Shaded tattoo on an upper arm showing a VW campervan, a palm tree and a Route 66 sign over a California state outline, with script lettering reading California.

California campervan and palm tree on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The design shows a Volkswagen campervan driving along a road with a Route 66 shield, set against a palm tree and a hazy sea and sky, all inside an outline of the state of California. The campervan, palm and background are rendered in soft grey shading with smooth gradients, and the script word California sits across the top. Red accents appear on the road stripe and a small star, while the rest of the work is black and grey.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The van had sat under a tarpaulin on Maureen's drive for eleven years, and when Ray finally hauled the cover off, the tyres had gone flat as coasters and a family of sparrows had nested in the heater vent. He wiped the windscreen with his sleeve. Through the dust, the map was still folded on the dashboard where their father had left it, soft at every crease and marked in blue biro.

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'You're not taking that thing to Dover,' Maureen said from the step, holding a mug of tea she had clearly carried out to make a point. 'It failed its MOT in 2009.' 'Then it'll fail again somewhere nicer.' She set the mug on the wall. Dad had bought the van off a man in Wigan the summer Ray turned nine, paid in cash and three months of Saturday shifts at the carpet warehouse, and he had talked about California every Sunday after that, the way other men talked about the football.

Ray unfolded the map across the bonnet. A red line ran from the top corner, down past a shield that said 66 in his father's looping hand, and out across a sea shaded in pencil. Someone had pressed hard at a star near the bottom edge, so the paper had torn there years ago and been taped back together. Beside it, in capitals: PALMS. ALL OF THEM.

He emptied the Quality Street tin from under the stairs, filled the tank with what was inside, and turned the key. The engine caught on the third try. Maureen came down the drive after him, shouting something about insurance, and he pulled out past the bins with the map open on the passenger seat, the red line running on past the edge of the paper into nothing at all.

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