The story of a Lonesome ol'Jerome

70- Shower: MLK Jr., Marilyn Manson, & co.

*Andy's POV*

​​​​I followed Gwyn to the shower, and for the first time I got a clear view of the tattoos she had on her lower back. There were several lines of text, but she was walking too fast for me to make out all but the top one. 'The time is always right to do what is right' with 'Martin Luther King Jr.' right under it. MLK Jr.'s name had a dark red mark going through part of the 'Jr.'
​​

​​Gwyn turned, obstructing my view, and handed me a dark purple towel. "Ummm..." She looked embarrassed as she averted her eyes. "I figured you had noticed that already." Eh?

"What do you mean? Noticed what?" Was she really into African American activism? I mean, that was cool, I could deal with that. Just so long as she wasn't vegan and a fucking PETA member, I wore too much leather for that, it would drive her insane...

"Andy, why don't we just go shower, and you can help me wash my back, ok? Especially my lower back?" Um... she was being weird. Definitely had to do with her tattoos. I will never understand women. Never.​​​​​​​​ But, ok, I would soap her up, read her activist tattoos, and then reassure her that I was fine with being an advocate for the rights of the oppressed, underrepresented, and discriminated against.

​​​​"Sure babe." I kissed her on the cheek and followed her into her bathroom. She had a shower curtain with a giant, cartoon skull on it. Her toilet seat had a red ladybug seat cover. When I had been in earlier to take a piss, I hadn't really noticed how badly the mirror was cracked.

As she bent to get the shower started, I read the second tattoo on her back. 'If you lose who you are, what do you have?' under it was the dark red scribble that went up into MLK Jr. I looked at it closer... "Gwyn, did Marilyn Manson sign over Martin Luther King Jr.?"

She laughed. "Yeah, he fucking did."

What an asshole! "That's kind of a dick move. Why the hell did you ink it that way?"

She​​​​​​​​​​​​ frowned at me pretty intensely. Ah shit. I had said something. Fuck. "Andy, I'm a lot older than you, dude. Marilyn Manson gave me strength throughout high school. I remember, I wrote a paper comparing his work to Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. Antichrist, the song, is my personal theme song, ok?" I nodded, though I wasn't really sure what the point was at all. "While I support him, or any artist, doing whatever the fuck they want creatively, and I may not have personally enjoyed listening to everything he has put out, and he is definitely a very weird guy insofar as I can tell from what interviews I have read, probably even a pretentious asshole, he is a hero of mine. So just as you "save the lives" of kids today, he "saved" mine, in the musically supportive sense. So that is why I had it inked just the way he did it. I was just grateful he was willing to sign it at all. Get it?"

Uh... ok. Note to self: Gwyn was very sensitive about her musical taste,especially about creepy, old recluses. Did this mean she wasn't a political activist for AfricanAmerican rights? "Andy?"
"Uh, totally, definitely, ofcourse.​​​​ Makes perfect sense." I flashed my most disarmingsmile, which relaxed her. She tugged me into the shower, and it felt so good, but I let her get wetfirst. Heh.

When we were soaping up, she passed me her black, girly, puff-thing, covered insome sort of fruity body wash. "Andy, can you get myback?" She looked at me really intensely, kind of worried and all breathy. Fuck, what the hell did she have tattooedthat she was so worried about? Had I missed some satanic scripture?

​​​​"Sure babe." I washed her softly sloping shoulders, thenwent down, around, and cheated a little, going to her breasts and giving aquick squeeze. The top of her back was bare, no ink. I soaped inlittle circles, then moved down, across MLK Jr's quote, across Manson's quote,and then came to the last: 'Stand for what you believe in, even if it meansstanding alone,' there was nothing underneath it. I stopped washing.