11.05 Tats
The bus pulls up to the gate of the jail. When it opens we rumble on through, veering sharply to the left and passing a pathetic little ornamental garden with savagely cropped pines. The bus stops before a large garage door, weathered and rusting. A faded sign reminds the driver to turn off the engine.
As soon as the engine is cut, the garage door rises, groaning and complaining all the way up.
A guard standing behind the driver draws the curtain between the two of them and the rest of us, closing the only peephole to the outside world we have had during the journey.
The engine is starts up and we move forward into a darkened area, where the engine is cut again. As the shutter closes behind us, the bus darkens, hope dims.
A few moments later, the shutter in front of the bus opens. The driver turns the ignition. The engine sputters irritably, a shudder moves through the bus, and we begin to edge forward.
When the bus has come to a stop, the door is opened and the prisoners start to waddle out with their guards following close behind.
The guards corral the eight of us into a small room, where an old carpet is rolled out onto the concrete floor. One by one the handcuffs are removed.
The others know the routine from here: they step out of their rubber slippers and onto the carpet where they begin stripping down to their birthday suits.
The man standing butt-naked next to me has a tattoo of the bodhisattva (guânyîn) Kannon, Goddess of Mercy covering the whole of his back. Only a moment earlier, he was wearing a simple gray Asics track suit and sneakers, dressed like a typical middle-aged family man would be on his day off. Now he’s glaring at the young guard before him, hands tightened in a white fist, ready to show no mercy if provoked into a fight.
Another man near me has a giant indigo carp being wrestled from the waves by a blood red demon. The massive tattoo covers every inch of skin from his breast, up and over his shoulders, down his back and over his arse to his thighs.
He drops his boxer shorts and I can see that he has been naughty with his genitalia.
Of the eight men who hobbled out of the bus and into that room, only the skin of broken-down old man and myself is not suitably illustrated. Standing next to these illustrated men, their bodies covered with an armor of ink, I can’t help but feel utterly naked, like Adam clutching a handful of fig leaves.
© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.
注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No. 6 is now available on Kindle.
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Aonghas Crowe
No.6 