When I was a little kid, my mom used to use the funny threat of selling me to the Gypsies if I didn't behave. I always imagined Gypsies as crystal ball-reading crones in headscarves and gold hoop earrings. I figured they hailed from some far-off European land and had most likely gone the way of Knights and Pageboys. When I got into the tattoo industry, I found out that they were thriving just fine, and quite populous in my own city.
A huffy young lady once snapped at me when I made a remark about Gypsies that the word was "racist" and they "prefer to be called Romanians". Well, I've tattooed "Gypsy Boy/Girl" and "Gypsy Power" on more than a few of them, so they're not too put off by the term, apparently. And I've found that while there are plenty of Gypsies in Romania, they're also plentiful in England, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, et cetera, et cetera--Do they "prefer" to be called Romanians too, I wonder? But, I digress.
Anyway, I encountered the Gypsies very early on in my apprenticeship. They have a very odd, clandestine culture that seems most strange to the rest of us. One thing I am surprised about is the astonishing rate of illiteracy among them, it is almost absolute. Yet most of them carry driver's licenses, I'm really disconcerted about how that works. We are required to have our customers sign releases before they get tattooed or pierced, and the things I get back from the Gypsies are a stitch. I had a young girl sign her name as "Pizza John". A guy signed his as "Papa John". Either Gypsies love pizza, or 'John' is the only name any of them can spell. I had another girl, who had no I.D., tell me she was 23 years old as she tried to convince me to tattoo her. "What year were you born?" I asked.
"1965," she answered. Needless to say, she got the boot.
The interesting thing is, for a group of people who can't read, their tattoos are almost always words, names and "Love Mom" and such. When I was an apprentice, a young Gypsy came into the shop and said he wanted his girlfriend's name on his chest. Having the nicest handwriting in the place, I was delegated the responsibility of making the stencils for the bosses when lettering was involved. I grabbed a sheet of tracing paper and a pencil and asked him for her name.
"Suprina," He replied.
"Sabrina?" I asked.
"No, Suprina," he enunciated, in that odd Gypsy accent.
"How do you spell that?" I questioned, furrowing my brow as my hand sat poised over the paper.
He thought for a minute and then grinned. "I'm not sure."
"S-U-P-R-I-N-A?" I coaxed, as one of my bosses looked over my shoulder.
"No, S-A-P, I think," First Boss began, as the other boss got into it.
"Like "Sabrina" with a "P"," Other Boss interjected, dragging on a cigarette.
The Gypsy boy scratched his head in confusion. "I don't know..."
"Maybe there's a 'Y' in there?" I asked no one in particular, looking around at the three of them.
"Tell ya what, Bro," one of the bossmen said, handing Gypsy Boy the telephone. "Get her on the horn and you ask her how she spells it."
He made the call, it lasted less than a minute. After he hung up, he turned to us with a wide grin, part sheepish, part amused.
"She doesn't know, either," He announced.
The two bosses and I stared at each other in disbelief.
"S-U-P-R-I-N-A?" I asked flatly, ready to write again.
"Sure, fuck it," One of the bosses growled. "Not like either one of them'll know the fuckin' difference."
And so it was. We could have put "Pizza John" on there and he and old Suprina would have been as happy as pigs in shit, none the wiser. The best part about this particular posting? I won't get any hate mail from the Gypsies because they can't read this anyhow.
