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Neck tattoos are the billboards of skin art — they advertise who you are.  In the mid-nineties I was a substitute teacher in juvenile hall. When I couldn’t remember a student’s name I’d walk up and down the rows of desks and sneak a peek at that student’s neck. More often than not their names would be inscribed on the back of their necks.  Maybe it was important to not be mistaken in a gang altercation?  What interests me most is what someone chooses for you to see that is not visible to themselves. Yvonne has a small tattoo of a woman’s handbag inked on her neck. I asked her if it had something to do with purse snatching. “No, Ms. P, it means I like money. I don’t take purses,” she reminded me with her typical candor. “I’m an international thief.”

Sequoia is a new student who grew up in a small town in Oregon. He isn’t actually enrolled but comes to my school to help out, tutor other students in math. He has a UPC barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. I asked him if he ever tried to scan himself at Target. Sequoia says the numbers in his UPC tattoo have special meaning but prefers to keep that to himself. I showed him our online encyclopedia and every time I glance over he is looking up some esoteric subject like cosmology or pantheism. Sequoia looks like he stepped out of a J.Crew ad until you notice the limp in his walk and the barcode on his neck.