I pause and look down at the princess. “You gonna be OK?”
She’s barely looking at me. Her attention is all focused on the other little kids her age who are running around like savage heathens. Then she mutters, “Jackalope hotdog?”
“Oh. That’s just, you know, a mythical animal of the plains. Or something. I’m sure it’s just a regular hotdog.”
“No, sir,” Jeeves says. He winks at my niece. “Don’t let this old fucker steal your innocence. A jackalope is half jackrabbit and half antelope. You want to hear the whole story?”
Princess says, “Yes!” with way too much enthusiasm for seven AM.
But I say, “No, Jeeves. Let’s go. You have no idea how fucking tired I am. If I don’t get started in the next five minutes, I’m gonna go crawl into one of those tents and fall asleep.”
Jeeves frowns. Princess follows suit. “All right. That story is gonna have to wait until the ride home.”
“Which will commence promptly at ten-thirty AM,” I interject. “I’m not getting stuck here all day.”
“I got it, I got it.” He rolls his eyes at the niece and she giggles. Then she looks up at me, smiles, and wriggles her hand free from my grip and takes off towards the donkeys.
Jeeves takes me towards a large tent on the far side of the campground. We pass dozens of people and I’m just wondering, how can one fucking family be so big? This Moran clan. They must breed like crazy. And they all look like they just came down the mountain after a long winter holed up in a ten-by-ten cabin on the side of Longs Peak.
When Jeeves came up to us on the street outside the art building and asked if I wanted to tat up the Morans, I was one hundred percent sure that was not something I was interested in. But then he explained that it was just a commemorative tat. For attending the reunion or something. Everyone was getting one. And it would be a simple thing, he said. Something very small. Something I could do in a few seconds. If I was quick, I could get the whole adult clan done by ten-thirty and be back home by eleven-fifteen.
They are gonna pay me five thousand dollars.
I’m a working man. And even though our family was mostly dirt poor all growing up, we’ve made a name for ourselves over the past decade or so. Some of that is due to Spencer and Ronnie. But Sick Boyz is no joke in the industry, so it earns out. And I’m a saver, so I’ve got a nice cushion. But every cent of that money is earmarked for something I’ve had my eye on for years now. I’m certainly not going to use it on the mansion. So fuck it. I’ll tat up two hundred Moran people in a morning for five thousand bucks. That will pay half of what I need to repave the mansion’s driveway.
Inside the tent there are already about forty people lined up for their tattoo. They’ve got piles of sterile needles, almost a dozen machines, hundreds of pre-filled cups of ink… all of it is ready for me on a long makeshift counter. There is no chair, because they won’t be sitting. I just walk up, take the machine a pretty assistant hands me, drag the needle around in a little cup of ink, and get to work.
Jeeves wasn’t lying when he said each tat would take seconds. You can’t even call what I draw a tattoo. It’s a tick mark. That’s it. They are counting up the number of times they’ve been to the reunion since they turned eighteen. Some of them have thirty tick marks on their bodies. For some, this one is their first. They all have them in different places. Back of the neck, down the ribs, tramp stamp is popular with the Moran ladies. A few even have them on their hands.
Every time they get five tick marks, they get the tattoo artist’s signature. They are all famous inkers, some from as far away as Australia, and there is even one girl from Germany who had her own reality show a few years back. I guess that’s why they needed me and didn’t just have one of these assistants draw the lines. I sign my name Vicious in my trademark style, but it’s all quick as fuck. Assembly-line tattooing, who knew? My pretty assistants take care of the machines, the needles, and the ink, so all I have to do is hand one of them my used one and take the clean one, draw the tick mark, sign my name if necessary, and hand it back to grab another machine.
It’s fucking weird, but whatever.
At nineteen minutes past ten AM, I am done. Every single adult in the camp has paid me a visit and every single one of them has a new tat.