The door closes awkwardly behind him, its small windows rattle sharply in their frame and the novelty doorbell sounds like it’s had better days as its chime echoes around the bare interior of the seedy tattooist’s room. It’s 1980, there is a recession, and this is the first customer the owner has had in a week. The man waits, hesitating as though puzzled before moving to the centre of the bare boards that stretch the length and breadth of the floor. A single naked bulb hangs from the centre of the ceiling, the dim light casting odd shadows against the paintwork of the tired room.

“Hello,” he calls wondering why there is no one to greet him. “Is anybody in?” The windows of the shop have not been cleaned in years, the grime barely penetrable by the brilliant sunshine outside. “Hello – anybody home – there’s a customer in the shop,” he calls again agitated by the lack of response. He hears muffled footsteps approaching from a hallway to his right. A man of mature years passes through the doorway, he is not elegantly dressed, his clothes look as it they have been regularly slept in, he is unkempt, unshaven and looks surprised at this intrusion.

“Sorry you had to wait, you know how it is, don’t you, all work and no play makes me a very thirsty individual?” He holds up a china mug as if it’s a coveted trophy. “Tea,” he says with a smile. “Drink of the God’s eh?” He looks momentarily bewildered. “Do I know you?”

“Nah – don’t think so, never been round these parts much, not my part of town, you know?”

“Ah well,” says the shopkeeper gently relaxing as he speaks. “Trick of the light eh? Must get those windows sorted. You sure though, something about you rings a bell,” he adds as his memory starts digging deep, searching, polling through the index of past encounters. But it finds nothing.

“Anyway, come on over here, we’re one big happy family in this place, sit yourself down, there’s no need to worry one bit ‘cos I’m as gentle as a kitten with this old gun,” says the tattooist trying to quell the other man’s obvious nerves. “You new to this then, can’t see any other marks on you?” He ponders a question for a moment then continues. “I know my friend – you lost a bet didn’t you, pool maybe or cards or . . . a drunken night out right?” asks the proprietor inquisitively. The customer sits down with a bump, he has no expression, no facial movements that let his emotions out. His hair is way too short, he bulks out a tatty jean jacket with strong arms and wears Doc Martens on his feet, there is a stream of electricity escaping from the man – it smells of ozone, mixed with violence and hatred, a cocktail of cruelty and brutish behaviour. The tattooist senses the atmosphere and steps back towards a bench, pulls on cotton gloves and checks his delicate instruments and inks, it all works fine but he fears his customer, he looks a hard man, a man giving no quarter in conflict or who endures lip or slander from any mortal soul. The artist needs to be guarded with his words of comment, reduce himself to the language of this potentially uneducated man, be on his level, take no chances, gain his respect through familiarity. He knows the drill, it’s not the first time he’s been in this situation – he is a man of experience and understanding.

“No,” he states looking sideways out the corner of his eyes in anticipation. “Nothing like that. I need it to show them idiots down the docks whose boss, a symbol of my strength right, that I’m the alpha male, you know – number one in the pack – not to be messed with – you get my drift?” He looks around stern faced, there is an unspoken anger in his features. Something internally vile, pent up and ready to blow, if the answers he receives are not what he wants to hear, “What you doing back there anyway, I need to see what you’re doing?”

The proprietor looks anxious. “Can’t be too careful, you know. There’s new laws with this AIDS thing going around. You got to be properly registered and all, have your gear checked regular and passed by the health people, so I’ve charts to keep and forms to fill and then make sure it’s all sterilised properly.”

“That a fact?”

“Yeh, some cowboys don’t bother. I mean, fancy getting AIDS from a guy like me, eh? No sex, just a shitty needle?” He laughs out loud, a sinister cackle echoes around the room. “Who’d ever believe you, ha, tell me that eh? You’d be the laughing stock, I can tell you and your mates would still think you’re a puff right, ha?” The laughter continues like the never-ending wail of a possessed lunatic, the customer tries to block the noise from entering his ears. It does not work, and it surprises him to realise this is a bad day for a tattoo.

“You know what you want?”

