chapter 2.

Don't try this at home

I shoulda known that all the encouragement I was gettin' from the boys in the 'hood was more about saving their beer tokens & a bus ride to Camden than some insanely misguided belief in my abilities, but the seed was sewn. It'd got under my skin & it'd never go away now. I just needed a wad o' cash & a cunning plan to get my fingers on that nice lookin' tattoo kit in my raggy old biker mag. Four weeks work, blagged at my old dental instrument factory was all it took. The cash was raised & the gear ordered from a tattoo artists supplier, no questions asked! Unbelievable, don't they know the damage I can do with 12 volts a rubber glove, some vaseline & a few needles? Well I could if they'd sent me the power supply with the box of tricks that just bounced off my front door step....Never mind they'd send it next day they assured me, while askin' me if I'd tattooed before."No" I mumbled. the stable door was locked long after the horse had bolted, But the gear was mine, all mine & the powerpack failure gave me a chance to read & remember the 'instuction' manual over the weekend. How this comic was supposed to prepare me for the can of worms I was about to open, I'll never know & it boggles the mind how I even thought I could learn this complex thing from a xeroxed pamphlet in a couple of reads over a weekend! It was impossible to work out from the diagrams how you make needle formations, Or set up a machine or even apply a transfer with their 'transfer application solution', which smelled suspiciously like the 'dettol' that mum used to put on my knee when I got pushed off my bike, but at £10 a bottle it couldn't be the same, could it? anyway I traced off transfer after transfer applying 'em to me, me bird, the wall, Morph the cat & anyone else who stood still long enough. Next was needle duty, 200 loose needles came with the 'kit' & by about the 196th I thought I'd got them lookin' pretty much like the 3 needle liners & 7 rounds in the comic. There wasn't any diagrams of magnums to worry about in the good ol' 'how to' comic, the tattoo revolution was obviously just something that'd happened to other people....& there I was, the sum total of my tattoo education sittin' on my chest o' drawers in dingey ol' Deptford. I played with it, I pulled it apart & I put it back together again, I studied the comic front back & sideways, My brain was full of the beautiful designs I was going to be etching soon. "if they can do it so can I" . It was friday & I spent the whole weekend reading & re-reading the comic. Tracing, cutting & sticking transfers & burnin my fingers on the soldering iron, stabbing my purple hands with size 10 needles.....I'd get my power supply on Monday, my ticket outta here.

Monday came, so did the power pack & so did the usual monday morning shakes & sweats, but worse this time 'cos today was the day I was gonna do my first tattoo.

It was to be the Stray cats logo. A small 2 inch cats head with obligatory quiff. My mate Doyley was to be the poor fucker who'd hafta wear it for ever. I undid the sterilizer come pressure cooker, comode type device that had been screaming it's head off & peeling paint from the kitchen walls with it's steam blast for the last half hour & released my needles from meltdown. I loaded up the machine with the ammo & I plugged in the power, clipped on the clipcord hit the foot switch & bzzzzzzzzzzz it worked...amazing. Shirt off, transfer on.....I was shakin' like a Stevens & it took all my concentration to keep the tip of the machine in the vicinity of the purple outline that was to be the Stray Cats tongue, or more likely the cats 'stray' tongue. "ready the Doyle?" I asked....No, in reality neither of us were ready for this, a point that should only be reached after months/years of being in the company of a pro..& even then never bumbling blindly into an audacious attempt at an outline whilst overstaying your welcome at the Hangover Hilton. But the man from the klingonz, he says "yep" so I hit the gas & off I go, like an outta control kamikaze wasp weaving the tip of the machine around until I dive-bomb the tongue that's suddenly disappeared under a fountain of black bullets spitting from my weapon, I can't even see it now 'cos there's ink splattering everywhere, there's so much throw on the machine that it's kickin' itself away from Doyle's red swelling skin, Doyle's writhing in pain, lookin' like he's sittin' in 'Old Sparky' the electric chair...I'm shakin' in terror at what sort of mess I'm gonna find when I wipe the black & purple splat off his shoulder blade .I can't keep my hand from shaking, I've reached the end of the cats tongue in a zig-zagging round-about type of way... my hand stops, but the drill keeps drilling. I forget that it's my foot that is piling on the power, I shift my Doctor Martin Boot & pray that I don't need a real Doctor for my patient, I pull the machine away, Doyley eventually stops squirming & I place the boiling machine on the table, the paint bubbles under the frames heat...I'm shakin' & pissing sweat from every pore in my body. This is worse than any hangover....I'm feelin' light-headed& the permanence of the tattoo thing finally dawns on me. I can't even see the cat now, It's probably scarpered up an alley way in fear of all nine of it's lives!.... I wait for the smoke to clear. "alright then?" I ask...."Aaaah, not too bad, man" comes the lie....I pick up my special tattoo wipe down bottle which is only for tattoos, but has flowers on the side & looks uncannily like the one's in the household section of tesco's..but it can't be, they're only 99p while this one's worth a staggering £4.99! I breathe deep & hose down the volcano on D's back, dreading what will greet me... and........Nothin', nish, not a fuckin' single drop of ink has entered the little series of holes I've drilled around but not very near the cat's tongue! I try again, dip the tip, kick the switch, STRETCH THE SKIN, Oh yeah, ya gotta stretch the fuckin' skin, like it says in the comic......In my nervous state I've skipped a paragraph....In goes the pin, it's the nose's turn for punishment now, round I go, excavating the nostrils, the ground shakes, my foot rises & a few minutes later the machine stops. I squirt the squirter & wipe the nose....Hurrah....a nose shaped line has appeared in the skin....I go again...& another line almost where it's supposed to be, fairly straight too..My shakes are subsiding & I'm starting to win the war of ink 'n' blood. Nearly 3 hours later we're done, after an equally grisly dermis bothering battle with the 'colouring' machine that is identical to the 'liner' I stand back & look at my work, it looks like the cat, maybe not the cat that got the cream but I'm grinning like a cheshire anyway, the D views & approves..."looks cool the Col"...."bit swollen maybe, but it's all there!" The rest of the palace punks prise themselves from their pits to the 'neighbours' theme tune, evict any 'visitors' who've tagged along from the fox the night before & peer nervously into my den of vice & gather to prod the guinea pig & his new cat...the monday meeting outside the toilet door isn't about who 'got their log in' or 'when's the titch gettin' outta jail?' but it's tattoo talk today, suitably impressed with my effort, they clamour to be next in the hot seat.