“I should have died right there,” the old man rasped. “Dragons be damned.”
by Teresa Milbrodt
THE TATTOO ARTIST had one arm, but he’d spent months choreographing the perfect system with his assistant, and years honing the process. He drew the designs on clients’ arms and legs and backs as his assistant held the template in place, then he stretched the skin tight and his assistant switched on the tattooing machine. As the tattoo artist worked the needle with a masterful hand, his assistant sponged away ink and blood. They never got in each others’ way, using nods and eyebrow twitches to communicate over the whir of the machinery.
He was widely regarded as the best inker in the state, and his customers said the precision of ten tattoo artists was concentrated in his one arm. The tattoo artist smiled and didn’t comment.
Half of his body was tattooed, the lower half, since he’d practiced on himself while training for the profession. His tattoos were mostly hidden, except when he went swimming and did the backstroke. He swam a lot — every morning before work — and lifted weights to keep his arm in shape. In high school everyone said he could have been an athlete, even a track star with his fantastic gait and powerful shotput-hurling abilities, but art had always been his first love. Especially art on people.
There was no more fabulous canvas than skin. His works lived as long as his subjects, sweetly intimate and temporary, which he thought made them even more precious.
The old man had a shoe repair shop two doors down from the tattoo parlor. He was a cobbler by trade, had started his career in Germany and brought it to the states when he immigrated. To his dismay he was no longer asked to make many pairs of shoes, and mostly repaired them while lamenting how no one took pride in their work.
He was becoming arthritic, and often hobbled to the tattoo shop to drink coffee and wish aloud for elves to help him. The old man liked the tattoo artist and his inked and pierced customers, and enjoyed showing off his own decades-old tattoos, especially the eagle on his bicep. Its wings were slowing drooping, like it was getting ready to land on an invisible branch beside the old man’s shoulder. The tattoo parlor customers respected the cobbler with a nod. He was coarse and crusty and could cuss them out in English or German.
The cobbler reminded the tattoo artist of his father, and figured they had been cut from the same crotchety and indignant cloth. The tattoo artist’s father had repaired old guns and bore several tattoos himself, so he was supportive of his tattoo artist son. The tattoo artist’s mother had smiled and squirmed slightly.
It was late in the evening, almost time for the tattoo parlor to close, when the cobbler told the tattoo artist that he was going to make shoes for the President. If the shoes were of high enough quality, they might be put in a museum. He wanted the tattoo artist to design the soles with pictures of dragons on them.
“The President will trod on dragons with every step,” said the cobbler. “He will defeat them like Saint George. Your dragon pictures are far better than mine, and these shoes must be perfect.”
The tattoo artist nodded, half-listening as he sterilized his equipment. He was certain this was just another of the old man’s odd fantasies, like the time he wanted to make the largest pair of shoes in the world, or the time he wanted to make slippers for the entire New York Ballet company. But the following week, the old man invited the tattoo artist to his shop to view the progress on the President’s shoes. He introduced the tattoo artist to his collection of tools — the worn hammers and pliers and awls he had used for years. He’d already cut out pieces of black leather and the shoe’s inner lining, sewn them together at the top, and fit them around the wooden last he used to form shoes.
“Almost done,” he said with a nod. “But I still need to do the final shaping and sewing and attach the soles. You’d better start dreaming of dragons.”
The next day the cobbler was sitting in the tattoo artist’s shop, drinking coffee and complaining about the inferior quality of shoes he was asked to repair, when his face paled.
“I feel peculiar,” he said, rising to his feet, but his legs weren’t strong enough to support the old man. Like a piece of leather he folded delicately to the floor. The tattoo artist rode with him to the hospital in an ambulance, holding the old man’s chill hand while the EMT’s took vital signs and said he’d likely had a stroke.
The cobbler and the tattoo artist both lived alone and didn’t have family nearby, so the younger man knew the older one wouldn’t have many visitors. The stroke had struck him mute and his arms motionless. As he sat by the old man’s bed, the tattoo artist worried how much of his friend would return to his body. He went to the hospital every day for two weeks, monitoring the cobbler’s recovery and telling funny stories about tattoos people wanted. He held his breath as the old man tried to exercise his voice and arms.
The cobbler’s rasp returned slowly, along with movement in his left hand. But the right hand remained limp.
“Dead to the world,” sneered the old man. “This means you will need to do more than fashion the soles for the President’s shoes. You must help me finish them.”
