The Tattoo Artist in the Back of My Fiat   

By: Jordan Giffin  The drive took about 35 minutes and  

  the “outpost” looked more like an abandoned trailer  
The day Justine decided to get her first tattoo it was cold out.   than anything else. The desert stretched 
The type of freezing that   out in all directions. Blocked  
seeps deep inside your bones and won’t get out.   only by a random piece of  
I told her it was an omen, but, really,   dilapidated fence standing about  
I just didn’t want to leave my house.   eight feet tall.  
   
I think she knew that.    Wait here​, she said, and hopped out of the car  
  without any hesitation. I rolled my eyes  
She hadn’t made an appointment   and lit a cigarette. She knocked 
with either of the two certified tattoo artists   and the guy that opened the door  
in our podunk town of Bluewater, Arizona.  looked like Peter Dinklage if you roughed 
(population 750   him up a bit, dyed his hair green, 
and people just keep leaving)  and pierced everything. 
​ ord on the street is that there’s  
She said, w  
some new guy in town   They talked for a minute. I took a 
who’ll hook you up on the down low   drag and watched her hand him the weed.  
if you bring him some weed.   He went back inside. She ran over to the car and  
  said, ​Mer, this guy’s  
Justine had bought  real skittish, he won’t do the tattoo  
a few more grams than normal   unless you let him do it in the backseat of the car.  
earlier that week.    
  I gave her a look and  
To find this mysterious tattoo artist,   unlocked the doors. He brought out  
(she didn’t know his name)   his equipment.  
we’d have to go to the post office on the edge of town,  There was no way it was sanitary.  
turn right and drive for five miles.   But Justine didn’t seem to mind.  
There, we would find an “outpost”    
and the tattoo artist would be inside   She never did.  
   
I grabbed the keys to the banged up  They got set up in the back seat. I 
yellow Fiat I bought last March and  pulled out of the driveway and behind  
said I’d go with her, just to   the fence just as the tattoo gun  
​ eryl, I’ll be fine.   
be safe. She said, M started whirring—it was one of those  
But I wasn’t taking any chances.  wireless ones that you could  
Not after the Milwaukee incident.    get for twenty bucks on EBay.  
 
Justine wasn’t wearing any pants and  
it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before but  
it was odd to see someone else touching her.  
Even if it was just to tattoo  
her left ass cheek.  
I can’t say I liked it much. 
 
Not that she could ever know that. 
 
I guess the guy had some real reason to be skittish because  
not halfway through outlining the star  
the police pulled onto the property.  
 
He said, s​ tart driving, slowly,  
they haven’t seen the car yet.  
(Now I understand the fence) 
When you get to the end of the street,  
turn right then left  
and then out into the desert  
and gun it.  
You’ll lose them in about ten miles.  
Justine looked up at me and— 
 
I did exactly as he said.  
 
And that’s how I ended up going 90  
across the Arizona desert with Justine  
pantless,  
sprawled out,  
ass up  
in the back seat of my little yellow fiat  
while the sketchiest tattoo artist I’ve ever seen  
etched a permanent star into the left side of her backside.  
 
God, I loved her.