If
he had memory at all it might have been possible to attribute to the urge a
genesis in his recurring sense of there being a discernible pattern in the
beads of blood arising from his self-inflicted scratches, and the concomitant
hope that its deciphering would somehow furnish him with the pass key to grant
him exit from bedlam.
But
with each such unremembered, the urge remains in only mutant state so that in
his few moments of sobriety he considered this a solution, that some manner of
tattoo might mask or make abstract that damage he felt for the moment at least
unable to refrain from visiting upon himself.
Even
intoxicated he discarded as too obvious the impulsive predilection for her face
or name, deciding instead upon a text, the words uttered in circumstances not
so dissimilar from his own: “Between
grief and nothing I will take grief.”*
The
eventual telephone call to the tattooist he made in the morning, in that brief
respite between his remembering and the inebriate loss of all facility to have
himself be understood.
Skunk:
I wonder if you could help me out, I’m… I’m wondering ehm, I really don’t know
anything about tattooing, how it works,
cog:
Uh-huh.
Skunk:
Does each individual ink come with a separate needle, or is it, is it just one
needle with…
cog:
The… outline is done with a completely different needle
Skunk:
Right.
cog:
because you need that crisper, sharper line
Skunk:
Okay.
cog:
but when it comes to the shading ehm, obviously depending on the piece ehm,
because you can use a number, a number of different needles eh, to do
the different thicknesses, you know, the way you actually want to do the piece,
but ehm for some stuff you can actually use the same needle, ehm, obviously,
only on that person
laughing
Skunk:
What
cog:
and ehm
Skunk:
What, the, wh- I mean a ta- a tattoo doesn’t actually leave a scar on the
surface of the skin, is that right?
cog:
Ehm, well it shouldn’t do if you do it right.
laughing.
Skunk:
Okay
laughing
himself
Skunk:
okay. Is it, is it possible to do that? I mean this is the thing, this is the
kind of
cog:
You can scar the skin, yeah.
Skunk:
Right.
cog:
Ehm because you can do what you call dry tattooing which means that
basically you can tattoo with no ink
Skunk:
Right.
cog:
so it’s like a form of scarification.
Skunk:
Okay.
cog:
Ehm, failing that, there are other ways. Ehm it’s not tattooing as mu-
such but it is actually scarification is where you’ve got an image on the skin
and you get a scalpel and you basically cut away the parts of the skin that you
want to scar to give the effect of the picture.
Skunk:
Okay.
cog:
Ehm, we don’t do that, thank God, but
laughing.
Skunk:
But that that is actually, that can be done?
cog:
Yeah yeah scarification, yeah can be done. And also you’ve got branding
Skunk:
Right.
cog:
as well, which obviously you get your design heated up to a stupid
temperature and then just burn it right onto the skin.
Skunk:
Okay. What eh, I know tatttooing can be quite a fine… you can put quite a fine
design on the piece. With these other ways, with with tattooing without ink
cog:
Yeah.
Skunk:
how how fine a detail can you do in
cog
(sighs): I think, it all depends on the person’s skin, to be honest, ehm,
because you can keep on going over… eh the design until it… without the ink
until it scars into such a way ehm, but it all depends on the person.
Skunk:
Right.
cog:
Ehm, if you just hold on two secs.
covering
the telephone’s mouthpiece to engage in barely audible discsussion with an
associate.
cog:
Hiya, sorry about that.
Skunk:
That’s okay.
cog:
Basically for, you wouldn’t have as much detail as you would with, obviously,
just normal tattooing ehm… You would probably have, obviously it all, again it
depends on the person and the skin but you would ha- ehm, the thinnest line for
it to show properly would be probably a two mil line
Skunk:
Right.
cog:
you know which, you know can be pretty thick.
Skunk:
Okay. But if you were doing something like uh script or something that would be
absolutely fine.
cog:
Yeah yeah you should be fine, yeah you should be fine with that. Ehm, obviously,
you know you, you want a scar so you want to break the skin ehm, and you just
laughing
cog:
you just fire on without anything really.
Skunk:
Okay.
cog:
Ehm. If, if it’s something like that, maybe you want to go down the lines of
the traditional tattooing? Ehm, which is like your tapstick which’ll be eh, you
know, your fine needles and your tap, hammered, tapped into the skin, like your
old like aboriginal and Maori and stuff like that.
Skunk:
Okay.
cog:
Ehm. I should stress at this point that ehm obviously, for any of these
procedures, we would need twenty-four hours notice, and obviously we cannot
tattoo anybody who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
laughing.
Pause.
Skunk:
That’s great. But as, as long as I know it can be done, I mean that’s the main
thing.
cog:
Oh yeah yeah. Oh yeah it can be done.
Skunk:
That’s excellent.
cog:
It can be done.
laughing.
*being
the rejection of suicide accorded the character Harry Wilbourne in the novel
“If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem” by his creator, William Faulkner.
Understanding such an exit would serve only to negate them both, he chose to
sacrifice whatever relief might be found in death and remain alive, that in so
doing he could maintain and preserve his memories of the beloved.
