No Mark Against Them : Tattoos: Doctor will offer laser removal service at Fillmore office on Friday for those youths who want to erase past regrets.

Seventeen-year-old Adam can barely remember the night two years ago when he stayed up late getting drunk on cheap tequila.

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His Simi Valley friends talked him into forever declaring himself a white supremacist by carving a homemade tattoo onto his shoulder with a thick needle and some India ink.

“When I woke up in the morning I realized it was stupid,” he said the other day, in custody at the Ventura County juvenile work-release center and looking for a job. “I didn’t want it.”

Adam and as many as 50 other young people will get an opportunity next week to erase some of their past mistakes.

Adrianna Scheibner, a Beverly Hills dermatologist who lives in Ojai, will remove the wearable art--free of charge--from any teen-agers who show up Friday at a doctor’s office in Fillmore.

“These children have marked themselves with various tattoos, some of them gang signs and some love or hate symbols,” Scheibner said.

“It’s very difficult for them to get jobs with the tattoos,” she said. “But this helps them be free from past mistakes.”

Scheibner has provided free tattoo treatment for hundreds of teen-agers throughout Los Angeles during the 14 years she has practiced.

But the numbers grew so large that four years ago she established the Brave Hearts Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping troubled young people who want to turn their lives around.

“Some of these kids are extraordinarily talented, but they were just born into an environment where they weren’t given a choice,” said Scheibner, whose professional practice specializes in removing scars and birthmarks.

“They don’t know any better, so they decide to belong to something and become like prisoners in their own skin,” she said. “They’re like little birds with broken wings, and when you mend them, they’ll fly.”

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Fillmore family practitioner James W. Howatt donated the use of his office at 852 Ventura St.

“I had tried to get this going for a couple of the kids in the high school for quite some time,” Howatt said. Scheibner, he said, “was mainly looking for rooms, and we had two that aren’t used on Fridays.”

Removing tattoos by laser is nearly as painful as getting the marks in the first place, Scheibner said. She numbs the area with a local anesthetic, then aims the beam onto the tattoo. The beam creates what she called an “earthquake-like blast” that breaks the ink cells into thousands of tiny pieces that can then be consumed by the tattoo-wearer’s white blood cells.

“It’s unpleasant to do without the anesthetic,” she said. “It feels like the snapping of a rubber band, and some areas it tends to be somewhat painful.”

Tattoo removal will be made available to any Ventura County teen-agers who show up, but they must bring proof of their parents’ consent.

Scheibner said she plans to return to Fillmore, or another Ventura County doctor’s office, every two or three months until every young person in the area has a chance to erase an unwanted marking.

“Once you start, you can’t stop,” she said. “That would be unfair.”

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The health coordinator at Fillmore High School, where as many as two dozen students have signed up to get their tattoos removed, said removing the markings is a first step toward improving a student’s self-esteem.

“These are young people that maybe belonged to a gang or made a mistake getting a tattoo and realized they didn’t want it,” said Janice Schieferle. “But they’ve changed their lives now and are having difficulty finding jobs.”

Nathan, another 17-year-old at the juvenile work-release center in Ventura, said he will be in Fillmore on Friday.

“I’m almost 18, and I’m tired of screwing around,” said Nathan, silver studs piercing both earlobes and tattoos across his hands and arms.

The three dots at the base of his left thumb, he says, stood for “sex, money and drugs” at the time. But now, Nathan says, they only alert prospective employers to a lowlife past.

“I’ll shake the person’s hand, but he sees this, and this,” the Oxnard boy said, pointing to the triangle of dots and a thick ink-black cross he says more closely resembles a squashed fly. “Then they just stare.”

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Like Adam, Nathan concedes that he was high on drugs when he marked himself with a homemade tattoo gun, and when he allowed his friends to draw an indelible skull across his pale shoulder.

“Now I just think they look ugly,” he said.

Tom Harmon, a teacher in the juvenile work-release program, was one of the local educators who first asked Scheibner to donate her time to help teen-agers in Ventura County.

“If you’ve got a tattoo that’s visible, you’re probably not going to get hired,” Harmon said. “People in this society think of criminals as having tattoos.”

Still, some of the kids are not ready to disavow their personal artwork. Linda Streeper, who works with Harmon, said many of the boys who pass through the work-release program are proud of their tattoos.

“But they’re the young ones who are new to the program,” Streeper said. “They haven’t gotten that look yet from an employer, or been passed over for a job.”

Mark wears a series of tattoos. He plans to get the unfinished eagle on his leg and the dots on his hand removed on Friday.

But he’s not ready to part with the “SS” he wears on his left wrist.

“I can cover that with a watch,” the 17-year-old Ventura boy said, pointing to the half-inch marking.

“These others I can’t cover up.”

FYI

Dermatologist Adrianna Scheibner will provide a free tattoo-removal service at the office of Dr. James Howatt, 852 Ventura Ave., Fillmore, on Friday. Minors must show parental permission. For information, call Janice Schieferle at Fillmore High School, 524-1711.