Aurnia
O’Connell Street in the centre of Dublin town was busy. More than enough people. With more than enough money. But no one stopped. No one cared.
“Portrait?” I offered a woman who, when she passed, clutched her purse a little more tightly to her chest. I called after her, “Portrait? Just five euros! It’ll only take me a minute or two!”
The throng of people on the sidewalk pushed me this way and that. I struggled to keep the stack of blank papers beneath my arm and the straps of my backpack, filled with charcoal pencils from Conor, on my shoulders. I was elbowed one way only to stumble into the path of someone who stepped on my toes and sent me tripping into a back or a side. Though I apologised, all I received were angry glares, impatient remarks, and shoves away. The sidewalk only seemed to grow busier. And me smaller.
“Five euros for a portrait,” I shouted to the sky. I was being swallowed whole by the uncaring masses. “Five euros and I’ll draw you anything!”
“Draw my cock,” a businessman in an ill-fitting suit growled before shouldering past me.
I retreated to the relative safety of the brick wall of the General Post Office, an imposing building with a six-columned Greek-style portico at the front. I pressed myself tight against it and held the papers tight against my chest. Dark, mistrustful gazes darted toward me from the corners of pinched eyes. Women sidestepped me. Men purposefully got close enough that their arm could brush against my chest. I came to the busiest street in Dublin because I needed people. Well, this was fucking people.
I was trying to do what I had always done for my whole life: figure things out on my own. Make my own way. Deal with my own shit. It was my fault that Nick had come to Dublin Ink. My fault he had stolen from the cash register. My fault that I did nothing at all but stare and shiver as he walked straight out the door. I was going to fix things. On my own. My own way. Alone.
I’d heard of people selling their art on the streets. Portraits on boardwalks. Cartoons in tourist traps. Even little love poems written hastily in leaf-splattered canals. I’d arrived early that morning with my supplies and thought it might be alright. I’d get some cash. I’d replace it in the register before the boys arrived. No one would know. No harm would be done. Things could continue as they had been. As I wanted them to continue.
Mason with his dirty stories of his nightly conquests. Him roughing up my hair even after I’d just smoothed it back down. Rian with his distant gazes, his perplexing questions, his sudden ideas that made his eyes bright and his breath quicken. And Conor. Conor with his door cracked open. Conor with his invitation held just out of reach past my straining fingertips. Conor with mysteries I was on the verge of discovering. Conor with…just Conor.
Dublin Ink had become the closest thing to home I’d ever known. What had I done with it? Let someone come in and take from it. Make it unsafe. Threaten it.
I hadn’t slept all night. Pacing back and forth across the floor of the tattoo parlour, I had chewed at my lips till they bled, cracked my knuckles till they were swollen and painful, tugged at my hair till it came loose in my quivering fingers.
I wanted so terribly to stay at Dublin Ink. For Mason and Rian to finally trust me. For Conor to finally relent to me, to finally let me in. This mess with Nick had jeopardised it all. I couldn’t help but feel that I was doomed. That any time I tried to escape I was going to get dragged back in. It made my stomach tight with knots, my palms sweaty, my eyes prick with childish tears.
“Portrait!” I shouted out of desperation as I plunged back into the madness of the crowded O’Connell Street sidewalk. My voice broke when I shouted again, “Please! Will someone please take a portrait!”
All around me was black. Black trench coats. Black briefcases. Black luggage. Black handbags and coats and hats pulled low. I spun round and round in the midst of it and felt lost. Felt hopeless.
“Hello?” I shouted, my voice already going hoarse. “Hello?!”
Why didn’t anyone care? How couldn’t they see that my world, the little world that I’d built for myself and came to love, was falling apart? Why wouldn’t anyone stop? Why wouldn’t anyone even look at me?
“Portrait! Portrait any fucking body?!”
My father’s house was cruel. It was dangerous. Strange men wandered free and untethered. My nights were restless. My ears always pricked for the telltale grating of a turning doorknob. But these streets with their indifference and apathy were not any kinder. Eyes faced forward, clear of my head, clear of my watering eyes. Hands moved away from me, not toward me. Feet quickened, not slowed. I was in no real danger on that sidewalk. But it was also true that I was never going to get help either.
This made the warmth of Dublin Ink even more alluring and my betrayal (my inaction was a betrayal) even more terrible. I’d had something. I’d finally had it. And now I was going to lose it.
“Please!” I cried as I got jostled about, feet stumbling across one another. “Please! Anyone!”
A man in a particular hurry hit me with his shoulder from behind. As I tripped forward, my sheets of paper fell from beneath my arm. The cruel wind coming off the Liffey caught the heavy paper and sent it flying in all directions like scared doves. I tried lunging for a sheet here, a sheet there. Each seemed to be carried just out of reach or blocked just at the right moment by a passing pedestrian. My knees collided roughly with the uncaring concrete and I scrambled between the impersonal click of heels. I stretched for a sheet that was flipping end over end on the ground, a boot came down heavily on my fingers. I yanked my hand back with a cry and clutched it to my chest as I began to sob. The crowds parted around me despite not a single soul seeming to realise I was there. I remained down there, the cold biting through my knees, crawling up my legs like floodwaters in an icy river.
“Portraits,” I moaned even though my papers were gone, only flashes of them visible between quick-moving legs. “Anyone…”
My chin fell to my chest and I squeezed my eyes shut. What was left for me? I couldn’t go back to Dublin Ink. I’d most certainly lost my place in that family. If I’d been in that family at all. Was it back to my father’s house? To wedging chairs beneath doorknobs? To sneaking in through windows? To the smell of burning metal at midnight?
Was it back to Lee and Jack and Mia? To petty crime? To whatever came after petty crime? To prison?
Was it back to Nick? A cot in an abandoned warehouse? A pawn in his games? A pretty head of hair to drag his dirty fingers through?
I wanted to curl up right there on the sidewalk. Collapse onto my side. Draw my legs up into my stomach. Wrap my arms around my knees. Sleep. Wake up somewhere warm. Somewhere safe. Wake up in Dublin Ink. But I knew that was a dream. If I slept, it would not be there where I awoke.
“Portraits,” I mumbled.
“I’ll take one.”
The voice took me by surprise. I raised my head. In front of me was held out one of the papers that had gotten away from me. Maybe it was even the one that I’d gotten my fingers stomped on for. It was crumbled. Muddy footprints marred the smooth cream surface. The bottom third was wet from some puddle. Some gutter. But it was one of mine. And it was being held out to me.