My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.
"There were the usual creepy guys hanging around the tattoo parlor," as Emma remembered her experience. Jack felt certain these guys would have had more than a passing interest in the expanse of Emma's hip that was exposed, not to mention her tattooin-progress.
"Come to think of it, it was Dylan, but it was 'Just Like a Woman,' " Emma suddenly recalled. Jack could imagine this, too.
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do
You make love just like a woman, yes, you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.
"Let me be sure I understand you, Emma," Alice said, after a lengthy pause. "If you're sleeping with a guy, you want him to be able to see this tattoo--even when you're asleep?"
"He may forget me, but he'll remember my tattoo," Emma said.
"Lucky fella," Alice said. It seemed to Emma that Alice was keeping time to Bob Dylan with the foot-switch as she tattooed on.
"My mom's a bitch, but you're gonna love Alice," Emma told Claudia. "Everyone loves Alice."
"I used to," Jack said.
He walked outside to have a look at the Iowa farmland. It was stretched out flat, as far as he could see--nothing like the tree-dense hills of Maine and New Hampshire. Emma followed him outside.
"Okay, so I lied--not quite everyone loves your mother," Emma said.
"I used to," Jack said again.
"Let's go see a movie, baby cakes. Let's take Claudia to the picture show."
"Sure," Jack said.
If he'd had half a brain, he might have anticipated the problem inherent in watching a movie with Emma and Claudia. It was most unlike him not to remember the movie; he even remembered bad movies. But from the moment Jack sat down in the theater, with Claudia seated to his left and Emma to his right, the problem--namely, which of them would hold his penis--presented itself. Any thoughts he might have had about the film vanished.
Emma, who was left-handed, put her hand in Jack's lap first; she had no sooner unzipped his fly than Claudia, who was right-handed, made contact with his penis, which Emma already held in her hand. No heads turned; the three of them stared unblinkingly at the screen. Claudia politely withdrew her hand, but no farther than the inside of Jack's left thigh. Emma, in a conciliatory gesture, prodded his penis in Claudia's direction
until the tip touched the back of Claudia's hand. Claudia put her hand back in his lap, holding both his penis and Emma's hand. Watching the film in this fashion gave Jack a two-hour erection.
After the movie, they went out and drank some beer. Jack didn't really like to drink. Emma bought the beer, but either Claudia or Jack could have. No one ever carded Claudia; although she was only nineteen, she looked like an older woman, not a college student. And ever since Jack had seen Yojimbo, no one had carded him. He was nineteen, almost twenty, but he'd adopted Toshiro Mifune's disapproving scowl, and he used a fair amount of gel in his hair. Emma approved of the look, the scowl especially, but Claudia occasionally complained about his shaving only every third day.
It was Toshiro Mifune's indignation that Jack chose to imitate--particularly in the beginning of Yojimbo, when the samurai comes to town and sees the dog trot by with a human hand in its mouth. Jack loved that outraged look Mifune gives the dog.
Emma had too much to drink, and Jack drove her car back to the farmhouse, with Emma and Claudia holding hands and making out in the backseat. "If you were back here, honey pie, we'd make out with you, too," Emma said.
Jack was used to Emma's lawlessness, her willingness to bend the rules, but Claudia's seeming complicity unnerved him. Though Emma was complicated--and she could be difficult--it was Claudia Jack couldn't figure out. Like him, she seemed to be biding her time; she held herself back, she seemed detached, she was always a little hard to read. Or was Claudia merely holding a mirror up to Jack, stymieing him in the same ways he stymied her?
Back at the farmhouse, after Emma had passed out, Claudia helped Jack carry Emma to her bedroom, where they undressed her and put her to bed. Emma was already snoring, but this failed to distract Claudia and Jack; they couldn't help noticing the perfect vagina tattooed on Emma's right hip.
"Exactly what is your relationship with Emma?" Claudia asked.
"I don't really know," Jack replied honestly.
"Boy, I'll say you don't!" Claudia said, laughing.