A Toe Peeked Through the Blanket
Character Description
Victor is a tattoo artist. He got in a huge blowout with his girlfriend over her hanging out with the wrong element of people as he was a former member of a notorious biker gang and found a way out by opening a tattoo business but just recently received some bad news.
Victor: She didn’t listen to me…
Over and over, again and again, I warned her what she was getting herself back into. And it seems the more I argued with her about it the more aggressive she got with not listening to me. You can only play with the Cobra so long before it takes a bite.
My shop feels empty without her here. The phone keeps ringing and ringing and I just stare at it… The desk, the counter, the flowers she put on the desk that has now died. The windows look like shit. She handled the front part of the business. I could never tell if she was happy about us leaving the life. Nothing was ever perfect. Our relationship was one big blowout from the start.
That’s what we tattoo artists call it when a tattoo is not applied properly and goes too deep into the skin and causes the ink to settle strangely creating a minor cloudy effect around the initial design. That was our relationship… That was us, everything always clouded, but we made it work. I least that’s what I thought.
I should have known better than to come to this dam city looking for a change away from a life of recklessness but they found us. I knew when some of my citizens found out I had a shop set up they’d be rolling in hog heavy. Every other weekend a different set from a different state as the word spread. I must admit it was good seeing some of their faces at my shop, but that was the extent, that it was at my shop. And she started reminiscing with some of the gang and got right back into her old lifestyle. The one I got us away from.
Afternoon blitzers that led to speed or cocaine-filled nights with a crooked eye on the colors of another rival. If anything it was the bond that was addicting. Knowing you would always be protected and a part of a misguided fraternity.
Smoke and mirrors. From one shithole to the next. I told her I loved her but she was too consumed with being a part of the pack again. She left me the moment I told her our final destination was… Neon City. I stacked enough coin to open up something that we could call ours.
She believed in it but her eyes… Her eyes faded from a bright shine to a distant memory.
(Victor yells and throws the bottle of whiskey in his hand against the business emblem of their tattoo shop that’s on the wall)
Dam it Sara!
Why didn’t you listen to me! Stay away from them. Stay away from them!
(There’s a knock at the shop’s door its 2 police officers)
“Come in,” Victor says in a motionless manner.
I will never forget. I will never forget when I saw the breaking news in my shop as they wheeled out a covered body in front of the casino. My heart started pumping violently. The guy I was giving a tat to, I told him I had an emergency and I would be right back.
It’s funny the tattoo I was giving him was some generic tat that I have given to hundreds of people. The same one I did for Sara when we first met and we would laugh our ass off…
So I ran to my cell phone and called her phone but it just went right to voice mail each time. I instantly went online for the breaking news story. The first site didn’t give too much detail.
I tried another Neon City news channel and that one didn’t have much to the story as it was still developing so I tried a third local news sight and there it was a still photograph of what I saw minutes ago on tv.
A toe peeking through the blanket… with a tattoo of a heart on it.
A heart that belonged to me.
