Oil & Ink

Chapter 2: The Dreamers

On a Sunday afternoon, Charlie had just wrapped up another set of tattoos on some locals. He'd seen them around before, but they were tattoo virgins.

"Why do you let those girls get tattoos?" Sara asked Charlie when Tucker's was empty.

"Why not? They're 18," he said.

"Well, you know they probably still live at home. Their moms will shit," Sara said.

"I don't have to ask their moms," Charlie said. "It's not really my problem."

Sara shrugged her shoulders and popped her gum. At 19, she wasn't much older than many of the girls she'd seen in Charlie's corner. She had nothing against tattoos — she'd even thought about getting one — but she didn't know if it was worth getting into trouble at home.

Sara grew up just down the road. Her dad was friends with Hank Tucker, who owned the store. That's how she got the job. All she had to do was greet people when they came in and ring up their purchases at the counter. For the most part, she didn't work past 9pm. It was an easy job, although she had nothing to compare it to. But after about six months on the job, she didn't have many complaints.

Charlie was straightening up his area, putting all of his tools in the sterilizer and wiping down the table. He always wanted to be ready for the next client, whenever that may be. He thought about what Sara said.

The truth was that Charlie wasn't thrilled to ink up a young girl's clean skin. But it was money. He knew established artists had more rules about tattooing — no tongue tattoos, no ink on the fingers or toes, no names, etc. But Charlie could confine himself to those limits right now. He needed all of the work he could get.

Plus, being the truck-stop tattooer, he felt he didn't have the right to turn away someone who came in asking for something specific. In standalone shops, people sought out the style and the work of those artists. There weren't many people making the voyage to Wander, South Dakota to get a piece from Charlie.

In his heart, Charlie knew the young girls wouldn't appreciate the talent he had; they just wanted to show their newest tattoo to their friends. They didn't realize that Charlie reset his machine to make up for their thin skin, that he'd used breakable pigments in case they had it removed in 20 years — it would make it much, much easier — or that he'd studied popular tattoo designs for years prior to their arrival.

One day, though, Charlie could whittle down his business to satisfy a very specific kind of customer. He would have enough business to turn people away if they wanted a tattoo in the wrong place or for the wrong reasons. He would even have appointments booked in advance and even fees to charge if the person didn't show.

These were the kinds of things he dreamt about on the days when Tucker's was slow. He knew this wasn't the end-all be-all. But just like with any other career, you had to start somewhere. Tucker's was just a stop on his path.

His ultimate dream was to make it to California and open up a shop of his own. Instead of renting a booth in someone else's place, he'd be renting out corners of his shop to others starting out, just like he did.

Getting further west meant Charlie needed to save up more money, a lot more money. He also needed some sort of resolve with his family. They were already upset with him for leaving without a plan and choosing a non-traditional career. They refused to visit him.

Charlie knew people moved wherever they needed to in order to follow their dreams. He knew sometimes it meant leaving people behind. But if it worked out in the end, it would end up okay, right? It was still something he had to figure out.

"Charlie?" Sara asked, whispering.

He snapped out of his trance and blinked his eyes. Sara had stepped out from behind her station at the register, which was sort of raised above the rest of the store. She was standing on the other side of the short wall, chewing on the straw to a 32-ounce soda.

"Hey... yeah, what's up?" he asked, feeling startled.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You looked like you were staring off into space."

Charlie chuckled and sucked in a bunch of air before sighing it out. "Yeah, I kind of was," he said. "Just tired, I guess."

Sara nodded, but before she could say anything else, the bell over the door rang as a couple walked in. She ran back over to her station while shouting, "Hey, welcome!"

The couple beelined it to a rack of maps. GPS only got you so far in these parts of the country; cell service was spotty. Charlie was always hearing stories about phone directions leading travelers off random exits or failing to register a fresh detour. Technology was cool, but in a way, there was something comforting about knowing that the classics — like printed maps and vinyl records — still had a place in this world.

The man in the couple tapped his wife on the shoulder to get her attention. He pointed in the direction of Charlie's corner. She smiled.