"Ink Seventeen"

“Hot in here, huh?”

“If I had a dollar-"

“-every time someone says that in a sauna, you’d be a millionaire, right?”

“No, but I’d probably have enough to put a sauna in my own house and I wouldn’t have to listen to that question again.”

“Hey, sorry about that. I was just trying to make conversation…Nice ink.”

“Don’t be a dope, get lost. Let me schvitz in peace.”

“No, no, hold on...let me have a look.”

“Be serious.”

“I am. What’s that tattoo about?”

“Which of the eleven are you talking about?”

“Eleven? Damn, I only see, what? One, two, three...seven of them.”

“And you want to keep it that way. If you were to see the wrong one, you would hate what happens.”

"This one, the guy pushing the rock up the slope.”

“That’s ‘Sisyphus.’ He was condemned by the Greek gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down just before he could get it to the top. It’s symbolic for no hope.”

“Wow, your tats don’t grope around for metaphors, do they?”

“Their not all together...literal.”

“No?”

“Yet, this one is.”

“Which?”

“The one just below Sisyphus...the rope. What does that remind you of?”

“A noose?”

“Yep, it’s a noose. The Hangman’s noose and I love it when people ask me about it because usually when it’s revealed, that means I’m about to place someone under arrest. Now turn around slowly and put your hands on the wall.”


Note: JJ required that we use the following five words...

1)Rope
2)Dope
3)Grope
4)Hope
5)Slope

It's also implied that his badge and gun were concealed in a towel. I didn't want to break away from the dialogue-only framework, nor did I want to add unnecessary dialogue to convey that.