“Huh?” The client studies a moment, he’s not given that prospect much thought, he needs to be led, shown some inspiration, given a hand with the design of the artwork.

“Right – no ideas then, I guess? So, let’s see. Tribal markings that’s always a winner these days. Butterflies, they come good every time with the ladies or the standard bad boy image maybe? You know – love and hate on the knuckles, some motorcycle gang markings? Deaths head, skulls and demons that kind of stuff.” Snaps the proprietor sharply. “Surely you must have some idea of a design?” A menacing glare fills the mans eyes, the gun in his hand rattles uncontrollably, as if it’s mimicking the quickening beat of his heart. He stares through the customer, prying, digging in long forgotten places in his memory, delving deeper and deeper into his soul trying to remember, following long distant roads once travelled years ago. There is still nothing, no germ, no remembrance of events long past. He realises what he is doing and stops, looking at the other man who has a fixed stare of terror on his face, the gun still buzzing and rattling in his claw hand. He shuts it down; the customer starts to rise from his seat not taking his eyes of the tattooist, only once to check his route of exit.

“I’m sorry,” he says comforting the man with a firm hand to the shoulder. “Sit down and we’ll start again. I’ve had a bit of a hard time lately, you know, divorce, women trouble and this damn recession taking my livelihood away. It ain’t been easy these last few months.”

The man in the chair eases himself down and begins to relax, hearing the tattooist talking in a new quieter, more subdued voice and suddenly he feels pity for the man after he opens up with his tale of women problems, a personal issue he knows all too well.

“Look it’s no problem, I’m on edge right, beginners’ nerves?” chats the customer. “Let’s go, come on, get a move on, I gone some ideas now. This thing needs to be really big and colourful, right here all over my chest.” He points to the area with a grubby stained finger. “A huge picture of something special to cover the whole thing. Gotta impress my mates back at the docks. They think I’m not hard like them, well let me tell you, ‘cos I proved it more than once before down the dockyard and I can prove it time and time again just to show them lot what I got. Them bastards will get to know who’s the real boss soon enough, so make it big to cover everything I got, never mind the pain – I can take hurt – that’s easy.” A gritty determination develops in the seated mans tone of voice, brushing away the earlier nervous edge of indecision and he sits upright and strong in the chair ready to take his medicine from the Doctor.

The tattooist continues to ready himself, he mumbles often, sometimes whistles to break the silence. “Work down the docks do ya, friend? I did once, a long time ago, worked the boats but gave it up back in ’68. I couldn’t stomach it any longer, the hours and the hard graft – always had an eye on art, pretty good I was in my youth, so this seemed like a real a good opportunity to show my true talent when it came up for rent.” The tattooist grabs a hard-backed book from the bench that is ragged and stained in all colours of the rainbow and opens it in one special place. “This might be up your street?” A picture of a beautiful girl dancing in the street with an open umbrella jumps out of the grimy page at the customer. “And maybe another girl each side of this main one, in perspective like. You know, so that it looks as if they are dancing right behind her, that’s impressive you got to admit that?”

“So, you can copy this picture, just as it is?” asks the customer in disbelief.

The tattooist goes rigid and stands back to face the man in the seat. “I’m an artist, not some part time bloody cartoonist, are you trying to insult me just to get me riled?” he says sharply, disgusted at the obvious throw away remark.

“Hey, look sorry, no offence mate, just asking. It’s so real and she is beautiful in all those vivid colours – I don’t know what you can do, do I?” He states lost in confusion whilst trying to make amends for his stupidity, his mind whirling in contemplation of further verbal rebuff. “Yes – yes, you’re so right, god damn it, this is exactly what I want.” He laughs loudly. “Just think everywhere I go it will remind all my mates of the fabulous girls I’ve had and when I look in the mirror it will say how handsome I am, and the girls will love me even more won’t they? Yeh, the lads will be sick, they’ll be real sick when they see this beauty as large as life all across my manly chest.”

“You go down the Rattler and Trap pub then down Dockside Road? I’ve a friend there knows that area well, very well,” asks the tattooist calmly putting aside the customers ridiculous comments.

