Personal Stories: Love Hurts…Tattoos Hurt More
by Erica Goldblatt
Every social worker has a patient they will remember as long as they live. Mine was Alex (name changed). She was barely 17 when she passed away, and to make a long story short, I adored this kid. When I looked at her, I saw myself as a teen: baffled and in love with the world, writing poetry riddled with metaphor and confusion. She somehow knew she wouldn’t live long, and when she succumbed to her brain tumor, I mourned her loss but understood that, while part of me went with her into the spiritual ether, my living purpose was to preserve her memory.
At Alex’s funeral, a hummingbird hovered over her casket and refused to leave. I’ve heard that hummingbirds appear at gravesides, and I know that in her final days, Alex liked watching the hummingbirds at their feeders outside her window. I decided to add to my tattoo collection and have one of Baltimore’s finest tattoo artists, Chandler (name also changed), put a permanent hummingbird on my right inner bicep.
The tattoo healed poorly. It became infected, and I had to swallow horse-tranquilizer-sized pills, apply a topical antibiotic, and watch in horror as the chest and wings of the bird filled with scar tissue. During the healing time, I broke up with my boyfriend of 7 years, which undoubtedly added to the invisible scars. I hypothesized that my broken heart suppressed my immune system and my poor hummingbird reflected the tattered remnants of what was left of me.
When I went to see Chandler for a touch-up, he was horrified by what he saw. Carte blanche, he told me it was the worst work he had ever done in 15 years of artistry. He looked at my arm with disgust. Started up the needle, but his arm was shaking. I asked him what he needed. Water? A cigarette? It was clear the man shouldn’t be touching my tattoo. I felt objectified, as if my arm were some decaying stump, reflective of all my failures. Chandler didn’t know what to say. He knew it was a memorial tattoo, and he knew I had to wear it for life. I suggested that perhaps I needed more time to heal, and he agreed. We rescheduled for a month later, and I committed to slathering Vitamin E on the scars every night, tending to the wounded bird as if it had fallen from the nest and I were feeding it from an eye dropper.
I began to feel resentment toward Chandler. Who was he to look at my arm that way? Skin artists do memorial tats all the time. Of course they aren’t social workers, but they need to have a modicum of understanding that when you hand over your flesh, much like a surgeon, you are placing your skin in their capable hands. For my generation, tattoos are the norm, and the relationship between artist and client should be professional and respectful, just as in any other transaction. I was sorry he was ashamed of his work, but sorrier I had to wear it. I felt, somehow, that I had let him down. Another relationship destroyed.
Today I returned for my touch up. 3rd time’s a charm, I told Chandler. The moment I walked into the shop, I was annoyed. The girl at the front desk was on the phone with a friend and barely paid me any mind. I let Chandler do his work, which was extremely painful and bloody due to all the scar tissue. I kept my cool, but when I noticed the presence of an oddly connected line, I asked Chandler if he could fix it. He took immediate offense, and asked what the hell I was talking about. I tried to point it out. He said it was “just highlighting”. I said fine, I would just have to take a look in the mirror to see what he meant. I told him to forget about it. Before I could say anymore, he angrily drew over the line, as I was telling him to stop. To be honest, I felt a little violated, and I could feel his anger. I would have preferred he wait just a moment, so we discuss it. Just a line and some confusion, but he barreled forward.
I told him that I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. He curtly informed me that in his opinion he had done his job, and “turned a shitty tat into something passable”, but that at least HE liked it now. So much for what I thought. He slapped a bandage on my arm and declared me finished. Started talking to a coworker. I felt the tears well up in my eyes but promised myself I wouldn’t cry, until I got out of the chair and smacked my head straight against a shelf. Typical, clumsy me. Chandler laughed, so did his friend, and the tears exploded straight down my face. He said he should have warned me there was a shelf there. I felt like a fool. I tried to recover and made a joke about driving home with a concussion. Instead, I hurried out with my head held, down, called my new boy/friend, and went to his house for a pity party.
When I peeled off the bandage later, the bird was completely transformed. No longer brightly coloured, the bird is ominous. Dark blues, turquoises, the purple wings deep. The face once orange and bright, is bathed in black. The white eye is hyper-vigilant. The line he “fixed” is crooked. Alex’s hummingbird is dark. I have to admit, she would like it more now that the colours are more intense. But the tattoo has taken on a new meaning. There is a storm of emotions inside the bird, reflective of Chandler’s state of mind as he was needling me.
I won’t return to that tattoo shop. We’ve broken up, Chandler and I. Seven years with one man was enough to teach me when to draw boundaries, and to let go, even when you have good moments and a man who is talented with a lot of potential. The same principles can be applied to Chandler, except instead of the esoteric principles of love, he had a needle and ink. The scar tissue of 7 years will fade, but Chandler could only draw over the sloppy, dead skin he had already damaged. Time to move forward.
My one great solace lies in the thought of Alex, up there in the sky, laughing at the entire ordeal.
