Page 7 of Paint Eater
“I’ve arrived!” Jay shouted as he burst into the tattoo shop. At the front desk, T-cup, one of the other tattooists, fumbled and dropped the pen they were holding. From the back, he could hear Sunja cursing.
“I told you to stop fucking doing that,” Sunja complained from one of the tattoo rooms.
T-cup nodded, pointing a finger at Jay. “Seriously.”
Jay grinned, shrugging. “You guys love it, come on.”
“No, we don’t,” they replied in unison.
Jay stuck out his tongue at T-cup, ignoring their six foot, five inches worth of menacing muscle. The tattoo shop hadn’t opened yet to the public, and the low lights cast an eerie glow on their dark skin.
Jay yelped, avoiding T-cup’s swiping hand as he walked past. “I’m innocent!” he cried as he burst into one of the four tattoo rooms, where Sunja was busy looking through the ink colours they had in stock and the ones they’d mixed themselves. She was a slim, tall woman, appropriately covered in more tattoos than she probably cared to count, hair short and choppy around her ears.
“Yeah. Innocent, my ass,” Sunja said, although she didn’t look half as scary as she thought. Not now, at least. It had been a different story when Jay had first met her, eighteen and desperate to work under her.
From what Jay had gathered, Sunja, a Korean-American born and bred in Queens, had been one of those teenagers that were endlessly angry at the world. Not that teenagers didn’t tend to be angry, but Sunja was angrier. Angry at the racism that never failed to find her, angry at her parents’ traditional ways, angry at her peers for being ignorant, angry at the system for failing to adapt to new cultures.
She’d gotten in trouble, first when she was at school, and then with the law—small skirmishes, but enough to hint that Sunja was going nowhere.
Though Sunja would never say it in such clichéd words, tattooing had saved her life. Had focused her, had given her a purpose, had stopped her from self-destructing. More than anything, it had given her the time and space to start exploring her Korean heritage without fear transformed into anger.
It’d been difficult to make it as a female tattoo artist in the 1990s, but at that point, she wouldn’t have known what to do if shedidn’thave to fight for her place in the world. Every taunt and incredulous look thrown her way was powder in the keg.
She wasn’t going to be good. She was going to be explosive.
Now, Sunja was forty-six and still at the peak of her career. People sought her out for both colour and black-and-grey tattoos, all her pieces drawn—nottraced, as she corrected Jay the first time he suggested it—by her. That, more than anything, was what brought people to her. Her ability as an artist to be informed by the client’s wishes and compose a piece that was harmonious instead of some random sounds forced together.
It was also the thing Jay admired the most about her. Since before he could remember, Jay had loved to draw. His mom had always been his biggest supporter, getting him as much paper as she could, from napkins when they struggled for money, to a stack of A4s from an interview that pissed her off.
Jay had been obsessed with Sunja since he was fifteen, reading about her inInked, and had been ecstatic that she was working in Brooklyn, where he lived. They all teased Sunja that she had moved from Queens to live in Park Slope, but, as she put it, she hadn’t been born into Park Slope; she’d earned it, and that was fucking different. Not that the tattoo shop was in Park Slope. It was, of course, in Bushwick, which was ‘barely better than Williamsburg’ in terms of ‘all the fucking hipsters’, according to Sunja.
Native New Yorkers who had lived there more than thirty years were all the same…not that Jay would ever say that to Sunja’s face.
“You’re with Georgie today,” Sunja said. “Then you’ve got a couple of clients yourself. Hana’ll watch you.”
Jay whooped enthusiastically before turning as Hana appeared behind him.
“Someone say my name?” Hana was also Korean American, although just in her late twenties, long brown hair caught in a loose ponytail, clothes baggy around her slim frame.
Sunja glanced up at her, still preoccupied with the ink colours she was sorting. “You’re supervising the kid later today. Your client cancelled.”
“Sweet,” Hana replied, fist-bumping Jay. “Wait, the one that wanted the fairground? Aw, man! That one was gonna be awesome. I spent a fucking week on that drawing.”
“I meant rescheduled, relax,” Sunja said, smiling.
“Hell, yes,” Hana crowed. “Is Georgie in?”
“Not yet.”
“Damn, I wanted to show her the drawing I did for that whale guy. Actually, kid, come with me.”
Jay hopped up eagerly. Nothing made him feel better than to be asked for his artistic opinion. Everybody at the shop was years ahead of him, so it felt good when they valued his viewpoint.
For a long time, his family had consisted of his mom and him. And he’d never been discontent really, but he couldn’t help but dream of a larger family. Not about a dad, but about siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. His mom was estranged from her family, so he’d never had any of that, or any friends close enough to adopt him into their traditions.
Now, however, he felt like he’d found a family within these walls. T-cup, who was the biggest teddy bear he’d ever known, the most patient out of all of them, the one Jay went to when he needed something explained slowly and without judgment. Hana, irreverent and creative, who loved playing around with colour, and could mix you a killer palette in no time at all. Georgie, who was a hard-ass, but could be sweet as fuck when you got to know her. And, of course, Sunja, who was tough but fair, Jay’s idol, and who, he was pretty sure, had a thing for his mom.
Not that he was going to get involved inthatparticular drama.
