Tribal band tattoo on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tribal band wraps around the lower forearm of a person whose face and upper body are cropped out of frame. The band combines solid black triangles with fine patterned lines and chevrons, with a clear edge at the top and bottom of the band. The image is a monochrome phone screenshot of a Pinterest page, with the app interface visible at the top and bottom.

Forearm Tribal Band Triangle Chevron Pattern Linework

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down where the lino's not cracked, and don't lean on the rail, it's been loose since they painted the doors orange. Now. You want to know where the pattern came from, the black teeth you can still see on the old photographs of Ravensworth House. I'll tell you what my mother told me, and she had it from the man who drew it.

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His name was Eamon Dwyer and he came over to build the blocks in nineteen sixty-two, with a tin of ink and a bent nail. Every evening after the shift he'd sit on the stairs and draw sawteeth on the back of his hand, because the roofline of that tower was a row of them against the sky, and he said a man should carry the shape of the thing that holds him up. The chevrons were the lift cables, running all the way up, and the fine lines were the rain streaking the windows.

Then the lifts broke, and Eamon walked up all twenty-two floors with his boys' shopping, and by the top he'd decided the whole pattern had to be worked into him properly. Black where the triangles pointed to the sky, grey where they pointed down. He said the teeth were there so the wind would have something to bite on besides him.

When the demolition men came with their clipboards, Eamon stood in the car park and they asked what the band was for. He told them it was a map. Up is the way you came, he said, and down is the way you'll go. Then he laughed and offered them tea from his flask. And that, pet, is why you always take the stairs.