Janet, a 27-year-old Washington waitress, chose her left breast for a carefully positioned long-stemmed, red rose. "The gals helped make getting a tattoo more respectable even though a lot of times you can't see their tattoos," Watkins says, with a wink.Īccording to Watkins, women get tattoos on "their backs, breasts or bottoms."
"Women have really helped the tattoo business," says Watkins, who drives a Cadillac, sports a gold neck chain, smokes long, black cigars, and flashes a pinkie ring. About 60 percent of the boutique's customers are women. With six years experience, Dennis and Gale Watkins offer customers more than 1,000 tattoos - nearly all from mass produced stencils.The cheapest tattoo is $16 and can be applied in a matter of minutes while your friends play the boutique's pinball machine and sip cold sodas. Meade in Maryland is one of the new generation of tattoo parlors. The Gemini Tattoo Boutique on the strip across from Ft.
Topcat tattoo skin#
They appeared overnight to meet a booming popularity in the skin mural trade. Today, there are more than 5,000 self-proclaimed tattooers. Gone are the cutsy sailors who used to bend Nightingale's ear with tales of lost love as he permanently embedded their skin with "Death Before Dishonor." They have been replaced by youngsters who want to know if they can get tattooed within an hour, will it hurt and whether Nightinglae accepts Visa or Master Charge.įive years ago, there were only 40 tattoo artists in the country, mostly tough curmudgeons who spent years learning their trade and hours perfecting a tattoo. Just as the giant, steel cranes at the site of the convention center two blocks away are a sign that Nightingale's small shop someday will be more valuable as a parking lot or gift boutique, so are there signals that Nightingale's is becoming a relic - a victim of progress. He has put a portrait of Richard Nixon on a staunch Republican's shoulder and tattooed gold wedding bands on a couple who couldn't afford rings. In the last 30 years, he has designed more than 200 copyrighted tattoos and etched those screaming eagles, naked women, leaping tigers, red roses, and clever sayings into hundreds of yards of skin. I sharpen me blade, for tattooing's my trade, I'm the man with golden needle." An Irish jig is playing on the cassette recorder inside: "They come to me from far and near, For a girl or a ship or an eagle. Satisfied at last, he flips a switch that makes the neon sign above his doorway glow blood-red: "TATTOOS." In his studio, Nightingale moves slowly, deliberately, examining each flask of rainbow-colored dye, inspecting every stainless steel instrument before him as if he were about to perform delicate surgery. Outside the tiny tattoo parlor - a blue-gray cubicle tucked between a closed Chinese restaurant and the flashing lights of the Top Cat pinball arcade at 12th and I streets downtown - office workers hurry by, bums beg for pocket change, a pudgy prostitute peddles her wares and two drunks are dancing a sidewalk soft-shoe to an imaginary tune.Ĭarol Nightingale, one of the last original tattoo artists in the nation, ignores them all.
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