Jack Balas, 2024; A RETURN TO INNOCENCE (#2677)
India ink on paper, 18x24 inches
From the TATTOO DETOUR #17 Series, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY,
with text from the novel by James Jones

Text:
But in the big octagonal hole in the ground with its serrated scalloped concrete sides, it was not important, to the spectators, who was fighting or who would win. It was only important that the winy air and excitement of anticipated conflict be enjoyed, bringing back the distant continent of home where all the grave young high school athletes, who, despite their coaches with their turned-up topcoat collars and conflicting visions of Knute Rockne movies and jobs they feared to risk, fought frantically with the magnificent foolishness of youth as if the whole of life depended on this game, and who were still young enough to cry over a defeat, an illusion that their coaches never shared, a thing that like Santa Claus they themselves would lose all too soon before the widening range of vision and the knowledge that their loyalty was a commodity and could be shifted easily, and a thing that the men perched on the concrete of the boxing bowl remembered fondly in their own hunger for a return to innocence.

(From chapter 9, James Jones, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY)