A message worth inking out

At 17 years old
I was called a ‘jitter’ in my home town
Now ‘jitters’ were guys that were renowned for our frowns
And our interest in the post grunge sound
With dyed hair and our purple DMs bound tight
Below shredded jeans and rock tees we’d think we looked alright
And we found that looking ‘alternative’ could get the girls pretty flustered
Something that was later to prove very popular for Busted
So we cultivated a look similar to the modern day emo
Just more ‘well adjusted’ and with brighter clothes
Reading festival bands the colour of mustard and those
Black studded gloves we looked dangerous, yet morose
Being followed by security as we moped about Waitrose

And in the spirit of this alternative image
My best mate Chen and I went to a tattoo parlour
Hoping to barter and exchange cash from glass collecting
I craved a distraction from my spotty complexion
And was eager to risk infection for I wanted
To get my eyebrow pierced

Pierced
With all the wounded edginess that word would imply
I’d mentally recast myself as Drazic off of heartbreak high
And with the heat of the July sun bright in my eyes
I didn’t bother to find a place that sterilize
Their needles
You know, where you can sit and peruse GQ while you wait
Oh no, in this place the windows had grates
through which to watch the soaring crime rate
Of Brislington city centre
A town designed by God for pissheads on an afternoon bender

But fueled by an imminent ‘battle of the bands’ and our lunch at burger king
Chen and I decided ‘Sod it!’ and headed on in
Immediately
As the door slammed
I regretted the decision
The men in there were thickened
With pockmarked blubber on their skin
Tattoos and rings
I was seriously outta my depth
But I needed a piercing
I’d wanted it for at least
At least

A couple of weeks
So I was getting one, fact
And so what if empty beer cans were awkwardly stacked round the artist’s desk?
I’d gotten prepared; decided it was now too late
I’d even brought a copy of Madam Bovary to read while I wait
Which incidentally I regretted pretty much straight away
Flaeaubert was clearly not welcome in this den of tattoo cliché
See, there were men in front of me with arms thicker than their waists
Vests and eyes bulging at the seams
So within seconds I did what any guy here would do
I stuffed the book down my jeans
Ran to the back of the shop after reading between the lines
And waited, my head buried in a book of tattoo designs.

Now I kinda figured one day I’d get a tattoo
So I happily picked up this folder and flicking through,
I thought
No.
Seriously?
Do people really get tatts like these?
A chicken smoking a cigar carrying a shotgun the size of my chest,
A slogan saying ‘English till I die’ on a full body string vest
After 7 pages of Tasmanian devils I was getting well depressed,
Not to mention the made to scale design of an intimate area of Jo Guest
And I thought Na, that’s not for me, when I get a tatt it’s gonna be classy
It’ll be meaningful
Not the usual bull, it’ll define me perfectly
And when I show it, it’ll make girls go all jiggly
I won’t be like the desperate mugs who get this crap
And so feeling self righteous I wandered back
And then I saw Chen
Lying there
On a dusty old chair
Staring ahead
With some guy giving him an eyebrow piercing
And my face went red
I thought ‘You bastard!’ cos he’d got me proper stuffed
Stealing my idea while I was distracted by Jo Guest’s Muff
And that’s it. No eyebrow ring for me.
It doesn’t take a genius to see or understand
That if I got one now, we’d look like a couple, or even worse
Some kind of boy band
And he’d tell all the land that he’d done it first
FACT
So there was only one logical thing I could do
I had to get a tatt

A big big bloke asked me if I was eighteen.
I said “of course!” all high pitched and way too keen
I found a design pretty much at random
Pointed to my chest, looking up at where he was standing
I said
“Alright, this is the one, and please could I not have any shading
Cos I got a mate and warned me that in a couple of years it starts fading.”
The colossus scowled at me, reached out
Then put his hearing aid in
“Oi, kid. You telling me how to do my job?”
My eyes wide
I shook my head
while internally I sobbed.

And then we battled for an hour, him burning away at my skin
Chen looking restless giving me the odd nervous grin
With his thumbs up saying, “yeah it’s looking good!”
As I stared up not wanting to look down at the blood
That was coursing down my chest while this guy would test my nerve by stopping and waiting, baiting me, vibrating the pen until I looked down and then BZZZ!
He’d make me watch all degrading
as he added what seemed like loads
And loads
of extra shading

And then it was done
I had my first
Irrelevant tattoo
woohoo!
I felt dead cool when I left
And for the following week I wore a vest
Believing I was one of the Montague boys
Out making noise and causing bother
Whilst in reality I was just desperately trying to hide it from my Mother

But one day
Over a year later
My mum saw it
She cried
And I lied, saying that
It stood for something
While I stood in her eyes scarred and disfigured
Jaws open coming up with some kind of explanation my words all skewed
“Nah Mum, you don’t understand. It stands for fortitude!”

Now I know better
And I can admit that the tatt was one of the most stupid things I’ve done
But…in all honesty I’d still like to get another one
So I think it has gained a meaning after all
Maybe then my tattoo stands for the fact that you can be dumb
When you’re young and it's ok, cos that’s what being young’s about
And I’m happyly unhappy with my tatt
Cos I think that’s a message worth inking out.