THEATER 180: TATTOO A Tale of Terror

For reasons he can't explain, Stephen feels compelled to enter a sketchy-looking tattoo parlor that any reasonable person would avoid altogether. Once inside, he encounters a peculiar old woman, who Stephen enlists to become the artist of his baptismal ink job. At the first prick of the needle, Stephen decides to make a move for the door, but the old woman bars his way with a terrifying
plan in store.

Miranda Stewart directs a cast that includes Kevin Carr as Stephen/Storyteller, Anne Cooper as the Parlor Owner, Paul Sohm as the Doctor, and Ashley Law as Mrs. Dudley.

Greg Burdick is the playwright. A graduate of Slippery Rock University, his previous plays include Accommodation, Insert Token, Secret’s Out, Sign Here for All That Remains, Monessen Falls, and I’ll Love You ‘Til the Cows Come Home. Also a director, he’s helmed nearly one hundred productions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to Open Door Playhouse, a theater podcast that celebrates live theater on the podcast stage. I'm Miranda Stewart. At Open Door Playhouse, we strive to bring our listeners thoughtful and surprising 10-minute shorts and one-act plays that showcase insightful and new perspectives of the world we share with others. Open Door Playhouse is a 501c3 theater organization. Support for Open Door Playhouse comes from listeners like you. Your tax-deductible donations help keep our plays on the podcast stage. Donations can be made at www.opendoorplayhouse.org. Now playing in Theater 180, Tattoo a Tale of Terror, written by Greg Burdick, directed by Miranda Stewart, starring Kevin Carr as Stephen and the storyteller, Ann Cooper as the parlor owner, Paul Soam as the Doctor, and Ashley Law as Mrs. Dudley.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Ouch! Hey! I decided that night that I'd be the kind of person who gets one.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Now listen here.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

The parlor owner hissed through her clenched teeth.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

If you want this done right, you'd better sit still. Understand?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I'm sorry. I just didn't expect it to be quite so painful. Actually, I never expected that I would have ever stepped foot inside a tattoo parlor, much less this side of town, at this time of night. I knew all about the kind of things that went on in Festerton. It was a dangerous place. But something was drawing me there. I honestly don't know why I even came in here. The place looked like the lair of some mythological monster, flickering candles, stone walls, questionable stains on the floor. I guess that it was just that design that caught my eye.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, she's real beauty, isn't she?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

The design was a hypnotic image of a young girl's face. Fifteen, maybe sixteen.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

It's the eyes. Those eyes, those eyes.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

There was something very familiar about those eyes, but I couldn't summon the words. Instead, I just had this unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach the more I gazed upon her image. All I got out was the eyes. Yeah. And I couldn't look away. Maybe my leg wasn't the best place for it anyway. I rationalized, fighting a desperate urge to leap out of the chair and run home screaming. Could she sense my trepidation? You know, the old hag said thoughtfully.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

You might just be having a bad reaction to the ink I'm using.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Any allergies? None to my knowledge. But maybe I should I tried to ease my way to the door, but she pressed me back into the worn leather chair. Then she silenced me by raising one of her bony fingers to my lips.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

It just so happens a new ink was shipped to me recently from a little known shop, but a well-respected shop in a remote area near Sri Lanka. I haven't tried it yet.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Her finger felt wrinkled and cold against my lips, and her breath poured over me like the smell of hot garbage after a summer rainstorm.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

They tell me the colors are brilliant, and that there's not as much irritation.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

For the first time the corners of her mouth turned upward in a garish grin, revealing teeth that may well have never seen modern dentistry. Well Yes Is is there any place on my body where it wouldn't hurt so much?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Because my leg I always found the chest to be the most receptive to my needles.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

She began by pointing at my belly button and traced a line up to my sternum, leaning in closer still. Spotting the no refund sign hanging crookedly above the door, I slowly nodded and took a deep breath, sinking back into the chair. Where had I seen those eyes? My mind groped in vain for a memory until I spotted the old woman reaching for something inside a cupboard behind the counter. It was an ornate container, small but beautifully crafted with enamel and delicate metalwork, gold and silver, a masterpiece of antiquity, something you'd expect to see in a museum. Curiously, it almost resembled an urn. The container produced a foul, unpleasant odor when the owner opened it, as if something very old and rotten was being released into the air. At first glance inside, the ink looked dark red, but unexpectedly appeared to transform, shimmering into a spectrum of hues.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

I always think of my daughter when I draw this one.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

The owner whispered. I watched the owner fill the gun with the new ink. That unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach gave way to full-scale nausea when I considered that I was about to have this woman's dead daughter permanently stamped onto my chest. She really was, is, very pretty, I offered uncomfortably. What happened to her?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Her car broke down, and she was walking up the road at night looking for a service station.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Somebody took a corner too fast and she The old woman pathetically clutched the sketch of her daughter.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

How awful! Yeah. It was a hit and run, and the bastard never stopped to help. She bled to death.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

With one swift, unexpectedly graceful move, the owner pierced my chest with the needle. I watched transfixed as it went to work on my exposed flesh. But surprisingly, I don't remember feeling any pain. In fact, all I do remember feeling at that moment was a warm wave flowing through my entire body. It was as if the ink was some sort of drug, that my heart began pumping furiously throughout my system. Yes, yes, yes. I think the thing is, wait! I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

I want trust me, you'll love it. I know he will. You'll just love it.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

She allayed my fear, and there was no pain. I felt my body ease and relax and press more firmly into the chair, like I was becoming part of it. The parlor went fuzzy, turning a pale shade of purple, and then dense inky blackness. Sound from inside the parlor grew distant. I was floating somewhere, downward, lower and lower and lower. When at last I felt my body come to rest, the sound of the parlor far, far away, I was bombarded with a series of visions. They appeared to be memories. But whose? My own? It was all a blur.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

And the ink was It's time to push, Mrs. Duty.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Let's concentrate on pushing step inside my pal said the spider to the fly.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

And again, Mr. Studley.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

I can still make it. Congratulations, Mr. Dutch. All at once it was clear where I had seen the artist's daughter before. But how? How? It was me. I was the one who hit the girl. My car. After two decades of trying to suppress the memory, it was as though a massive floodgate had been opened inside my brain. And now that ink, that unusual ink was coursing through every inch of my body, pumping, raging, polluting. The more the ink raced through my body, the clearer that fatal night became. I remembered rushing home from work that night because Julie had just gone into labor. Her sister had to take her to the hospital because of that meeting. That meeting made me late. I never have to work nights, but that night. That night. The girl jumped in front of my car as I rounded the bend, and there was nothing I could do. I was driving too fast. The impact was bone-jarring. The sound and the sight. Try as I might to bury it deep, the one thing I could never forget were those eyes. Those eyes. Those innocent pools of blue that came through my windshield and stared back at me, still lifeless. I can't recall removing her body from the hood, but the thought that someone will be along in a minute echoed through my head as I raced toward the hospital. Congratulations, Mr. Dudley. It's, it's, it's. It's a girl. Instantly shocked out of my slumber when I awoke, relieved that the nightmare was finally over, my eyes came to focus on the beaming face of the parlor owner, her sickening grin even more ghoulish than before. She took my hands into her own and gleefully cried, Oh my baby, and how's Mama's little princess? She presented me with a small antique hand mirror, urging me to look, and as I quickly brought the glass toward my face, no scream came. Instead, only two little words.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Hi, Mommy. Hello, darling.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

And so my voice continues to echo inside the cavernous depths of this young girl's soul, unending, permanent, forever to remain.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

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