Tattoo Parlor Dream The image drew me in from the street-- on the wall amid rattlesnakes and bimbos, cupid hearts, dragons and daggers-- a man, rendered after Hokusai, standing on a bamboo porch. Beyond, a body of water too large to be a fishpond, too small for a lake, then paddy fields rising into mountains. Above, a clear sky shaded from turquoise up to deepest midnight blue. He could have been 40 or 60, a powerful kind of man who would sit like a boulder when not standing like an oak, at home in his bones, at ease in his robe, short-haired, clean-shaven, with his right hand extended. His poise was such that one couldn't tell if the hawk about to light on his wrist was tame, returning to his authority, or wild, deigning to perch and greet an equal. As a tattoo, it would cover the whole breast, leaving no room for second thoughts. I watched, fascinated, as the artist demonstrated his tools and inks on a fleshy rubber mat. He bent close over his work like a tailor, his clicking needle-gun the only sound for half an hour. I asked at last how many times the needle would have to pierce me before the picture was done. "36,000 times," he said. "Ah," I said, "perhaps I'll have that little salamander instead." Place it here, rising up from my collar, tongue extended, to whisper advice in my ear. © Dale R. Hobson. All rights reserved.