Four old white
geezers, ages ranging from about 62 to about 75, were sitting in the hot tub at the
YMCA, soaking up warmth after their swims has drained the heat from their slowly declining
circulatory systems. Knowing what I know of the clientele, we were
middle and upper class folks, several retired, the others on extended lunch
breaks or in semi-retirement with afternoons free. One was working a sore knee in front of one of the whirlpool jets.
Two young men in
their late 20s or early 30s sauntered up to the whirlpool with a casual rolling
gait; both were extremely muscular with a hardness to their bodies that was in
decided contrast to the comfortable pudginess of the old white guys already in the
whirlpool.
A slight but
obvious nervous tension appeared in several of the old white guys. The
newcomers were men of color, and appeared to be of mixed ethnic background—I
took them to be Hispanic and African American. This is not where the nervousness
in the white guys arose, but rather in the fact that the newcomers were
liberally tattooed with images that might lead one to believe that they might
have some present or past affiliation with gang life. One young man had blue
teardrops tattooed below one eye, as well as several intricate and aggressive
tattoos on his arms and legs.
The other young
man had a huge tattoo of a crucifix on his chest and belly. The scrollwork on
the cross was intricate and complicated, reflecting a good deal of time and
skill by the tattoo artist. The cross-arm of the crucifix ran fully across the
young man's nipples and the vertical post of the crucifix started just
below his chin then ran south to disappear beneath the waistline of his swim
trunks toward his pubic area. On each side of the crucifix, just below the cross
member, was a large word that together read "Suffer, Jesus," the words separated
by the vertical post of the crucifix.
I found myself
puzzling the presence of that comma, and reflected on the difference that it
would make for that comma to be missing. "Suffer Jesus" might be
interpreted liturgically as "Allow Jesus into your
life," while "Suffer, Jesus" wanted to be read grammatically as an
imperative, a rebellious order telling Jesus that he should suffer.
Either way, it
was a slightly shocking tattoo in this environment, and I think the palpable
nervousness of the old white guys was mostly because of this single tattoo and
wondering what it implied about this pair of powerful young men of color.
I was expecting the
scene to play out in uncomfortable silence for several minutes as, one-by-one,
the old white guys slipped out of the hot tub and scurried into the nearby
shower room. Instead, though, one of the old guys said "Hey, where did you
get the bottled water? Is it sold here?" I hadn't noticed that the young
man wearing the crucifix tattoo had entered the hot-tub holding two ice-cold
bottles of water. "
"No,
man," said crucifix man. "I buy them at Munch and Pump for $.45
each."
"They sell
bottled water upstairs," the other young man said, "But it's highway
robbery at $2.50 a bottle, and they are really small bottles."
"I know," said another of the old white guys,
unheard until now. "How in the world do they justify that much money for
simple water?"
Several minutes of relieved sports-related pleasantry now passed between
everybody in the hot tub, then the young tattooed men stood to exit the whirlpool.
"Here man," said crucifix man
to the old guy who had first asked about the water, handing him one of the
bottles. "I've got two, and you look hot."
The old guy accepted the bottle of water, and started to
make noises about paying the young man back.
"No sweat," said crucifix man. "It's just four
bits." As the two young men headed for the locker room, the other one
turned back with a pleased and slightly surprised smile on his face "Have
a good day, dog."
