Matching Tattoos

So this happened a few weeks ago on a Friday night ghost tour and I just can’t seem to get it out of my head, so I’ll share it now in hopes of trying to make sense of it. 

The tour itself was nothing special. Actually if I recall correctly the only thing noteworthy about it was just how well-behaved everyone was. It was a group of about fifteen, all of whom simply wanted to quietly listen to some ghost stories while following my instructions to the letter. As a guide, you couldn’t ask for more, really. The only thing that stood out to me about this tour was this one couple. A young man and woman- both in their mid twenties- who at first looked the part of the complete happy item. Standing together, listening intently to me while his arm wrapped over her shoulder and she nuzzled her head against his chest.

I guess the reason I first noticed them was because of how attractive they both were. Not like super model attractive, but more like casting-for-certain-roles-in-a-movie attractive. She had that classic look of the pretty-polite-girl-next-door, him having that rebel-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks look.

That’s how I saw them at least. That and his sad eyes. For whatever reason, one of the first thing’s I noticed was his big, rather sad eyes.

The second reason I noticed them was because they both had white cloth wrapped around their forearms, as if they had both been recently burned or bitten by a zombie on the same spot of their body. But then I noticed the way would absentmindedly scratch and pick at the cloth from time to time, making me realize they probably had just gotten matching tattoos. Certainly not the first time I’ve seen a couple do that while vacationing in the quarter.

And then, after walking from Romeo Spikes to the Hotel Provincial, when I stopped to tell my third story, I noticed something new that caught my eye. They were no longer standing next to each other. For this next story they listened from opposite ends of the group, with at least a good fifteen feet between them. This continued for the next couple of stories, with them listening to me while apart from one another, which I found very odd. I’ve seen a thousand of couples on my tours and they almost always stick close to each other throughout the whole two hours (who doesn’t want to snuggle up to a loved one when death, murder and horror is all around you?).

Normally I would assume the pair had gotten in a fight at some point during the story, which has also happened quite a bit on tour, except I hadn’t heard anything resembling a quarrel coming from them, and with how quiet the group was that night, I surely would have heard something. Also their energy, posture and mannerisms suggested they weren’t angry or upset, but still, there was definitely a weird energy I felt between them. Something was off, I knew that much.  

Anyway, at bar break I approached them and the three of us engaged in conversation, where I learned they were both from Long Island, had been there their whole lives and he was now a construction worker and she was an elementary teacher. Behind that though, there was that same undeniably strange energy coming from them that I had first picked up during the tour, like some hidden secret between them that neither cared to discuss. Perhaps this is why I made no attempt to ask them anything about their relationship: how long they had been together, how they met, etc. Normally I have no qualms poking my nose in the lives of those on my tour purely for my own edification. But for whatever reason, that energy I was feeling told me to stay away. Nor did I ask them about the white cloth wrapped around the forearms, which they continued to lightly scratch as we spoke.

Forty minutes later, the tour ends and my group scatters in different directions… except for the four people who invite me to have a drink with them. Two of these people are bffs from Chicago, and the other two are the couple from Long Island, of course.  Naturally, I accept.

Two drinks later, sitting at a small table up against the wrought iron fence of the St. Louis Cathedral, enjoying some Pirate Punches from Pirate’s Alley Cafe, all is going well between the four of us. Jokes, laughter, personal stories, it’s all coming out of us and again, exactly what you would hope for after a good tour. But then one of the Chicago ladies asks about the couple’s bandaged forearms, and the couple reveals that yes, they both got tattoos earlier that day. They even remove the cloth to show us what they got. His is a blue wizard, her’s a yellow frog.  

“I’m a little surprised,” I admit, “I figured you guys would have gotten matching tattoos, most couples who come here together do that.” 

       They both have a good laugh at this before casually dropping a bomb on us. 

“Oh you guys thought we were dating?” She giggled. “No, we’re brother and sister.”

I’ll never forget how the three of us- me and the besties from Chicago- exchange quick glances of shock, all of us sure they were a couple, or at least romantically involved. But they assure us they aren’t and that she has a boyfriend back home and he dates a plethora of women. Outwardly, all five of us have a good laugh at this and act like it’s a hilarious misunderstanding, but inwardly I can still sense that awkward energy emanating from them, it’s stronger now than ever. What’s more, I have to fight the urge to stare at the construction worker, whose eyes appear sadder than ever. 

