I am fascinated by tattoos because I can’t get one. My wife would divorce me if I did; it’s written into our contract. I once explained this to my son, and he suggested I get a temporary tattoo. Which makes sense. Still, ever since watching Steve McQueen in Papillion, I thought it would be cool to have one. But these days so many people sport tattoos—hell, there are television shows about tattoo parlors—that they’re too damn “in.” So I feel cooler not having one.

Anyway, it’s 8:47 a.m. and I get a seat on the F-train. That’s two days in a row (what are the odds?) and the same seat, too: bottom of the “L.” I sit with my back to the person next to me and my legs in the aisle, my bags between them. It usually annoys people when they try to pass from one section of the car to another. But I get more room that way, and it keeps me from knocking knees with the person perpendicular to me at the base of the “L.” Six of one, half dozen of the other.

I notice a guy across from me in the opposite section. Same seat, mirror image. In cut-off camouflaged shorts and a black T-shirt, he also has two earrings in his left ear, a close yet untrimmed beard, and a shaved head sprouting five days’ worth of stubble. Maybe thirty, he smiles when a woman sits next to him and he has to move his legs to let her by.

The man is also covered in tattoos. They’ve been inked like identical twins on his forearms: a ring of flames begins at each wrist and spreads to his elbows. On the biceps and triceps of his left arm (I can’t see that much of the right) is a large Victorian clock with Roman numerals; the time is stopped at 11:55. AM or PM, I can’t tell.

On the back of his neck is some kind of bar code. What product is the bar code for? Rolling papers or Rice Krispies? Maybe it’s Fruit Loops. My son’s dying to eat Fruit Loops, but my wife and I won’t let him. Maybe this Illustrated Man got the bar code after seeing Angelina Jolie in Wanted. She had a bar code tattooed on her body. Or was it a binary code? Well, it was a code and it was on Angelina Jolie—somewhere. Maybe that inspired this guy.

Now, when you get rings of flames on your arms, you might be trying to say, “Don’t touch me or you’ll get burned.” And the Victorian clock surely has a Gothic look. But what are you trying to say with a bar code? That he works a day job at The Container Store? I stop looking at him. I don’t want him to catch me studying him, and I certainly don’t want to know what the tattoos mean if they’re trying to say, “Don’t piss me off!”

But tattoos are still cool to me. What about a subway car across the back of my neck? My own personal bar code. It would have to be the F-train, with orange and tan seats, and me at the bottom of the “L”, bags between my legs. Maybe all straphangers should get one. But only if their partners approve, of course. Me, I’ll be keeping this particular canvas blank, thank you very much. You’re on your own.

—Joe Lunievicz