Acme Tattoo

Bad Gramma,

Nolan, my tattoo artist, is well respected by his peers.  His studio is full of awards earned since he started inking in the sixties.  He is jacking up an old, faded tattoo of peacock feathers on my foot.  The initial sting of the gun always makes me jump.  After that, I relax and enjoy the distraction of talking about mutual friends and motorcycles. 

He shows me his most recent custom design of a full back tat.  There are skeletons, skulls, tombstones and attention to detail, like bats.  It will take more than a year to install.  He has designed a cross tattoo for my lower leg.  The climbing rose has thorns. 

I ask him to tell me his best motorcycle story.  He tells me about how he spent two years in a body cast after a police chase that ended badly.  His crime was speeding full throttle.  Young and dumb, and back then it was how you got a trip to Nam after recovery.  Judges gave miscreants a choice, jail or war. 

His bike hit the edge of the road, did a complete flip, landed on the tires and kept going down the road without a rider.  Nolan went flying like superman, until a tree got in his way.  He is laughing now.  Then he tells me about the time he was getting some wind therapy along the oceanfront,  He caught a wave and got baptized.  About a week later, the bike rusted.  He hadn't bothered to rinse off the salt. 

Both of us have read all the story books about motorcycling and the biker underworld.  Nolan had a couple of ghostwriters attempt to transcribe his lifetime of stories.  Neither of them had any experience with motorcycles.  That would be like me writing a cookbook.  I want to hear his stories.  I ask him to excavate his buried material and let me look at it. 

Two of my friends have full body tattoos by Nolan.  I have decorated both of my feet and there is a "tramp stamp" on my lower back.  Tattoos are like potato chips, you can't have just one.