Most who enter the small, dimly-lit
building on a shabby block near the outskirts
of downtown do so with a tinge of
anxiety, though it is often disguised by
confidence.
Framed drawings of tattoos wallpaper the
rooms, the artistic visions of professionals
who earn a living by prickling ink into the
skin of customers. But the images are only
copies of masterpieces whose original canvases
were not paper, but flesh, and whose
instruments were not pencils, but needles.
These sketches can be taken down, but the