He said this reasonably and simply, like it would be the easiest thing in the world. The tattoo artist nodded and swallowed hard. They were both men who worked with needles, but he’d never thought he could sew.
“You’re like me,” said the old cobbler, noting the stretch of worry in the tattoo artist’s face. “Precise. Your hand can do delicate things, and I need an extra arm.”
He nodded once, sharp and hard. It was decided. A week later the old man was back in the tattoo artist’s shop where he sat in a corner drinking coffee and bantering with patrons. The tattoo artist wanted to keep an eye on him. He thought the cobbler should slow down, not rush to finish the President’s shoes, but the old man had other ideas.
They had to hammer and glue and nail together after the tattoo parlor had closed. The old man’s body was weak but his mind had birthed a new urgency as he instructed the tattoo artist in how to hold the hammer, awl, and nails.
“We must work faster, or we’ll never finish,” he yelled at the tattoo artist, reminding the younger man of his own father. While others might have wanted to strangle the cobbler, the tattoo artist kept working. The cobbler held the awl while he pounded the hammer. He applied glue and held nails while the old man tapped them in place. He took the nails out when the glue had dried and the leather had been properly stretched and relaxed. The tattoo artist held the needle while the old man threaded it, and helped sew when the old man’s arm became too tired.
Shoes were not his only challenge. It was hard for the old man to chew, so the tattoo artist made split pea soup and pureed it so the old man could sip his meals through a straw. The blender became his best friend as he concocted smoothies with fruit and yogurt, pureed pasta and tomato sauce, and tossed in ham and potatoes with enough milk to liquify them. It was important to give the old man good food so he’d keep his strength up.
Between sips, the cobbler rasped stories about shoes he’d made over the years. Twice he fell asleep while the tattoo artist was working.
The cobbler called the tattoo artist “my little elf” with no small amount of affection, but he refused to take his medicines, saying they made him tired and muddled his senses. He had to stay sharp. The tattoo artist was sure the strain of crafting perfect shoes would kill the cobbler. The old man was not happy when the tattoo artist dragged him back to the hospital, complaining all the way that this was unnecessary. A new doctor gave the cobbler a lecture on the importance of taking his medications and wrote another prescription to calm the old man’s nerves.
The visit had the opposite effect. As the doctor droned on, the cobbler glared at the tattoo artist like he was a traitor. The old man’s thoughts were clear — this was a personal war against time and his body, and he was losing. He had to work fast and hard. He needed help.
When they left the hospital, the doctor whispered to the tattoo artist that if the old man still refused to take his medications, he should be readmitted to the hospital where they could give him drugs intravenously. The tattoo artist said he would keep that in mind.
He drove the old man home, then closed his shop and the cobbler’s shop for a week so they could finish the project. The tattoo artist dreamed of shoes, terrified he wouldn’t meet the old man’s standards. He woke sweating after nightmares of shoes turning to tatters in his hands and the cobbler swearing in German.
The body was a wonderful and a terrible thing, one that gave people the ultimate joy and the most profound grief. Such was the case with the cobbler’s beautiful, gnarled, work-blessed hands. Such was the case with the tattoo artist’s own fingers that he knew would some day look much like the cobbler’s, tired and proud and demanding to fight to the last.
The tattoo artist’s deepest fear was being unable to work his craft. He had seen his father, stifled by arthritis, pining for guns as he watched antique shows on TV. He teared at the sight of a rifle, his fingers bending slightly as he tried to reach inside the screen and stroke the barrel. The tattoo artist knew he should have opened his father’s gun case and laid rifles on his lap, helped the old man’s trembling hands feel the smooth contours of wood and metal.
Instead he’d changed the channel and said, “Dad, let’s watch something else.”
He’d wanted his father to forget guns, forget disability, but now he realized that wasn’t possible. There was no drug to prevent heartache.
The tattoo artist cut out rubber soling on the old man’s band saw, smoothed it on his belt sander, and etched dragons with hand-routing tools. Inch by inch he formed their heads, snarling grins and sharp teeth that the President would defeat with every step. On the day he epoxied the soles to the finished shoes, the tattoo artist slept well for the first time in weeks.
The next morning the cobbler announced they were going to Washington D.C. to hand-deliver the shoes. He’d already ordered bus tickets from Toledo to the capital, a red-eye trip. The tattoo artist had lost the ability to question his friend, accepting this was a sacred mission. He packed a duffel bag for them each and that afternoon they were off. The bus was crowded and the old man coughed and wheezed and told loud stories the whole way. The tattoo artist knew elderly people could be as obnoxious as crying children, oblivious to the world around them, so he was glad most bus passengers had headphones.
