The Jesus Tattoo.
A revised short story by Robert Cormack.
“Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” 1 John 4:21
Early one October morning, Johnny Whitefish came and dragged his brother, Eddie, out of bed and across the parking lot. Eddie knew he was being taken to the highway. That didn’t mean Eddie wasn’t going to make a scene. He kept kicking Johnny with his free leg, calling him a “sorry son-of-a-bitch.” Johnny’s two young sons were standing outside the store. They were begging their father to let Eddie stay.
“I told you he can’t,” Johnny kept telling them. He was breathing heavily. He tried getting a better grip of Eddie’s coat — a coat he’d just given him — but Eddie kept twisting and turning. “Get in the goddamn truck,” Johnny yelled. He kicked Eddie in the side. It didn’t bother Eddie one bit.
He’d been kicked most of his life.
Eddie was making those stupid faces, showing where most of his teeth were gone.
Hiking up his jeans, Johnny grabbed his brother again. He pulled him over to the passenger door. Eddie was making those stupid faces, showing where most of his teeth on the left side were gone. May, Johnny’s wife, was there at the kitchen window. Eddie waved to her. “So long, May,” he called out. “See you in the spring.”
The boys were still begging Johnny to let Eddie stay.
“How many times I gotta tell you?” Johnny said, pulling his long hair back from his face. “He can’t stay, that’s it. He’ll make out.”
Everyone knew Eddie never got further than the jail in Sudbury. He’d show up again in late April, all beat up, showing off a new tattoo. The latest was supposed to be Jesus. It looked more like a giant birthmark on his cheek.
Who was going to hire him looking like that?
“I don’t need nobody hiring me,” Eddie liked to say. “I got you, big brother.”
That was Eddie’s answer for everything. As long as Johnny ran the marina, Eddie had work. Not that he appreciated it. He was always screwing up or disappearing. The previous afternoon, a couple pulled into the marina. They wanted a boat ride around the bay, taking in the fall colours like people did that time of year.
Most of the boats were already drydocked, but the launch was still running. Eddie could’ve taken the couple out while he made deliveries to the band members living up past the point. Except there was no Eddie. Johnny had to stop what he was doing and start the launch engines himself. By the time they were warmed up, the couple was arguing. Then the woman stormed off back to the car.
“Guess we’re not going,” the guy said. “What do I owe you?”
“I don’t know, five bucks,” Johnny said. “That okay?”
“Sure,” the guy said. “You’ve got to make a living.”
Eddie was there with his feet were up on the counter. He watched his brother take a ten and a five from the cash register.
He gave Johnny a twenty. Johnny went up to the store to make change. Eddie was there with his feet were up on the counter. He watched his brother take a ten and a five from the cash register.
“Five bucks?” Eddie said. “That’s all you’re getting?” He flicked cigarette ashes into his pant cuffs. “You ain’t gonna get rich that way, Big Chief.”
After taking the money out to the couple, Johnny came back and kicked Eddie’s feet off the counter. Then he pushed Eddie to the door.
“You cost me seventy-five bucks, Eddie,” he yelled.
“How do you figure that?” Eddie said.
“Round trip, asshole. That’s what we charge for tours.”
“You’re one dumb Indian, Johnny.”
“You think it’s funny?”
“Sure it’s funny. You lost seventy bucks, not seventy-five. Five from seventy-five is seventy.”
“Get out of here,” Johnny said. “Go scrub the cleaning tables.”
Eddie pulled his ponytail through the loop of his baseball cap.
“Whatever you say, Big Chief,” he said.
”Scrub them down good, Eddie.”
“I can’t. The coons ran off with the brush.”
So he got beaten until even the Jesuits wondered if it was doing any good.
Eddie grinned that same stupid grin, the one that got him beaten by the Jesuits growing up. He and Johnny had been wards of The St. Peter’s Orphanage. Johnny used to tell Eddie to stop grinning, but Eddie couldn’t. So he got beaten until even the Jesuits wondered if it was doing any good.
