The Spirit of Tattoo

It was April 20th, 2007. Matthew Raatz, a Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, watched and listened as the foamy waves rolled in slapping and wrapping themselves around the wooden logs supporting the weight of the Oceanside pier under which he sat. Black mussels, tightly fused together against the wood creating miniature shell colonies, reflected the yellow and orange hues of the setting sun. He shuffled his feet further into the cooling sand and sat with his scarred arms crossed over his knees under his chin, like a statue save the occasional movement as his licked the settling salt from his lips.

Corporal Raatz just returned early from a 10-month deployment in Afghanistan the month prior. He had suffered injuries while serving as an Embedded Training Team member for the Afghan National Army at the Korengal Valley outpost also known as the KOP. His injuries were sustained on the early morning of January 4th that same year. Insurgents launched a volley of mortars directly into the landing zone, or “LZ” as it was called, from the south-eastern side of the Kunar River. This was a daily occurrence, but never this early in the morning. Corporal Rattz and his Officer in Charge quickly donned their flak jackets complete with E Sapi plate armor, grabbed their assault rifles and took position in the bunker that they had built months prior on top of the 20x15 ft. sleeping quarters they lived in.

He took cover behind the 50 Cal machine gun and placed both hands on the spade trigger intently looking out across the valley for any signs of movement though the helmet mounted Night Vision Goggles. Within minutes, he noticed bright flashes on the ridgeline just east above Marastina almost a click away from the KOP. Corporal Raatz instinctively orientated the weapons line of sight towards the flashes and opened fire, adjusting the streak of red tracer rounds onto target.

The impact of 6 more mortar explosions impacted the LZ causing loose dirt and sand from the bags above him to fall into his eyes. Corporal Raatz noticed more flashes as he desperately tried to remove the irritants from his eyes and began to fire. This would be the last thing that he remembers from that early morning engagement.

He awoke in a German hospital weeks later. His arms encased within hard white plaster casings and a dressing enveloped his head and left eye. He was later told that mortars hit directly on the bunkers corner under which he was engaging the enemy. It could not withstand the succession of impacts, giving in and crushing Corporal Raatz’s body.

The command sent him back stateside after his broken bones, torn muscles and head injuries had mostly healed. He received the Purple Heart two weeks later and within that month, they began the process for a medical discharge.

Britney, his fiancé, was very supportive throughout the weeks since he had returned from Afghanistan. She attended every single physical therapy appointment, medical checkup and psychiatrist visit he had. She had become his best fan, continuously rooting him on through the painful process of both physical and mental recovery.

Unfortunately, her love and companionship could not silence the anger and frustration that grew stronger and louder every day within Matt. He would curse loudly any time his healing muscles failed him during physical therapy. He would lock himself away, sometimes for days, staring at the scars on his arms that now served as constant reminders of that morning in the mountains of Afghanistan. The days that were once filled with the sounds of laughter, joy and love had been replaced with those of arguments, anger and hatred towards those that tried to help him. In his mind, it made him feel weak and useless needing to rely on others.

Britney had become the focus of this misdirected anger and frustration since she was with him day and night. Shoving her into the bedroom wall was the last straw for his lovely fiancé and she left and went back to her parents’ home in Georgia. His parents had both died in a car accident less than a year prior and he had alienated his friends shortly after. Matt no longer had anyone to focus this newfound darkness upon but himself.

He stood, brushing the sand from his torn blue jeans and arms. There was nothing left for him. He had lost everything that mattered to him. The Corps, his love, his fighting spirit. This would be his last night trapped in this shitty nightmare of heartache, loneliness and pain. The plan was simple, he would walk down the beachside strip to the nearest liquor store and grab a bottle of Jim Bean. He would return to the pier and consume the entirety of the bottle along with his pain medication and watch the sun finish setting one last time.

The streetlights began buzzing and flickering, illuminating slowly one by one as he walked down the street trying to mask his pain as best as he could. A group of teenagers, wearing unzipped wetsuits and carrying boogie boards, ran past him no doubt trying to make their way to the beach to take advantage of the little sun they had left in the day. The largest of the four knocked Matt to the side with the brush of his shoulder. Matt spun around, his face twisted in anger as the kid raised his hand offering an apology without once turning around to look at him.

He began contemplating what he would do if he ran into the shithead upon returning to the dock. It did not matter that he was still occasionally crippled with waves of pain throughout his body. He would show the asshole a thing or to as his last gift to this shitty world.

