He had a tattoo needle and a bottle of tattoo ink that he used to give himself a tattoo on the inside of his finger. He wrote out the word “Emmanuel” with an ink pen first and then point by point, dot by dot he tattooed it, filling in each letter with needle and ink.
The word Emmanuel simply means, "God With Us."
As the train rolled by at what looked to be about 60 miles per hour within 8 feet of him, he continued to tattoo never looking up. It was as if the train did not exist and he was in his own element.
As he tattooed himself, I heard a homeless man under the bridge singing at the top of his lungs…
“I want a new drug
One that won't go away
One that won't keep me up all night
One that won't make me sleep all day” – Huey Lewis and the News