The Flickering Dial

In the sweltering August of 2018, I drove my eighteen-year-old daughter, Lena, to the remote town of Ashford, nestled in the hills of eastern Kentucky, to celebrate my father-in-law’s seventieth birthday. Lena was an apprentice tattoo artist, and I’d promised her she could set up a small station in the barn for the family, hoping to keep her busy and maybe earn a little cash. My late grandfather, Jeremiah ‘Jerry’ Hale, had passed in 2009. He’d always been adamant that none of us grandkids tattoo his name on our bodies. My older brother, Marcus, was the first to disobey. He got a simple anchor with ‘In Loving Memory of Jerry’ beneath it. I followed with a rose and ribbon, weaving in the initials and death dates of all four grandparents. Lena’s machine hummed with a fierce energy, and when Marcus took his turn, the power flickered, but the needle kept going. After a momentary blackout, the machine’s dial, which had been set to ’11’, reset to ‘9’. When it was my turn, Jerry’s name was the third in the list, and as Lena began to trace his initials, her foot pedal died completely. My youngest brother, Danny, had been closest to Grandpa, spending countless hours hunting and fishing with him. He’d chosen a cross with ‘R.I.P. J.H.’ and tiny fishhooks at the ends of the letters. Strangely, when Danny took his seat, the machine worked flawlessly, as if blessed. It was Danny’s story that had always felt haunted, and now, as the machine hummed again, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Grandpa’s spirit was watching, picking and choosing which ink to honor.