Ink

I have five tattoos. I got the oldest one 21 years ago, and the newest one almost 14. My tattoos have been the topic of conversation lately. Partly because we saw Cyndi's cousin, Marcel, who went to high school with me, and with whom I had a Consumer Ed class. Marcel was afraid of tattoos. I was afraid (am afraid?) of flying. We made a gentleman's agreement years ago that we would go to get him a tattoo, and I would fly on a small airplane with him. His brother is a pilot, so we figured access to a smaller plane wasn't going to be an issue.

Every time we saw each other, we asked "when."

"When are we going to get a tattoo?" I would ask.

"When are we going to fly on that airplane?" he would reply.

It was a game of who was going to go first, and neither of us was too interested in dibs. Marcel moved to Florida a couple of years ago, so we don't see him that much anymore. In fact, I had not seen him since he left. Before he moved, he sat down and put pencil to paper, and designed himself a very large tattoo. Instead of making a big deal out of it, he simply went to the parlor he chose, and worked with the artist to overcome his fear. I think it was the needles that bothered him.

My tattoos are small. I have two on my right arm, one on my left, and one on each of my ankles. Together, I think they cost less than $250, and total about two hours of time in the chair. I didn't personally design any of my tattoos either. In fact, the first one I got, Yosemite Sam holding a gun in one hand and a bag of money in another, with the letters BBG on it, was picked arbitrarily. The initials weren't, but the cartoon character was. I'm not particularly enamored with the guy. I guess I just thought he was the right choice at the time.

My other tattoos have a little more thought behind them. The guy on my left arm, is fixed in a bodybuilding pose (blue swim trunks and all), and the words "Lost Dreams" are written underneath him. While the guy, again, is meaningless, the words express how I felt about giving up on competitive bodybuilding. I have Chief Wahoo on my right shoulder, and the letters D BIG JACK, written all around him. While I'm not a Cleveland Indians fan, I am a fan of my friends from college. I got the Chief two days after I moved to Arizona. Homesick, I figured getting the tattoo would connect me with my friends Dave, Brian, Ivan, Gus, Javier, Aaron, Cory (me), and Kevin. The original Dave (Barrios) has been replaced by another Dave (Collins). Think the two Darrins from "Bewitched." No one has seen Gus or Aaron either since college. Maybe it should be D2 BI JCK. I got my 4th tattoo, a Saguaro Cactus, two days before I left Arizona. It was free. I had a friend who worked at a tattoo place in Tempe, and it was her going away present. My most recent tattoo (I guess I can't really say "my last" because I may get another someday) is the TGI Friday's logo. That's right. The TGI Friday's logo. It's where Cyndi and I had our first date (the one in Vernon Hills), so it's got a lot of meaning to me. Cyndi got my name tattooed on the same spot. Everyone in the place tried to convince her not to do it, even to the point that the guys considered not doing it. But she insisted, and they listened.

Marcel created his design. It's a large tattoo, covering 3/4 of his back. There's no color in it, but it has meaning beyond anything I can explain. I saw the tattoo for the first time last week. We didn't go together. He wasn't mad about that. When he went, he was ready. Marcel did it for his own reasons, his own purpose, to battle his own demons, and he did fine without me.

I kept my end of the bargain too. Last June, I flew from Nashville to Zanesville, OH in a single engine, prop plane with one of the owners from the company I work for. He was the pilot. It was a cloudless night--perfect flying weather--and while I was pretty nervous, I survived. I'm not running to fly in the plane again. In fact, if I don't do it, I won't cry over it. Marcel, on the other hand, flipped our roles. "When we going to get a tattoo?" I just laughed.

While I have not created my own body art, each of them mean something to me. As the colors fade, I often consider getting them touched up. I don't think I would cover them with another, fresh, design. It would be like wiping the memory away from the permanence that comes with the concept. That's 99% of why I got them, anyway. Permanence. Memories that cannot fade.