This homeless biker walked his rusty ol' Harley up to my doorstep, leaned it up against the brick wall outside, and trotted into my tattoo shop like he owned the place. He always showed up on Thursday afternoons, when business was deader than Ted Bundy. I never could tell if Thursdays sucked because that's just the way Thursdays were, or if people avoided the place like the plague because that's when he was there, all scraggly and stinking like a urinal.
I know, I should have kicked the piss-stained fucker out the door the first day he walked in. But I'd taken to the poor beggar, and I pitied his poverty-stricken life. The only think that made his life worth living was his dilapidated frame of a scooter, and I had to give him credit
for that.
He called himself One-Eyed Jack, and I figured that was because he wore a black patch on his eye ... whether it was for show or not, I couldn't tell, but because of the grime on it, the patch looked legit. His clothes were in tatters: the beer-stained long underwear shirt he wore was frayed at the bottom, where his lint-filled belly button peeked out over ratty and stringy denim jeans. He didn't have any tats of his own, and looked naked to me without them. If he didn't drag his broken-down bike along with him everywhere he went, you wouldn't have known he was once a biker ... you'd just think he was some weird-looking bum with a silly patch on his right eye.
Anyway, he came in that Thursday and plopped his ass down in the seat where my patrons either sit to read mags when I'm busy or to bullshit when I'm not. For two months going, Jack always came in to shoot the shit, since he couldn't afford my rates, meager as they were.
He said, "Hey, Corky, how's biz?" He always asked the same thing when he came inside, and I always ignored it. His voice grumbled like tires spinning in gravel when he spoke, and there was something buried inside the sound that said I'm hungry, though he was too proud to actually say the words.
He picked up one of my art books, and started flipping through the laminated pages. From the way he oohed and ahhed you'd think he was my Number One Fan. I guess he really was, though I had my regulars who paid good money for my work. But he seemed to really appreciate my skill. Maybe that was why I took such a liking to him, when no one else in their right mind would.
After a half hour of going through his routine, he tossed the book down on the coffee table and looked me square in the eye. "I got a proposition for ya, Corky. Wanna hear it?"
"What?" My reply was flat, though I was a bit thrown off by the way the hungry sound of his voice changed from wheels rumbling in gravel to new tires gracing a smooth blacktop. He sounded sure of himself, like the asshole salesmen I sometimes get at the shop.
"If you'll break down and give me a tattoo, I'll give you my Harley," he said.
His bike was shit, but I couldn't believe he was offering his most prized possession to me. Still, I said, "No," folding my heavily-inked forearms across my chest for emphasis ... and to rub it in a bit.
"I'll work for you then. I can sweep up the place, and I know a little bit about..."
"No," I repeated.
"Aw, c'mon Corky. You know I'm good for it."
"Nope," I said again. Did he really think I'd waste my precious time and colors on him?
"Wait, wait," he said, lifting his cheeks to dig into the back pocket of his jeans. "Before you make a decision, I got somethin' I want you to check out." He dug harder into his back pocket, looking like he was scratching hemorrhoids. After awhile he withdrew a crumpled piece of paper, unfolded it, and handed it to me, smiling his gap-toothed pirate's grin at me.
I looked at the paper. It was a glossy page ripped out of a magazine, with a slick close-up photo of some Yuppie-looking faggot on one side. The Yuppie--probably one of those male fashion models--smiled up from the page at me, turning my stomach. I flipped the paper over,
looking for something significant. I asked him, "What the hell is this?"
"The guy, Corky, look at the guy."
So I stared at the faggot gawking up from the page.
"What about him? You go for queers?"
"I want his eye."
"What?"
I looked up at One-Eyed Jack. He had a pistol pointed at my face. It looked loaded, and he cocked it for emphasis. "I want his eye, Corky. And I want it today."
)
