Unsatisfied with my job, I go to a bar and drink until I black out. I wake up in a strange bed with a strange tattoo on the left side of my chest. Looking down at it, I can’t even tell what it is. There’s no one else there to describe it to me. The apartment I’m in is curiously devoid of mirrors. I put on some pants and knock on the door of the apartment next to this one. A haggard old man answers. I point to the tattoo and ask him what it is. He plays with his glasses, screws up his face, and gets really close to me.
“I’m pretty sure it’s a walrus. Maybe he’s standing in front of an American flag or riding a tricycle. I can’t really tell.” He pauses, moves away from my chest, stands up straighter. “Looks like he’s having a lot of fun.”
I mutter a quick thanks and wander back to the other apartment but the door’s locked. I knock and there’s no answer. I go out to the street. I visit a store to buy a shirt and go back to my miserable job.
I’m unable to really tell what the tattoo is until it heals completely. It’s definitely a walrus. And it definitely looks like he’s having fun but everything else about it is unclear. Why a walrus? Why now?
Over the years, I discover how much people hate mystery. They want to know why I have a walrus over my heart and when I tell them I don’t know, they get furious. Many of them think it’s a joke. They want to know why I would do something so permanent on such a lark. Others tell me it’s not permanent. They tell me I can and should get it removed. But I grow to like it. I learn to invent stories for it.
“My mom loved walruses.”
“That was my first wife. She had cancer.”
“I worked as a walrus trainer.”
“I’ve always liked walruses. Ever since I can remember. Ever since I was a kid.”
“I made a pact with my friends. We all have walrus tattoos.”
Eventually I fall in love with a sex worker. I feel terrible lying to her but I do it anyway. I have trouble keeping my lies straight and eventually she asks me why I’m lying. I tell her. I tell her about people hating mysteries and that I understand that because it’s even a mystery to me. I don’t know why it’s there. I can only tell her the day I received it. There’s no real context. And that’s the part she doesn’t understand. She wants to know how I’ve lived so long with this hideous thing on my chest. I tell her I just got used to it. I tell her how much I like it now. When I propose to her, she laughs. She tells me there can never be anything other than sex between us. She tells me my insides are cracked and broken. She tells me there’s nothing there. She says the tattoo’s really just an expression of the void in my soul.
And each time she asks, “Why a walrus? Why there?” I can only shake my head and say, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
