Ink Read online

  I extricate my hand from hers, push my chair away from the table. “So you’re not really asking, are you?”

  I’m already by the door, half into my coat, when she sets her trump card.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  It should be a happy moment. For a second I want to turn around and take her in my arms. Instead, I slam the door on my way out.

  * * *

  I stumble upon a new set of footprints.

  They aren’t pac boot prints but something with a heel, like a cowboy boot, and lead through a cluster of hemlocks to a stately yellow birch I tried my hand at painting last spring. Its luminous bronze and shreddy bark proved impossible for me to capture in pigment.

  Someone’s nailed boards into it, making a rudimentary ladder up its trunk. I look up. There’s a teenager sitting on a treestand wedged in the crotch of the first really big branches. He’s got a rifle – a .22 it looks like from down here – cradled in his arms.

  “Hey,” I call to him. “What’re you doing?

  “Saw a nice buck over there,” He motions northwest. “Eight-pointer, I think.”

  “You’re not going to get anything bigger than a woodchuck with that gun,” I say.

  He shrugs. “My dad gave it to me.”

  “Did your dad also tell you to come up here to hunt?”

  “Owner of the property did,” he says.

  “Well, that’s interesting since I’m the owner and I don’t know who the hell you are.”

  He scrambles to gather his stuff into a camouflage backpack before he climbs down. On the ground, he turns to face me. Some courage at least.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, hoping he’s the son of someone I know who might have assumed I’d be okay with this.

  But he’s not. It’s not a surname I recognize at all.

  “Did you nail those up?” I nod at the footholds and the stand.

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t think twice about what you were damaging, huh?”

  “It’s just a tree. People do it all the time.”

  “Not here. So, now listen, if you walk through the woods there,” I point past a grouping of aspens, “in less than a quarter mile you’ll hit the tractor road. It shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes to get off my property. In about half an hour I’m going to drive down that tractor road and if you’re still here it isn’t a puny .22 I’m going be pointing at you. Got it?”

  He nods.

  “You know,” I say as he slings the pack over his shoulder, “the posted signs have my phone number on them. You could have called and asked for permission.”

  “Nobody ever gives permission,” he says.

  I watch him tromping through the snow to disappear into the trees. He’s right. Even if he had called I wouldn’t have okayed it, because I don’t know him or his family and friends, and because I don’t trust what I don’t know.

  I’m not sure what’s guiding me as I resume my walk away from Cassie and toward the heart of my property, but I allow myself to be led without making any conscious choices.

  Whatever it is takes me to the enormous boulder that stands as solitary evidence of a glacier that moved through here ages ago to find its terminal moraine somewhere south of Hastings. I sit at its snowy base, leaning back against the flattest of its stone faces and try to imagine the journey of this erratic – that’s what boulders like this are called – dragged so many miles from its bedrock origin. It must be the loneliest inanimate object around.

  I pat it. Me in Hastings. And then I’m crying, stupidly bawling like a kid. Like when I found out my mom was dead.

  Of course I’ll leave. She’s asking me to pick between loves, and who would pick any but the human one? I’ll pack up and go with her and live the kind of life she envisions us living. I’ll just have to learn to do it without this. My heart.

  2.

  Working as a jobber contractor in the city is as different from working for Ray as living in a 700-square-foot apartment is from living in a cabin on 200 acres. Nobody knows me here so I have to prove myself over and over again.

  Cassie is happy, as she knew she would be. She hangs with Allison and Sarai. And Finn, whenever he’s around. And she’s made a bunch of new friends at the law firm. She hardly notices that we don’t do much together anymore. At least nothing other than what falls at the intersection of our routines. She fills her spare hours following leads on a larger apartment for when the baby comes.

  “There’s time,” I say, but she wants to cement things.

  Cement. That’s mostly what the city is and, predictably enough, I don’t understand it. There is one little park I like to go to, though. No yellow birches or hemlocks here but a rangy white oak that reminds me of the one by the cabin. Every day after work I go and sit there for an hour before going home.

  I’m there when I get the call.

  When I dig out my cell phone and answer, it’s a voice I don’t recognize.

  “Hello. Del? This is Father Tom,” the man says. “A friend of Finn’s. He suggested I call you. I was wondering if I can borrow your truck?”

  “Look, Father Tim,” I start.

  “Tom.”

  “Right. Well, I’m sure you’re a great guy and all, but I’m not in the habit of letting total strangers drive my truck.”

  “Oh, I can’t drive,” he says.

  I laugh. “Moreso then.”

  “What I need is to borrow your truck and you.”

  “Do you need some furniture moved or something?”

  “Yes, something like that. Tomorrow if possible.”

  “Well, I guess if you’re Finn’s friend it’s all right,” I say. “After work, around five-thirty sound okay?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s great.” He rattles off the address of the church where he needs to be picked up, then pauses, “Finn says you have a firearm … perhaps you’d be kind enough to bring it with you?”

  In the time it takes me to recover from my surprise, he’s hung up.

  My father gave me a 20-gauge shotgun for my first hunt, when I was 15, and I never wanted to trade up to the 12-gauge most Smithville hunters favor. It’s no automatic rifle, but it’s not a small weapon either. I’m betting the priest imagines I own something more discreet.

