Tattoos Helped Me Make Sense of Death and Prison

IT’S ART and TRIBAL –

Nov. 17, 2023 – The next tattoo came after six of us formed a small biker gang: Lost Souls. We had a knack for wrong turns and misguided shortcuts, and often got turned around on some back country road where there always seemed to be a longhorn bull skull. All of us got the same ink: the “1%” symbol inside the diamond outline, above a longhorn skull, above a four-point compass with an “S” at each point.

Those once-separate elements have melted together over the decades, but each of them had meaning and still do. The other five Lost Souls have gone on, their tattoos with them. Mine is the only one still above ground.

After I went to prison, tattoo culture was part of daily life. I got the standard spiderweb on the elbow because someone died by that arm. I had one that spelled out “DOC DEATH” in vertical letters down my shoulder blade, until someone cowardly stuck a shank in it and turned it into “DOC D~”.