Jason Reif took a trip with his best friend, Hunter Watson, to a tattoo parlor to watch their other friend get a tattoo. A bet made between Reif and Watson would transform into a lifelong symbol of their friendship after Watson died earlier this summer.

The junior accounting, finance, information management and technology triple major said he and Watson asked the tattoo artist to draw any design for the two of them to get. The artist produced a drawing of a bloody fist.

The friends joked around, asking each other to get the tattoo if the other ever passed away. The tattoo would become the underlying joke of their friendship.

Watson passed away in a car accident in June. Reif recalled the last conversation he had with him: a phone call discussing the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware, a concert Watson was attending. Reif said Watson had a strong passion for music, and would always talk about it. Before the conversation ended, Reif recalled Watson mentioning the tattoo.

“I was like, ‘Don’t make me have to get the tattoo.’” Reif said.

When Reif found out that his friend had passed, he immediately decided to get the tattoo.

He said he faced some trouble when he was looking for a tattoo artist to put the bloody fist on him — most tattoo artists told him he was going to regret getting such a graphic tattoo.

“I know that if he was alive, he would be like crying hysterically of laughter,” Reif said. “I know he would probably have done it to.”

Reif said he and Watson often thought up other matching tattoo ideas ranging from serious to silly. One of the funnier ideas was a Papa Smurf with a lawn mower cutting his back hair.

Despite all the joking, Reif never thought he was going to ever get a tattoo, and would often make fun of Watson’s tattoos.

Reif got his first tattoo, a rose, after Watson encouraged him to get one. Though the fist tattoo may be Reif’s most significant, it is by no means his last.

“I don’t like serious tattoos and I’m probably going to lose my sense of humor as I get older, so I’m probably going to get another tattoo soon,” he said.

Published on October 11, 2016 at 12:01 am