Tattoo

We met beneath my house, an 1885 Victorian raised on cribbing to replace the old stone and mortar foundation. It seemed a fitting place, in the middle of the city, to have a ceremony. He was getting married tomorrow. The groom, best man, and six close friends were celebrating his last day as a bachelor.



We stood in a circle, arms over shoulders, and talked of the coming challenges. Most of us were married, had been married for years, and told stories of battles and wars waged between husbands and wives, and how to survive them.

“We need to mark this moment,” the groom declared, and we grumbled our assent.

We headed down the street, past the old church, the park, past the Odd Fellows, the Masons, to the fountain, and the little tattoo shop on the corner.

“Let’s all get a tattoo,” someone said.

I lagged behind, had never been inside a tattoo shop before, so followed after everyone else slipped through the door.

“Brotherhood,” the tattoo artist was explaining. “It’s the
Chinese symbol for brotherhood.”

One by one each man sat in the chair. It reminded me of a barber’s chair, might have been a barber’s chair. Then the buzz, the bravado smile, as the needle jabbed at the stencil, into the skin of his right shoulder. One by one, until it was my turn.

“Come on,” he said.

The tattoo artist cleaned his needles. I shook my head.

“Come on,” they said.
“No.”

They grabbed me, started to drag me to the chair.

“Why not?” he asked.

I told them. Nobody in my family had a tattoo. None of my brothers, my father, my uncles, my grandfathers, none had ever gotten a tattoo. But the men still held me, still pulled me closer to the chair.

“Wait,” he said. “It’s important to him. Let him go.”

They didn’t, until he came and undid every hand that held me, telling them they had to respect my conviction.

I followed them out of the tattoo shop, each nursing their shirts back over their wounds, seven brothers and another.