious girls who were there because one of them was getting tattooed.
because when you're an obnoxious girl, you've got to travel in packs, i suppose.
or you might get beat up.
one girl, the smallest of the three, was getting a quote from Dr. Seuss tattooed on her ribs.
something about being yourself.
i was going to caution her that girls with tattoos look trashy but she looked so trashy already i'm sure it wouldn't make any difference.
it might make her slightly more interesting, but the difference would hardly be noticeable she's such a sinkhole.

at 2:00, Kyle came around and got his little cubbyhole set up.
his workspace is just big enough to unfold a table for me to lay on.
once all the paper toweling had been put down and all the cups of ink poured and all the A&D ointment oozed from its container, it was time to get down to business.
on the overall project of coloring my right arm black, from the shoulder halfway to my elbow.
in our first session we did a lot of work on the outer arm, from the shoulder down.
this time, we jumped right into the worst part.
the underarm.
my tattoo bisects right through the armpit, which is just about the worst place to get tattooed, ever.
i don't know the biology of why it's so awful, but everybody, professionals and laymen alike all seem to agree.
they all make that face and go “ooooch!” when i tell 'um what i'm having done.
the reasonable follow up to that, of course, is “why are you doing that?” and “what's your problem?”

as i lay there, right arm thrown behind my head, Kyle drilling right through my armpit, the shop owner and three other tattooists came 'round to watch me suffer.
i disappointed them all.
if you've came to watch an overweight man cry, you're in the wrong place.
i laid there and took it, because, well, i don't have any other choice.
i've got to look good.
this is the price i have to pay.
the obnoxious girls out in the lobby all wear high heals, and if given the option, i would much rather take two hours of having my armpit needled then a lifetime of codding around in those monstrous contraptions.
everybody commented, some several times, about what a soldier i am, which is nice, but it doesn't do anything to make the whole thing hurt less.
i told them all that i was saving up all the pain and planed to piss myself on the car ride home.
they all laughed and thought that was funny, except one particularly dimwitted fellow who i think took me seriously.

i wasn't as charming as i was the last time Kyle and i got together.
i was still charming, don't get me wrong, i shit charm, but i wasn't at my best.
i had to concentrate on keeping my atoms from dispersing into space.
still, i gave Kyle some of my standby A-material that i can do on autopilot.
about how i went to college in Boston with a guy who shits his pants and a girl who glued her eyes shut.
that's classic.
we also talked about Kyle's ex-Outlaw biker roommate, his dog and Jerry Only's Kryst The Conqueror project, which just might be the absolutely gayest thing in punk rock, ever.
and punk rock sure does get gay sometimes.

Kyle and i were supposed to get together last week, but he texted me two Saturdays ago saying his dog got sick.
turns out, now his dog is dead.
he only had it a week.
it was a Boxer, eleven months old, and he got it off of Craig's List.
he was supposed to trade the previous owner some tattoo work for it, but i doubt he'll follow through now.
or maybe he will and he'll just tattoo “i sell sick dogs on the internet” on the bitch.
she'll be branded for life.

the Boxer had a disease called Parvo, which apparently turns the intestines into mush.
the vet said he might be able to save the thing, but it would have cost thousands of dollars that Kyle doesn't
looking Parvo up on the computer just now, it said that infected dogs have a fifty-fifty chance of survival, even with treatment.
my tattooist followed the advice of the vet, which was to put the pup down.
i gave him my condolences, for what that's worth.
perhaps even worse, Kyle can't get another dog for five years because the Parvo virus is so hardy and contagious.
it can live outside a host for months and years at a time and is resistant to most disinfectants.
it is also highly contagious.
if a dog just happens to stray into Kyle's living room, it stands a good chance of picking the wretched virus up and being dead within a week.
the idea of not having a dog for five years is totally unacceptable.
i'd have to scrub myself with Clorox and set all my stuff on fire.
start anew with a puppy and a cardboard box.

Kyle's roommate, Knuckles, a retired Outlaws biker with tattoos on his face is having gastrointestinal troubles.
because he got shot in his gastrointestines.
a bullet nicked his colon and they may have to remove it.
he got shot in the colon, you see, to retire from the Outlaws.
he had to take three shots in the gut.
which, apparently, is one shot too many.
now he's looking at a possible colostomy and having to spend the rest of his life shiting in a bag he wears strapped to his thigh.
i can't imagine very many things worse then that.
i think i'd rather have to go into hiding and let the Outlaws find me then to take my shots and risk living the rest of my life with a stoma.

anyways, after two hours worth of drilling my tender armpit meat, Kyle was ready to call it a day.
my skin had swollen to twice it's size and his machine was starting to overheat.
i beat the machine!
i was in fairly significant pain, but it was the machine who yielded first.
ha ha!
Kyle dressed my wound, slathering ointment on it and wrapping it in Saran wrap and we made an appointment to meet again on Sunday afternoon.
we shook hands, his regular firm grip, and i was out the door.
back home my arm was sore and throbbed for the better part of a day.
it's been two days now and the thing is still leaky and gross and it hurts to raise my arm above my heart.
it will get better, though.
and i'll look great!

//[thanks, friends]