Realism tattoo of a Doberman's head in black and grey with a collar and tag, on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Doberman portrait on the ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A detailed portrait of a Doberman with cropped upright ears, shown from the chest up and turned to the left. The shading moves from deep black on the ears and neck to soft grey highlights on the muzzle and eye, with muted tan tones on the brow and cheek. A studded collar with a round tag sits at the bottom of the design, and the tattoo fills the side of the torso.

Realism Ribs Dog Portrait Collar

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the reunion mentioned the dog, which I thought odd, because in Year Nine Brazil talked about nothing else. Tambo was a Doberman with ears that stood up like two clipped sails, and he lived on a chain by the bike shed behind Hollins Road school. At lunchtime Brazil would sneak him half a sausage roll through the railings and tell anyone who'd listen that Tambo could find a lost football in a hedge from the far side of the field.

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The function room above the carvery in Walsall smelled of gravy and cheap lager. I found Brazil by the coat rack, turning a plastic cup in his fingers and studying the carpet as if it owed him money. We skipped the usual questions. He said he still had the collar tag, the round brass one with TAMBO punched into it, and that he carried it everywhere, because the dog had been dead since 1997 and somebody ought to remember him properly.

That was the summer the canal at Hatherton flooded the towpath. I had gone out past the lock to prove something to a girl called Donna, and I slipped off the wall, and the black water took my trainers and my nerve in one go. Tambo came down the bank from nowhere, snapped his chain clean, and got his teeth into my collar. He hauled me up the slope like a sack of coal while Brazil screamed for the caretaker. Nobody ever told us what happened to that chain.

Brazil set the tag on the table between our cups. The engraving had worn almost smooth, but the T was still there, and the little ring at the top caught the light from the carvery lamps. Neither of us picked it up. We just sat there in the warm noise of the room, letting the gravy go cold in the bowls.