Page 10 of Dark Ink

He looked at Aurnia.

“You! You, you bollocks!” I said to him, “What did you say?”

He shrugged. “Your sign don’t have no s?”

I was going to murder him. “After that. What did you say after that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something like, ‘How come you’re not doing any tattoos except Eithne’s face?”

“Eithne,” I whispered.

I felt like a guilty man proved innocent as the sinking exhaustion of relief came over me. I was right. She had a name. She was real. She existed. I could hold her. Eithne. My Raglan Road girl. Eithne.

“Rian,” Aurnia tried once more, but I couldn’t hear anything except Eithne now.

“You know her?” I demanded of Tipperary.

“I mean, not really,” he said with a shrug. “I tried asking her out once, but she turned me down and, I don’t know, I think she’s touched, ye know?”

I reached across the table and grabbed the little shite by the collar of his jersey.

“Take me to her,” I said, shaking him.

I wasn’t the scrawny little runt any longer. And I wasn’t the kind little kid either.

I was strong, thanks to years of daily gym workouts. I was fuming.

And I was this close to getting what I wanted.

Eithne.

Eithne

I felt like I was stuck between two dead ends.

The first was the drone of my Commercial Advertising Design professor at the front of the lecture hall. The second was the seemingly endless amounts of Google hit results for: how to fix a drug addiction. The first led to an office in town, a stretch of grey carpet, and a cubicle a fifth the size of a jail cell. The second led to site after site that said the same feckin’ thing: you can’t do anything. A person has to want to seek help. A person has to do it for themselves first and foremost.

They both drained me. They both left my life colourless and beauty-less and hopeless. They both made me want to stand up and scream and slash a paintbrush across a canvas. Again and again and again till I was so exhausted that I couldn’t lift my arms.

I sank down into my chair and stared up at the ceiling.

The professor said, in a voice that indicated he was just as bored as the rest of us, “Sure look, just because your goal is increasing a firm’s profit, doesn’t make you any less of an artist. An artist is one who elicits something from someone. Some elicit joy or rage or frustration. Some elicit positive quarterly earnings. Some stir hearts, some stir pennies from pockets. See? We’re all artists here.”

I sighed as I returned to searching the internet for a new way to try to help Stewart. I wondered if my professor believed his own bullshite. I wondered if one day I would too. A solid, steady paycheque would probably help. Like a dose of anaesthesia helps. Like a fucking Vicodin helps. Like unconsciousness always helps. For as long as it lasts.

It wasn’t like I could do any real art now anyway. Not with the stress of rent. Of Stewart’s medical bills. Of the creditors calling from the last place Stewart trashed on a bender. Of the university calling for tuition. Of everyone wanting money. Wanting a piece of me. Wanting more and more of me. Fuck. There was nothing left of me. Nothing left of me for me, let alone for my art.

I was reading through ways to talk to loved ones suffering through addictions, ways to be honest and open about how they hurt you. I closed out of that quickly. I didn’t want to put that on Stewart. Didn’t want to make him feel any more guilt than he already did. That I was pretty sure he already did. I wanted to help him. Why couldn’t any of these online resources get that?

I was scrolling, eyes glazing over from tiredness and probably something deeper than tiredness, when I overheard two girls whispering back and forth in the row of desks just in front of me. I had no qualms about eavesdropping. Most people went to the movies for a bit of escapism; I didn’t have the cash for that so I had to take it where I could get it. They were talking about a guy, an older guy. My love life had been non-existent all throughout school. There was always class. Work. Always an extra shift here, an extra shift there. There was always Stewart.

“I swear, he was into me,” the one girl said. “I mean, the way he looked at me with those pale blue eyes. They’re like endless, you know? Like depthless.”

“Did he get your number?” the other asked.

“Well, I mean, no, but like he was just so focused on my body, ye know?”

I raised a curious eyebrow. I liked the way this was going. I didn’t get off much these days. There wasn’t much time and when there was, I had a hard time touching myself without feeling like I was doing something wrong, something dirty. When this just served to turn me on even more, I got so scarlet with guilt that I had to take a long shower. Long and hot enough to get clean. Long and hot enough that I could barely drag myself to the bed and flop over it before passing out.

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