numerocinqmagazine.com
Tattoo: Fiction --- Dede Crane | Numéro Cinq
Dede Crane writes the anatomy of an affair of the heart in her story "Tattoo," which is, yes, the story of a tattoo and what that can lead to. Two sisters lounge on a Mexican beach; it's their last day. A tattoo-artist, auspiciously named Jesus, plops down beside them and starts his spiel. The narrator has not been lucky with men; she rescues dogs instead; she is acutely aware of stereotypes and the tepid bourgeois agonies of the North American tourist class. Should she? Shouldn't she? What follows is not, as I have somewhat disingenuously called it, an affair --- something else, more revealing and innocent, surprising and right.