"Do you really have any tattoos?"
"You wanna see them?"
The truth is, he's got four--well, four-ish. If you count the stars as one, which he does. And considering they're his, he guesses it's his opinion that counts.
He's considering those tattoos right now, as he drives his current automobile (God knows what this one is--he's learned not to get attached to cars...really) to the artist who will apply the ink for his fifth.
His first was a pretty standard "I'm in prison" tat; a spiderweb arching over his right shoulder blade. Uncreative, but then, he'd only been out of the SHU for a few weeks at that point and his head was still kinda scrambled. Still, he likes it. The first is kind of a right of passage, and the web a pretty good symbol; both for being caught behind bars and for the interconnectedness of all things. Also, it's blue. And blue tats are hard to get in prison. All his others are black.
His second is symbolic too. He had it done right after the stitches came out of the long shank wound that just missed his right kidney. The wound that almost killed him. The tat is of a knife, half buried in the long, pink scar and slanting left, hilt up, across his back. He'd ended up back in the SHU for six weeks right after getting that tat. The California Department of Corrections doesn't like its inmates getting inked. They usually never find out though. Well, they find out, but usually long enough after the tat was applied that they can't really say that the inmate got it at that prison. Problem was, while the knife tattoo was still surrounded by a red, raw halo Charlie got shanked again. In fact, it was kind of a habit for a while there. The prison doc had found it while stitching Charlie's back up again. Maybe that trip to the SHU wasn't such a bad thing...OK, of course it was bad...but at least he had time to read.
His third tattoo is sort of cute. In a prison tattoo kind of way. It's a pelican in shoes. Get it? SHUs? Yeah. He'd gone a bit around the bend by then.
His fourth (-ish) is a group of stars, two rows of five and a row of two in the center of his back between the shoulder blades. Twelve stars. Twelve years. Before he got out, he'd decided that he'd wait two more years before getting the next bit of that tattoo. Not a good idea for a white guy to have thirteen anythings on his body. Thirteen is a number reserved for one of the nastier Latin gangs in California. Any white guy with a thirteen, or an M (the thirteenth letter), or XIII, or basically any indication of thirteenliness tattooed on his body was likely to have it removed. With a knife. Slowly. So Charlie'd planned on waiting until 2009 and getting the thirteenth and fourteenth stars at the same time. 'Cause Charlie is really really white.
He parks his car--not attached at all--in the lot, walks into the parlor and sits down in the chair. The setting is somewhat different than he's used to when he gets inked. Nice, but different. Less chance of getting some funky disease, he guesses.
"What can I do for you?" Asks the pretty, goth young woman with the fancy needles and rubber gloves.
He pulls off his shirt, holds up his shield so that she can see it. "Can you put this..." he touches his left breast, over his heart. "Here?"