Sak pase?
If you are experiencing this it means you have inherited everything I am, everything I know, everything I can do.
All of my suffering.
And the thousands of other people who became a part of me.
You have inherited my final tattoo.
I don’t know who you are. But if you are going to carry this power, you need to understand exactly what it is. What it will demand of you.
You need to get intimate with the mistakes I made, and how I broke all the wrong rules for the right reasons. How the universe didn’t give a shit about my reasons.
Let’s start with home. Montgomery, Alabama; population 210,000. The land of cotton and college football. One of the most churchgoing cities in America. Every one of those churches believes I should be in hell.
It’s mid-August and it’s hot-hot, yeah?
Sitting in my parlor is Antonio Rojas. He’s wearing the Cartier Panthère sunglasses he’s famous for, indoors, and a gold chain that weighs more than most cars. His right arm is worth forty million dollars. A year.
“Tonio the Red”. He’s baseball royalty. But he’s sitting in my throne.
And right now that arm ain’t worth shit.
A web of six-inch surgical scars above his wrist makes it look like he tried to open himself in a bathtub. And his hand, which used to release unhittable 103-mile-per-hour heaters, is now a shriveled claw.
“My boys swear to me you work miracles, Cassius,” Antonio says. He’s sweating and it’s not just the heat. “You can fix things doctors can’t, right?”
“What I do isn’t medicine.” I roll my artist’s stool next to him and wipe down his bicep with an alcohol pad. “How much you drop on those sunglasses, Tonio?”
“160 Gs.”
“You’re a man who knows that things have a price. Valuable things demand le prix fort.”
“Yeah, I feel ya. You fix my arm, I’ll gift wrap ‘em for you.” Antonio smiles, but there’s no heat behind it.
“I don’t want your shades, Tonio.”
“Oh, you angling for the big bills. I’ll give anything for more time in the show. You give me back my hand and I’ll pay whatever price you want.”
“I can give you what you want, but your money’s no good here. This requires a trade.”
“What we trading?”
“Time. For every extra healthy year I put back into that forty-million-dollar arm, you give me five years off the end of your life.”
“Fuck me, man. What are you some kind of crossroads devil?”
“Just a man, Tonio. But the price is the price.”
“How?”
“Two tattoos. One I take that pulls beats from your heart and one I give that puts the spark back in your hand. You pitch like a god again for a time. Then your heart will fail, years before it should.”
He doesn’t even blink. “Do it.”
“Not yet. You have to convince me.”
“Convince you? Fuck man, you ain’t just a devil. You’re the beast himself.”
I position the machine and press the needle to Antonio’s skin. My hands shed a faint glow as I start to work. The glow I fucking hate.
“You have until I finish the art. Prove to me you understand the cost.”
“Okay. Man, you know the biggest high you’ve ever had? Drugs? Sex? That ain’t shit next to taking the mound in front of forty thousand fans...”
“No. That’s the prize. Show me you get the cost.”
To his credit, Antonio shuts his mouth for nearly a full minute before he begins again.
“My grandfather...el viejo...he died right after my rookie season. He was un hombre de pelo en pecho, you know a man you wanted at your back when shit got real.”
His eyes have closed and Antonio no longer seems to be speaking to me. He’s telling this story to himself. The needle buzzes beneath his voice.
“He used to tell me stories about fighting the military in the streets of Santo Domingo during the Civil War. And he kept our family safe and together during el huracán David. He built shelters for our family and neighbors with his bare hands using twigs and shit.”
“It sounds like you respected him.”
“Yeah. He earned that every day of his life until...”
Blood begins to bead along the needle marks. “Until?”
“When he got older he started wasting. His muscle. His mind. Some degenerative disease with no cure. He kept encogiéndose. You know... shrinking. He was smaller every day. But he always said he wasn’t going to die until I pitched in the big leagues. Just like every promise he made, he kept it.”
I wipe away excess ink and blood mixing around the needlework.
“My father brought him to a game. I dominated. A complete game shutout. Fourteen strikeouts. After the game el viejo didn’t remember any of it. He just wanted more popcorn. He liked the salt. He died later that year.”
Antonio’s eyes are open again and he’s looking into mine. All the macho bullshit is gone.
“I don’t have kids. Don’t plan on having them. But I do have 27 nieces, nephews and little cousins. I know I’ll miss a hundred birthdays and graduations and weddings. And they’ll miss me. I know that. Some will hate me for choosing baseball over growing old with them. Maybe they’ll be right.”
“But they won’t have to watch me shrivel up and become useless like my hand. Like el viejo. I want to be remembered for having lived. Not for having died.”
I pause the work for a moment.
“Antonio, how many years?”
“Five. I want five more years bringing the real heat. Five more years in the sun.”
Afterward he closes his eyes and is quiet for the three hours it takes me to finish the art. The tattoo glows a faint, unnatural pinkish-white. It is a heart, but not the chain-wrapped version that tough guys like Antonio prefer. It’s simpler, delicate. It’s out of place on this man’s arm.
Of course this tattoo isn’t meant for him.
I set the needle down and cup my hands on Antonio’s arm around the new artwork.
“Keep your eyes closed a moment, Tonio. We’re nearly done.”
This time the glow is more intense. It chases away every shadow in the parlor before peaking and starting to fade again. When I remove my hands, the heart is gone and a bundle of lightning bolts is in its place.
With the lightning comes pain. And healing.
Antonio gasps, his back arching off the chair. He rips his sunglasses off with his healthy hand, tossing 160 Gs across the room to bounce off the far wall. He stares at his right hand as the muscles twitch with new strength and the claw slowly uncurls.
“Dios,” he whispers. “I can feel it.”
He leaves a stack of hundred-dollar bills that I didn’t ask for on the counter and walks out into the Alabama sun without his shades.
I look down at my left hand. The heart I pulled from Antonio’s arm is still glowing on my palm, waiting to be used.
And my right hand has curled into a claw.
Fuck, it hurts.
I head to the door. I have to get to the ICU at Baptist Medical. There is someone waiting for me, and her heart is running out of time.
David, this is emotionally so well done. The cost of the tattoo, the questions you have us face, all of it. I’m the kind of reader who tends to absorb the emotions of a piece rather than just observe them, and Antonio talking about his grandfather, especially him not remembering the game and only wanting popcorn because he liked the salt.. God that really got to me. The most interesting thing to me is the moral problem you created. Antonio understands the price and chooses it, but Cassius is still the person who facilitates the exchange, carries the damage, and decides what happens to what he takes. That gives you a lot to work with beyond the magic itself. And now I need to go stare at something stupid for ten minutes because apparently I have absorbed everybody’s feelings. 😂
Give me a minute……the tone, the pace, the build all hooking me into every word and leaving me wanting more of the story. This is what I want to experience every time I open up a new book.