Dana grew up in Long Beach and spent many evenings at our home on Walnut Street. One of Emma’s best friends is Dana Vargas. He said that was his commitment to being an artist-to “not having a real job,” he said. It was a big deal when Gus got his little broken heart tattoo-the one on his face. He also looked at other people who had tattoos in intriguing places. He had ideas for bugs, decks of cards, theatrical symbols and lots of scary images. He spent time researching designs that came to mind-and saved many of them as screenshots on his phone. Gus got his first several tattoos done at that shop. After ten minutes, I knew he was good and drove home to wait for him to call me to come and get him. He had me drive him there and wait nearby for a few minutes to make sure they would not kick him out. At first, he went to a tattoo shop in Island Park. I’m not even sure that I knew you had to be eighteen to get one, legally.Īfter Gus got that tattoo, he was able to actually go to the tattoo shop with Oskar’s friend’s brother’s fake ID and get more. I knew he was young-although he already had pierced ears and a pierced nostril-to get a tattoo. After that, my main concern was that he not get an infection. He was right when he said to me, “You can’t go wrong with your mom.” He and his friend had cleverly tattooed my birthdate, and so my anger was softened. I sighed and walked away knowing something was up.Ī while later, he emerged with a shiny, slicked-up blue tattoo showing my birthdate, with some birds flying above it. It’s okay.” I tried a couple more times to get him to open the door, but he would not. I said, “Gus! Open the door!” And he said, “No, Mama! Shush! Go away. I turned the knob to the door, but it was locked. I went to look for them outside when I heard voices coming from inside the garage, and a buzzing sound. He had a couple of friends over, and suddenly they seemed to have disappeared. I only found out about what was happening in the garage when I went looking for him on the deck. We had moved into our new apartment a couple of months before, and then visited family in Oklahoma. Gus got his first tattoo done in our garage when he was fifteen.
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