The Mouse That Remembered Me. Part V (2022) 2 of 2: The Last 5%
1. The Tear
June 17th, 2022.
Preacher curls. Light weight.
First rep. First set.
Then—snap.
Not the satisfying kind.
The kind that echoes in your ears
before your brain catches up.
You filmed a few clips.
What else do you do
when your bicep coils into your shoulder
like a snapped cable?
You weren’t crying.
Weren’t panicking.
You were documenting.
Because deep down,
you knew this one would matter.
And after that?
You tattooed.
Because there was still time.
Because the pain hadn’t caught up to the discipline.
Because that’s who you were.
Even then.
2. THE PROOF
By July 2nd, you knew the blade was coming.
So you sat down and drew.
A soft-faced woman in Mickey ears, lined in graphite.
It wasn’t just a sketch.
It was a marker.
A message to no one but yourself:
I still can.
You needed that proof.
Because soon, your arm wouldn’t work.
And there’d be weeks where you’d forget who you were.
Surgery was July 5th.
You paid half in cash—$7,500 in stacked twenties,
all tucked inside Mickey apparel.
The receptionist blinked like it might be a setup.
Head and neck tattoos. Disney gear. No words.
She said she had to turn every bill to face the same way.
Paused halfway through to tell you that.
Every bill, turned.
You smiled. Professional. Friendly.
Which only made it stranger.
But you weren’t trying to prove anything to her.
You’d already done that two days earlier.
With a pencil.
Left hand.
One hour.
No backup plan.
3. THE CUT
You suited up like it was just another task.
Mickey mask. Scrubs. Hairnet.
The arm was about to be torn apart and stitched back together.
You smiled for the before photo.
There’s another one—after the cut—sling across your chest,
eyes a little different.
If you weren’t paying attention, you’d miss it.
But something shifted.
It’s there.
This is where the fade begins.
Not sadness, exactly.
More like static.
You were still showing up.
Still drawing. Still laughing.
Still throwing on glasses in the car, playing the part.
But something was peeling away from the edges.
The body stayed.
The ghost had just started whispering.
And no one could hear it yet.
Not even you.
4. THE BUILD
Recovery didn’t come with a montage.
There was no crowd, no pump-up track, no second wind.
Just the slow, stubborn work of refusing to stay broken.
The bicep tear should’ve been the final blow.
Dominant arm in a sling, body wrecked, mind frayed.
But something in me said, no.
This isn’t where I end.
So I adapted.
Dragged my useless arm around like a ghost limb
and laid bricks with my left.
Not pretty. Not heroic.
Just necessary.
That summer, I committed to recovery like it was the only thing left.
Because it was.
By October, the shift was visible.
Not the kind you post about.
My head shape had changed.
The bags under my eyes deepened—
a heaviness I didn’t recognize until later.
Gravity had gotten louder.
Hair thinning. Skin off-color.
I told myself it was stress. Or age. Or the fallout of surgery.
It was anemia.
Slow and quiet and cruel.
A new banner. A new website.
A new version of myself
coming alive beneath the wreckage.
5. GEM STATE
You’d wanted out of Utah for years.
But something always held—
a girl, the old crew, family gravity,
Good Times.
This time, nothing did.
The city didn’t recognize you anymore.
And worse—
you didn’t recognize yourself in it either.
So you took the hint.
October 2022.
You hit the road.
First stop: Coeur d’Alene.
Gem State Tattoo Convention.
Solo booth.
Half-dead arm.
A brain still trying to come back online.
You made it work.
Shaky, but present.
Conversations came slow,
but they came.
They didn’t know the before version of you.
Only the guy with the stare
and the quiet refusal to quit.
Then you kept driving.
The North Cascades.
Mountains that looked painted.
Roads that made you listen.
And then—Bellingham.
A town that didn’t demand anything from you.
Just whispered.
You dropped into Faithful Tattoo
with a travel kit and a head full of ghosts.
That trip wasn’t an escape.
It was a test.
Of what was left.
And what you might become.
6. THE PORTRAIT
Bellingham.
Faithful Tattoo.
A guest spot, not a stage.
You were still moving like a shadow—half-dead arm, full-dead energy.
But they offered trust anyway.
And then one of the artists asked
if you’d do a portrait on their partner.
Not a small ask.
Not something you offer unless you see something.
So you said yes.
And then you told them the truth.
You walked them through your method—
How the contrast was shifting,
like shadows behind frosted glass.
You weren’t chasing realism.
You were chasing memory.
White wasn’t for brightness anymore—
it was a veil.
The tones weren’t polished.
They were aged.
Like something left in a drawer for years
and only just pulled out.
They listened.
They watched.
You didn’t call it Ghostalt yet.
That name hadn’t arrived.
But the language was already fluent.
The piece came together like it had always existed.
No showmanship.
Just presence.
And when it was finished,
the room felt different.
And more importantly—
so did you.
7. THEY ALL WORE EARS
It was the fifth year of Mickey.
And the last one at Good Times.
Not that anyone knew that but you.
Your face was changing.
Your body still hadn’t caught up from the surgery.
The bloat, the fog, the tension in your skin—
you knew this wasn’t a comeback.
Not yet.
But you smiled.
Because you’d already made the decision:
You were leaving.
And you weren’t coming back.
So you threw the best Mickey Day yet.
Everyone joined in.
Ears on every artist.
Clients showed up in costume.
You rolled in with balloons in the back seat and your own hand-drawn Mickey shirt, scribbled with sharpie like a third grader on a mission.
You wore Mickey socks, Mickey laces, Mickey everything.
You became the mouse.
It was ridiculous.
And beautiful.
There was no sadness in the room—only the quiet knowledge, carried by you alone, that this was goodbye.
You’d spent five years building this moment,
five years turning a silly flash day into a ritual,
and in the final one, they gave it back to you.
They all wore ears.
And while they were laughing, tattooing, posing for pictures—
you were making peace.
Not with them.
With the version of yourself that had walked through those doors,
year after year, fading, breaking, pushing through.
This wasn’t a sendoff.
It was a thank you.
To Mickey.
To Good Times.
To yourself.
You knew this was the end.
But no one else had to.
Because joy doesn’t need context.
It just needs a reason.
And for one day—
a whole room of grown adults dressed like a cartoon
because you asked them to.
That’s magic.
8. THE FIRST MEMORY GHOST
December 2022.
The last month of the year.
The Mickey pancakes had stopped.
The balloons were deflated.
And the shop was already fading in the rearview,
but you were still drawing.
This one came quietly.
A graphite soft lady head.
Wide hat, loose ribbon, calm defiance.
And there it was—
a single Mickey freckle.
Not hidden. Not announced.
Just there.
A mark of presence. A wink to yourself.
This wasn’t a flash design.
It wasn’t branded. It wasn’t for sale.
It was yours.
You posted it once.
A story.
No one said a word.
And that made sense.
Because by then, Mickey wasn’t just something you wore.
He was something woven in.
A ghost in the gesture.
A freckle under the eye.
A reminder that even as you were disappearing,
something was still watching.