Syracuse Ink: Part Three

I finally got around to actually getting the tattoo and writing it up. The ending is weak, but the rest of it is acceptable, I think. I just wanted to get it up finally.





“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Kyle says. “I just need to set up.”

I paced the lobby nervously, checking out the flash art on the wall as well. I shuffle back over to the counter and flip through Kyle’s book, then Ray’s.

There’s a young teenage boy in the lobby with his father. I wasn’t sure why he was there, but he started talking to me.

“What are you here for?” he asked.

“I’m getting a tattoo.”

“Cool. Where?”

“My left ribcage,” I answered, rubbing the area with my right hand.

“Ouch! That’s going to hurt.”

“So I hear. I’m a little nervous, but I think I’ll be okay.”

“Is it your first tattoo? Probably not the easiest to get done first.”

“No, it’s my third, though it has been a while.”

Kyle came back over to the front counter to show me the sketch one more time. “Where is this going? On your right side?”

“Left,” I corrected. “Up in here.”

The drawing had a circular shape with lines radiating from the center. The outline was like a cloud. The first time Kyle had shown me the drawing, he told me that the lines were mostly guide lines, and that many of them wouldn’t actually be in the tattoo. I was incredibly curious as to how it would turn out.

“Okay, let me make a template and then I’ll be ready.”

Placement wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it’d be. “Raise your hand over your head,” he said. He sprayed some cold liquid onto my skin for the transfer and carefully pressed the decal onto my skin. Slowly he pulled it off so as not to rip the paper and look at it and looked at it for a second. “Bring your arm down. No, that’s not gonna work,” he said as he reached for the liquid and a paper towel to rub the transfer lines off.

“This time, hold your arm out at about thirty degrees, right about here.” He moved my arm for me. Putting the decal on was a little more awkward this time because he had to work around my arm.
“Is that birthmark going to be in the way?” I asked. “I was worried about it.”

“Nah, it’s no big deal. I’ll just work around it. Check it out in the mirror. Let me know if it’s where you want it.

I walked over to the mirror and looked it over. I rotated my body and lifted my arm, making sure to get different angles. I was satisfied.

“Aight, good. What I’m going to have you do is lay down with your head this way. Lay on your side, sort of leaning away from me.” I did as I was instructed. The table was uncomfortable in that it was covered in pleather so my skin stuck to it, making it difficult to move.

Kyle made more small talk as he poured out his inks- orange, yellow, blue, black and white. “You nervous? It’s a pretty sensitive spot.”

“A little. This isn’t my first dance, though. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Oh, you’ve got one on your chest, too. Didn’t see it. That prolly wasn’t pleasant.”

“It actually wasn’t too bad. I think the ones on my arm were worse, especially the parts closer to the underside.”

“You’re kind of lucky, you don’t have much line work. That’s usually the part people say hurts the worst. You ready?”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for some sort of sharp pain. I could hear the buzzing of the machine far away as Kyle dipped it in ink and grow louder as it came closer. Kyle did the first couple lines, “How was that?”

“It was fine. I’m more uncomfortable from being cold than I am from the tattoo.”

As Kyle worked, he made more small talk- asking where I was from, what I did and what my chest said.

“You excited about this tattoo?”

“God yes. I’ve wanted it for about a year now. I came to the conclusion over the summer that I was much too specific when I went to Taylor about what I wanted. I’m not an artist, so I shouldn’t pretend to be one and know what I’m talking about. I decided that this time I was going to give you the passage and only a general idea of what I wanted (fireworks, the blue in the center, and “the only people for me are the mad ones”) and let you do your job.”

“That’s cool. I can see how it might be hard for someone to interpret the quote. Okay, line work is done. How you feeling?”

“Good,” I replied.

Kyle moved on to the shading. At first it was okay, but then it got worse. Much worse.

When people describe getting a tattoo, many say it’s like a vibration or a buzzing, or like someone is pinching you. They’re full of shit. A tattoo is made by a group of needles puncturing the skin thousands of times a minute, and that’s exactly what it feels like. How much it hurts depends entirely on the sensitivity of the area being tattooed. The lettering didn’t hurt that much except the upper part close to my arm pit.

Unfortunately, even though shading is supposed to hurt less, there was a lot of it in more sensitive areas. I concentrated on my breathing. Deep breath in right before he started, slow exhale out as he worked, deep breath in as he redid the ink. Sometimes that didn’t even help. My abs tightened and my toes curled as I focused on that whit ehot point of light behind my eyelids that was this intense pain. There were points that felt like it would be worth it to give up, to leave parts of the tattoo unfinished. Thankfully, Kyle always stopped for a second before I reached that threshold and gave me a moment to recover.

Kyle offered words of encouragement as we came closer to the end. “Almost there, guy, just a little more.” When he finished, he sprayed some sort of liquid on the tattoo to clean up the excess ink. Despite being cold on burning skin, this was not a soothing sensation. It only served to make it a cold burning sensation. I cringed as he wiped away the liquid and ink, the paper towel feeling like sandpaper.

“You’re all set. Check it out in the mirror.”

I got up slowly, keeping my arm above my head. As I approached the mirror, a large grin broke out across my face. I loved it. I had been wondering what it was going to look like and I wasn’t disappointed. “It’s awesome,” I said as I turned back to Kyle. “I really like it.” Kyle called the counter girl over and she thought it looked good too.

We both wanted pictures, me for posting, and him for his book. Once that was taken care of, he ran through aftercare and I paid him, leaving a generous tip for his work. I walked slowly out to my car, being careful not to do anything that would cause more pain. The endorphins had worn off a long time ago.

Despite the pain, and the incredibly long wait, getting this tattoo was definitely worth it.