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By Jon Bowen

June 23, 1999 | Every tattoo tells a story. Mine tells a story about a story. I got it to commemorate my first fiction publication in a literary magazine -- a minor milestone that, at the time, seemed so epic and momentous I wanted the occasion memorialized in my flesh for all eternity.

Flash Gordon was the name of my tattooist. He had an ordinary name -- Robert or Richard Gordon, I think -- but Flash was the name on his business card. (A quick hint for the uninitiated: The walls in tattoo studios are covered floor to ceiling with sheets of illustrations, and these sheets, which the prospective tattooee pores over to choose a design, are called "flash." Hence Mr. Gordon's nom de plume.)

You have 10 zillion designs to choose from. You have tribal tattoos; you have Celtic tattoos. You have biker babes with torpedo boobs straddling Harleys; you have Jesus Christ stranded on the cross. You have tigers, unicorns, dragons and gargoyles; you have Jimi Hendrix and Yosemite Sam, Bruce Lee and Betty Boop -- all creatures of the incarnate and cartoon worlds are available for inscription in your epidermis.

I chose the theater symbol of comedy and tragedy -- those two masks, one laughing hysterically, the other sad-eyed and pouting. They say you choose a particular tattoo design as an advertisement for your self-definition. I chose mine because I saw it as an external mark of the private interplay of joy and melancholy that's de rigueur for all tortured writer types, and because the drama symbol seemed related to literature, if only tangentially -- and because I thought the design looked, you know, cool.

Tattooists will put your tattoo wherever you say, pretty much, though some charge extra to work on your butt, and the more discriminating artists won't work above your neck or below your wrists -- those taboo territories known as "public skin." Anyway, my tattoo went on my deltoid. No mystery there: The upper arm is one of the fleshier -- and therefore less excruciating -- places you can put a tattoo.

For information on laser surgery and having tattoos removed, click here.

The tattooist shaves the peach fuzz from the tattoo area and dabs your skin with antiseptic. He traces your chosen design from the flash sheet, then uses an acetate stencil to transfer the sketch onto you. Finally he mixes the inks to get the desired colors. Applying the tattoo is a two-handed job. The tattooist stretches your skin taut with one hand and manipulates the machine with the other. The machine is a drill-like apparatus equipped with stainless steel needles that stab thousands of tiny holes in your skin and deposit the ink in the holes.

So you walk out of the studio with your brand-new tattoo. You feel good. You feel nonconformist. Years pass. You get married, you get a house -- maybe a kid's on the way. You begin to view life in the long term.

Unless you live your whole life among vampire zombies of the we-only-come-out-at-night school, having a tattooed body, sooner or later, presents some awkward social moments. You avoid pool parties hosted by your preppie neighbors. You're reluctant to strip down bare-chested. Getting dressed in hot weather, you face the daily dichotomy: conceal or display? Sometimes, you just want the damn thing to disappear.

Now this isn't another gloomy tale of Mr. Grown-Up's Regret -- some namby-pamby urge to dispose of the blemishes of youth's indiscretions. But there do come certain moments in adult life, in the long lull of Sunday afternoons, when your mind wanders toward themes of restoration and renewal. If you're tattooed, you may experience a sudden desire to start over fresh. To make of your flesh a tabula rasa. To be reborn in your untainted birthday suit. These are the underpinnings of my rationale, my vague motives, when I decide to investigate tattoo removal.

Next page | "It feels like a huge rubber band snapping against your skin"