After having April check the placement of the fairy transfer in a mirror, Seth has her sit down next to his 12-inch screen television equipped with video and DVD players — trade-outs from his friend Roger to pay for a detailed old-world-style tattoo of a geisha that Seth has been working on for months. The video now playing is Seth’s favorite: Boondock Saints, a dark drama of two brothers who attend mass regularly, respect their mother, and kick the shit out of local bad guys. At almost no time is the television ever turned off even though the guys in the front of the shop usually keep the head-banger tunes on high.

The other major piece of furniture in Seth’s area is a red metal Husky tool cabinet covered with bumper stickers that declare BUILT TO GRIND, FREE PAIN, and HI, I DON’T CARE, THANKS. The drawers house the tools of the trade: bandages, paper towels, A&D Ointment, Scotch tape, disposable razors and packages of sterilized tattoo needles. Adorning the walls are a samurai sword, a signed black and white photo of World of Power Wrestling’s El Chango Loco, a trophy from the 2001 Brothers in Ink Tattoo Show for MOST ORIGINAL TATTOO, and figurines from Grendel — Seth’s favorite comic book character, a spirit who has taken various forms. Grendel is respected, honored and feared like a samurai warrior. Seth cherishes such hard-hitting do-gooder vigilantes as the Boondock Saints and Grendel as his heroes, a way of fulfilling his longing for greatness as he whiles away his waking life in a dreamlike state induced by absorption into other worlds through video games, movies, and drawing.

April’s blonde friend has been leaning over the counter, squinting at a series of eight photographs taped to the white brick wall next to Grendel the Warrior. The first picture shows five-inch-long quarter-inch-thick silver hooks being inserted into the skin along Seth’s shoulder blades— one of the places he has yet to tattoo. The next show the hooks being connected to a small crane with a pulley system attached to a boxed motor that looks like a garage door opener. In the third Seth has been pulled upward, part of his weight still on the balls of his feet, his eyes are closed and he’s breathing through rounded lips. The fourth is a close up of Seth’s hooked skin pulled taught like taffy, thin streaks of blood running down his back as he hangs from the hooks. The last few pictures are of Seth in various stages of suspension: hanging, swinging, bleeding, and smiling. Seth had shown these photographs of his suspension to his older sister during his last trip home and she cried. He hadn’t shown them to his father — they don’t give Boy Scout badges for suspension.

"Ew, those pictures, that’s like in The Cell. I just saw that movie last night," says April’s friend. She screws up her face, "How creepy. Why would you do that?"

Seth sighs. If he hadn’t been working he might have considered his response by stroking the two and a half inches of hair flowing from his chin. Apart from the billy-goat chin Seth is clean-shaven. On his head, his hair is kept cropped at quarter-inch stubble, just like his dad’s. Seth’s earlobes have been punched, the holes stretched by silver dollar-size plugs. Thin-rimmed glasses sit on a slightly hooked nose to help focus Seth’s soft brown eyes that, in spite of all the modifications to his body that symbolize toughness, reveal a sensitivity and vulnerability that make him seem even younger than his 25 years.