  When I pull up in front of the church the next day, Finn’s standing there, waiting for me. He leans in as soon as I roll down the window.

  “Park it and come inside,” he says. “I’ll explain.”

  “Explain it here and now. I’ve got the shotgun behind the seat and I’m not leaving it in a parked car.”

  He looks around. “We’re going to retrieve an ink that made her way to Bedford after being border dumped.”

  “Your girl?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “Why doesn’t the ink just stay put?”

  “Bedford’s a ‘safe community.’ A nice but nervous Methodist minister found her at an interstate stop on the way back from some sort of ecumenical gathering where Father Tom was the speaker. Anyway, she took the ink home with her, but wants us to get her out of there before she gets caught. Bedford’s got some pretty punitive measures in place for renting to inks. And the difference between renting and sheltering is awfully vague in their book. To complicate things, there are a number of blockades on the main access routes. Voluntary civic patrols, which means no one’s got any training but they’ve all got firearms.”

  “Hence, the shotgun request.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But I’m not shooting anybody, Finn. Got it?”

  “Of course not,” he waves the suggestion away. “If Meche does her job, you won’t have to do anything but sail straight through. It’s just, well you know, I want to be sure you can at least threaten your way out of any ugliness.”

  “That her?” I ask, glancing at the door of the rectory from which an old priest and a blond woman have just emerged.

  “Yeah,” he turns his head to glance at her. “Cuban. A former chemist.
Well, I guess she’s still a chemist, just no longer employed by the pharmaceutical company that holds her patents,” He turns back to meet my eyes. “On her own she’s developed this absolutely dead-on synthetic skin. All you need is a small jar of the compound, one of the powdered catalyst, and water to activate it. Sets up quickly. Can be dyed to match different skin tones, so it’s perfect to cover tattoos. And it’s undetectable. For a few weeks at least, until it starts degrading. Some of the Cuban inks have been paying through the nose to get it at her peña. As long as you have money and don’t have an accent it’s the way to go.”

  “We’re not all going to fit in the truck.”

  “Just you and Meche.”

  “So you’re using me for my shotgun and truck, is that how it is?”

  “It’s so not like that.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, amused by his earnest tone.

  “But,” I add, “you better explain to Cassie, because she’s expecting me home in an hour.”

  He nods as the others join us. After a round of introductions, and some discussion about a number of possible routes in and out of Bedford, Meche tucks a large handbag behind the seat, and climbs in the cab of the truck. We’re 20 minutes into the journey, turning onto the Breen Parkway, when I get tired of the silence.

  “So, what’s your story?” I say. “Beside the chemist end of things.”

  She smiles a little. “My grandparents came over when Castro made his triumphal entry into Havana, bringing with them family and a tidy sum of money. My parents turned tidy to tremendous. I’m turning tremendous to my advantage. I own the Cuban peña – all of it. Not a single enterprise there belongs to the gangs. My tattoo is blue, without a language exemption, and I’ve developed three variants of instaskin; we’ll be testing the field version of the latest one on this run.”

  “Finn said inks pay a lot for the instaskin they get at your peña.”

  “I’m not adverse to a little luxury,” she says. “You ever wonder why all the other peñas have been busted but not the Cuban one?”

  “Better patron saint?” I joke. When she looks startled, I add, “Finn told me they’re all named and identified with those.”

  “Well, La Caridad is a top-tier patroness, but no,” she answers. “It’s because the peña’s at my house, and nobody can prove it is a peña as opposed to a series of parties full of people who don’t look or sound like what you all think of as inks.”

  “A gated peña.”

  She nods. “If you can’t pass, you won’t pass.”

  “Morally dubious.”

  She laughs. “I prefer morally ambiguous, thanks. And still, here I am, on the other side of the gate. Giving away the product my clients pay for. What about you, nothing morally ambiguous about your life?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Lucky,” she says, then closes her eyes, and leans her head back against the headrest.

  I wake her fifteen minutes before we get to Bedford.

  “Roadblock ahead.”

  She shakes off sleep immediately.

  “Don’t call me Meche in mixed company. My driver’s license says Mercedes O’Gorman, which is old-fashioned but still acceptable as an Anglo name.”

  “So who came up with that doozy?”

  “It’s my real name.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s okay. I like Meche better, too.”

  She pulls down the visor and smoothes her hair in the mirror. When she’s done she turns again to me. “Do I pass?” she says.

  “Of course you pass. Aren’t you a real blond?”

  She’s still laughing when we come to a stop at the pylons. A man in a Bedford Lions cap motions for us to roll down the windows. He comes over to the driver side. At the same time the woman standing beside him heads for the passenger side.

  “Wrists,” the man says. He’s got the butt of a .35 Remington handgun sticking out of the waistband of his pants.

  I turn the truck off and have an instant when I want to refuse, because this little snot has no real authority, other than the one earned by his vigilante bent, to make me do anything. And because I know if I did refuse, there wouldn’t be any real repercussions.

  For me.

