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Barrett stood by the cash register eating his hot dog without a care in the world. I wasn’t sure he remembered where he was or that I was there.
The man pointed to the wall. “Beer’s there. Tattoo options are over here.”
I grabbed a six-pack out of the fridge. “Barrett, pay for this.”
He perked up. “Hmm? Oh.” He dug out his wallet and finished the rest of his dog so he could use both hands to pay. “Are you a fireman?”
“Huh?” The man took his money.
“I thought you had to be, like, a fireman or a detective to have a mustache like that.”
“Or a pornstar,” I mumbled, as I cracked open a beer.
“Yeah! Or that! I thought you looked familiar.”
I snorted. “How hard are you looking at the men in your porn, Barrett?”
“What? I like to compare.”
The man’s mouth formed a flat line that disappeared under his push-broom mustache. “I wasn’t in a porn.”
“Oh. Well, you look like you could be. That stache definitely makes you qualified to swing an ax.”
“Or star in a paper towel commercial,” I added.
“Are you guys getting ink, or what?”
I looked at Barrett. “You totally should.”
“I don’t think I should.”
I sipped my beer and handed one to him. “Why not? The sign says anything on the wall is only forty dollars. That’s a steal.”
He laughed and took the beer. “True. But what would I get.”
I tried to think of everything I knew about Barrett. He liked pretty women, boats, taking off his clothes, tequila, karaoke, and he was a total Swifty. I looked at the beer man. “Can you do Taylor Swift?”
“I can only do what’s on that wall.”
The three of us went to the wall and stared. I pointed to a portrait of Britney. “This is close.”
“On behalf of all swifties everywhere, I’m going to argue that it absolutely is not.”
“Oh, come on, Barrett. This would be hilarious. Tell him,” I said to porn-stache guy.
He shrugged. “It could be pretty funny.”
“I don’t know.” Barrett bobbed from side to side, his hands buried in his pockets. “Needles are ouchie.”
“Come on, you’re a big tough guy! You can handle it!”
“I can knock twenty bucks off the price.”
“Deal!”
Before we left the tattoo parlor, we grabbed another six-pack of beer. The bottles clanked and clattered with every step. I forgot where we were going, but that didn’t matter. Something in my gut told me we were almost there. I’d always had excellent instincts.
“Turn here,” Barrett said, leading us down a side street.