The seated man casts a glance around at the man working to his right, slowly shifting position in the chair as he speaks. “Well of course, you get a raging thirst unloading them container ships ten hours a day. The bastard bosses grind you down every single day, they come around your patch demanding more and more gets unloaded to meet their daily quotas. Anyway, we just laugh and get on with it, we got the place sewn up, me and the others on the dockside. They think we work harder when they say jump, but no way. It’s our little trick, you see, it just means we stretch it out, they don’t know and then we work Sundays and get double pay. Easy money eh, but you don’t half get a thirst on doing it. I get to the Rattler most nights with the lads, getting a right belly full. It’s what life’s for, don’t you reckon? I mean beer and easy girls, what else is life all about, know what I mean eh? The more the merrier, flash some cash, suddenly you got them sluts eating out of your hand. They love it the women, they really love it, do owt for a drink or two.?” The docker drifts on endlessly preaching his macho mentality, trying to impress the tattooist, who his back turned is still making final adjustments to his instruments of art and pain. “What was your line then, down the docks?” asks the customer, his nervousness evaporating like mist in a warm room, confidence fully returned, his brain fully engaged spitting out thoughts from a mouth that can hardly contain itself as it ejects out his trivial ideas. These are small words of one syllable, with no depth or meaning thinks the tattooist, worthless words from a singular meaningless unremarkable man he remarks to himself, sneering behind the customers back, a wicked grin of satisfaction appearing in the creases of his face.

“Me, ah well I spent ten years on a deep-sea fishing vessel. I loved it most of the time, but sometimes the months at sea in the freezing cold and the rise and fall of the water, ah, you know. There was no escape, cooped up like an animal in that tin hull started to drive me crazy in the end. Anyway, the girlfriend got pregnant. She said it was mine at the time, but who knows, with all that time at sea. The bitch tried to make a fool out of me, but I thought I’d pack in the sea, so I could keep an eye on her. Ha, as luck would have it she left me within two months and ran off with a bloody insurance clerk. Can you believe that? Honestly a god damn clerk in an office? Apparently, he’d been seen coming around the house for months. The bitch played me, ain’t nothing I could do about it, anyway glad he took he off my hands. Women, they ain’t worth it, almost made me turn – if you know what I mean?” He laughs at his own joke, the docker in the chair remains straight faced, the point of the funny comment eludes him. “Look after your own family, that’s what I say. There the important people in your life, there’s nobody worth more than your own kin. Protect and safeguard I say, no matter what, eh?”

“Nearly told them gaffers to shove their stinking job a couple of months back, thought I could make a new start with something different, I was getting sick of the constant aggravation of it all. Every weekend was always the same, them other shift workers coming down trying to muscle in on our money-making schemes, it was like football hooliganism down the local match. Don’t get me wrong I’m up for a bit of a brawl if it comes my way, but I ain’t getting any younger and fighting’s for the young ‘uns. Anyway I soon realised there wasn’t much else I could do that would earn me decent wages and a whole bunch of extra perks for free. Get my drift eh, the freebies and the girls? So, it looks like I’m stuck with this shitty job till my breath gives out?” The docker says searching for new ideas in his tiny head that will never materialise.

“I have no answer to your problems down there my friend, life has its limitations I guess?” The tattooist thinks for a second, pausing whilst a thread of philosophy trickles through his mind. “Sometimes we get trapped in a vicious circle that can never be removed without harming and impacting on the lives of all those around us. I wish I had the answers, so I could escape from this hovel of a tawdry existence. This whole life suck, there’s no money in it any more, I’m gonna move on real soon, find something that suits my needs, open a paper shop or a chippy – it’s gotta be a whole lot easier than this bollocks. You never know, fate might play a part in the game of life for both of us, you know, sometimes a slight shuffle of the pack can deal a better hand, put us back on the path of righteousness, if you know what I mean?”

The docker looks around puzzled by the words. “What’s that you say?” he replies after a few seconds that interrupts his dreams of distant places, money, fast cars and faster women all crowding into his limited imagination.

“Never mind, just random thoughts, beating my own little drum a bit – get rid of some steam that’s all. What happened to you to make you want to pack it in?” asks the tattooist returning the conversation to its previous rudimentary level, realising the other man was incapable of discussion on a higher intellectual plane.

