Orly has tattoos...lots of them. We’ve been friends since we were teenagers. When we were sixteen, he inscribed his first tattoo on the back of his left hand. It was one of those homemade India ink scrawlings, a girlfriend’s name, Cathy, the love of his life...until he met Darcy. Once assured that Darcy was truly the love of his life, he converted Cathy’s name into a sort of floral pattern. And inscribed Darcy’s name above it. It went on like that until his arm took on the appearance of a Rorschach ink-blot test.
Over the years, Orly let the professionals take over. He gradually became festooned with tattoos of all sorts. The collage runs up his right arm, to his chest, and down to who-knows-where. In Orly’s mind, the entire fricassee tells a story. Frankly, the thought of turning myself into a facsimile of a graffiti-splattered New York subway train gives me pause. A tattoo is a commitment I’ve never been willing to make, especially with my secret spirit name, “Buyer’s Remorse,” bestowed upon me by the returns department at Menards.
Spending a couple of days with Orly can be intoxicating. He gets free bowling shoe rental at the Bowl ‘n Roll and extra sauce at Chad’s Taco Shack...just for being Orly. There’s a row of piercings in Orly’s left ear, possibly picking up stray radio signals, the origin of the voices he often answers.
The other day, Orly called and asked if I’d like to go watch him get another tattoo. I halfheartedly accepted the invitation, as any excursion with Orly is often fraught with a precipitous outcome. He’s the kind of friend who should come with a warning label. We rode in Orly’s pick-up truck to The Wicked Lady Tattoo Emporium. Turns out, there is no lady, wicked or otherwise, unless we caught the unshaven, cigar-chomping Frank in an especially unglamourous moment. After consulting with Frank for a minute, Orly sat down in a kind of barber chair, and the procedure began. Two bolts of bright yellow lightning on his neck, outlined in black ink, removing the burden of cluttering up Orly’s future plans with a career in shirt-modeling.
Frank’s eyes then turned to me, “OK, bud, what’ll it be?”
“No, no, I’m just here with Orly.”
Orly made his pitch, “Tell your story, man. You’re a story-teller. Tell it with ink.”
The colorful patrons milling around the shop began a tribal chant, “Tell your story! Tell your story!"
Orly, knowing he stirred up a bee’s nest, chimed in, “Come on man, it’s not like it’s going to look bad when you’re old...you’re already old. Besides, Frank, here, is an artist. He has a certificate, framed and everything.”
A certificate and a smattering of tribal applause fermented the idea. I hesitantly took my place in the chair. After all, I am a story-teller. “Maybe a crow on my forearm. Crows are members of the Corvidae family, same as the mawkish blue jay. They’re often maligned but very intelligent. A crow can recognize a human face.” No sooner had I begun my expository discourse on the common crow, than Frank commenced inscribing my arm. He began with the beak. Deep black ink. It appeared life-like, just as it appears in Sibley’s bird identification manual, the bible of the avian community. For a brief moment, the artistry was hypnotizing...until the enormity of the scale dawned on me. “Wait a minute,” I yelled, “That beak! The bird attached to it will be the size of a deluxe crunchy taco!"
Frank was very casual, “Man, a tattoo makes a statement, it’s not like the little tag on a tea bag.”
I leaped out of the chair, “Thanks, Frank, I think that’s all I need.”
“OK, bud, let me know when you decide to finish the project.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Pay me when we finish up. You’ll be back,” said with the same certainty as my ex-girlfriend, the pastry-throwing anarchist, who, by the way, never returned my Connie Stevens records.
Orly slapped me on the back, “Hey first-timer, look at you, you got yourself a beak.”
He laughed himself silly all the way home. Did I mention Orly laughs like a chain-smoking donkey? He does. At nearly every stop light, he pounded on the steering wheel and howled, “A beak, a freakin’ goddamn beak.” Despite my reminder that a one-inch beak, properly scaled, would’ve resulted in a seven to eight inch bird, the mocking continued, “Why don’t we stop and get a magnifying glass so people can have a look at your little birdy beak.”
The episode required some turning around, a confabulation that would transform the regrettable escapade into something illustrious. Orly was right, it was just a little beak, the kind of thing my Aunt Helen would’ve tried to rub off with a saliva-dampened hanky. So I conjured up a plan. This tattoo, no matter how small, would become purposeful, not the result of an embarrassing flabbergastation. Like an old western bandit dragging a tree branch behind his horse, my tracks would be covered at the next meeting of the Kildare Bird Club. I’ll make the proclamation that the much-beloved crow’s beak shall become our club’s new symbol. At which time, I’ll display my commitment to the idea. I’m already envisioning the awe in the eyes of my fellow ornithologists. And I’m composing a nice thank you note to Frank, along with a gift certificate to Bed Bath and Beyond because, honestly, I won’t be going back. As I mentioned to Frank, the beak is all I really need.
