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I try to tune them out and glance over at Callan instead.
He has his sketchbook out, balanced on his leg while he idly sketches something. His brow is furrowed, but he looks the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him.
I don’t know what makes me open my mouth and try to talk to him, but before I can think of anything better to do, I’m saying, “You do that a lot. The drawing. Are you coming up with tattoo designs?”
He glances at me and then back down at his work. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s a good way to pass the time.”
I nod, surprised he’s even talking back. “I bet. Do designs just come to you or do you have to work to figure out how you want a piece to look?”
He taps his pencil against the paper. “It depends. Sometimes I’ll have an idea that’s pretty barebones. Like ‘bird carrying a sprig from a fruit tree’ because it sounds like it would look nice aesthetically. But then I have to think about the kind of bird and if I want to go for symbolism or just a bird that looks cool. Same thing with the fruit sprig. Then that gets into colors because fruits are vibrant, but it might also have to look good in black and white.”
That’s definitely the most he’s said to me since I met him, and it’s kind of cute that he gets talkative when it comes to this because it’s something he loves.
“That’s really interesting,” I say genuinely. “I know some people who just go into a shop and pick some art off the wall to get tattooed. Which is fine if that’s what you want to do.”
Callan shrugs. “It works for some people. And a good artist can make even the most basic flash piece unique for their client.”
“How do you mean?”
“Say the client already has tattoos. A good artist can work that flash piece in with their existing art. The client chooses a basic anchor tattoo for their arm, where they already have vines and flowers tattooed. The artist can work the anchor in with the vines to look like it was always supposed to be a part of the piece.”
As he talks, I can picture it in my head.
It sounds beautiful, and I can see how a skilled artist could make something so generic into something unique on a client’s body.
“That sounds amazing, actually,” I say, a little smile on my face. “Do you do a lot of that? Working flash into other tattoos?”
Callan shrugs. “When a client wants me to. I like to design my own stuff more. A lot of the tattoos I have are ones I designed myself. Some of them I even did on myself.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Yeah, a little. But that’s not the point. The pain part is temporary. The art is permanent. Whenever I have something on my mind that I can’t get out, or I need to work through some bullshit, I just get to work tattooing myself. It helps.”
I try to picture that, and it’s a funny image. A man of Callan’s size, bent over with one leg hiked up, working a tattoo gun over his exposed skin. He must have incredibly steady hands to be able to do that to himself. Right now, he’s mostly covered up, since it’s been so cold, but the glimpses I’ve gotten of his tattoos were all of well-done ones that looked good on his body.
And now I really need to stop thinking about his body.
“Is it easier to tattoo yourself?” I ask him. “Like, since you know your own anatomy and everything?”
He actually thinks about that for a few beats. “Not really. With someone else, I have the whole picture of them in front of me, right? I can see where they want their tattoo, where they have other ones, and I can test how the art is going to move with them.”
“What does that mean?”
“Tattoos aren’t like art on a wall. You buy a painting or whatever, you figure out where it needs to go in your living room, you hang it up, and you’re done. But the body isn’t a living room.”
I look at him, waiting for the part where he explains that because yeah, obviously the body isn’t a living room.
He looks back at me and then sighs a little. He digs in his bag for a second and pulls out a marker, then he reaches over and grabs my arm. I startle, surprised he’s touching me, but I don’t stop him when he shoves my sleeve up and uncaps the marker.
“Your arm is a living thing,” he says. “It moves, it has a shape of its own. It’s not flat like a wall. If I were to put something here,” he starts drawing in long, clean lines, following the stretch of my forearm and the bend of my elbow, “it wouldn’t be static. It would move with you.”
I swallow hard, glancing down at where his fingers are wrapped around my arm. “You have to account for that?”
“Of course. Some people get tattoos that look one way when their arm or leg is bent and then look different when it’s straight. Like wings of a moth or a beetle spread out. You can play with the way the body moves and turn that into part of the design. That makes it more unique.”
Callan talks so confidently about tattooing, and it’s interesting to listen to. His voice is low and smooth, and all I really want right now is for him to keep talking to me.
His marker keeps drawing over my skin, filling my arm with a sort of makeshift sleeve of designs. Flowers and butterflies, the hint of feathers somewhere near the ditch of my elbow.
