The season for a reason

Ace wasn't sure he wanted to do this particular tattoo. Someone had come into the shop with a picture from Dore's Dante Inferno pictures. Dante always made his skin itch.  After doing a series of tats on the back of a rather large man with lots of piercings, he had decided that Dante was off the choice list.  He had lost a few clients.  He didn't mind skulls or other items associated with the dead, but Dante seemed to come alive on the walls of his apartment all too often.

But his guy made him an offer he just couldn't refuse. Triple the normal price and he'd come whenever Ace was in the mood.  This was the guy's fifth trip.

Just as Ace paused to change the tip of his needle to a different color, SPLAT!!splat, splat on the pavement on the side of the shop that faced maplewood.

"Jesus!" Luther, the client, almost broke the chair.  "What the hell was that?"

Ace walked over to the plate glass window but still couldn't figure out what it was.  He opened the front door, bell tinkling, and realized it was pumpkin. Pumpkin? He heard something that sounded like a metal slingshot, then a small pumpkin flying and then a burst, and then a "YEAH! FINALLY!"

Ace stepped back under the awing, looked up on the roof of the apartment building only to see Eliot with a gun and some guy laughing.

Ace shouted, "Nice one, bartender! Bad guys beware!" Eliot, surprised, looked over the edge and then smiled, gave Ace a thumbs-up.

"Next beer's on me!" Ace shouted and laughed and returned to the shop.  Dante wasn't so bad now. He finished the last flame and called it a day.

As he was leaving, he had to sidestep around orange chunks and seeds.  "Well, I'll be busy in the next few weeks."  He mused. Halloween was one of the busiest times of the year for him. "Gotta get some pumpkins early. Jack-o-lanturns will rock my shop."

Apartment 802

Ace had grow-up with a single mom who read palms, burned incense and had a steady stream of clients in and out of her tiny, one door spiritual shop.  They lived in the long, rather narrow space above the shop.  All day she'd burn incense in the shop and somehow the scent would rise up through the rafters and into their kitchen, living room and Ace's small bedroom. It was always the same kind of incense, pachouli. Always pachouli. Now that he had his own shop, sure enough the other tattoo artist was a woman and every time she had a client, she would burn a stick.  She said that it helped her to focus.

He didn't mind it so much.  Clara, his mom, always told him that small spaces allow for the mind to go to big places.  As he sat having breakfest he noticed, maybe for the first time, that he chose this place because it was small, not so much because was dirt cheap.  Ace thought that the place may have been a former janitor's storage room but realized that windows were too big to be a closet. Windows don't keep supplies safe. Windows, for Ace, were the most important part of a place to live. This place was the corner unit and the windows lined both sides of the living room and kitchen.  The sun made it all a little less shabby looking.  Ace enjoyed the morning sun after sometimes working well into the night.  When he got home sometimes the moonlight would fill the rooms.  That's when his tattoos returned to shift across the shadows outlining the night. His own pair would move among the countless ones he'd done.

He never really thought that they were any different than other tattoos from other artists.  As most young teenagers, he ignored his mother's advice.  "Be careful about those drawings of yours. Your future holds mystery, son. Be careful."

The little bell, which had hung in his mother's shop, tinkled signaling a customer, Ace came back from his thoughts.  He looked-up to see a young man who seemed to have his foot in two worlds.  In this one and perhaps another one.  Ace couldn't figure out exactly which other world.
     "Hello." He said to Ace, eyes a bit off to the side.  Ace thought he felt a deep tiredness in this man.
     "What can I do for you, sir?" Ace replied.
     "I want a tattoo." He pointed to his forearm. " Matthew 6:9-13.  Right here."
     "Do you want the whole prayer? Or just the verse title?" Ace asked.
     "Just the title."
     "Any particular font?"
     "Nope.  You choose."
Ace sat him in the chair, asked him if he wanted a beer.
      "Just water, ice water, please."
      As Ace handed him the glass, "What's your name?"
      "Jason."
      "Sit back, relax, Jason.  This may take a while."
      "No problem. I've got time."
Ace went over to the turntable and picked out a Pearl Jam album, and as "Daughter" started, he started.