The first tattoo he gets a week into prison after getting attacked by a gangbanger and getting taken to the prison doc. The guy only walks away with a bloody nose and he ends up with a scar as long as a switchblade running across his shoulder.

After four months in solitary he gets let out and gets the second one. This time it's two giant Neo Nazis that didn't like Charlie pointing out that Nazis didn't fuck each other. One goes down with a shiv pushed through his chest and a gash running across his scalp. The other ends up with twenty stitches and a broken leg. Charlie walks out of the prison infirmary with a reputation and half a swastika carved into his thigh.

The third one is three years and six days into prison, right after he's let out of solitary for the second time. A new guard gets tired of Charlie ignoring him and tries to start a fight. The guard gets multiple surgeries and a transfer out, Charlie ends in solitary with sixteen stitches on his back after they remove the taser dart. He spends the next six months reading his book on Zen, ignoring the blood stained into the pages.

The fourth one is the one he likes the most. A guy that just got transferred, with nice eyes and an honest face, nearly gets stabbed by three inmates before he arrives. The guy walks Charlie to the infirmary after, trying not to panic at Charlie bleeding over the floor. Charlie walks out of the infirmary for the fourth time with a tattoo zigzagged around his heart and Ted. He likes Ted, likes the confused look on his face after being called nice and his stories about life outside.

The last two are on his hip, swollen and red after Ted tried to get those pieces of plastic out with a knife.

Four years, eight months and twelve days and then he's out and getting tattoos again. He doesn't get why people insist on calling them scars.