“Well it’s a tragic story and I still ain’t right from it.” He begins shuffling his feet in agitation. “I was on this big crane, down the docks, transferring containers from the ships hull to the quay-side. The wind was a might strong that morning and the boxes was moving badly in the breeze. Get my picture already? Mick Donahue was coupling up the chains from the crane to the container. It was one of them days you knew something was gonna happen, you know the feeling, when you think you should have stayed in bed?”

The tattooist nods in agreement and turns on his delicate instrumentation and it hums quietly in the back ground, under the excited tones of the dockers fertile voice.

“Just lay back a little and relax. If you’re tense with the needle, it will really hurt when it makes its mark and you’ll feel the sting. It’s a simple rule, so just relax okay? I’m gonna start with the big girl so it’ll take me a while to do the outline, so just keep talking, it’ll take your mind off me and my little toy here?”

“Yeh, course mate, just be gentle that’s all, not used to this sort of pain.” demands the docker, a nervous edge returning to his voice when he hears the machinery come to life.

“No problem,” replies the artist, fully aware he now carries the upper hand and the other man is completely under his charge, a prisoner in muted anticipation of change. The docker dislikes the domination, feels claustrophobic in its grasp.

“So, what about this Mick character then, what’s his game?” recalls the tattooist. The docker averts his eyes from the other mans and contemplates continuing the story, the light from the bulb casting grotesque shadows across the profile of the elder seaman, but he doesn’t spot the sinister mask, he is deep in thought. The gentle buzz of the machine breaks the strange silence that has descended on the whole room.

Quickly shaken from his stupor by the noise, the customer continues, “Yeh, as I said, Mick was securing the steel hawsers on a container and the wind was howling crazy by then. It seemed to get strong pretty quick and I could see from my crane cab how the ship was rising and falling on the swell of the tide like a mad fairground ride, it was looking grim from up in the sky. So I know I needs to help him and opens the cab door, to check it all out, and the wind really gives me a belt, pushes me back inside away from the door. I thought Jesus Christ this ain’t good, it’s time we packed it in, as it was dangerous by then. Someone’s gonna get killed, I thought, the wind blowing so wild an all. I shouts down to Mick. ‘Make this the last one,’ I said as loud as I could. And I’m there trying to catch his attention, waving my arms, yelling like an idiot trying to make him understand about the wind. He looks up at me, ‘I can’t hear you Dave,’ he mouths, ‘what you saying,’ and he does that thing with his hands, lift them up into the air like a shrug that he don’t get it. Then all of a sudden, the ship lurches on a massive tidal swell and one of the old steel hawsers splits and breaks free. I just shout and shout at the top of my voice, but it ain’t no good, he can’t hear me above the noise of the howling wind and he’s looking at me all the time, pulling faces and acting shit, his back against the wire. ‘Look out,’ I screams at the top of my voice, must have done it a hundred times or more, but Mick just shrugs his shoulders again ‘cos he doesn’t understand me and can’t hear a word. I see’s it coming a whip out of control, twisting and curling like an injured snake writhing in agony and then splat, his head is gone in a second, the whiplash from that old steel cable like a great blade. I couldn’t speak, my brain just froze with the shock, and it was all like slow motion, seemed like minutes before the rest of his body slumped to the deck just a mess spurting blood everywhere. Never found his head, washed away by the heavy tide they said?” He looks up at the artist with dewy eyes and sighs. “He was my best mate Mick, maybe I could have saved his life, I’ll never know, that damn wind, I hate the wind and now he’s gone. I’ve lost the best mate a guy could have, it makes me sick to my stomach every time I think of it.” He looks away to save embarrassment a forlorn expression of departed love spreads across his face and Dave blinks rapidly to clear tears that are welling up in his sad eyes.

The tattooist says nothing, he hears everything but chooses to make no comment, he just continues his work, there is a profound look of concentration on his face and droplets of moisture begin to form on his leathery brow.

