Bloodlines

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    I was writing a story about a tattoo artist in Newport, Rhode Island, who specializes in engraving dead-like-ness portraits of dogs on the bodies of their owners. Her professional name—maybe even her real name—is Sally Brand, and she got started in dogs because she was tired of cover-ups.
    Cover-ups? Seaman First Class Jack Doe comes home with “Jack and Jill Forever” freshly and painfully emblazoned on his forearm, only to discover that Jill’s deserted him or that the one he really loves isn’t Jill after all but the inconveniently polysyllabic Millicent. The tattoo’s a misfit, right? What he needs is a cover-up. So Sally would update Jill to Millicent, which can’t have been easy; or if the sailor had soured on love, she’d incorporate the entire original tattoo into the head of a black panther, which, Sally tells me, will camouflage anything; or, in the case of an unabashedly narcissistic Jack Doe, she’d cover up the and Jill with a pair of frolicking dolphins or an ebony-black-ink rococo anchor, thus leaving only the reliably apt “Jack Forever.”
    One night, though, when yet another sailor strolled into Sally Brand’s storefront parlor and asked her to immortalize yet one more transitory human relationship on his upper back, Sally finally wised up and asked,
    “Hey, fella, you happen to own a dog?” So the guy pulled out his wallet and produced a photo of a Dalmatian with the unimaginative name of Spot. Sally’d done lots of Rottweilers and Dobermans before, but the images had been more or less generic. The head of Spot was her first real portrait. The rest is tattoo history. Human relationships are only skin deep. They’re laborious, painful, and expensive to correct. But with dogs? With dogs, there are no misfits.
    I first heard of Sally Brand at Crane’s Beach, where I saw her work on the heavily muscled chest of a top handler named Larry Wilson, whose tattooed brace of Obedience Trial Champion black standard poodles not only looked just like the originals but even wagged their tails when he flexed his pectorals.
    I was so crazy about the idea that I originally had only one question: Where? Rowdy is my right hand, after all, so that seemed like a good idea. But what about Kimi? Both of them? That felt better: two Alaskan malamutes, one on each upper arm, forever eyeing one another across my breasts. Then the guilt set in. What if Vinnie happened to peer down from above? Never having missed a thing on this earth, Vinnie could hardly be expected to overlook the sudden appearance of a sled dog on each of my biceps and the simultaneous nonappearance of a golden retriever bitch anywhere on my body. How could I explain it to her? Sorry, Vinnie, but there just wasn’t room for everyone? I mean, how do you tell the best obedience dog you’ll ever own that she got edged out by a pair of malamutes, for God’s sake? So I could hardly leave Vinnie out. Off. Not to mention Danny or Cookie or any of the others, even poor Rafe, who was terrified of everything, especially needles.
    As I sat at the kitchen table writing up the notes of my interview with Sally Brand, I was still trying to decide where and also worrying about who and how many. Then the phone rang, thus probably saving me from becoming the first tattooed lady ever exhibited by the American Kennel Club.
    Four or five times a year, I pick up the receiver to discover that someone’s dialed my number by mistake. This call, though, was definitely for me: It was about a dog—not just any dog, either, but an Alaskan malamute.
    “Holly?”
    Holly Winter. Kute with a k, right? Welcome to purebred dogdom. And, no, the two litters whelped just before mine weren’t Samoyeds or malamutes or anything else Christmasy. They were golden retrievers, but, yes, of course: December. Woof woof. Let me reassure you, though, and while I’m at it, let me remind myself: Although I’m a member in good standing of the Dog Writers’ Association of America, this is not one of those tales—doubtless spelled t-a-i-l-s —told from the dog’s point of view. I don’t object to the dog’s point of view, of course; I just don’t know what it is. Although I’ve spent most of my life trying to imagine it, I still see it only through a glass, darkly, which is to say that, from what I can discern, it is remarkably like God’s face. Anyway, I admitted to being myself.
    My caller was Barbara Doyle. You know her? Well, if you show your dogs, you’ve seen