Black line drawing of a razor blade beside hand-lettered text reading "If I were you, I'd put that away" and "Darling, you'll be okay" on a white background.

Razor blade with hand-lettered quote

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A black outline drawing of a razor blade sits at the upper left, with hand-lettered text in varied sizes and angles across the rest of the white page. The words read "If I were you, I'd put that away. See, you're just wasted and thinking about the past again. Darling, you'll be okay." The linework is uniform and bold with no shading or fill, and the composition is a loose, handwritten layout.

Lettering Lettering Quote Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ray Oddie kept the straight razor in the drawer under the strop, and it never came out while a customer was still angry. That was his rule, and he had kept it for thirty-one years on Waterloo Road. So when Terry Vance climbed into the chair on a wet Thursday, wanting a close shave before his sister's wedding, Ray lathered the brush slowly and let him talk about the brother who had gone to Alicante and not written in eleven years.

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Terry kept turning towards the window. Every few minutes his hand went to the inside pocket of his coat, touched something, and came away. Ray saw it in the mirror and did not stop. He tipped the chair back and said, "If I were you, I'd put that away, whatever it is." Terry laughed, not kindly, and said the envelope had been in that pocket since 2014. "You're just wasted, son," Ray said, "thinking about the past again. Sit still."

Then Ray did what he had learned from Maureen, who had called every man in that chair darling, from bishops to lads with cuts on their knuckles. He drew the blade up the jaw in short clean strokes, wiped it on the warm towel, and said nothing until the last stroke was done. "Darling, you'll be okay," he said, as a plain fact, the way you'd mention the kettle was on.

Terry took the envelope out himself. It held a postcard of the Alicante harbour, unstamped, with three lines in pencil. He read it twice, folded it, and put it back. At the door he rubbed his smooth chin and said, "Cheers, Ray." Ray wiped the razor, closed it, and laid it under the strop before he wrote the date in the appointment book in pencil.