Two hands resting on denim, each with a small black lettering ampersand tattooed on a finger, a simple Lettering design on the Hand.

Ampersand tattoos on two fingers

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

Two hands rest one over the other on dark denim, and two bold black ampersand symbols sit on adjacent fingers. The ampersands have solid, even black ink with smooth edges, and the rest of the skin is plain and unmarked. The close crop centres the tattoos with the fingers and nails in clear view.

Lettering Hand Ampersand Hand Finger Denim

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last time the big top went up in Tiverton, the wind took the canvas before the ropes were even pegged, and Dora Keel stood in the mud with a mallet and said we'd pitch the tent with our teeth if we had to. That was Dora all over. She was the only one of us who could still make the strongman laugh on a bad night, and she'd been the act's other half for thirty-one years.

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I painted the billboards. Brushes, enamel, a cheap stepladder with one short leg. Every town we played, the board by the gate read MARLOW & KEEL in letters a foot high, and every town I touched up the ampersand first, because it was the only part of the sign that ever looked like it meant something. Mine had a curl at the top like a question somebody had decided to answer kindly.

When the bank came for the wagons, Dora asked me to paint the name off the last board. "Just Keel," she said. "I'm going on alone, love, and I can't face the little word."

So I did the sensible thing and covered the letters with grey undercoat, the whole length of the board, Marlow and Keel alike. Then I sat on the ladder with the tin open and couldn't make myself finish. I left the ampersand standing alone in the middle of the grey, black and bold, holding nothing up. Dora came out in her coat, looked at it for a long time, and laughed until she had to sit on the step. "Well," she said. "Somebody's still got to join things up."