AllFreeNovel
Share Us
SEVENTEEN
Barrett
November 6, 2015
“Hey, man.” I hold my phone against my ear and lean against the bathroom wall. “You probably won’t remember me, but you did a tat for me about three years ago.”
“Yeah, man. Sounds right. I’ve been here since ’09.”
“It was a snowflake.”
“Yeah?”
“A little snowflake on my neck, kind of near my hairline in the back.”
“I think I remember you. Real big guy? Dark hair?”
I nod, and blink into the mirror. “That was me.” In my line of work, it’s wise to assume you’re going to stick out. When you’re six-foot-three, you have to.
“So what can I help you with?” he asks.
“I was wondering if you drew it.”
“That snowflake?”
“Yeah.”
“I draw them all. So yeah. All my shit is custom.”
“You give them out a lot?” I ask.
“You got a problem, man?”
“No. No problem.” I inhale slowly, hoping to bring my voice up from where it goes down deep when I’m thinking hard about something. So I don’t sound pissed off. “I saw a girl the other day—same tat. I was wondering if that means she got it up in Breckenridge.”
“Exact same?”
“Yeah. You do the same snowflake on everybody?”
He hums, as if he’s thinking. “For a while I did. Last year I started doing another one, seven pointed, kind of artsy. Gotta keep it fresh.”
I exhale slowly. “Yeah. Well brother, thanks.”
“No problem. Nothing I can help you with?”
I laugh, as if I’m embarrassed. “Just chasing a girl.”
“Good luck, man.”
“Yeah. Thanks, dude.”
“Have a good one.”
“You too. Catch ya later.”
I hang up with Roy J. Bidd from High Altitudes Tattoo & Piercing and stare down at my phone.
So the tat we have is custom, sort of. He didn’t get it out of some tattoo artists’ stock art book. I couldn’t tell if it was identical, because I can’t see mine easily. But now I know it probably is. It doesn’t matter. Gwen won’t know.
