After eight laser tattoo removal treatments at $150 a pop only faded the tattoos on his face, Eriks Mackus had a friend use a wire wheel to grind them off his face
Eriks Mackus, 22, of Clearwater, Florida has been in and out of jail since he was 12 when he was busted for stealing a golf cart. While in juvie he joined a street gang.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Mackus soon began melting down checkers and combining the goo with grease, toothpaste and pencil lead to create tattoo ink. He used a paper clip to tattoo himself. Over time he ended up with several tattoos on his body, neck and face. After being in and out of jail for stealing cars, he was finally sent to prison at age 19, receiving a 13-month sentence for strong-armed robbery.
While in prison, Mackus decided he was fed up with rotating in and out of jail and resolved to stay away from everyone in his past gang life. Since his release from prison, Mackus has turned his life around. He applied for a Pell Grant and enrolled in a welding school but found the course difficult and started to fall behind. He was put on probation. He kept plugging away with the help of Brian Bodlak, another student who had befriended him and was further along in the course. Eriks stayed late and went in nights until he succeeded in graduating two years after starting.
His instructor came to admire Eriks and pulled him aside one day to tell him it would be hard for him to find a job with those tattoos on his face and neck. So Mackus went for eight laser removal treatments at $150 a pop. When the laser treatments only faded the tattoos he decided to take matters in his own hands. He enlisted the help of his friend Bodlak.
Here is how the Tampa Bay Times described it:
Just before the 2012 Labor Day weekend, Eriks bought gauze and hydrogen peroxide, 18 Budweisers and a bottle of Sailor Jerry rum. He'd asked his friend Brian [Bodlak] to do it. Brian was, after all, a certified welder.
They went to Brian's house, and Eriks drank all the beer and several shots of the rum. Brian put a small stainless steel wire bit on a Dremel tool. Eriks lay down on his back and held on to Brian's leg.
Brian started with the [Pinellas County area code] 727. The whirling steel wires dug grooves into Eriks' cheek, shooting a streak of blood across Brian's face. Brian donned glasses and began again. Each time he applied the wire bit to Eriks' skin, it buzzed and sputtered and scattered flecks of skin. Every time Brian stopped, Eriks downed another shot. The worst part was when Brian poured rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide on the wound and scrubbed the dead skin with a steel wool pad. Tears trickled down Eriks' face, but he didn't scream.
A few weeks later, Brian gouged [the map of] Florida from Eriks' right cheek. Brian was more confident, and the process went quicker. But at the last minute, Eriks flinched, and the steel wires sliced into the corner of his left eye.
It took months for him to heal. Eriks noticed that when he looked to the left, everything was blurry, and when he looked to the right, he saw double.
The tattoos, however, had been erased, replaced with red splotches.
Unfortunately, Eriks did not stay out of trouble. 11 months after getting out of prison he got busted for DUI. Later he got busted for domestic battery after getting into a fight with his brother. Then he got busted for being the getaway driver when a fellow welding student snatched a woman’s purse outside a super market. He completed probation for the DUI arrest, the battery charge was dismissed and the state's attorney decided not to prosecute Eriks as an accessory to a purse snatching.
When he gets a welding job, Mackus plans to work until he earns enough to buy his own welding rig. Then he plans to leave Florida for either Texas or Alaska. Stay tuned.
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