From: Conversations with Snook (The Younger)

I’VE GOT A TATTOO ALRIGHT, BUT I’M NO BIKER.

No, it’s not a picture. It’s a—Yeah, okay! Just stop poking at it for a half a second! It’s not a scratch and sniff, dude. It’s just armpit smell and Old Spice High Endurance there and scratching it won’t make it any more pungent. What? Well I was just about to say and then you started poking me. ‘The fuck, man?! Relax!

It’s Chinese script. It means will. No, not as in William! That’s you! I mean that’s you that would tattoo a dude’s name on your arm! Yeah it is! And you’d have a heart around it with forever written underneath it, but it would be the number four and the word ever. … No, but the number four, I mean. Yes, fine: the numeral four and then the word ever.

Anyway, it means will—as in will power. Yeah. Like, I figure, if I’m gonna have this thing on my arm for the rest of my life, I want it to mean something. You know? I mean, you see all those old guys around with, like, an anchor, or “Mom” or whatever written all over their wrinkly old forearms and it’s like: Jesus, guys! Anyone got a hankerin’ fer some spinach?! Look out, Bluto’s behind you and he’s gonna hit you over the head with his fuckin’ wheelchair, for shit’s sakes! You know?! Yeah, anyway. So I’m like: if I’ve got to do this I’m gonna do it right. So I googled the Chinese symbol for will and then got my sister to, like, blow it up and do it in a kind of calligraphy style with a magic marker. It took the tattoo artist a half hour. No, that’s short, dude. Trust me!

That’s the thing! When I’m at the gym, or down at the Pits playing ball on a hot day people are like: this isn’t some beer-bellied meathead. They don’t know what to think! It psyches them out, and I’m just like: batter up! And—I swear to God—I’ll hit at least a double nine times out of ten. No—when I’m playing ball, moron! It doesn’t make any difference with your performance on weights; you don’t magically grow bigger muscles than you’ve already got just because of a tattoo, you dink! What? Adrenaline?! It’s a myth! Oh shut-up, you pussy, you don’t know what you’re talking about! No, just shut up, man, do us both a favour!

And, dude. Chicks? They love it! I’ve gotta beat them off with a stick. Yeah, funny. Laugh it up, chum. I said them, and I meant it.

And it’s something to think about, too, you know? It’s humbling. You get all cocky, you know, get a couple a drinks down you with your buds, but then you get home and take a shower, and see that symbol there … And you think. You know?

Yeah, well that’s what I’m saying! I’m not gonna do what Stubbing did and get a pair of dicks tattooed on my bicep! Yeah he did! A pair of fuckin’ dicks. Or Pierce? Carpe diem. No joke. But the guy’s a poser. Always was, always will be.