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The Tattoo is a Jay Dubya/Leonard Streitfeld short story that is included in the sci-fi/paranormal book The Arcane Arcade.
The Arcane Arcade (350 Pages) is a collection of 16 imaginative sci-fi/paranormal stories written by Dr. Leonard Streitfeld and Jay Dubya. The book now exists in Kindle, Nook and Smashwords ebook formats, and hardcover and paperback versions will be available in April of 2020. The story The Tattoo is the shortest tale in The Arcane Arcade, while the novelette The Black Magic Pen is the longest tale at 55 pages in length.
About the Authors
Dr. Leonard Streitfeld (1922-2019) was a retired optometrist who maintained his offices in Hammonton, New Jersey from 1950-2012. In fact, Dr. Leonard Streitfeld (along with his son Dr. Stephen Streitfeld) had been John Wiessner’s eye doctor for many years. Len Streitfeld and Jay Dubya had written and rewritten the stories “The Chess Set,” “The Cups,” “The Incense Burner,” “Reflections,” “Stained Glass” and “The Black Magic Pen” many times until all sixteen tales appearing in The Arcane Arcade have evolved into their present quality literature form.
During World War II Leonard Streitfeld had been a bombardier on a B-17 with the Eighth Air Force, and he remarkably participated in thirty-one aerial raids over Nazi Germany and France from 1942-45. Dr. Streitfeld had kept an accurate diary and had recorded his fascinating war experiences in the biographical book Hell from Heaven, Second Edition. Dr. Streitfeld has also authored the paperback book titled Unexpected. Len and wife Mary had two sons (Stephen and Rick) and a daughter (Linda).
Jay Dubya is author John Wiessner’s pen name. John is a retired New Jersey public school English teacher, having diligently taught the subject for thirty-four years. John lives in Hammonton, New Jersey with wife Joanne, and the couple has three grown sons (Joe, John Thomas and Stephen).
John has written and published fifty-three books. Besides his latest satire titled PLOTS, Jay Dubya (J.W.) has also written books in other genres besides satire, including novels and short story collections.
Other Jay Dubya adult-oriented fiction works are Black Leather and Blue Denim, A ‘50s Novel, and its exciting sequel, The Great Teen Fruit War, A 1960’ Novel, with Frat Brats A 60s Novel completing the coming-of-age trilogy.
Contents
“The Chess Set”
"The Cups"
“A Christmas Doll”
“Reflections”
“Premonitions”
"The Dark Side"
"Photographs"
“The Combat Mission That Never Was”
“The Skull”
“Stained Glass”
“The Image”
“An Incense Burner”
“The Dye Is Cast”
“The Talismans”
“The Tattoo”
“The Black Magic Pen”
“The Tattoo”
At noon on August 22, 2010 twenty-seven-year-old Dennis Kinkaid anxiously left his small Midwestern town and five hours later arrived by train at his eastern destination, Philadelphia. Having little money in his faded leather wallet, young Kinkaid eventually discovered a very modest upstairs apartment located in a seedy section of the city, a mere block from the historic Delaware River.
Dennis was a burly, muscular physical specimen, standing six feet four inches in height and weighing a hefty two hundred and fifty pounds. The new Philly’ resident possessed jet black hair, a full mustache along with a small cropped beard, and as was his shy disposition, the recently arrived freight train-traveling-itinerant seldom sought the company of the other tenement house men whose closed wooden doors incidentally bordered his second floor flat.
Kinkaid was on government disability the past five years and practiced no specific purpose in life other than his daily drinking of beer and whiskey and then quite seemingly, tolerating living in positively squalid conditions. Much to Dennis’s satisfaction, the other second floor apartment occupants were of a similar ilk; mostly alcoholics and drug addicts, and so Kinkaid easily blended-in with his new-found apathetic, anti-social environment.
‘If I need extra dough to support my drinking habit, I’ll take a job working for cash on the docks,’ Dennis reluctantly presumed. ‘Big, strong stevedores are always in demand! But let’s hope that that unfortunate day never materializes!’
An obscure-but-popular tattoo parlor existed in a side alley several streets away from where Dennis now lived. Although the curious newcomer was quite deficient in his knowledge of Entomology, young Kinkaid had always been enamored with the idea of learning about myriad insects of all sorts. And so, one late sultry August afternoon, while still experiencing a fairly drunken stupor, the lazy derelict staggered into the musty ‘ink shop’ and insisted on receiving a whole repertoire of assorted bug and arachnid tattoos.
