Jake remembered that the argument had gone on for quite some time, sometimes friendly, sometimes heated to the point that they were flirting around the edges of physical confrontation. Everyone in the bar (and there were many there that night — it was Friday, after all) had an opinion on the matter and everyone had felt the need to share that opinion. There were those — a few — who agreed that it was possible for Jake to love New Zealand as deeply as he proclaimed — after all, what was not to love about it? — but this group was very much in the minority. Most people agreed that Jake was being melodramatic to some degree. A few were outright offended that Jake would even suggest that he loved their beloved country as much as they themselves did.
The argument had still been raging when Jake's brain, overwhelmed by alcohol, had stopped recording memories for the night. His body, however, continued to function quite well as evidenced by the fact that when he woke up in his bed the next morning (and yes, he had driven himself home at some point, piloting his 1990 Harley-Davidson Fatboy up the Summit Road, in the dark, without a helmet) the first thing he noticed — even before the hangover — was that his right upper arm was really hurting. He looked and found a bloody gauze bandage wrapped around the appendage from his shoulder to his elbow.
"What the hell?" he'd muttered, wondering if he'd been stabbed or if he'd crashed his bike.
It was only when he got into the bathroom and unwrapped the bandage did he discover that he was now the proud owner of a new tattoo. It was only after talking to Kate, Elizabeth, and the bartender that had been on duty that night that Jake got the story of how the tattoo had come to be there.
Apparently, just after midnight, Jake had tired of the endless argument regarding his love, or lack thereof, of his current country of residence. He had stood up on the bar and offered to prove how much he loved this fucking place.
"How are you going to prove it?" he was asked.
"Who's the best goddamn tat artist in Lyttelton?" he'd replied.
This, of course, led to a brief sub-argument, as there were almost a dozen tattoo shops in Lyttelton — it was a port town after all — and everyone in the room who had a tat (which meant pretty much every male and about half of the females) wanted to nominate their particular artist for the honor of "best in Lyttelton". Eventually, however, they all had to agree that there was one particular artist — Ian Blackworth — who was a definite cut above the rest. The owner and operator of Blackworth Tattoo, Ian was a second generation artist who had learned the trade from his father and had been putting ink on body parts for the past thirty-eight years.
"I want him!" Jake told the crowd. "Let's get him right now!"
When it was explained to Jake that Blackworth Tattoo was only open until nine o'clock on Fridays and that Ian was undoubtedly in bed in his room above the shop by now, Jake declared that he didn't give a fuck.
"Let's wake his ass up!" Jake was reputed to have yelled. "I'll make it worth his while!"
And so they had. And Jake did indeed make it worth his while, paying the equivalent of six hundred American dollars — plus a two hundred dollar tip — for a little over three hours worth of late night work that Jake now had absolutely no memory of receiving.
As he looked at his new tattoo in the mirror now, Jake took a little solace in the fact that he'd at least been coherent enough to demand the very best and that the townspeople he had been drinking with had been honest enough to point him in the right direction. After all, if you had to have an impulsive, alcohol-fueled mistake adorning your right arm for the rest of your life, you might as well have it put there by the best in the business.
Jake stepped closer to the mirror, turning so he could the image a little better. He supposed it would start to grow on him eventually — after all, he really did love New Zealand's South Island.
And that was what the tattoo was: A seven-inch by two and a half inch relief map of South Island drawn to scale in fine detail. The map included snow on the Southern Alps, all of the rivers, lakes, and coastal inlets large enough to be shown on a map of that size, and it even had Stewart Island, placed to scale and the proper distance from the southern tip of the main island. Though it was purely a geographic map — the image Ian had used to make the stencil had been taken from an atlas and showed no cities or place names — the town of Lyttelton was marked with a little red flag (apparently that had been Jake's idea — he wanted to be able to show people where his house was on the map).
Jake reached out and touched the tattoo now, running his finger over the Southern Alps, which was where most of the scabbing was concentrated. The tat no longer hurt, but it did still itch. He resisted the urge to scratch it and made a mental note to rub some baby oil on it at some point this morning. But first, his bladder was still straining.
The toilet seat was down, which meant that Kate had been the last one to use it, probably just before she got dressed and left this morning. Jake lifted it up, aimed his withered and abused penis towards the water, and let loose a torrent.
It took him perhaps three seconds to realize that he was peeing — he could feel it leaving his body in the normal fashion — but that he was neither hearing nor seeing any urine splashing into the toilet. He puzzled over this apparent contradiction for a moment before looking down at his penis. The end of it seemed to be swelling up grotesquely, like a balloon. He emitted a startled scream at this sight and another two or three seconds of sheer terror passed before he realized that he was still wearing his last condom and that he was, in effect, turning it into a urine-filled water balloon.
A brief struggle ensued as he tried desperately to pull the straining rubber from his manhood and stifle the flow of urine at the same time. The first effort proved to be successful after a vigorous, sharply painful tug. The second was less so and he ended up spraying a good portion of his pee over the floor, toilet tank, and rim before getting the stream redirected to the proper place. Meanwhile, much of the urine contained in the condom spilled out over his hands.
"Christ," Jake said, shaking his head as he looked at the puddles he'd created, as he contemplated having to clean all of this up. "It looks like the start of another beautiful day."
Construction on Jake's Port Hills home was officially completed on September 24, 1990. Under New Zealand law, however, escrow could not close and the deed could not officially be recorded in the hall of records until the owner of the property completed a walk-through and inspection. Jake could have designated a representative to perform the walk-through and inspection for him, but doing such a thing would have caused two or three more days worth of paperwork, more legal fees, and probably a dozen or so international phone calls and faxes. By far, the easiest course of action was to simply inspect the property himself.
This was not Jake's only reason for making the long flight, however. He wanted to see his new house, wanted to see the project he'd only glimpsed drawings and blueprints of so far standing in actuality. Nor was that the only reason either. The most compelling rationale was that he really didn't have anything else on his plate at the moment, nor was there anything on the horizon.
Just one week before, on September 17, negotiations between Jake (with Pauline as his representative) and the legal and productive team of National Records, reached what Pauline termed an "unbreakable impasse" on the issue of Jake's solo album contract. All of the other major labels had already rejected Jake on the grounds that his contract provisions were unreasonable, unworkable, and, if accepted, unlikely to produce anything resembling profit. National was the final stop, and the label most likely to compromise with Jake since they already had a relationship with him. Jake, however, was unwilling to compromise.