Well, it “had to” happen eventually, and after 32 years, it did: My second tattoo.
In The Tattooed Heart, the heroine’s best friend Blondell mentions being tattooed by the legendary Carol “Smokey” Nightingale, in his shop behind the Greyhound bus station in Washington, D.C.
Smokey Nightingale's "electric marking device" patent
I was actually the person who got tattooed by Smokey, back in 1978 (The Tattooed Heart is set a few years later), and while that’s a story for another time, it looks like Smokey patented the device (or a similar one) that artist Ron Mor used to ink my left forearm.