The first rendition administered by the “ink artist” was that of a menacing-looking, six-legged tarantula. The grotesque arachnid was an inch in length, and the newly acquired hideous tattoo design that became embedded upon the loner’s right wrist appeared to be so real that it startled anyone in public who later had occasion to accidentally view it.
Upon Dennis’s slurred-speech insistence, other various insects and assorted bugs such as a docile caterpillar, a miniature eight-legged scorpion, a mosquito, and an antagonistic-looking wasp had been carefully etched up his right arm and next, a chubby bumble bee, a fly, a roach and an Amazon Jungle fire ant upon the man’s upper chest. The peculiar body ornamentation was complete with the fly and the roach finally applied upon his chest, and last but not least, a Black Widow was eerily drawn upon Kinkaid’s neck, being positioned just adjacent to the drunken dreg’s very prominent, projecting Adam’s apple.
At first the horrifying-in-appearance tarantula tattoo seemed absolutely harmless, but after several months’ existence, the drawn creature was frightfully growing in size and remarkably, began sprouting hair, giving an astute observer the impression of actually being three-dimensional. Overnight, the ugly arachnid manifestation had astoundingly developed to two-inches in magnitude, and its new position upon the inebriated fellow’s arm was now detectable midway between his right wrist and elbow. But every night, as the intoxicated apartment dweller respectfully admired the ‘epidermal illusion’, Dennis’s fertile, overactive, usually inebriated mind began concocting a mental newsreel of nightmarish-type horror movie scenarios that to Kinkaid seemed entirely delusional.
‘It must be a queer optical illusion that my pupils are noticing,’ Dennis conjectured before ambitiously guzzling-down several ounces of potent Jack Daniels. ‘I think it’s all a definite aberration or a rather weird anomaly of some kind!’
The bewildered observer awkwardly measured the space between his mobile tarantula tattoo and his elbow, and the distorted metric was now an unbelievable eight inches in length. And a month later, being sedate and thinking in a more-sober disposition, Kinkaid determined that the space between the traveling tarantula and the motionless caterpillar had decreased to seven inches. But still, there remained three other rather diminutive-but-interesting bug tattoos impressively exhibited on the man’s upper right arm: a scorpion, a mosquito and a wasp.
By mid-November, the distance separating the tarantula and the caterpillar had decreased to less than an inch, but upon closer inspection, the all-too-sensitive skin surrounding the active spider was indeed becoming inflamed; the spider’s characteristic features being risen as if in bold relief above the area epidermis and certainly appearing more-hairy than its original two-dimensional flatness.
But more significantly and to Dennis’s utter astonishment, the caterpillar seemed to be forming a cocoon around itself, apparently readying to transform into either a moth or a butterfly. This evident total extraordinary metamorphosis-in-progress then prompted the addicted drunkard to imbibe a large quantity of very potent whiskey, and predictably, his captivated and intrigued intoxicated mind entered into a very deep slumber.
Each consecutive morning the growing tarantula presented itself as methodically approaching the equally-exceptional, in-transition developing chrysalis. ‘What’ll happen when the aggressive spider tattoo finally encroaches upon the vulnerable cocoon?’ Kinkaid imagined before belching. ‘Predators always vanquish their prey! The moving tarantula looks pretty hostile!’
At daybreak the following November morning, the tattooed man awoke in a tossing and turning frenzy, and upon instinctively examining his right arm, Dennis realized that the camouflaged caterpillar inside the cocoon had stunningly vanished and that that part of his right arm was presently covered in blood. And after fearfully scrutinizing the carnivorous black spider, the raised-in-appearance creature seemed to be much fatter and indeed, much more menacing.
‘This whole matter is totally incomprehensible!’ Kinkaid fearfully acknowledged as the apartment dweller quickly entered his tiny bathroom and vigorously washed and scrubbed the red stains from that vicinity of his right elbow. Still in a state of emotional confusion, the addled lush’s mind automatically considered a terrible worst-case-scenario; a rather frightful contemplation where the hungry spider would cause additional havoc over his upper right arm, his chest and possibly even savagely encroaching upon the Black Widow that was immobile and permanently situated next to Dennis Kinkaid’s Adam’s apple.
‘I’ll attempt to be patient and more rational. I’ll try to objectively observe what happens when the hideous tarantula confronts the scorpion, which should represent more of a direct challenge than the helpless cocooned caterpillar did,’ Dennis decided. ‘I gotta’ be prudent about understanding all of this mysterious, illogical stuff! If I consulted a doctor about the unbelievable phenomenon I’ve just witnessed,’ Kinkaid hypothesized, ‘he’d immediately recommend me for a thorough psychological evaluation! There must be some plausible explanation for all of these weird supernatural occurrences that seem to defy both common sense and natural science! I just hope that my present poor health and my melancholy brain are not being somehow placed in future jeopardy!’
