Chapter 15 Allan Renshaw
Chapter 15: Allan Renshaw
Allan rode his bike to the West Side of the city. He had managed to get a job at the tattoo parlor where he got his tattoos drawn.
He was a good artist and could sketch up a storm that was why Rex, the owner, hired him.
The last tattoo artist had left to open his own parlor, and Rex was in desperate need of a new pair of hands. Allan saw the opening, saw an opportunity, and applied.
His interview had been simple: ink a client who wanted a tattoo of two dragons in a yin-yang style. Allan’s hands had trembled at first, but once the needle buzzed to life, the world faded and instinct took over. He worked with a precision that came from years of sketching on napkins, cardboard scraps, and the backs of his school notebooks.
When he finished, the client had stared at his arm for a long second, then asked, “Kid… where did you learn to do this?”
Allan had only shrugged. “Everywhere.”
The man paid extra. Then tipped him generously.
Rex hired Allan on the spot—$100 an hour, plus tips.
For a boy who had grown up stretching pennies and cutting costs, the amount felt unreal. But he needed it. Badly. He needed to get out of his punishment.
When he was much younger, Allan had wanted to be an artist. He loved colors and always spent his spare time sketching.
Art was the one thing that made sense, the one thing that never judged him or asked him to be more than he was. Although from a very humble background, Allan had been content. His father was a truck driver and his mum a stay-at-home mother. Life wasn’t fancy, but it was stable.
He was brilliant, the kind of kid teachers pointed at proudly. Even though he attended public school, he always came out top of the class.
Then when he was twelve, everything changed.
His mother took in and gave birth to twins, Octavia and Rema.
Octavia was loud, healthy, full of fire.
Rema came silently into the world, tiny and struggling, as though every breath was a tug of war.
The doctors later explained that Rema hadn't been detected early enough, so he hadn't absorbed enough nutrients. Allan didn’t understand all the medical words then, but he understood the important part: his baby brother was sickly… and might always be.
Hospital visits became routine. Bills grew like weeds.
Worry became a member of the household.
And somewhere between the doctor appointments and the whispered arguments between his parents, Allan stopped being a child and became a watcher, a helper, a protector.
Then came the day that broke whatever was left of their old life.
His father went on a road trip for work… and never came back.
They said the investigation was ongoing.
They said the disappearance might have been an accident. They said a lot of things.
What no one said was how to comfort a mother crying into her apron every night, or how to tell twins barely old enough to talk that their father wasn’t coming home. No one said how to explain to a twelve year old boy why life had suddenly turned into a disaster he couldn’t fix.
Debts followed. Loan sharks came knocking. Bills piled up until they looked like a wall.
His mother picked up odd jobs—cleaning, laundry, babysitting, anything that paid. But it wasn’t enough.
The hospital visits continued. Rema’s medications increased. Food became rationed. And one heartbreaking afternoon, they were forced to sell their home and move to the shanty side of Florida.
The new neighborhood smelled of rust and damp clothes. The walls were thin. The noise was constant. But it was the only place they could afford.
Allan felt something close inside him that day. Something soft. Something hopeful.
At fourteen, he had learned two hard truths:
Life is unfair.
And nobody is coming to save you.
So he made a promise carved deep beneath his ribs.
He would become a doctor.
He would save Rema.
He would make sure no one in his family ever suffered again.
But making a promise and living with it were two different battles.
At Ocean City University, where he eventually earned admission on merit, the world was split in two—the rich and the invisible.
Students who drove luxury cars sat next to students praying their financial aid wouldn’t run out.
Designer perfume mixed with the smell of cheap deodorant. Laughter from those who had never known struggle echoed through the same halls where others hid cracked phone screens and thrift-store clothes.
Allan learned quickly that being the quiet, humble boy from the shanty made him prey. His silence had once been his strength, but at OCU, silence was blood in the water.
So he built himself a new skin.
He grew dreadlocks. He got tattoos.
He changed his wardrobe to darker tones, boots, hoodies. He sharpened his silence into something that looked like confidence, even power.
People started calling him a “play boy.”
Now working at Rex’s tattoo parlor helped. The West Side was rough but honest. No pretending, no masks, just people living the only way they knew how.
The shop smelled of ink, alcohol wipes, and loud laughter. Music bounced off the walls.
Clients came in broken, hopeful, reckless, grieving, excited. Every story was etched into their skin, and Allan was the quiet artist capturing their pain or joy in lines and ink.
Sometimes he wondered if people would ever saw past his tattoos.
If they would ever guess that the boy with the inked arms still sketched quietly in the back room during breaks, tiny drawings of his siblings, of the neighborhood he left behind, of the future he kept promising Rema.
“Kid, you’re magic with that needle,” Rex often said.
But Allan would only nod. Because magic didn’t fix hospital bills. Magic didn’t cure heart disease. Magic didn’t bring missing fathers home.
But medicine might.
And Allan was willing to burn every part of his old self to get there.
He parked his bike outside the shop, chained it, and pushed the door open. The familiar buzz of tattoo machines filled the air.
Another day at work. Another chance to make money. Another step toward the promise he refused to break.