Two Angels

Writing my 'Dumb Fuck' entry yesterday reminded me of another encounter involving tattoos, several years ago.

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I first noticed the tattoo when he pulled the hospital scrubs top over his head. Against his brown, tanned skin it was a deep hue of indigo. Then Doug’s head appeared from under the tangled garment, grinning at me. I let my eyes linger over his sweet face, his dark and liquid eyes. They trailed down to nipples dark as chocolate and to his flat stomach lined with a trail of fur that disappeared beneath the scrubs bottoms, right where the white skin of his tan line began.

“What?” he asked from curiosity, watching me gaze at him.

I shook my head. “You’re just so beautiful to look at, that’s all.”

That made him smile even more broadly. “Let me show what I think of you,” he suggested. He’s a small person, a compact man who barely comes up to my chest when we’re standing, but when he straddled me and pushed me back into the pillows, I scarcely noticed his size.

It wasn’t until an hour later, naked and dozy and smelling of each other, that I noticed it again. Our faces were close together as we talked. “What’s the tattoo of?” I asked. I traced it with my fingers. At the top, the design blossomed into something like—well, I couldn’t quite tell. It was like a flower, abstract and unlike any bloom I’d seen. It was like water, or a fountain. It was something like a person as well. Two lines, like a scythe, trailed away from the design into the blanket against his skin.

“It’s angels,” he said. “It’s the logo from the cover of Jesus Christ. . . .”


“. . . Superstar,” I said with him. I recognized it now. He turned on his side so that I could see it all. What I thought was a scythe was the circle connecting the two angels. I kissed the tattoo as I pulled him close. My cock pressed against the small of his back. “I see it now.” We lay there for a moment more. He trembled and made small murmurs of pleasure where I touched him, parting his legs to let my hands wander to shivery spots. “Does your partner know you’re here?” I asked in his ear.

“Gary knows I’m here,” said Doug. “I mean, he doesn’t know the exact address, but he knows I’m with you, yes.” His skin burst into gooseflesh where I moved my hands.

After a moment, I made an attempt at apology. “I hope that question wasn’t too intrusive. About Gary knowing where you were.”

“No, no, not at all! You can ask me anything. I trust you.”

I smiled at that. “All right. So why Jesus Christ Superstar?” I asked.

He flipped over on his back again and smiled, his dark brown eyes two slits in the twilight. “You want to hear the Jesus Christ Superstar story?” he asked. I nodded. I expected it to be a simple explanation—he’s been in a community theatre production of the musical, or he’d really rocked out to it as a kid when it had been released. “Okay,” he finally said. “I’ve been with Gary for eight years, but before that, I had another lover named Michael. We were together for ten years and he made me very happy. Then he died. Of AIDS.”

My head was propped up on my hand as I stared down at him. He looked at me quickly to see how I took that information. What did he expect? Revulsion? Fear? I just nodded. My hand didn’t stop moving across his chest. “I was taking care of him as best I could, but of course it wasn’t enough. There was a moment right before the end—one of his rare lucid moments, I should say—when Michael held my hand and looked at me and said, I don’t know how I’m going to recognize you down here on earth once I’ve changed. He said it like that. Once I’ve changed. He said, How am I going to find you down here? He was really frightened.

“And I told him, You’ll recognize me because I’ll have an angel on my shoulder. He was really weak. I could barely hear him when he said, But lots of people have angels on their shoulders. And I squeezed his hand and said, Then I’ll have two. My own personal angel. And you, watching me.

“That was the last thing I was able to tell him that I know for certain he heard.” A tear spilled from his right eye, making a getaway for the pillow. Doug reached up and arrested it with a finger, wiped away its traces, and grinned at me in an embarrassed way. “After the funeral I went out and got this tattoo, so he could recognize me.”

I let him sink into the safety of my arms as my nose nestled against his ear. The open window let in the sounds of late summer—the splash and play of trickling water from the garden, the sounds of the neighbor kids at play, the huzz of locusts merging with the sound of a far-away lawnmower. In the distance, a mother yelled out to remind her son it was a school night. We lay there and listened to them. “Thank you,” I whispered to him.

“No, thank you!” he said. He sniffled in deeply, trying to clear his nose, but his tone was much stronger and confident. “It’s just funny. It’s been nine years and you know, it really doesn’t feel that long at all.”

“I’ve always felt that my losses and griefs are like—” I searched for a metaphor. “They’re like one of those hobo bags, you know, like they used to carry in the Peanuts comics? A bag on the end of a stick that you carry over your shoulder?” He nodded. My words sounded soft in the gathering darkness. “I feel like I pack up all the good things and the bad stuff about a person when they’re gone, so I can carry everything around and remember them all by it. It’s like, it gets heavier with every loss, the older I get. And even though I always seem to have the strength—so far—to pick it up and carry it with me wherever I go every day, there’s always the question in the back of my mind of when I’ll find it too heavy to bear. You know?”

“Yeah,” Doug said. “I know. It’s a burden, but I wouldn’t give it up. I’m supposed to carry it, right? It just helps to remind me that there’s a lot of love in the world. Do you believe that? That there’s a lot of love in the world?” I nodded. Yes, I did. “I’ve got this thing. I think love should be shared. Not just with one person, but with as many people as you can love.”

I nodded again. Uncertain that he could see me in the shadows of the bedroom, I cleared my throat. “Yes,” I said, my voice husky and choked.

He laughed slightly, no more than a burble in his chest. “I hope I didn’t freak you out.”

“No,” I said, closing my eyes and enjoying the warmth of his body. “You didn’t freak me out.”