  But there probably would be for the woman at my side, so as soon as the car is in park, I shove both wrists out the window. The guy grabs one, then pulls out a scanner gun and flashes it at my blank wrists. They say the scanners can read tattoos even through make up and greasepaint, and I feel my stomach go jumpy at the thought it might be able to read through the instaskin covering Meche’s tattoo right now.

  “I need the gun,” I hear the woman on Meche’s side call. For a moment I don’t know which of the two she’s referring to.

  The man walks around the front of the truck and hands her the scanner.

  Meche is absolutely still as the woman scans both her blank wrists.

  “Get out,” the man says.

  When I see Meche reach for her handbag I remember the gun.

  “I’ve got a shotgun behind the seat, slugs and shells in the glove box,” I say.

  “And why’s that?” The guy moves fast to my side again, and reaches behind the seat for the stock after I get out.

  “I’m going up to my cabin in Smithville,” I say. Loud enough for Meche to hear, I hope. “I might do some hunting while I’m there.”

  “Roundabout way to go up there,” he says. “I would have taken 17 instead. And it’s not hunting season.”

  “It’s always hunting season if you own property.”

  The guy laughs, as I thought he might. Plenty of folks in Smithville say the same – everyone upstate is pretty much Libertarian when it comes to hunting rights.

  “I just wanted to show my girlfriend some great places on the way,” I look over at Meche while I extemporize. “She’s a Hastings girl, and you know how narrow-minded they can be about upstate.”

  I see the woman rooting through Meche’s handbag. She opens the wallet, aspirin bottle, a lipstick. When she pulls out a couple of small screw-top jars I see Meche’s shoulders tense.

  Hold it together, kid, I think at her. Just come up with a story.

  The man beside me is going on about how much he hates the city and how the city folks he’s known don’t know their asses from their elbows. All of which I’ve heard before. Only in Smithville we consider Bedforders city folk and include them in our disdain. I nod where appropriate but keep watching the women.

  Meche says something I can’t hear, then dips her finger in the powder of one of the open jars and strokes it onto the woman’s eyelids. The woman barely glances at the hand mirror Meche holds up to her, but she gives Meche her bag back moments later. Then she ducks into the truck to retrieve my registration and insurance cards.

  “So, where is it you and your boyfriend are going?” the woman asks.

  “Smithville. He’s got a place there.”

  The woman shuffles to the registration. “What’s his address in Hastings?”

  We’re cooked, I think. And the guy’s still holding my shotgun.

  But Meche recites it perfectly. When she turns to look at me and I lift my brows in question, she gives me a small smile.

  “We’re clear,” the woman calls over.

  The guy hands the shotgun back and I wave at him as I drive around the pylons.

  “Oh my God,” Meche says. “She’s wearing about $500 worth of compound as eyeshadow.”

  “And very fetching it is,” I say, grinning and buoyant now that we’ve gotten through. “That was brilliant. How did you know my address by the way?”

  “Finn made me memorize his sister’s address and phone number. In case something happened to you.”

  “He didn’t give me yours.”

  She gives me an odd look. “That’s because nobody’s waiting for my return. If I died doing this it would all just end with me.”

  “Jesus. We’re not really talking death, are we?”

  “You think if the ins
taskin failed and we had to make a run for it that guy would have hesitated to shoot?”

  “He’s a self-important dick, but he wouldn’t shoot us.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “Sometimes I wonder if people like you and I live in different universes.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry. But you’re doing this as a favor to Finn, and I’m doing it because if I don’t I might as well be dead. Different planets at least.”

  I go silent until we get to Bedford proper.

  The pastor ushers us into her kitchen, disappears and returns with a frail woman in her 70s she introduces as Nadia.

  “How did she survive being dumped?” It’s out of my mouth before my internal censor kicks in.

  “They didn’t drop me far in,” Nadia answers, even though I’ve referred to her in third person. “A trucker hauling logs to a sawmill across the border saw me when I found my way to the road, and picked me up. He hid me under a pile of blankets to bring me back over. I guess the border folk see him so often they don’t bother to check the cab. He dropped me at the rest stop where Judith found me.”

  Meche clears her throat. “I have to see the skin on your wrist to match it.”

  The old woman lays her wrist flat on the table. The green of her tattoo overlays a blue tattoo of veins visible through the skin.

  Meche pulls out the two screw-top jars I’ve seen before, and what looks like a more traditional eyeshadow case, with plugs of pigment in a range of skin tones and a few jewel shades. The compound itself, when she pours some out on a white saucer, is a pearlescent powder with a pale shell-pink tint. She picks through the eyeshadow case, goes for a yellow and a toffee and uses tweezers to mix pigment grains with some compound partitioned on the plate. She smears a trace of the color she’s created on Nadia’s wrist. It’s really off.

  She reaches for the apricot. I stop her, then spin the case so the mauve is under her tweezer. “You’re going to need it to cut all that yellow. Her skin’s got an ashy undertone.”

  “I think this’ll correct it,” she contradicts.

  Watching her mix the pigments – not the right hue at all – makes me crave a cigarette. I pat down my pockets, find a pack with two left.

  “Okay if I smoke in here?” I ask the pastor. She nods, scoots a dirty saucer my way to use for an ashtray.