“Worst thing of all,” he says looking up at the man above him with glassy eyes, “they asked me, as is best mate, to go tell his wife. I mean, Jesus, they had a kid just gone two. Can you believe it? They was only young, only been together a short time and this happened, she got a kid to look after on her own, now Mick’s gone. Life’s just a bitch, it ain’t right, he’d done nothing wrong to nobody that man.” His mouth quivers, he lets out a brief sob of desperation as though remembering the precise moment of his death was the most painful experience he’d ever had in his whole life. The misery shows in the lines of his face, he is the shade of weak tea and in anger shakes his leg as the nerve endings tingle from toe to groin expressing their pain with every pulse of his heart. Dave sits in silence for several minutes, a blank lost expression present over his features, an inward turmoil battling with constant images of Mick’s departure from this earth, flipping over and over like a cartoon book of Mickey Mouse dying in agony, faster and faster it goes, as the steel hawser moves closer and closer to the smiling face of Mick Donahue. Suddenly Dave comes alive again with a start and reality takes over. “Worked in the Rattler, Julie did. She’d been behind that bar a few years, that’s where Mick got to know her. Didn’t feel like a drink that night, I was sick to my stomach with grief and pain and worry having to sort myself out and get some courage to say what I had to say. Thinking all along that maybe I could have changed what happened, like it was my fault he died, but If I’d done something different he could’ve still been here, and nothing would have changed. I was sick for days, couldn’t stop thinking about it. Told them down the docks I wasn’t coming into work that week. I just stopped at home thinking and brooding over it, it drove me nuts, I was a mess, but . . . it hit Julie hard, real hard. She didn’t know where to turn, it’s a good Monica was there. Ouch, what the f- – k!”

The needle digs deep into the skin of Dave’s chest, a trickle of blood runs down his body. The tattooist with fury in his eyes glares down at the horrified man. There is anger welling up from somewhere deep in his soul, swirling from nowhere like a Pacific storm in a matter of seconds. The sudden change shocks Dave to the core of his bones, it worries him, but he does not know why this departure to a violent mood has been so dramatic. He has a desire to lash out, the pain is dramatic but he holds it all in, trying to understand what just happened.

“So, you know Monica?” demands the artist with fire in his tone, blind to the agony caused to the customer by his negligence.

“Yeh, I got to know her pretty good after that night.” He fights back the urge to retaliate, keeps his arms by his side, though his brain tells him otherwise. “So, what do you care?” He barks angrily, the corner of his mouth snarling as he speaks.

“Just curious that’s all? You talking about the barmaid at the Rattler, Monica, right?” He spits fiercely.

“Yeh, she’s the one, bit of a cracker is our Monica, likes a good time too I can tell you,” he looks at the artist for confirmation. “Know what I mean?” A huge grin on his face. He chuckles loudly, like he knows a secret that can be prised from him with a little verbal help.

The tattooist stands back, to take in the sight of his customer fully, his face is a mask of hatred. “Then you must be Dave Pearce, right?” demands the artist sternly, revulsion filling his eyes. He turns, places the buzzing instrument on the bench and walks heavily towards a door in the back of the room and disappears into the blackness of its space.

Dave raises his hands in disbelief and shouts loudly. “What the hell is going on with you, what’s all this about? Get back here now, I’m paying you good money for this shit!” He looks down at his chest, it is a scrawl of unrecognisable shapes with no pattern or image he can distinguish and there are hundreds of tiny holes oozing tiny pin heads of blood.

“What about this down here,” he emphasises as loudly as he can, pointing at the mess dribbling down his body, “You can’t just leave me like this, all bloody, with no explanation?”