“Well, hello there son.”

Matt spun back around and found himself staring into the icy blue eyes of a very large man complete with a silver beard tied together at the very bottom with what looked to be thin brown leather straps. His head was bald and reflected the lights that were now illuminating the sidewalk. He stood in the doorway of a shop with a sign that read ‘Szymon’s Tattoo Parlor’. The windows were covered with drawings of different tattoos ranging from colorful sparrows to skulls and crossbones. The funny thing is that Matt had been up and down this strip hundreds of times and could not remember ever noticing this shop before.

“I am not your son!” he spat and began to walk away from the old man.

“The name is Szymon” the old man volunteered anyways. Matt then noticed the faint accent in the old man’s words. Almost Russian but did not know for certain.

“Don’t need to be a damn psychic to guess that pops” he responded pointing towards the red tattoo sign above the door.

Szymon turned his head around to the lit sign and began to laugh. His laugh was deep and raspy like that of a baritone smoker. He looked back at Matt. “I guess that is true. You like tattoos?”

The truth was that he had always wanted a tattoo. Just never had the time, money or the right tattoo to commit to. Matt once considered getting Britney’s name across the left side of my chest. However, his military friends claimed that it was bad luck to do so. They warned him that it would always be there even if he and Brit broke up. Matt scoffed as he thought about the bad luck comment. Should have just got the damn tattoo. Bad luck seemed to find him anyways.

“I have never found one that I like. Besides, why spend so much money on something that could later become a bad memory or something that I later regret. Not like I can just take the damn thing off. Would rather spend the money on booze.” Having just reminded himself in that moment of what he had planned to do tonight sent a strange shiver up his spine. The man began glancing at Matt's exposed arms. Feeling judged, he hid them behind his back.

Szymon raised his eyebrows and stroked his beard. “What you say sometimes can be true. However, they also to can turn bad memories into new ones. Replace pain with reason. They can redefine the wearer to world around them as the wearer wishes to be defined.” He spun around and walked back into his shop and then stopped, one of his large hands holding the door open.

Feeling compelled to enter the shop as if something powerful and invisible tugged at his shirt and pushed against his shoulders, Matt reluctantly walked through the door. The bells that were suspended from the doors handle jingled as it shut behind him, making me to jump … just a little. Some type of folk music, for which he could not identify, played in the background. The shop was small. It reminded Matt of the sleeping quarters his fellow Marines had called home in Afghanistan. There was another doorway on the other end, its contents concealed only by a thin bead drape of sorts. The air smelled like alcohol and rubber, much like the hospital in Germany.

There stood one black leather bench, elevated up on a single stilt balanced on top of a large disc-shaped base. Flanking one side of the small shop was a long table. Hundreds of colorful tattoo inks were neatly arranged along that base of a mirror that stretched across the wall just above the table. Lastly, an old chair covered in torn brown leather that had obviously seen many years of use with a tattoo machine beside it.

“Come and sit”, Szymon said, gesturing to the black leather bench.

Matt did as he asked, again as if he were not in control of his own body. Laying on the bench, he realized that he had felt strangely comfortable and at home. There was no apprehension, no red flags. Just felt relaxed.

Szymon grabbed Matt's arms with his own tattooed limbs and began looking over the scar tissue that covered the majority of revealed skin. “You are soldier, no?” His eyebrows once again lifted in a questioning expressive pose.

“Marine.” Matt said proudly. “Or I was a Marine.” He could feel the tears collecting at the base of his eyes while trying to clear the swelling knot of emotion building up in his throat. Thoughts of days past, his fiancé, his family and friends, his sorrow.

“Ah. No. Once a Marine, always a Marine, true?” A smile cracked across his wrinkly face, exposing worn teeth, two of which were crudely capped in gold. He was right. The sorrow had disappeared from Matt as quickly as it had manifested.

“Yes, a Marine.” Matt replied as he smiled in return.

“You have girlfriend” his expressive eyebrows bouncing up and down in excitement.

“I had a fiancé. She and I split up. Her name was Britney.” Memory flashed back to that last fight that they had. He could not even remember what it was about anymore. Why did he push her away?

Clicking his tongue twice he said, “Her name IS …”

“Sorry?” What did that mean?

He released my arms. “Her name IS Britney. I can see by look in eyes that you deeply care still for her. That can only mean she feels same way! This kind of caring, only separated by death. She dead?” Again, que eyebrows.

