Bear wasn’t an employee, but he was one of our most colorful regular customers. I mean that both figuratively and literally: he was a hulking biker dude covered in ink from head to toe. Rose bushes encircled naked women on his arms, and his shiny bald head was decorated with the snearing face of a bear. Bear was a tattoo artist himself and the proprietor of a tattoo parlor called The Bear’s Den.
Bear was easily 6’6, rippling with muscles, and, as I’ve said, covered in tattoos. Under no circumstances would I have gotten on his bad side, and it’s a testament to human stupidity that anyone ever did. He told me a story once about a customer of his who requested a custom-designed tattoo. They negotiated a price, and Bear spent a couple of hours inking him up. When he was finished, the guy reached into his pocket and said, “Oh, shit, I’ve only got eighty-seven bucks.”
They went back and forth for a bit, but the guy insisted he couldn’t get his hands on any more money and pleaded with Bear to accept much less than the price they’d agreed upon. Bear finally relented and told the guy to leave a warm, wet compress on the ink for 24 hours.
“Thing is,” Bear growled to me, “you’re only supposed to leave it on for an hour. When he took the compress off, the ink would have run everywhere and left a giant brown smear permanently engraved on his arm.”
I’ve heard something like this before…where would I have heard it from…unless it’s some urban legend.
It’s certainly possible that Bear was passing off some urban legend as his own handiwork. Or perhaps this is a common tactic among tattoo artists for dealing with customers who attempt to rip them off?