From a distance room comes a cold voice. “Oh, don’t worry Dave Pearce, I’ll be right back, no fear of me leaving you now.” There is palpable tension in the air, the customer hears the muffled sound of a phone being lifted from the receiver and of hushed talking, the words indecipherable, the discussion is short and abrupt, but Dave listens focusing his hearing, straining to catch the conversation believing it has some vague bearing on the situation he’s just witnessed. He thinks clearly – why did the tattooist suddenly turn awkward when he mentioned Monica? He starts to think the other man has serious behavioural problems, the signs are there in abundance, mental incapacity, erratic conduct, voices raised for no reason and a turn of anger to worry any grown adult. He gets up to leave, his dull mind cannot assimilate the information to provide a reasonable answer to the questions he’s just raised. The phone slams down loudly in the back room, the tattooist is angry, and Dave hears the footsteps of the retuning man and a nervous cramp hits his stomach. Dave is glued to the spot in panic, he struggles to move, is paralysed to the floor. The footsteps vaguely stop, and he hears fumbling sounds somewhere out of eyesight, objects being moved around and shifted, items falling over and crashing to the floor. Some are glass or crockery and break dramatically, others are solid and heavy made of wood or metal, Dave’s head is in a whirl, he has no idea what is going on, he does not know how to deal with the audible aggravation, there is no one to fight You cannot beat a noise he thinks in his head. The tattooist emerges from the distant doorway and stops to survey the scene. Dave walks across the room towards the silhouetted half shadow of the artist for a confrontation.

“What the bloody hell is going on with you, look if I’ve pissed you off in some way then that’s my mistake okay and I’m sor . . .” The sentence remains unfinished and hangs in the air as the sound of splintering wood fills the empty spaces of a quiet afternoon. The snooker cue buckles and breaks into matchwood as it connects with Dave’s forehead, he slumps to the floor and slams against the edge of a bench as he collapses. The remainder of the cue drops to the floor and the tattooist sighs heavily, recognising his plan is coming together, then draws his hand across his mouth removing any saliva he thinks remains after the attack.

“Yes, Dave Pearce I am offended, very offended, even more deeply than you’ll ever understand with your pathetic tiny mind,” spits the artist as he stands over the unconscious man. “Sorry is not a word that can put wrong’s to right. Look after the family I said, and I meant it, but listen, vengeance is a powerful force my friend, but nowhere is it as evil a game, in my book, than the disgusting perverted games you’ve played?”

It takes effort to seat the dead weight of Dave correctly in the chair making sure he is tightly secured around the feet and hands before the tattooist picks up his little machine and begins his work on the sleeping man before him. The gentle buzzing it makes creates an uncanny counterpoint to the occasional madcap laughter that gushes from the twisted mouth of the artist at work. The colours flow easily, the shapes become recognisable, the artwork creates a masterpiece of pure brilliance, his best work yet. He stands backs in admiration of the graphic perfection he has formed and whistles sporadically in recognition of his genius.

Dave wakes slowly, a great throbbing in his head like the bitch of a hangover, he struggles to move, unsure why. There is a golf ball swelling on the side of his head where he connected with the furniture, he can’t rub it, his hands won’t reach that far. He doesn’t understand, it takes time to become aware of the surroundings, of his situation, the why’s and wherefores of his predicament and as his eyes begin to focus he takes in the sordid picture, but there is no one there just a naked bulb that still shines above him, like a beacon, like a spotlight on the victim of torture. The glare hurts his delicate eyes and he turns away puzzling the nature of his entrapment once again. Sensibility takes its time to return and he drifts like an overboard sailor on rough seas, in and out of consciousness. Jarred into reality, his eyes snap open and looming above him is the figure of the tattooist and someone else, whose shadowy image he cannot comprehend through the obscure light of the room.

“What the hell is going on?” Dave demands of the tattooist his voice weak and nervous. “Do I deserve all this violence. You need to see a Doctor mate, you’re sick in the head. Why am I tied up?” He looks around at the ropes shackling his limbs. “Get these off me right now, before I yell the god damn place down and the cops get here . . . geez, what the hell!” The chair strains and creaks as he struggles for freedom, but effort takes his toll and he slumps like a petulant child, the back of the chair supporting his aching battered head.

The tattooist ponders his words then speaks. “Violence you say! Do you really appreciate it’s meaning? Well let me explain . . . an unjust, unwarranted, or unlawful display of force, that’s simple to understand isn’t it? In other words, Dave, to make someone, whoever, do something they just don’t want to do.” He looks down at his captive and smiles in satisfaction.

“What the hell are you on about, talk some sense man, not all this bollocks, you’re nothing but one crazy bastard. Let me go, ‘cos if you don’t then I’m gonna kill your ass when I get out of here,” he screams trying to concentrate his focus on the blurry figure next to the tattooist.