While Johnny was telling Eddie to wash down the cleaning tables, two band elders were sitting there reading newspapers. Charlie Goose and Burt Sugar sat on the band council. Both men were in their seventies, both wearing council vests, hair cut back to brush cuts. They’d run the marina for years until Johnny and May took it over. Now Burt and Charlie sat around the store most of the time.
Charlie tossed his cigarette in the stove.
“He’s not helping you, Johnny,” he said.
“I know it.”
“You know it, but you don’t do nothing.”
“I’m taking him out to the highway tomorrow.”
“You should’ve done it a month ago.”
That night, Johnny and May were sitting in the kitchen. He was telling her about the couple and losing the fare. “Eddie wouldn’t come down to the dock,” he said.
May listened without interrupting. She was in her early forties, a year older than Johnny. Her hair was still dark, but her eyes were tired, at times almost lifeless.
“I had the fuel line out on that Grew,” he said. “I guess I took too long.”
May put the plates in the sink. The boys were watching television in the living room. There were only three rooms behind the store. Living room, bedroom, kitchen. The boys slept in the living room on cots.
Johnny kept rubbing his big arms.
“He knows he’s going,” he said. “That’s why he’s goofing off.”
“He needs a coat,” May said.
“He’ll just trade it for booze.”
“He still needs one.”
Johnny got up from the table and looked outside. A full moon shone through the pine boughs. Below were drydock racks, most of the boats covered with tarps. Usually, they’d all be out of the water by now, but the crane had broken, and Johnny was still waiting for Bobby Snowfeather to fix it.
Out behind the trees, he could see the shadows of tarpaper shacks. The band council built them for the road crews back in the fifties. Now they sat in various states of disrepair. Johnny kept one as a machine shop. Eddie lived in another.
It sat beyond the outhouse.
Johnny got his jacket and walked back through the scrub pine to Eddie’s shack. He opened the door and turned on the single light bulb. Eddie wasn’t in his bed. The room smelt of old clothes and sweat.
Eddie was sitting on the ground, holding a piece of cloth to his nose.
Johnny was starting back to the store when he heard a cough. It was coming from the machine shed. He went around and found the door open. Eddie was sitting on the ground, holding a piece of cloth to his nose. The Jesus tattoo looked even more misshapen in the moonlight, especially when he looked up and grinned.
Johnny kicked him in the side.
“I said I’d beat you if you did that again,” he said.
The gasoline can was laying on its side.
“Where the key, Eddie?”
“In the lock where it always is, you dumb Indian.”
Eddie laughed and hooked his thumbs in his pockets.
“Got yourself five bucks today, didn’t you, Johnny boy? Ain’t you a high roller? Big Chief’s got himself five bucks.”
“Better than you, Eddie.”
“Nah,” Eddie said. “You’re no better than me, Johnny.”
He got up, adjusted his baseball cap, and stumbled off to his shack.
“I’m coming for you in the morning,” Johnny yelled.
“Go ahead, see if I care,” Eddie replied.
Later that night, Eddie was singing.
“Shut up, Eddie,” Johnny yelled out the bedroom window. May told him to come back to bed. He sat down, rubbing his big arms again. Eddie always sang that song when he wanted to make Johnny feel guilty. It was taught to them back at the orphanage. Eddie sang it the night Johnny learned he could go home. He’d graduated, passing all his tests. Eddie, being two years younger, had to stay.
“I miss you,” Eddie always wrote.
Eddie sent him a few letters. Most of the words were spelt wrong or backwards.
“I miss you,” Eddie always wrote.
He eventually ran away, showing up at the marina where Johnny was working for Charlie and Burt. He was dragging recovered timber from one of the lumbering operations. He remembered Eddie waving from the rocks, saying, “Hey, Johnny. It’s me!” All he was wearing was a ripped t-shirt, jeans and old tennis shoes.
May was still asleep when Johnny woke up the next morning. There was frost on the window. He went downstairs and stood at the kitchen door. Across the inlet, he could see Charlie and Burt cutting wood. Leaves seemed to drop in unison with each axe stroke. Johnny didn’t wave to them. He walked across the crackling lichen to Eddie’s shack, his old coat under his arm.