He prayed for the old man to live until he could see the White House. Even if he died on the lawn in front of that mansion, the dream would be complete. Along with their duffel bags the tattoo artist had brought the old man’s rented wheelchair that he claimed not to need, but he relented when they reached the city in the bleary-eyed morning. The tattoo artist steered with his right hand while the old man rolled a wheel with left-handed vigor.
“These shoes are my masterpiece,” he crowed as they boarded the Metro, the box on his lap. Other passengers offered the tattoo artist sympathetic smiles.
“My masterpiece,” the old man said again as they stood in front of the White House, staring at the immensity of a vision almost realized. The tattoo artist wasn’t sure what to do next. Hand the box to a Secret Service agent and promise it wasn’t a bomb? But the old man had his own plans — he wanted an audience with the President, and he wouldn’t be stopped. At least not by the tattoo artist. The security guards in the lobby of the White House were an exception.
“This is my last wish,” rasped the old man. “If you don’t let me see the President, I’m going to die right here.”
The tattoo artist believed the old man had the power to do just that, but the guards were not convinced. They took the box gently from the old man’s good hand, and promised they would give the shoes to the President.
As the tattoo artist expected, the cobbler had a fit.
“I took all your tests and learned the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem and become a citizen and voted for the President,” he yelled. “I’m damn well going to see him and give him shoes.”
He swore a rainbow of German profanity as tourists lining up for White House tours gave sideways glances to the spectacle. The guards said seeing the President wasn’t possible. They promised again that they would give the shoes to the President, and let him know the old cobbler sent his kindest regards.
The tattoo artist wasn’t sure he could believe their vows, but under the circumstances he thought the guards were kind for not calling for backup security.
“I know more about the Revolutionary War than you do,” the old man hollered.
“Probably so, sir,” said the guard.
The tattoo artist’s mind clouded with a list of things he should do. Yell to passers-by and plead for sympathy. Run with the old man’s wheelchair down the halls of the White House and pray for a chance Presidential meeting. Plead with the guards to strip-search the old guy, if that’s what they needed to do, so he could give the shoes to the President himself. The battle was almost won, and maybe both of them would have to die trying to complete the mission…
“We really should leave,” the tattoo artist said quietly. He was being practical. He wanted to kick himself.
“I demand we buy a tent,” said the old cobbler. “We’ll camp out here until I get to see the President and give him the shoes.”
But while the cobbler’s determination was strong, his face and body were straining.
As the tattoo artist maneuvered his wheelchair away from the White House, the old man shook his head and grabbed the left wheel, turning it with angry zest. The tattoo artist assumed he’d decided he wasn’t going to die just yet.
He was going to live out of spite and curse everyone and everything he saw.
The bus ride home was not pleasant, even after the old man went hoarse.
“He’ll probably get the shoes,” said the tattoo artist when they stopped at a fast-food restaurant for milkshakes, but his voice lacked conviction.
“I should have died right there,” the old man rasped. “Dragons be damned.”
A week later the cobbler had again taken up residence in the tattoo parlor, drinking soup and coffee and offering praises and curses to customers who smiled at him bemusedly. The tattoo artist’s assistant found the picture on the third page of the newspaper, a photo from some meeting between the President and another head of state. The President had lifted one shoe to the camera, grinning as he revealed the dragon on the sole.
“Ten percent of the colonists at the time of the Revolutionary War spoke German,” the cobbler rasped. “There was a whole German regiment that formed in Maryland to fight the British. I bet those White House guards didn’t know that.”
Three days later, the tattoo artist once again closed his shop until further notice and stationed himself in the old man’s apartment. Waiting. He was there when the card arrived, tucked in a small white envelope. The card had a gold eagle embossed on the front, and a kind thank-you note handwritten inside. The tattoo artist read the words aloud to the old man, who fingered the eagle and blinked twice. By then his voice had left his body for good, but the fingers of his left hand curled gently around air, as if trying to grasp an awl or a sword.
Want our stories in your inbox? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter
Teresa Milbrodt is the author of the short story collection Bearded Women: Stories, the novel The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, and the flash fiction collection, Larissa’s Guide to Trying to Be a Good Person in the World. Milbrodt’s stories have appeared in literary journals like PANK and Guernica, and several have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. You can read more of her work on her website.