“No, no.” Matt paused for a couple of seconds. The old man stared at his face intently, patiently awaiting a response. “I … I was a mean person towards her. I am … was going through some dark times. I was mean towards everyone I knew.” Matt corrected himself before the old man could say anything, “Know … I meant know”.

He tapped lightly against the scars on Matt's arms with a large index finger. “Because of this, huh? War leaves its own tattoos. Some seen, others not so much. You my boy have both seen and invisible. Hard to adapt to such things. Harder to let others help adapt. It is those invisible to us that do most damage. We strike out against those that care. We feel powerless, afraid. We try to handle these tattoos of war by selves until becomes too much. By then, it feels too late. But never too late!”

Holy shit, he thought. Was he talking to the world’s only tattooed Dalai Lama? The old man was right! Everything he said describes the way Matt had felt since the war! Now, he was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. How can this old man know so much about him from a few scars and his apparent bad attitude towards life?

“I was in war long time ago, 1939. Battle of the Atlantic in against Germany. I was proud Polish Naval sailor with rank Starszy Mat.” Stretching black elastic gloves over his hands with an audible snap, the old man continued. “War can destroy what makes us whole, spirit and mind. I had girlfriend also. Her name Magdalena. So beautiful and kind! Her eyes blue like iceberg and hair long and blond like angels. We know each other as children. Then, war broke out. She waited for me 2 years! When I returned to her, I was physically broken and mad all the time.”

He lifted his shirt to his sternum showing a large tattoo of an angel with her wings spread across his chest and belly. “Ship exploded. German U-Boat got us good. Metal bar punctured my chest and stomach. I laid there on floating debris three days until rescued by British ship.”

Looking closer, Matt could just make out what once had to have been a gruesome scar in the shape of an X well hidden by the angelic form now covering it. Returning his shirt to its proper place, Szymon grabbed tiny plastic thimbles and filled them with dark ink, each toned down with what looked like witch-hazel to create different shades of black and grey. He carefully shaved and cleaned Matt's arms with a disinfectant. With the tattoo gun now humming and one scarred left arm on his tattoo stand, he dipped the needles into the first darker ink well and placed it against Matt's skin. So mesmerized by Szymon's story, the young man did not resist.

Szymon continued, “I feel like she did not understand me. Like no one understand me.” Matt could feel the needles against his skin as they punctured and cut across the scars leaving behind perfect lines and curves.

“One day, tell her she would never understand! She was just in way of me fixing everything. I would push through pain. I would control dreams. I was not baby. I was man!” He paused for what seemed like a minute, staring through Matt. “She left me and my heart broke. I hated everything and wanted all to end.”

“What did you do?”

Breaking free from his trance, he resumed the task at hand.

“I go to tattoo man, only one in Rownia! Tattoos were not very popular then, so it was difficult to find him. I ask to cover up the scars, to make them go away. I need new memory to cover old. I need my angel so every time I look in mirror, I see love and help me forget bad memory. I see my Magdalena.”

Matt had not noticed that Szymon had completed one arm and moved onto the other. It felt like only minutes had past, though realistically it had been hours. It was completely dark outside, and he realized that the chance to "see the sunset one last time" had passed.

“I find her months later. I did not expect for her to be a happy woman, but I miss her and needed her in my life.” He shut off the tattooing instrument and sprayed a cool liquid over the beautiful designs that expertly hid the young man's scars, wiping away excess ink and blood.

“The strangest thing happened next. As I stood there like fool, holding flowers I bought from market, she ran straight to me giving big hug and covering my face with kisses. We cried and laughed. I apologize and say that I was fool. She said no, that I was big buffoon, but that she never stopped loving me. She never give up on me. She just waited until I find myself”

“What did she say about your tattoo?” Matt asked truly riveted.

He slapped his round belly, “She said it was new me. She said it emanated love and healing. She said it gave me new spirit” Another smile proudly stretched across his hairy face. “I was new man. It is amazing how replacing tattoo of war with something of beauty erased anger and frustration. It made me whole again like the man she fell in love with all those years ago.”

***

He never charged Matt for those tattoos telling him that the company was plenty enough payment. He called and spoke to Britney for hours after leaving Szymon’s Tattoo Parlor. It was a difficult conversation for him at first no doubt. The guilt that he felt. Everything that he had put her through. However, she had excitedly agreed to see him. He flew to Georgia on the first flight out of San Diego after the separation from the Marine Corps was finalized.

