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Past Perfect

February 9, 2023January 19, 2023

A few conceits can push forward the intimacy of a group of people. Elevator breakdowns, of course, just ask Hollywood. Discussions about huitlacoche, any other fungus and/or disgusting things to eat. And then there’s the ink conversation, the three-hour tour of party conversations. Guaranteed to make all manner of people hike up their skirts a little more, hitch up the back of their shirt, outstretch a collar, or at the very least guide a field trip into the bathroom.

I don’t have any tattoos. They last too much longer than most commitments to interest me more than a few minutes–I’m over the idea by the time I change my mind about the design three times. Don’t most end up seeming old and fading soon enough anyway, indelible and a lost bet with permanence at the same time? I’m old, my friends are old, maybe this is why.

But I think time is like “Yeah, right, Ink. Go on with your bad self.” I’d be down with that, with the beauty of some tattoo art, if the end game was that mandala-creating monks would come along and blow them away. It would be okay if I don’t know when they would take it away, too, just that at some point a circle of monks would lay down their sandbags, sneak up behind me, draw in air and poof. Just a promise that even your very favorite thing drawn on your body with ink needled below the skin is not forever, that would make tattoos honest.

My friend had a tattoo changed. It was faded, and the symbol didn’t suit her any longer. The Wiccan goddess, altered and re-inked, is now a butterfly. Now she’s two of my favorite Cracker Jack surprises in one. The blurry tattoo set was the best prize, of course. Then second best, remember those little plastic squares that showed two different scenes depending on the tilt? I loved those! If my brother got that prize I would trade anything to get it. Flicker cards, rough animation, with a textured surface you could run your nail across? Tilt to the left, the eye is open, tilt to the tight, shut. Left/right/left/right. Open/shut. Then/now.

That’s what her tattoo redux is like. One angle you see her then. It’s still in there, mostly camouflaged, but still there. And then it’s gone, replaced by now. She said it’s the best she can hope for, given the circumstances. I haven’t seen my brother in a decade-and-a-half, almost two. I hope he’s still alive. I miss him like a tattoo stolen by a monk.

I don’t have one of those little flicker cards from my childhood, not even one Cracker Jack prize. I have a few artifacts from my childhood, but not many. It’s crazy to think of how many things I’ve lost. Maybe a monk is carrying them around for me, a satchel of all of my prizes, and someday, boom, he’ll leave them at my feet.

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