Disappearing Ink

A tattoo-covered doctor helps ex-cons remove their most scarring legacies.

Photos by Per Liljas

The skin between Dr. David Ores’ shoulder blades is embellished with a colossal tattoo, an “M” and a “D,” etched grandly in the Old English style. Ores, a general practitioner with an office in the East Village, also has, tattooed on his arms, the portraits of eleven different women. One of the women is modeled on a former girlfriend, a famous painter; the rest he found in comic books. On his left shoulder, a blond wearing red cowboy boots and waving a nurse’s cap straddles an oversized syringe. On his right shoulder, twin serpents corkscrew around a winged brunette—a play on the caduceus, mythical symbol of medicine and healing. Ores is fifty-three and strongly built, with pale skin and pudgy cheeks. When seeing patients, he favors a uniform of untied black work boots, cuffed black Dickie pants, and a sleeveless t-shirt printed with the logo of a truck stop or a strip club. These are the clothes in which he feels most comfortable and which he believes will encoura…