I had not had much interaction with the tattoo parlor in my month of residence; however, I cannot leave my apartment without passing the business, and it has caused me to more frequently entertain the possibility of getting some ink. Actually, a sign in the window reads "HALF PRICED PIERCINGS SATURDAY & SUNDAY." The sign has spawned thoughts of a nose stud. I could do something mildly edgy--yet impermanent--at a discounted rate. But tonight I had an experience with Giant Tattoo that had nothing to do with their typical rendering of service.
This evening you could have found sitting on the stoop of my apartment reading the contemplatively melancholy and fearlessly observant essays of Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem. I was locked out and waiting for my roommate to arrive from downtown, about a forty minute commute. I was scarcely a paragraph into Joan's musings on Hawaii when one of the tattoo artists saw me without shelter and invited me to sit inside his establishment.
The bench inside was infinitely more comfortable than the concrete. I attempted to make a bit of friendly conversation: "How's business?" "Are any of you named Cujo or Bulldog?" and "Are you from California?" after seeing sketches of the LA Dodgers' logo and "Long Beach" written in large, ornate letters. Their answers were complete and polite, but conversation did not flourish, so I went back to my new literary love, Joan.
However, inspired by her introspective and keenly self-aware prose, I began to process my time in Giant Tattoo in a writerly manner. (I italicize because it seems so pretentious.) I was not uncomfortable, but certainly out of my element as everyone around me conversed in Spanish and in the style of the shop was one that strongly emphasized a sort of gangster element. In the sketches that covered almost every inch of wall space, hyper-sexualized women with tremendous breasts that were often unsheathed were a prominent subject. I counted 51 busty women. In one of the images, a fit lady laid near a dollar sign. Beneath her was written, "Money before Bitches." I was surrounded by blatantly misogynistic tattoo art, but my hosts were perfect gentlemen and so kind. Here seems like a good place to mention that there were at least two Jesus drawings. There were also a fair number of scary clowns. The appeal of a scary clown tattoo, I will never understand.
I ought to express my gratitude in a neighborly way. Maybe I'll bring the guys a plate of homemade cookies from the next batch I cook up. Maybe I'll get in good with them and manage to get an even deeper discount on the nose piercing that I will actually probably never have the audacity to get.
