Second Skin Read Online Free PDF

Cassandra—only for Cassandra—had known it, that I who had once entertained the thought of a single permanent inscription in memory of my mother—gentle Mildred—but when it came to rolling up my sleeve had been unable to endure the shock of even a very small initial M, would now submit myself and expose the tender flesh of my breast letter by letter to the pain of that long exotic name my daughter had so carefully penciled out on that greasy envelope of endless lunchroom counters, endless lavatories in creaking burlesque theaters. So even before I heard the man’s first order—voice full of German delicacies and broken teeth—I had forced my fingers to the first of my hard brass buttons, tarnished, unyielding—the tiny eagle was sharp to the touch—and even before he had taken the first sizzling stroke with his electric needle I was the wounded officer, collapsing, flinching, biting my lip in terror.
    He worked with his tongue in his cheek while Cassandra stoodby watching, waiting, true to her name. I hooked my scuffed regulation white shoes into the rungs of the stool; I allowed my white duck coat to swing open, loose, disheveled; I clung to the greasy edge of the table. My high stiff collar was unhooked, the cap was tilted to the back of my head, and sitting there on that wobbling stool I was a mass of pinched declivities, pockets of fat, strange white unexpected mounds, deep creases, ugly stains, secret little tunnels burrowing into all the quivering fortifications of the joints, and sweating, wrinkling, was either the wounded officer or the unhappy picture of some elderly third mate, sitting stock still in an Eastern den—alone except for the banana leaves, the evil hands—yet lunging, plunging into the center of his vicious fantasy. A few of us, a few good men with soft reproachful eyes, a few honor-bright men of imagination, a few poor devils, are destined to live out our fantasies, to live out even the sadistic fantasies of friends, children and possessive lovers.
    But I heard him then and suddenly, and except for the fleeting thought that perhaps a smile would cause even this oaf, monster, skin-stitcher, to spare me a little, suddenly there was no escape, no time for reverie: “OK, Skipper, here we go.”
    Prolonged thorough casual rubbing with a dirty wet disintegrating cotton swab. Merely to remove some of the skin, inflame the area. Corresponding vibration in the victim’s jowls and holding of breath. Dry ice effect of the alcohol. Prolonged inspection of disintegrating cardboard box of little scabrous dusty bottles, none full, some empty. Bottles of dye. Chicken blood, ground betel nut, baby-blue irises of child’s eye—brief flashing of the cursed rainbow. Tossing one particular bottle up and down and grinning. Thick green. Then fondling the electric needle. Frayed cord, greasy case—like the envelope—point no more than a stiff hair but as hot as a dry frying pan white from the fire. Then he squints at the envelope. Then lights a butt, draws, settles it on the lip of a scummy brown-stained saucer. Then unstoppers the ancient clotted bottle of iodine. Skull and crossbones. Settles the butt between his teeth where it stays. Glances at Cassandra, starts the current, comes around and sits on the corner of thetable, holding the needle away from his own face and flesh, pushing a fat leg against victim’s. Scowls. Leans down. Tongue in position. Rainbow full of smoke and blood. Then the needle bites.
    The scream—yes, I confess it, scream—that was clamped between my teeth was a strenuous black bat struggling, wrestling in my bloated mouth and with every puncture of the needle—fast as the stinging of artificial bees, this exquisite torture—I with my eyes squeezed tight, my lips squeezed tight, felt that at any moment it must thrust the slimy black tip of its archaic skeletal wing out into view of Cassandra and the working tattooer. But I was holding on. I longed to disgorge the bat, to sob, to