Disappearing tattoos - June Wilkerson

National Catholic Reporter, April 27, 2001 by Arthur Jones

The professional staff is volunteer, people like Dr. David Friedman, who does a Saturday morning every six or eight weeks. Another Saturday regular, Evelia Garcia, a volunteer who is a junior at Providence High School, Burbank, was applying the post-laser salve. After treatment, the tattoo area is covered with salve and cling wrap, taped tight to keep air out.

Friedman was ready for the young woman on the table. With a tattooed butterfly above her bra strap on her upper back, she'd already had her lidocaine shot to numb some of the pain. Everyone in the room wore special glasses as the blinding laser hummed -- and burned. During the laser operation, tears come to the patients' eyes, they wince, they might cry out a little. The burning pain lasts at least 24 hours. But when the bandages come off, the tattoo has faded to a lighter shade. For most it's one down, two or three more to go.

Far more than that in Marc Hoffman's case. What's remarkable about Hoffman's muscular torso and arms is not the complexity of the tattoo and, in its own way, the artistically interwoven scrollwork that remains, it is the fact that there is absolutely no trace on his neck and shoulders of the tattoos he once shrank from.

Hoffman, now 31, was a very young man serving a prison term when he was tattooed. Part of turning his life around was the determination to take the long road to removing what must have been nearly a square yard of tattoos. Around his neck, above the collar line, he had racially offensive symbols -- and the name of a former girlfriend.

His fiancee of today, said Hoffman, "handled it very well. I was ashamed to walk into a party with her." Not any more -- it's gone. Hoffman had an uncle who served in Hitler's SS. And its symbol is still plain on Hoffman's left forearm. Already, with a long sleeved shirt, Hoffman had reduced his tattooed visibility. Looking down the road, Hoffman said that by the time he and his wife have children, the tattoos will be erased.

"Two days ago," said the private investigator, "a client came in and handed me a large check. That wouldn't have happened with tattoos coming out of my shirt collar." Hoffman tried a commercial tattoo removal service, but they didn't use lidocaine. It hurt worse than having the tattoo done, he said. He pays his tattoo removal clinic bills in volunteer service with middle school boys and girls clubs.

It's an easy tradeoff for clear, clean skin.

Jeff Scott, with the swastika on his hand, agrees. "It's gotten me into trouble, into fights. People get offended and challenge me over it. Sometimes people see it and just totally don't want to deal with me. They don't get to know me. People who do know me know I'm a nice guy."

For Wilkerson, walking through the clinic, talking to Susan and Marc and Jeff and Javier, "It's like I'm watching all these transformations right in front of me."

There's a coffee/waiting room. Not long ago, said Wilkerson, she looked in and saw a young man with a big "P" (for Pacoima) on his neck, and another young man with "SF" (for San Fernando) on his. "Out on the streets," said Wilkerson, "the Pacoimas and San Fernandos are killing each other. Here they were talking, having coffee together," she said. "I loved that."