Con (3)
3.
For con work I use pre-fab stencils: swords, unicorns, superheroes, flowers, dragons. They’re small, super easy work. Most of them I can get done in below thirty minutes. I charge sixty dollars a pop. That’s a lot of con money. Every once in a while Mandy makes a noise about raising prices, but she doesn’t really mean it. We’d be stupid to price ourselves out of the venue. Besides, ten hours of steadily streaming work at 120 an hour times four days in the booth…
Do the math. It’s not just a job, it’s a living.
When I started as an apprentice at Tattoo Tank in Twin Falls I was basically living on the streets, and that with a night shift at McDonald’s. Back then I did more grunt work than ink work. Someone had to keep the Tank sterile, and that someone was me with a Costco-brand-size bottle of bleach. The autoclave was my best friend. But I learned a fuck ton in the meantime. Don, the Tank’s head artist, gave me a Moleskin sketchbook and a set of Fineline pens for my seventeenth birthday, and told me the best tattooists are always doodling.
I still have that original Moleskin, plus the sixteen others I’ve filled since. I still use Finelines when I doodle. I’ve got my own studio: Earnest Ink. Mandy bleaches the floor and counters, but the autoclave will always be my best friend.
We start packing the booth twenty minutes before hall close. Everything has to be wiped down, and my equipment stored away in lockboxes on wheels for the trip back to Earnest. I shove the binders full of stencils into a bin under the client chair. Once everyone’s out con security will lock the hall for the night. I’ve had binders stolen before, but it feels stupid to lock them up. Most of the stencils aren’t original anyway; they’re clip art pulled off the web.
Mandy’s bleaching the client chair and I’m counting the take when Grace shows. She’s not in cosplay anymore; she’s traded Deadpool for a black wife-beater, a pink tutu, rainbow tights and tap shoes. She’s ready to dance. My feet hurt just thinking about it.
“Hi, Mandy,” she says, squeezing against the outside of our booth to let a guy wheeling a stack of comic crates past. “You coming tonight?”
“No.” I give Grace the stink-eye. Mandy’s started back up again at BMCC – third time’s a charm – and she needs to not be out all hours of the night when she should be doing course work. “Mandy’s hitting the books.”
“Fuck that.” Grace plucks at the black curtains around the base of our table. “It’s Friday.”
“Fuck you,” I retort sweetly. “Mandy and I’ve got a deal.”
“Mandy’s got a date,” my business manager says, giving us both a bright smile. “Nice boy I met at my uncle’s wedding this summer finally called. We had coffee. We hit it off. Tonight we’re going for a movie.”
Before I could protest she wags the canister of disinfecting wipes in my direction. “Don’t whine, Hem. It’s handled. I’m on top of it.”
She’s said it a million times before, and dropped community college twice, but this time I think she means it. She’d better. Because this time I’m paying her fees.
“Don’t wait up,” she tells me. “He’s cute and he’s sweet and I may end up at his place tonight.”
“Score.” To Grace’s credit, she looks genuinely enthused. “Text me later. I want to hear everything.”
“I don’t.” I groan, and stretch, and grab my sweater from under the table, pull it over my head. Grace and Mandy both roll their eyes at the garish Union Jack splashed across the front, but I don’t care. The sweater’s soft, and warm. I found it in a vintage upscale not far from Grace’s dad’s gallery, and it still smells faintly of someone else’s cologne.
“God,” Grace says. “Let’s hope the rain has kept the paps away. You just can’t do Jagger, Hemingway. You’re too…not.”
“Be nice.” Mandy’s finished swabbing. She grabs her purse and an equipment lockbox, ready to make a break for it. “At least he’s wearing decent shoes.” Which is a joke, because I’m wearing my usual sandals, which is very much not on, especially in the rain. “Night, kids. Stay out of trouble.”
We both watch her leave the hall. Grace makes a little sound of regret.
“Jesus, she’s got thighs like pistons. Fucking gorgeous. Are you sure she’s not – ”
“Not,” I say, grabbing up my own bag. “Definitely not.”
“Because I heard she used to hang out a lot at Gomer‘s, and everyone knows –
“Straight,” I interrupt, before Grace can wander into the world of queer dining clichés. “She’s definitely straight. Likes cock. Don’t pout, darling. Ready?”
“Always.” Mercurial Grace switches from glum to jazzed in a heartbeat. She switches up her moods like I switch up my sweaters: as often as possible.
Life’s too short for tedium.
I leave the booth, she takes my arm, and we head for Cleo’s.
SKETCHBOOK’s become a writing warm-up, a brain exercise, a palette cleanser over coffee between wake-up and real work. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
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