A reader mentioned my tattoos.....

Tattoos, yeah, I got a few - fourteen, I think. Maybe more, I haven't counted them up lately. But I’ve been under the gun something like 22 or 23 times so I’ve had a bunch covered up, all of my original ones, as a matter of fact.

I got my first 3 in the army and don’t remember getting any of them done - I’d just wake up in the morning and there it was. It was magic, man. I probably would’ve appreciated it more if I hadn’t been so fucking hung over.
The first one was a KL over a cross on my right forearm, then there was the spider on my left because I built microwave towers. On my right bicep was the letters FTA (Fuck The Army) in big block letters. That one got a lot of attention, especially when we were doing PT in the morning. That motherfucker cost me lots of extra pushups not to mention the extra duty it earned me.
The spider was a fucked up deal right from the start. The “artist” must’ve been as fucked up as I was that night because it looked look like shit, but then about a week later I got in a bar fight and some motherfucker laid a blade across it and split it in an obvious attempt to fuck it up even further. It was almost like he aimed for it, you know? I’ll admit it was ugly, but damn man, that was uncalled for…….

After I got out of the army I started running with a crowd of ne’er-do-wells (no shit, a little old blue haired lady once called me that) and troublemakers, mostly comprised of ex and future convicts. We were into all kinds of shit, not as a group but individuals that hung out and partied together, but it ranged from selling weed and crank to extortion, robbery, debt collections, all kinds of neat shit. And before you get all outraged at the shit that we were into I’ll tell you this: We only fucked with people in our own world. If you were a citizen, you didn’t have shit to worry about.

I got sidetracked here.

Okay. All those fuckers had tattoos like mine - jailhouse tattoos, all blue ink and no colors. Colors were for girls. Men wore blue. Anyways, over the 8 or 10 years I was into the life, I ran across a bunch of guys that had just got out of the joint and would tattoo you for damned near nothing. I started getting that fucking spider covered with a dragon. I wanted something small but Chris was sweet on my sister so he kinda sorta went overboard. The fucking tattoo covers my entire forearm except the back, there’s some empty skin there. The tattoo took 12 hours over 3 days and cost me 20 bucks, an ounce of weed and a quart of Jack Daniels (PBUH) whiskey and was truly a work of art. All done single needle and extremely detailed. Not only that but he guaranteed it for life for any touch ups or repairs. It’s unfortunate that I’ve never been able to take him up on his offer seeing as he’s into 29 years of a 20 to life sentence for killing the Flores brothers for burglarizing his house.

Right in that same time frame I had some other shit done like an angel on my upper left arm and a Colt Firearms Rampant Colt tattooed on my inside right forearm. I can’t remember what else right off the top of my head.

Then I got out of the life and settled down and quit getting tattooed. I didn’t hang around with the old crowd anymore because there wasn’t anybody left to hang around. - motherfuckers were all either dead or locked up or running rehab halfway houses. Maybe one or two living under the 7^th Street bridge, I don’t know.

After I married, my (ex) old lady was into getting tattooed so I got back into it again but this time in shops and paying shop prices which at the time was about 50 bucks an hour for custom work. I had a bunch of shit done then at a shop run by Good Time Charlie Cartwright (pretty well known in the tattooing world) a couple blocks from the house. We got discounts because my ex would run them down lemonade and fresh baked brownies and maybe even the occasional blow job.

I got a trio of roses to cover the demon that covered the FTA, I had my ex’s name done in fancy script, then the rose that covers my ex’s name, a POW/MIA bracelet, mirror image swallows on each pectoral muscle, text across my throat and side of my neck, my right forearm done up in Indian shit like a coyote howling at the moon which covered the Indian chief that covered the Colt, then a trio of feathers covering the KL and the cross and a thunderbird on the backside of the forearm, fuck, what else….. Oh yeah, a few years ago when everybody was getting those silly fucking tribal tattoos around the biceps? I got one too but mine ain’t tribal shit - I have a ring of skulls.

It seems like on all those tattoo shows everybody has a fucking special reason for that particular tattoo but I’ve gotten more than a few because “it would look fucking killer right there”.

I also try to consider placement. I don’t have a single fucking tattoo that can be seen with long sleeves and a collar. Nothing above the lower neck and nothing below the wrists. Gotta be clean looking for those job interviews and court dates, you know.
I never get a tattoo without thinking about it for 6 months. If after 6 months I still want it, I’ll do it. This accomplishes 2 things. It gives me a chance to think about it and it gives me time to save up the money for it. I never worry about the fucking designs - I let the artist handle that shit. When I did my feathers and coyote I actually went in for something else but me and Jay ended up getting really stoned before he got started and well, you know….. Say what you want about them skateboarders but they have some killer bud, man.

So no, I never bought into that shit about special meanings. Granted, all my tattoos represent different stages of my life, or different lives I should say, but out of all of them there are only three that mean anything at all to me.

The POW/MIA bracelet for an incredibly brave man that gave everything for his government only to be abandoned by it at the end of the war. SFC Jerry M. Shriver, USSF. Google him. I used to wear his bracelet in his memory but I went through so many of the motherfuckers I just gave up and tattooed it on.
The script on the side of my neck reads Psalm 91:5 which is “Thou shall not fear the terror by night nor the arrow that flies by day”. In other words, walk in fear of no motherfucker. God’s got my back, man. Of course, if I get my dumb ass killed because I didn’t listen to him and stepped over the line, well then that’s a lick on me. I should’ve listened to God when he was whispering “Naw, don’t be getting fucking stupid now, stud…..” But that tattoo is a constant reminder of His protection - as long as I don’t get fucking stupid.
The script just under my throat, right below where somebody’s going to have to give me a tracheotomy when I get shot, are the words Opera Non Verba which is latin for Deeds Not Words. In other words, put up or shut the fuck up. Show me the cash, motherfucker. Stand and Deliver. Talk’s cheap. You get the idea.
Those are the tattoos that mean something and all three of them are in a place where I can see and reflect on them at least a couple times a day.

I am getting the urge for a new tattoo and I’m thinking about the Minuteman, something along those lines to represent the Cause that I’ll die for. Something unmistakable, something that will brand me a Patriot by everybody that sees it.

And a cute story to end this post:

About 20 years ago my little sister/niece was about 4 years old and snuggled up with me reading Guns & Ammo and asked me “Uncle Ken, why do you have all those tattoos messing up your arms?”
I looked into that little girls’ innocent eyes, the eyes of a tender babe that was so loved and surrounded by family that would die for her. The eyes of a girl that looked up to me and loved me for being me.
“Because Babygirl, the more I look like I’m ready to kick the living shit out of somebody, the less often I actually have to do it.”
“Oh. Okay.” She went back to identifying which was a revolver and which was an automatic for me while Pops was in his chair laughing and Mom was having a fucking cow in the kitchen.