By mid-December, the pugnacious tarantula was showing signs of becoming intensely hostile and aggressive as the aggressor deliberately encountered the stationary scorpion, and by Christmas Eve the famished arachnid was less than a half inch from its designated target. The Tattoo is a Jay Dubya/Leonard Streitfeld short story that is included in the sci-fi/paranormal book The Arcane Arcade.‘Another sleepless night accompanied by a painful bloody battle above my right elbow awaits my special attention at dawn!’ Dennis fretfully speculated. ‘I wish I had gotten a heart with an arrow pierced through it, or an ordinary-looking sailor’s anchor tattoo instead of getting the various inked insects,’ the nervous former merchant marine regretted. ‘I dreamed last night that the tarantula had viciously attacked and then devoured the scorpion. Tomorrow I’ll no doubt notice if my horrid thought becomes the ghastly violent deed!’
Upon awakening from his restive sleep, the apprehensive man experienced what his distressed mind had indeed dreaded. ‘My upper right arm is entirely soaked with blood and the villainous tarantula seems to again have a most satisfied, smiling expression upon its ugly face. This whole matter is rapidly evolving into a most terrifying series of worrisome events!’
The distressed fellow then had more fleeting ruminations. ‘The two-dimensional scorpion no longer exists as a simple tattoo located above my right elbow!’ Dennis almost-soberly marveled and assessed. ‘And the evil on-a-mission tarantula is definitely more bloated than ever after enjoying its last gluttonous feast! It’s a good thing I didn’t have a plethora of assorted insects inked all over my body! I’m really terrified beyond belief!’ ascertained the now-neurotic fellow. ‘And I’m starting to think that I require advanced mental services beyond those of a psychiatrist! I truly believe that I need the skills of a qualified Catholic priest to effectively exorcise this devilish tarantula that’s quite intent on devastating my entire body! I need an immediate remedy! I must do something drastic right now! I have no time to procrastinate!’
On New Years’ Day of 2011 two peculiar scars had formed on Kinkaid’s sore right arm; the former showing below the elbow representing where the caterpillar had once been and the latter developing between the elbow and shoulder where the idle scorpion had been engraved. ‘I’m pretty sure that the ravenous tarantula will greedily consume the rest of the insect tattoos in like manner! I just know it’ll happen!’ Dennis pondered and worried. But that compelling assumption would in time constitute the least of the psychotic man’s major concerns.
As February snow descended on that run-down riverfront Philadelphia neighborhood, the onerous spider was again advancing upward in the direction of the inked mosquito and wasp, and the now-paranoid alcoholic alertly watched the carnivorous bug daily as its slow-ascending presence soon wickedly encountered the two motionless insects. Again, after midnight the perimeter around the targeted bug tattoos became irritated and was transformed to be bright red in color, and heavy-breathing Dennis Kinkaid lay restive upon his unkempt bed, his disheveled brain being rather terrified, his erratic cerebrum contemplating the spider’s killing and subsequent consumption of its inanimate victims. But only the mosquito had suffered earthly elimination. The stationary wasp was still there.
With the advent of spring approaching in late March, Dennis Kinkaid’s vacillating emotions were alternating between being unmistakably psychotic and then being saturated with depression. The boozer’s nightly bouts with insomnia were gradually wearing-down Dennis’s general spirit along with his overall desire to find necessary pleasure in living.
On what should have been the glorious morning of the new year’s vernal equinox, the troubled soul woke-up only to detect that a large crimson stain was showing near his right shoulder, indicating that the warlike wasp had disappeared and that the ‘diabolical spider’ was now plumper in diameter than ever before. Obviously, the vanished wasp was no match for what the drunken observer self-described as ‘the formidable Hades tarantula’.
‘I should’ve remained an unhappy bum living in good old Macedonia, Ohio!’ Dennis sadly lamented. ‘The combination of Philly’ and that accursed side alley tattoo parlor have deluged me with an abundance of hellish bad luck. I could’ve married my high school sweetheart, settled down and became an ordinary family man with two or three children,’ the penitent alcoholic recalled. ‘But three years of detrimental isolation while dutifully serving Uncle Sam in two different submarines had slowly dissolved and destroyed my sanity and most certainly, made me resort to relying on hard liquor and powerful German beer. And my stint in the merchant marine didn’t help me any, either. Over the years, I’ve inadvertently deviated from truly relishing a responsible, normal adult life! Now I deeply regret it.’