May had fixed the buttons and stitched the lining.
“Wake up, Eddie,” he said at the door.
He came in and kicked Eddie’s foot.
Eddie rolled slightly, opening one eye.
“Go away,” he mumbled.
“I’m taking you out to the highway.”
Eddie rubbed his face and sat up.
“What’s with the coat?” he said.
“It’s my old one. May fixed the buttons.”
“You’re giving me a coat?”
“Take me out tomorrow,” he said, curling up, hands between his knees.
Eddie put the coat around his shoulders and laid back down. “Take me out tomorrow,” he said, curling up, hands between his knees.
“You’re going now, Eddie.”
Johnny grabbed Eddie’s leg. Eddie tried to kick him.
“I said, get up, Eddie.”
“Piss off, dumb Indian.”
Johnny tried grabbing him again. Eddie ripped off one of Johnny’s buttons.
“Got your button,” Eddie grinned.
Johnny climbed on top of him, pinning Eddie with his heavy knees. It didn’t take much. There was nothing to Eddie, no real strength. He pulled Eddie by the scruff of the neck outside and down to the parking lot. May was standing at the kitchen window with her arms crossed. Eddie wrenched free and lay there with his hands behind his head.
Both men were breathing heavily.
“What are you going to do now, Big Chief?” Eddie grinned.
“Get up, Eddie.”
“Why? I’m happy right here.”
Johnny dragged him to the pickup by his collar. He opened the door, pushing Eddie inside. ”Stay there until I get your stuff,” he said. He went back to the shack, threw Eddie’s things in a duffle bag, grabbed his coat, then brought everything to the truck.
Eddie was leaning out the window.
“See you soon,” he yelled to Johnny’s boys.
Johnny threw Eddie’s bag in the back and started the engine. His boys kept telling Eddie they didn’t want him to go.
“Not up to me,” Eddie called back. “Talk to your stupid father.”
They passed tarpaper shacks, the peeling church, the old rusting cars without any windows.
Revving the engine, Johnny pulled out, gravel kicking up, driving to the main road. They passed tarpaper shacks, the peeling church, the old rusting cars without any windows. Eddie nodded off. He woke up when Johnny hit the highway.
Eddie yawned and stretched, then opened the door.
“So long, Johnny,” he said.
Johnny threw him the coat.
“I better not see that on someone in Powassan,” he said.
“Who says I’m going to Powassan?” Eddie grinned.
He got his duffle bag out of the back.
“I might just stay here by the road,” Eddie said.
“You’ll freeze your ass off,” Johnny said.
“No I won’t. I got a coat. I still got your button, too.”
“Shut the door, Eddie.”
“Do it yourself, dumb Indian.”
Eventually, he’d find the thirty dollars May put in the coat pocket. Or maybe he wouldn’t. It was just like Eddie to sell his coat for ten bucks without checking.
Johnny leaned over and yanked the passenger door closed. Driving off, he could see Eddie in the rearview mirror, lying on his back, using his duffle bag for a pillow. He’d stay there until he got hungry, then head up to Powassan. Nobody would give him anything there. Eventually, he’d find the thirty dollars May put in the coat pocket. Or maybe he wouldn’t. It was just like Eddie to sell his coat for ten bucks without checking.
Looking back one last time, Johnny saw a truck coming around the bend, slowing down. Eddie could’ve gotten a ride. Instead, he just lay there, baseball cap pulled down over his eyes.
Johnny drove back to the marina. He knew what to expect. The kids would mope, May would stay quiet. He couldn’t worry about that. He had more important things on his mind. He had to start dividing up the store stock, some going to Burt and Charlie, the rest hopefully feeding his family for the winter. Maybe he’d find road work or shoot a few deer. It’d help, but they’d still barely make it through. Eddie knew that. It didn’t stop him from making a scene. Well, it was done, anyway. Hopefully, he’d be back in the spring.
Robert Cormack is a satirist, novelist, and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. Check out other stories and articles by Robert Cormack at robertcormack.net
