Someday. David Levithan
up on the counters. But the rest of the office is covered by photographs of tattoos, each one so detailed that it looks like an illuminated manuscript has been taken from its spine and splayed across the walls. It’s a transcription of creatures we’ve never seen but still imagine or fear, kaleidoscopic castles and canyons brought to the size of a human heart. All on the same landscape of skin, though each body has its own tint, its own surface and shape.
I have always thought of the body as something that is written from the inside. I don’t need Rhiannon’s name on my skin, because it is already indelible in my thoughts. But looking at Heller’s conjurings, I suddenly understand the desire for such visible permanence, such open reminding. I, who have no body, can be sure that I take my life with me wherever I go, because it’s all I have. But I see that if you only have one body, there is an intimation to memorialize your life upon that body, to take something that could be decoration and turn it into commemoration, to choose something that’s beneath and let it rise to the top so it can become part of the way you are first seen.
The scary part, I think, is not the pain but the permanence. Heller operates beyond erasers, beyond delete keys. His art will only last as long as a life . . . but it will last as long as a life.
I want to fake sickness. I want to plead faintness. I want to back off, far away. I should not be inside a body when something irreversible is done to it.
But I can tell that Manny isn’t going to let me off the hook. Heller is handing him a piece of paper and Manny’s showing it to me—a dragon with wings unfurled, the serpentine grace of Ric’s tattoo with the added element of flight. It is not meant to be an icon or a symbol—no, it is meant to live and breathe on Manny’s skin, to be his own dragon spirit manifest, to captivate and compel in ways that a simple human form cannot.
“Now you,” Heller says. Instead of giving me a single piece of paper, he gives me three.
The first is a phoenix transcending the flames underneath it, clear-eyed and calm as it transforms.
The second is a kraken, its arms clovered into a web, its eyes darker and more distant than those of the phoenix, as if it knows its own majesty and doesn’t want the spell to break.
The third is a tree, its trunk as solid as time and its leaves as fleeting as time. It would not stand out in a forest of its peers, but on its own it possesses a simple magnificence, the consciousness of a creature that feeds on light.
So . . . phoenix, kraken, tree. Fire, water, earth. Each demonstrating its own artistry, each as real in its own logic as a vision is to an eye.
“So the moment of truth has arrived,” Manny says. “At long last, after all these years of us talking about it—what’s it going to be?”
This is an important decision. Marco should have some memory stored away of which choice he was planning to make. It should be something I’m able to find.
I focus. Even though I know it means a noticeable lapse inward, I look. I ask. But there isn’t any answer. Maybe when Marco went to sleep last night, he still hadn’t made up his mind.
But now’s the time for the answer. Whether he’s here or not.
Manny sees me wavering and gets instantly distressed. “This is it, man,” he says. “Don’t skip out on me now. They’re all amazing choices. Which is it going to be?”
The phoenix calls to me. It looks me in the eye and knows who I am. It knows that we each can be more than just one thing. It knows that we live in a perpetual state of beginning and a perpetual state of ending. I would wear that on my skin, were I ever given skin of my own. I would let it send its wordless message to everyone I meet, as a way for them to get to know me a little more, to understand my flight path a little better.
That is my choice.
But it’s my choice, not Marco’s.
“I’m right here with you,” Manny says. “Believe me, I wouldn’t let your dumbass self do anything you’d regret.”
There is an out here. There are words I can say that would lead to me leaving, would lead to us both getting away from Heller without any ink being led to the needle.
But there’s another factor. I see it in Manny’s eyes. I hear it in his voice. I sense it in all the history that Marco is sharing with me. If I leave now, Manny will never forget it. There will always be this moment and all that was leading up to it . . . then the disappointment when it fell apart. Will Manny forgive Marco if I make us leave? For sure. But will it be worse instead of better between them, and is Manny the most important person in Marco’s life? Yes. And yes.
So I don’t say the words I should probably say. I ignore the escape route.
“I can go first if you want more time,” Manny offers.
“No,” I say. “I’ve got it.”
Phoenix, kraken, or tree?
Fire, water, or earth?
Who are you, Marco?
Which are you?
I don’t know.
Then I realize I don’t have to be the one to decide. I don’t know Marco well, but there’s someone else in the room who does.
“You choose,” I tell Manny. “You know me best.”
Manny is not expecting this at all. “Are you sure? Really?”
“Really.”
“You like all of them?”
“I do. But which is the most like me?”
For all of his surprise, Manny doesn’t hesitate. He points right at the tree.
“No question,” he says.
If he’d picked either the phoenix or the kraken, I might have worried he was only doing it to match his dragon. But because he picks the tree, I know it must be true.
“There’s your answer,” I tell Heller.
“Alrighty, then. Take a seat and we’ll get things started.”
I get into the dentist’s chair as Heller calls out to Megan, his girlfriend/assistant. They run a tight ship, and explain everything to me as they go—how they’re sterilizing the instruments in the autoclave, how they’re going to need to shave and clean my arm before sketching onto it.
“He’s really afraid of needles,” Manny volunteers. “So be careful—he’ll probably flinch.”
Usually I’d try to act true to Marco’s personality. But I decide Marco’s going to be braver than usual today, and not so afraid of needles.
After everything is clean and ready, Heller draws the tree on me, outlining all the paths the needle and ink will take. It’s a weird sensation, to have him sketching on my skin—but it’s even weirder when the needle leaves the first drop of color underneath. The pain is like a sharp burn. I expected it to be a more liquid feeling, but instead it stings.
“How are you doing?” Heller asks.
“Fine!” I say, trying to sound cheery.
But Manny sees my body tense. He sees me squeezing my eyes shut and opening them.
“It’s going to be so cool,” he tells me. “You’re going to love it.”
I think it will get easier, but the pain is consistent, the skin having something to say each time it’s interrupted. I of all people should be able to step away from the body, to vacate myself in thought. But the presence of the pain means I can’t be anywhere but present. I wonder whether this pain is now mine, or whether it’s actually Marco’s. Does the body remember pain, or is it only the mind? I am doing something human beings want to do all the time for the people they love—experience the pain on their behalf. But I am doing it for a stranger, someone who will never know it, and thus will never