In the ensuing spring months of April and May, Dennis Kinkaid no longer trekked eight blocks to buy fresh fruit and vegetables at the popular Ninth Street Italian Market, nor did he hike an even greater distance to purchase Sicilian pizza and delicious hoagies at the City of Brotherly Love’s all-too-familiar Reading Terminal. The deadbeat’s diet and eating habits negatively shifted from healthy to self-destructive, with the fazed and rattled tramp spending his daily lunch and supper hours at the local Burger King, at the corner McDonald’s and at the lackluster Chinese fast food restaurant and at the filthy convenience store situated directly beneath his shabby apartment.
Undoubtedly, the anxious-and-desperate Pennsylvania transplant had become more despondent and wary with each passing sunrise and sunset.
‘I’m beyond the point of receiving any recuperative mental health help, so why should I even bother exploring that remote possibility?’ Dennis admitted and concluded. ‘I even envy the lousy panhandlers and the hapless street people wandering about this part of the city. If only I had stayed back in tranquil Macedonia! But my foolish fascination with insects and arachnids along with my desire to achieve asylum from harsh reality are abnormally uniting to erode my basic confidence. Escapism be damned!’ Kinkaid concluded. ‘How have I ever become the victimized main character in a nefarious and satanic sci-fi movie? This haunting fantasy can only end in disaster!’
Dennis Kinkaid was indeed quite aware that no more bug tattoos remained as obstacles upon his right arm since the invincible tarantula had presently exited the right shoulder area and now had made a linear path directly towards the rotund bumble bee, the tiny fly and the disgusting cockroach that had been inked onto his massive, hairless chest.
Several weeks after the stalking spider had eliminated the vulnerable wasp and the harmless bumble bee, the illustrated black fly happened to be the next insect subject to be killed, or as Kinkaid’s afflicted mind pondered, ‘intentionally murdered’.
And next, during a very rainy late April day, the vulnerable roach and the flesh-eating Brazilian fire ant (all of which had formerly formed a semi-circle next to the crazed fellow’s right nipple) had also been efficiently erased from existence; each ‘bug martyr’ leaving behind an ominous trace of wet red blood, each devoured insect accurately demonstrating itself as being pure-proof evidence of ‘the night crawler’s incessant pursuit of terror. But scared-out-of-his-mind Dennis Kinkaid had no viable plan as to how to effectively respond to the ever-emerging crisis.
‘The heinous spider has a foul life of its own, and my tortured mind is trapped in a baffling quandary about how this enemy should be eradicated or destroyed,’ Dennis apprehensively reckoned. ‘Now I’m very much afraid to make an appointment with a Jefferson Hospital surgeon to remove the baneful tarantula, for surely after I would reveal the true nature of my overwhelming malady during the preliminary office interview, he or she would recommend that I seek the professional services of a qualified mental health facility. I pray to God that my fate is not doomed! My God! This is quite evil! The voracious spider seems to be moving and attacking faster with every passing week!’
A whole series of scars had appeared in a straight path extending from the former sailor’s right clavicle and then across his thorax, and soon the large, corpulent, defenseless cockroach was systematically ‘executed and terminated’ in the same manner as also had been the nearby bloated bumble bee, frail fly and the accessible flesh-eating fire ant. In each instance the residual result of the dangerous tarantula’s indomitable persistence was a ‘signature blotch’ of wet blood indicated upon the hairy-but-irritated skin wound alongside the man’s sternum.
Only one remaining adversary existed for the clutches and mandibles of the avaricious, famished tarantula, and that seemingly worthy opponent was the awesome-looking Black Widow that had been tattooed next to Dennis Kinkaid’s protruding Adam’s apple. And by early July, the dual spiders were ready to engage in definite lethal combat. ‘I’m about to die from extreme terror even before the horrible struggle ever begins!’ Kinkaid fretfully considered. ‘I feel like I’m helplessly being devastated by the black spider’s insect instinct! I wouldn’t wish this atrocious curse on my worst enemy, or even upon demonic Lucifer himself!’
Suffering from a lack of sleep, the tattooed vagabond gradually lapsed into a coma on the morning Independence Day, July 4th while the pair of dedicated foes engaged in a drastic, intense death duel. Upon regaining consciousness, Dennis slowly and drowsily arose out of bed, cautiously stepped to the bathroom mirror and soon perceptively gazed at his physical reflection. Immediately in horror the man’s eyes recognized that his entire neck had been covered and smeared with arachnid blood. But much to his utter dismay and total shock, a two-inch wide cavity had somehow been carved-out next to his voice box, and then much to his befuddlement and dismay, there was no sign of either a tarantula or a Black Widow anywhere near Kinkaid’s penetrated neck.
