Etch-a-sketch

She claims she is adding to her body, not harming it. When endorphins rush into the bloodstream at the first incision, the feeling of being cut is even considered therapeutic. It's what Joyner calls flying, and what Robert-Michael calls centering. And it's what Colby Watkins looks for to calm him through tough times. While he waits at Atomic Tattoo, his grin betrays his glee at the thought of getting cut.

For a while now Watkins has been mulling over his new addition: the Japanese character for "air." Scarification, after all, is not something you jump into on a whim. "Everyone who has it done is prepared, because it's not an art form that can be taken off," Robert-Michael says. "You can't just half-ass something like this."

Watkins readies himself at the Atomic Tattoo, his eyes flickering, his face taut, his body wiry in his black T-shirt slashed open on each side. "It puts you through another perspective," he says, "opens you up."

"Opening up is a cool thing," Robert-Michael adds.

For all the scalpels, blood, and pain, scarification begins unceremoniously at the copy machine. In a small, bland room of the Austin tattoo parlor, Robert-Michael is enlarging "air" from Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters and holding it to the empty space on Watkins' right arm beneath "three" and above his elbow. When they find the best size, Robert-Michael runs the page through a carbon-copy machine to create a stencil.

In the incense-filled piercing studio, the scar artist lathers Watkins' arm with a surgical scrub then wipes it clean. If Watkins were a hairy man, Robert-Michael would shave the area as well. Rubbing on the stencil, which sticks like an adhesive one-day tattoo, he cautiously avoids placing the character near Watkins' bony elbow, since "air" has a swift descending stroke. The last thing he wants to do is trigger the funny bone with a scalpel in his hand.

As the autoclave hums softly, another customer walks in with a drawing of a scar pattern he'd like on his back, a large, complicated Eskimo design of an eagle he has been researching all morning. A scarification virgin, he's staying to witness Watkins' cutting.

"Can you do that in one sitting?" asks the prospective customer.

Robert-Michael considers the pencil sketch. "Yeah, I could." Then he disappears to the Exxon station next door for a cup of ice.

When he returns, Watkins is lying on his left side in the chair, breathing slowly with eyes closed. Robert-Michael places a lined, cool-blue paper towel, the kind dentists use as bibs, beneath Watkins' arm to catch the blood. He soaks another towel in the already melting ice and lets Watkins in on his plan: first the three horizontal strokes, then the connecting vertical line, and last the descending hook.

As Robert-Michael makes the first incision in the subcutis layer just beneath the dermis, Watkins grips his leg with his right hand and exhales deeply as if he were doing Lamaze. Blood wells up instantly in the fresh grooves.

After the initial etchings, the cutter goes over each incision again with the scalpel to ensure they are even, so the character doesn't turn out blotchy or fragmented. He stops often to wipe the steady bleeding, changing into a new pair of gloves at least eight times. Meanwhile, Watkins has turned his head to press his closed eyes to the inner side of his left forearm.

"You're dripping everywhere, Colby," Robert-Michael says with amusement. "How are you doing?"

"Fine. How are you doing?"

Robert-Michael chuckles. The dentist bib is all but soaked.

When the incisions are even and connected to the artist's satisfaction, he presses a paper towel against the wound to make a keepsake pressing for Watkins, just as he has done with his earlier cuttings. Then Robert-Michael pours concentrated ink generously over the design. He has been performing scarification for about a year, and Watkins is his experiment in progress. The first three of Watkins' cuttings were highlighted by either ink or a mixture of ink and ashes, but none of them is as dark as Watkins would like. He is hoping concentrated ink will do the trick.

After Robert-Michael wipes him down with the icy towel and patches gauze over the wound, Watkins' arm is still a bloody mess.

It has been half an hour, 40 minutes maybe, or an hour. Time has been hopelessly thrown out of loop. Outside on the staircase to the shop, Watkins and the prospective customer who was observing are savoring a post-cutting smoke.

The scarification was bloodier than the customer had expected; he figured it would be a clean, quick-snip affair in the manner of TV surgery. Forget about the one-sitting back design; he would start a little smaller. Watkins, though, is already planning more: characters on his other arm and on his thighs, and "love," which consists of 13 strokes, on his back.

He's feeling "fuzzy" right now. The cutting induced a floating sensation, he says, a rush that fades to something similar to an alcohol buzz. "I'll probably be in la-la land for the rest of the day," he says with a smile.