We begin to talk about other things when, maybe five minutes later, they casually drop another bomb on us.

“Well, we’re actually not brother and sister, technically.”

“No,” the woman affirms, “we’re just very close and have been since we were toddlers so it’s like we’re brother and sister, so that’s why we tell people we are.”

More confused laughter follows after this that leads to an uncomfortable silence. Eventually I can’t take it anymore and suggest we all go to the Dungeon to grab one last drink together as a group before going our separate ways for the night. Usually this is my go-to move when a group post-tour is growing a bit more wild and needs a place like the Dungeon, which was made for wild nights, but now I’m suggesting it just because I don’t know what else to say and that weird energy coming from the Long Islanders is killing me. Of course, another option would have been to just say my goodbyes and end the night there, but there’s just something so alluring about this oddity in front of me that I can’t seem to walk away. 

So there we are, frolicking down the quarter to the exquisite treachery of the Dungeon, the magic of the Friday night is hitting us all in the right places and whatever weirdness was lingering in the alley seems gone now.

Of course, me being me, this is when I decide to blow it all up. I wait until it’s just me and him leading the charge, with his ‘sister’ is following behind us a good thirty feet away, talking loudly with the Chicago girls a good thirty feet behind us, well out of earshot.

“So she’s like a sister to you, eh?” I ask, giving him just enough side-eye to suggest I know something that I actually don’t.

He sighs at this, picking at his fresh tattoo, and without missing a beat looks over at me with those sad eyes of his and says, ”I’m in love with her dude. I have been for years. I just know she’s the one for me but I don’t know how to tell her. I’m just waiting for the right moment, you know. I don’t know when it’ll be but I feel confident the universe will let me know when to tell her, and then everything will be as it should be.”

I’m so taken aback by his abrupt honesty that I sort of just mumble something out of the side of my mouth about that being a good plan or something, I don’t really remember, and then we don’t talk about it anymore and slow down our walk so the girls can catch up, at which point we all make our way as a group together to the long, slender entrance of the Dungeon, with him and ‘his sister’ arm-in-arm once again.

Once inside, we all grab seats at the bar and order drinks. The guy gets up to go to the bathroom just as the bartender places my drink in front of me. I take a nice long sip and then notice the girl-next-door sitting next to me, looking down into her Long Island Ice Tea with her own hint of sadness. 

“You know he’s in love with you right?” I ask her. I don’t know why I do this. Maybe it’s all the sugar and booze in my system, maybe it’s because I recognize how unhealthy this all is and feel someone needs to blow it up, goddammit. Or maybe I’m just a bit of a snake who needs some sort of satisfying ending to this soap opera he just found himself in. In any case, she sighs at this and responds without even looking up from her drink.

“Of course I know. I’ve known for a long time. But I don’t feel that way about him and he knows that…he has to know that. I love him and always will, but not like that. I don’t know what to do, Randy, every day it gets worse. It’s getting harder and harder to be around him. I just know one day he’s going to just confess his feelings and then everything will be different. We won’t be able to hang out like we used to.”

“Do you think that going on vacations together, just you and him, and getting tattoos is maybe sending the wrong signal?”

“That’s why I insisted we don’t get matching tattoos!”

 I nod my head at this as she picks at her fresh ink.

“I don’t know, it’s just a big clusterfuck and I don’t want to think about it. OK? I just want to enjoy my vacation and not worry about any of that. I just want everything to be good.”

Well hell, I think, who doesn’t want that.

Her ‘brother’ returns soon after, still wearing those sad eyes, still picking at his own ink, and all five of us sort of just finish our drinks in silence while pretending to headbang to the Nine Inch Nails song blaring from the Dungeon speakers.

Five minutes later, I’m heading back home alone after the five of us had said our goodbyes, and I’m sort of processing everything that happened, and it’s here that I realize I’ll never know exactly how the story ends. I’ll never see those people again, ever. I didn’t even bother to ask them if they were on facebook or instagram. Maybe I knew that was not the right thing to do. Maybe, I realize, it’s for the best. But dammit, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since… humans, we’re fucking strange creatures.

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