by Iván Brave
Teresa burst out of the tattoo parlor, half her chest in bandages.
Middle of a day, middle of the week. And Teresa dropped by an ice cream parlor, to get her favorite. Pecan. They only had vanilla bean, though, her second favorite. The young man behind the glass, with too many pimples and an overbite, avoided her gaze, as he plopped the scoops for Teresa.
“You’ve never seen a cancer patient before?”
The boy grimaced. “That’ll be 6 dollars.”
“I ordered three scoops, not two.”
“9 dollars, please.”
He acts as if he were dying, thought Teresa. She threw herself out.
Her heart was slamming against the cotton bandage. Her fresh tattoo. Not even finishing the vanilla bean, passing a public hospital on 2nd, Teresa hurled her cone at the tall building, flung that ice cream high. But her arm was weak, so it did not hit the window she had aimed for. Instead, splattering in the parking lot, somewhere past the wall. But without a sound, causing a sense of disappointment and vague anguish to course through Teresa.
“Get home, take my meds, pass out. Get home, take my meds, pass out.” Teresa was talking to herself now. “Home, meds, pass out.” And after 11 years in New York, including 4 of college, she finally felt a part of the city now, just the part that is always dying. Making way for the new. All these strangers.
When Teresa awoke, the stickiness of not knowing what day it was crawled out of her throat and into her eyes, which she rubbed, before removing the bandage to see the art over her mastectomy.
The bandage burbled to tear from the skin, snatching bits of scab and a husk of dry blood as it lifted. There. Fleshy, inky, but arresting. Her first tattoo, her I-miss-you, over the scarred and empty left side of her chest. A quote from her late fiancé, penned on a scroll, under an eagle.
Wash it with soap, she remembered. Tears flowing. A smile in bloom.
Iván Brave lives and works in his hometown of Houston, Texas, where he begins his PhD in Spanish Creative Writing this fall. The themes dear to him are youth, pop music, and the artist struggle. Notably, he does not have any tattoos. Learn more at www.ivanbrave.com.