Good Intentions

I sit on a park bench watching. This time outside a tattoo parlor. I watch as he walks around looking at the walls then goes to a folder and flips through it.
I question myself if I should conduct another experiment on my own. I finally get up the courage and start walking towards the establishment. I open the door and everyone turns my way and looks, almost gawking. I then remember what I must look like coming in here, virgin skin, not even an ear piercing.

I tuck my hair behind my ear and look up at the walls at the different pictures and signs and decide some one has a great talent to be able to duplicate these onto human skin.
“Can I help you?” a tattooed and pierced guy says to me, almost startling me.
“I want something small” I say, not knowing how that escaped my lips.
“Wouldn’t have guessed anything different.”
“Take a look around and when you find something let me know”
I continue looking. I want something that has meaning to me. I finally see what I want.

I see the day clear as a bell, though I don’t know if its real or a dream. I’m maybe four years old, standing in a field, I see horses, I reach up with a handful of dandelions and hand them to a beautiful woman who reaches down to them and takes them from me, pulling me in a for a big hug.
As far as I can remember I have never felt the arms of my parents around me.

“I’m ready” and I see him make his way over. I point to the dandelion with two seed pods leaving it, floating.
I follow him to the table and point to where I want it, somewhere it wont be seen, my hip.
He instructs me to lay down and I do, pulling down that side of my pants, exposing the area.
I hear talking going on in the area behind me. They are discussing placement of a new tattoo. Not so much arguing but size, placement and cover up.
The man lets me know he is about to begin and I try to relax. It is painful but nothing I cant endure. I tilt my head to the side and catch a glimpse of him peaking in to see what is being sketched on me. I hear him say he’ll be back once the final sketches are made.
When it is complete I am given the instructions on how to care for it and am bandaged up. I pay and leave. I get in the vehicle and go to my usual vantage point and pick up the binoculars.

I catch myself thinking about just how far back do I remember. A warm field of tall grass, dandelions and horses is not something from North Dakota. I picture the South for some reason. As far as I know I’ve always known snow, cold hard winters and short lived summers.
Maybe we lived somewhere else before North Dakota.
So why am I in LA spying on someone I don’t know and have never even seen before til I was given this assignment and when given that, just shown a picture and told to take notes and follow.
I sit back and take a bite of my sandwich and remember my hip and lean back up. My gaze is shifted when from the corner of my eye I see his long legs. I jot down the time, but its short lived as he exits out in just a few minutes.

I just want to know his name

Notes