How I Met the King of the Jungle in NYC

I never realized that fictional characters live and walk among the rest of us. I never expected to meet one. And I never thought I would touch one and make him bleed.

Let me explain...

I’ve been in the Brooklyn shop for a few months and learning to ink freebies on volunteers. One Saturday I come in dressed to paint the walls and clean up. Unexpectedly, a middle-aged Puerto Rican man is sitting in the work station playing the bongos with fierce concentration, as if he were standing in front of the Pearly Gates and his admission to Heaven depended on his performance. With a jerk of the head the shop owner beckons into the back room and hands me a scribbled note. It says: “Sometimes in this business, you have to deal with weird people. This is your first paying customer. Don’t worry about anything and just do the best you can.”

I take a deep breathe and go out to meet him. Bongo Man says he is Tarzan and lives in the jungle in a tree. He keeps slapping the shop owner on the back and shaking his hand, calling him, “my fren, my fren, my FREN,” and then laughing manically. He does the Tarzan yell, “ahhhh aaaah-a aaah-a aaaaaaahhh aah-a aaah-a aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” He does it more than once.

Tarzan wants a tattoo that looks like the slashes Bruce Lee gets fighting with the razor sharp claw man in “Enter the Dragon.” Three slashes on his chest, black outline & filled in red, with a little black shading at the edges. He has a beer which I make him throw away, but while I am setting up I see him fish it out of the garbage.

As I work I ask him to move and sit in different positions, to accomodate the tattoo machine. He says “yes mami, anything for you” and says how much he respects women and how much he loves his wife. As soon as my boss leaves the room, Tarzan says I have a nice booty. Then he tells me a story about how he fought a shark while he was fishing in Puerto Rico, how he prayed to god to save him, and that’s why he’s alive today.

When I’m done he bends down on one knee and kisses my latex-gloved hand, which is covered in blood and ink.