Chapter Five � A Few Lost Years

It would be quite a few years before I would ever touch a tattoo machine again. For many years, I did not even pick up a pencil to idly doodle something on a scrap of paper. I was uninspired and uninterested in doing anything creative whatsoever. It would be a long period of life that had its ups and downs, a long struggle to become unstuck from a ditch that I was firmly entrenched in.

            The next couple years after the parting of the ways between Cheech and me were spent employed at the bar, and had led to many misadventures. I became a small-time hustler, part-time drug dealer and basically wasted time indulging in many vices. This would eventually get me arrested and landed in jail, a feat in my life that I am least proud to admit. I solemnly admit this, but some truths and good things can come even from the worst of times in the least of places. I met some people that became good and true friends who share many of the same skeletons in the closet as I do. As well, while serving time in jail, I discovered Buddhism, and have strived to live my life according to many of its spiritual principles, as well as that my mind will always be free.

            I was released and spent a few years employed at various occupations: tax preparer, night cleaner, retail sales, and some screen printing (which I would eventually pursue as my other trade). The millennium came and went, and has now become and afterthought. Friends came and went as faces that pass in one’s life. Some remain near me still, no matter where they may be, and some are gone and only memory. The roaring party that was my Twenties had finally come to an end and the grim reality of the hangover that becomes my Thirties had begun to set in.

            I went through the motions in life: I worked, had girlfriends, hung out in social circles, tried to fit in, and lived day by day. But I was dissatisfied. Though I did not know it at that time, the desire to draw, to tattoo, to create something with my hands was what had been lacking, though I decided to remain ignorant of this fact until years later. I had been asked by many people if I had ever intended on returning to tattooing, and I would firmly reply with a no. I had changed, the scene had changed, and everything had changed since I had last handled a tattoo machine. I was also literally unequipped to tattoo, as I had almost no supplies or equipment, except for one old machine that I had left in my possession, sitting in small box amongst a pile of things that had accumulated and I tried to call a life. Also, new shops had opened since Skin Graphics had closed, as Cheech had closed the shop less than half a year after our parting, and I suspect as a result of a divorce he went through. I had been away from tattooing for years and didn’t have the proper equipment to do work. And how was I to be sure that, even I had the equipment and workplace to tattoo properly, that I would still retain the abilities to do them after so long? What was I to do?

            I was making slow progress through the ditch, but I was not on the road yet. I was going forward with my wheels slipping and I was sinking low. I wallowed along this trench and worked very hard to not get far.

            And then Cheech re-appeared in my life.