The couple met at a park in the center of Britney's hometown, crying and laughing as they held each other. The young man realized that Szymon was right, she never gave up on him. She just needed Matt to find himself again. He told her the story about the old man with the accent as she traced the tattoos on his arms. Matt did not tell her what he had planned to do later that same evening prior to meeting Szymon.

The couple moved back to California nine months later and into his parents’ home. Matt had been afraid to open that door since his parents passed. But he now realized and appreciated the support and strength that Brit provided to help him walk through that door. During the cleaning of their new home, Britney called down from the attic.

“Matt. I just found a box full of picture albums. You have got to come and see them. Look how cute you were!” He remembered that Britney was always nostalgic about family photos.

With a grunt, Raatz lifted himself off of the couch and stretched his arms easing the stiffness and pain that still resided within. “I have not been up in that attic since I was a kid.”

She came down holding the dust covered cardboard box knowing that he would have a hard time climbing up the narrow ladder. With a light thud, she dropped the box and sat down with her legs stretched out on opposite sides around it. Matt smiled at how beautiful she looked in that moment.

Opening the box, they began flipping through the pages. The occasional joke about his cute baby butt in the small tub or how much hair he used to have escaped from Britney’s beautiful lips. They looked through the pictures that captured younger versions of his mother and father. His parents seemed so happy, always smiling as they looked at each other. Their love forever immortalized within these 4x3 Polaroid pictures, some faded light brown with time. Matt then grabbed the last album that lay at the bottom of the box. Unclipping the snap holding the covers closed, the album opened.

“Matt, are you ok?” He realized that the chill running down his spin must have been noticeable to Britney.

Slowly flipping through the pages of this old photo album, he began to recognize the man in the pictures. One black and white picture was this young man kissing a beautiful light-haired woman. Another, the same man, wearing a military uniform with writing on the back. “May God watch over our boy Szymon as he ventures forth into the great unknown (1938).” The ink was old and the cursive elegant, as if written by a woman. The image had a faded brownish halo surrounding its edges.

Others showed the same man, older and with a beard which was knotted at the bottom with straps. He was holding a tiny baby in his large arms. They were at a beach. The same beautiful woman from the other pictures stood next to him, her arms around his waist as she kissed his hairy cheek. And there it was, between the baby and the woman, Matt could make out the wing of an angel on this old man’s upper chest. On the back of the picture was written, “Baby Jakub (1942).”

Matt showed Britney the picture as he felt the blood flow from my face. With a concerned look, she grabbed the photo. “Who is Jakub?”

“My father. He always chose to go by his middle name Michael for some reason.”

Her brow, still curled in concern as she looked at me asked, “Are you ok?”

“The man in the picture, I think that’s my grandfather! He’s the man I told you about that gave me these tattoos in Oceanside.” His voice began to crack. “My father said he died in 1950 three days after my grandmother passed. I never got a chance to see these pictures.” There had to be another explanation, he thought to himself.

***

Later that summer, the young couple were married. They decided to make a trip to Oceanside so that Matt could show her the tattoo shop that he spoke so much of. It turns out that Szymon’s Tattoo Parlor never existed. Instead, a barbershop stood in its place and had been there for 25 years. Brit says that there are some things in life you should never question and accept it for what it is, a blessing.

For his birthday, she bought plane tickets to Rownia in Poland. They visited the beautiful green waters of Lake Solina where the picture of his father as an infant was taken. They visited every museum the couple could trying to learn more about the town Matt's grandfather grew up in. And right before returning to the states, the coup de grace, visiting his grandparents’ gravesites. They left a bouquet of white blossoms and the picture of the two Matt had found in his parent's attic, holding “Baby Jakub”.

Looking at the tattoos on his arms years later as he cradled their new baby girl, Matt remembered that night so long ago. It was the night he was reminded by an old, tattooed Dalai Lama of what was truly important. His family, his love, his life.

He stood carefully trying not to wake Samantha and walked upstairs to the bedroom where Brit peacefully slept. Matt placed their daughter into the yellow basinet and gently kissed the tiny child's forehead.

"Thank you, grandfather. Thank you for giving me this." Matt whispered lovingly, watching his beautiful daughter and wife as they slept. "We will never forget."

FIN