"Staring? Me? Oh... my apologies, honestly. I was drawn to your ink. I'd been thinking about tattoos all day."<br/><br/><i>All week... all month... all my life? </i>He thought, then pushed that thought away, irked.<br/><br/>He tried to make a show of looking around the parlor, trying to take in the sheer variety of artwork on the walls, though her skin kept drawing his eyes back to it. He felt compelled, as if he could have paused time to explore every inch of her artwork.<br/><br/>"Oh, um... my apologies haha... I didn't mean to imply, I mean... I really don't know how things work here. If you would walk me through it? I mean... I did speak to some of the brothers down on the other side of town, where they do some ink on the side of the barber shop, but they wouldn't..." he trailed off randomly, not wanting to add how they'd laughed him off good humorly, suggesting he stick to writing feel good sermons telling their wives and daughters to stay in line.<br/><br/>That'd irked him too, that suggestion that he was there just as someone to keep the women busy, while they dealt their drugs and ran their gangs, as if he wasn't every bit a part of their neighborhood too now. But how could he, with a degree in gender studies from a private liberal arts school, raised in the big city, ever get across his thoughts on family and opportunity across to them when he was a joke to them? It made him feel extra annoyance with himself too, his supposedly woke self, and his faux pas.<br/><br/>He raised his hand to shake back, wincing as he did. His entire right side still felt so sore. It's why he was missing his usual basketball game back in the neighborhood today.<br/><br/>"May I sit down, maam?"<br/><br/>He pulled a customer chair towards him and sat facing her, legs wide unthinkingly out of habit, hands in his lap.<br/><br/>"Your art is beautiful" he said, resuming his circling perusal. "I suppose one learns on the job in your line of work? Haha... it's proving a familiar feeling."<br/><br/>"And what about for someone who came to you and didn't know what they wanted? How would you advise them? How did you pick your own designs, when it came to yourself?"