“Unlawful acts are your speciality aren’t they Dave, your little party trick, eh?” The tattooist suddenly grabs the shirt of the man and pulls him forward spitting into his face. “You’re scum Pearce,” he chokes on the venom of his verbal assault. “We need to rid society from the likes of your filth – you have nothing to offer anyone in this tragic world anyway.” The man in the chair squirms in terror, agitated, he jumps about trying to loosen the captive ropes, then stops as he sees the heavy wrench in other mans hand. He lifts it high into the air. “Don’t make me do it Pearce, one more, just one more word and god help me if I don’t cave your skull in . . . by Christ I will.” Weakened by the earlier blow to the head, he cannot retaliate and subconsciously accepts his predicament and listens fearfully to the man who is staring directly into his eyes, the wrench ever present above his head, a final blow ready to fall at a moment’s notice.

“Now listen to me Dave Pearce and listen good and hard. Violence is a coward’s game, it’s not a friend I like to rely on, not with you or anybody else in circumstances like this and especially against someone of weakness, say a child or girlfriend for instance. Now you my friend are going to have to find a very special inner strength to deal with hatred and contempt for the remainder of your life. Remember the Rattler down Dockfield road. Do you?” he shakes Dave hard, making him remember, jolting his bewildered brain.

“Yeh, why? It’s just another pub.”

“You’re wrong Dave, very wrong. I thought I recognised you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, but I was never sure. Faces and features can change over time and memories fade, the brain gets a bit weak for people of a certain age. Is that not so?” States the tattooist calmly.

“Who the hell are you, I’ve never met you before today? Do you think I would have come here knowing what I know? You’re a lunatic, you need locking up, keeping out of harms way. A menace to ordinary folk that’s what you are. I’ll be looking out for you, good and proper, mark my words tattooist after this, you miserable bastard.” Challenges the docker, anger raging over his face.

“Me locked up, you’re a funny man Dave Pearce, really funny?” The man with the wrench laughs long and hard. “You still don’t know do you, I know your not the brightest in the head, but I thought a little spark might have ignited in your memories. You see, we thought we would get you locked up, but then what would be the point of that? A couple of years in jail Dave and you’ll be free to start all over again. This way the effect is much more lasting, the rest of your pitiful life in fact, permanent redress, satisfaction guaranteed. It’s perfect. Let the punishment fit the crime, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote a song about it and how very true those sentiments are?” The tattooist moves into the shadows and tugs at the other person who is waiting, has been silent without a word spoken. “So, what’s your view Monica, now don’t be shy, tell him the truth?”

“Monica?” The seated man is visibly startled, almost horrified at the sound of this name, as a woman walks into view out of the darkness and into the half light of the room, with a face of dread and revulsion as she looks upon the men seated before her. Monica screams and hits him hard across the cheek with a fist of rage.

“That’s for five years of pain and suffering Dave Pearce. You’ve inflicted a hurt on me that will never disappear. There’s a scar in here, hidden so deep inside it will never ever be healed,” she points to her head, “and will stay with me forever. Mental scars can stay hidden for all time, but physical ones are like beacons to the passing world and stay like giant posters on a billboard for all to see. Forever and always.”

Dave’s eyes open wide in realisation of a truth that has been knocking at the common sense inside his head. “Oh my god, what have you done to me?” he cries, the burning on his cheeks and forehead beginning to scorch like too many hours in the roasting sun. In panic he tries to stand, there is something horribly wrong, he knows it, feels it, wants to have visual proof. The ropes at his ankles bind tight and Dave Pearce drops to the floor, the chair splinters, his burning face touches the cold of the floor and he screams in agony, the adrenalin in his blood stream long since departed, his body a cold dry wreck of pain. He manages to get to his feet, the chair half smashed from the fall, he hobbles across to his captors, shaking with fear and fright, hands gripped behind his back by rope and the chair back, he can hurt no one.

“Show me a mirror, get me a mirror right now, you bastards!” He cries as panic saturates his voice, restrained sobbing echoes back from the distant four corners of the room like a symphony played out on broken bottles.