With his agitated mind now in a total state of bafflement, while using the bathroom mirror to meticulously study the dark hollow existing in his throat, suddenly a hairy spider leg steadily emerged from the recently-created black circular pit.
Instantaneously, Kinkaid’s body felt paralyzed as the petrified spectator stared with amazement at the genuine-but-bizarre mirror phenomenon that his gaping eyes had been witnessing. The first gruesome leg was soon followed by a second, and next all six appendages were grimly visible and reflected from the medicine cabinet’s mirror. Dennis Kinkaid was completely horrified, and his weak knees were on the verge of collapsing as the illogical. in-progress, bizarre episode was frightfully evolving, almost in slow motion.
‘Maybe I should imitate the old superstitious Italians and wildly do the Tarantella,’ Dennis’s tormented mind conjured, obviously alluding to a legendary folk dance that was often performed in Naples or in Sicily after a native had been accidentally bitten by a defensive tarantula. Then a rather salient thought entered the perplexed resident’s mind. ‘There’s little time left. I must survive this fiendish spider curse if it’s the last thing I ever do! How pathetically ironic! Me, a human being at the top of the food chain being maliciously exterminated by a despicable spider! How ironic and detestable!’
After exiting the dark hole inside the victim’s neck, the clawing three-dimensional tarantula had conspicuously grown in size to an outstanding three inches across, but it was now much hairier than it had been hours before the insect monster had entered its secretive dark hiding place next to Dennis Kinkaid’s Adam’s apple. The aggrieved tattoo lover’s appalled and suspicious eyes then fully noticed and entirely understood the ongoing graphic paranormal spectacle, and a moment later the man’s erratically beating heart ceased its automatic rhythm; Dennis’s lusty breathing had stopped, and at that particular second in time Death had mercilessly enveloped the bad-luck tattoo lover. Kinkaid had very willfully surrendered his vanquished soul to the afterworld, and no other apathetic mortal seemed to care.
Soon the proud bloated tarantula, seemingly fully cognizant of its abominable accomplishment, victoriously wandered off of the dead man’s face in a very ostentatious manner, and then the toxic creature hastily moved onto the dirty linoleum floor. After performing its latest murder, the triumphant, on-the-prowl arachnid was never again seen wandering and roaming on the face of the Earth.
On the bright and sunny morning of Independence Day, 2010, just five short blocks from historic Independence Hall, Dennis Kinkaid’s soul had declared its irreversible liberation from its spiritual captivity inside the man’s tortured body. As the former sailor’s inanimate corpse lay upon the dilapidated apartment’s tiny bathroom floor, the furious landlord was seen pounding on the entrance door with an access key in fist, the slumlord futilely knocking in quest of a late June rent payment.
Amazon Kindle ebook: The Arcane Arcade, Leonard Streitfeld & Jay Dubya
Google: Jay Dubya books
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Jay Dubya books
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you whet the appetite for more! I look forward to reviewing the book!
Never stop writing !
m
As I read The Tattoo, I came across the characteristic Jay Dubya outlandish, dictionary lookup worthy adjectives from your vast vocabulary, and reference to local eating establishments of note, very glad to be named in fictional stories as a form of advertising.
In a way, The Tattoo reminded me a little bit of the movie, The Fly. Only in the fly, there was some semblance of science with the DNA of a fly getting mixed with the DNA of a human in a scientific procedure. On the other hand, the Hades tarantula tattoo was merely ink on skin, so the psychological turmoil that Dennis Kincaid was going through, appeared to be clearly in the paranormal fantasy of what the mind can do. Except for the apparent physical damage to Dennis's body, that could actually have been self-inflicted by taking a razor blade and attempting to cut out the various tattoos that Kincaid's alcoholic DTs told him to remove to verify the tarantula tattoo's voracious nature.
But those details were left out, including the fact that while Dennis contemplated going to a doctor, he never thought of going back to the tattoo shop and the artist that placed those seemingly living ink images under his skin.
Finally, I would have to look it up to see if the Hades tarantula exists and is indeed capable of destroying all of the other insects, including the female black widow. But I have learned that man, the ultimate predator, finds it quite easy to snatch a tarantula, skewer him on a stick and roast him into a tasty morsel, regardless of his poison.
Ron