Black and grey traditional tattoo of clasped hands inside a dotwork-shaded heart, with Call Me Safe Bet lettering and a flower, on a forearm.

Clasped hands in a heart with Call Me Safe Bet lettering

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A traditional-style tattoo shows two hands clasped over a heart, with the heart shaded in fine dotwork and solid black. The phrase CALL ME SAFE BET runs in lettering above and beside the heart, with a flower and leaves below and rays and dotted borders framing the top. The design is entirely black and grey on pale skin, photographed straight on against a white background.

Traditional Dotwork Forearm Heart Clasped hands Flower Leaves Lettering Ray

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain has stopped by the time you reach the dog track car park on Ancoats Road, and the floodlights hum like a fridge left open. Your coat still smells of hot oil from the chip van. Mickey Kell is leaning on the bonnet of his Volvo with a roll of notes as thick as a rolling pin, and he is already grinning, because he knows you have come to ask about the name in the fourth race.

Keep reading

"Sable Tuesday," he says. "Safe bet."

You tell him you don't believe in safe bets. He laughs and holds out his hand, palm sideways, the way the old men did outside the bookies on Oldham Street before the shutters came down for good. You take it anyway. His grip is dry and cold. Behind him the tote board flickers in red and then yellow, rays of light switching on and off like a sun someone can't make up their mind about. A siren goes past on the ring road and fades. Mickey tells you about his nan, who put a shilling on every horse whose name began with a letter from her late husband's name, and who never once lost the house. You don't ask what happened to the house.

The dog comes third. You know it before the lure reaches the rail, because you can see Mickey's face change under the sodium lamps, his cheeks sinking like a tent with the pole pulled out. He pays you anyway, folding two twenties into your palm and closing your fingers over them.

"Call me next week," he says. "I'll have a certainty."

You walk home through the empty streets, counting the notes against your knuckles, and you decide that the only bet worth making is the one you shake on with someone you already know will show up.