The tattooist edges closer, seeing the streaming tears and almost feels remorse, it is a fleeting second of unwanted emotion and he kills it with a singular thought of hatred for the likes of Dave Pearce. “I told you, didn’t I? Look after the family, that’s the important issue. Morally this is the only course of action that truly fits the crime. You see Monica is the only sister I’ve got. Now it makes sense, don’t you see? This way you’re a freeman Dave, no Police, no jail, the debt is settled, paid in full, no residual value to be repaid over time – it’s all done with? Remember how you said earlier that you were a hard man, well all this takes is that inner strength to come to your rescue, that’s all. In those dirty streets behind the pub, with your mates, the bully boys of Dockfield Road, you’ll find a way. I have faith you’ll be okay Dave – a big man like yourself, you’ll survive this?” The bound man stands silent in the pale light, mouth hanging open, a look of emptiness on his face, eyes vacant as hollow sockets. He is lost in a world no one can see, swimming in desolation, riding a hell bound train about to self-destruct. The tattooist pulls his sister to the centre of the room, she stands face to face with a man on the edge of madness. “Monica thought you were her friend Dave, but you betrayed that friendship, turned it into something dirty and unclean, hideous acts of depravity she can never forget. Psychological scars are always hidden, undetectable to any other mortal soul unless you look very carefully into the empty vessel that carries no emotion, see the constant look of despair etched on that face Dave, do you – do you see it there?” he grabs the man by his hair and screams into his ear. “Do you see it, because it will never disappear.” He lets him loose and walks away, not a sound ventures from the customers mouth, no movement of limbs or frightened eyes looking for an escape route, he is lost on a rolling tide of conflict and mental absurdity. “Now you have scars too, visible ones that denotes perversion or maybe penance, a kind of voluntary declaration of one’s wrong doings. Let the punishment fit the crime, we all know how true that statement is, you see Dave, it’s so easy and everyone wins in the end, no losers, we are all happy with the outcome. Right?” The tattooist puts his arm around Monica’s shoulder gently pulling her towards him in a gesture of affection, “It’s all okay now love, all done and finished, we can leave now?” he says quietly, brushing wayward strands of hair behind her ear. They walk, hand in hand, towards the door in the far corner of the room and disappear, the role play concluded, the final scene ended with the closing curtain about to fall.

“What have you done to me?” Dave wakes from his errant slumbers and pulls at his binds tearing the skin at his wrists, blood drips, he does not notice the pain, it is nothing to the burning flesh of his face. He screams at the top of his voice, like a dog baying at the moon. “I did not deserve this, you have no right, I am not a criminal.” Unrestrained despair leeches from the words, he does not know what to do, he cannot shift the ropes from his hands, cannot touch his face, cannot see the moisture, the blood as it congeals there in tiny globules from a million tiny pin pricks.

A voice booms out from nowhere into the emptiness of the sickly room. “Nice and big you said, pretty and very colourful to cover the whole thing. Well I only did what you asked Dave . . . to impress your mates. They’ll love it, absolutely love it and you’re right Dave when they see it they will be sick, really sick?” The tattooists distance voice trails off, then briefly returns and is gone with one last comment. “It suits you Dave, it really does, complements your personality perfectly.”

The ropes drop from the tethered hands of Dave Pearce for no reason, he cannot touch the roaring fire that is his face, he is terrified, afraid there is no skin there just protruding bones and bare teeth and holes where his nose and eyes should sit. He walks in a daze, bewildered, scared as hell, there is a mirror he spots on the far wall and he shuffles across the bare floor boards like a drunken vagrant whose slept rough for years. The pale light from the bulb in the centre of the room catches the brilliance of colour spread in artistic passion across his face. A beautiful woman ravaged by violence dances majestically from his eyebrows to his chin, on either side, smaller equally magnificent beauties adorn the flesh, pirouetting in naked exaltation of their womanly virtues, broken and bruised at the hands of a vicious lover. Across his forehead in vivid graphic splendour are several words, words that powerfully captures the essence of the punitive measures. They read . . . Exploitation is my crime.