Alex Cole sat in the cool darkness beneath the array of colored lights, among shadows and highlights of red and blue, and raised the dark bottle to his lips. The bittersweet ale filled his mouth and he swallowed it with a satisfied "Aahh...." He shook a cigarette from the somewhat crushed pack he found in front of him, brought it to his lips, and let it hang loosely as he searched for a match. He had never been a smoker, but the actions seemed only natural on this particular night.

The flame rose from the sulfur slowly, the yellow and blue dancing to life between Alex's fingers. He brought the match slowly to the cigarette, and as he drew in the first drag of smoke, he noticed a serpent slithering its way across the floor at the far end of the long mahogany bar. He turned his head to get a better look, but where the snake had been, there was now only a barstool.

A voice came from the speakers above saying, "And now gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure, in her first show of the evening... Rebecca." Music began to pulsate throughout the room, and from behind the door beside the small stage came a half-naked girl with her plastered smile ready to do her job. Alex looked up to watch her dance, to take his mind off the day just gone, to take his mind off the day ahead.

As the music got louder, drowning out the occasional hoot or holler, all Alex could hear was that sound. It was loud and annoying, a high pitched buzz like the motor of a model airplane makes. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It was the only sound he could hear at that moment. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. The sound in his head was interrupted by the distinct shriek of a bird of prey, its wings tearing through the sky. He shook it off and looked back up at Rebecca.

Her legs were long and slender, her waist was narrow, her skin was tight. She had an angelic look on her face that made it difficult to lust after her, one could merely admire her. She wore a black and silver bikini that fit her neatly, showing off her shapely form to the dozen or so pair of eyes fixed upon her.

Alex looked down at his forearm and stared at the paper-towel bandage that adorned it, the dark crimson beginning to show through in blotches. It was a strong contrast from the white of the paper-towel which glowed from the blacklight above. He drew his attention back to the girl above him.

She removed her top and exposed her breasts to the hungry eyes below. On her left breast she had a tattoo of a small butterfly, colored black and yellow like a Monarch, making its way to perch on her dark nipple. Alex saw the tattoo and felt a sense of urgency. He heard a bell ring, screaming for him to leave. Its tempo quickened, its volume rose. The ringing drilled into his head, allowing nothing else to enter, no other sound, no sight.

Alex reached for the telephone as it stole him from his slumber. "Hello?" His clock read four-thirty-seven-a.m.

"Alexander, honey, it's Mom." He could hear it in her voice.

"What happened, Mom? What's wrong?"

"Alexander..." She was crying. "Your father is gone."

"What, that son-of-a-bitch left you? I'll kill him!"

"No, honey, he's...uh, dead." Her voice was lost on the last word, but Alex heard it anyway.

"Oh Jesus, Mom, I'm sorry." Alex started to feel sick.

"Alex, I think maybe this would be a good time for you to come home."

"O.K."

"You don't have to do it for him, just be here for me and your brothers."

"I'll be there, Mom. I'll drive up and be there tomorrow night." His stomach began to turn and twist.

"Thank you. Drive safe and I love you."

"I'll see you tomorrow." Alex hung up and ran to the bathroom to vomit.

Alex hadn't been home to see his parents in seven years, despite living only about eight hundred miles from them. He left a few months after his eighteenth birthday as the climax to the last of many angry battles, usually bloody and painful, with his father.

His relationship with his family was simple. Alex would still communicate with his mother and two younger brothers, but all other ties with his father were severed. Alex wouldn't even call the house. His mother (and his brothers until they moved out on their own) would have to call him secretly when his father was away from home. All in all, the arrangement was good for everyone.

After he vomited, Alex packed a duffel bag. He grabbed his only suit from the closet and put everything in the trunk of his Nissan Sentra. He sat still in the car for a few moments, staring at the cloth-covered steering wheel, before turning the engine.

As he made his way toward the freeway, Alex planned the trip in his head. He would take Interstate-10 from Phoenix to Los Angeles. He'd spend the night in L.A. and take Interstate-5 up to San Jose, where his mother lived, the next morning. His thoughts had not yet turned to his dead father.

Alex drove, absorbing the emptiness of the desert with his eyes, the short yellow lines zipping past him on the strip of black that cut the emptiness in half. The only life he could see here was the few patches of green that were scattered across the beige sand. In the blue above, there were clouds beginning to form, white puffs of contentment.

Alex drove, and his thoughts wandered to road trips of the past. As a boy, his parents would load the kids into their 1966 Chevy Impala station wagon every summer, and they would head off onto a trip that had been planned months before. These were much different from the vacations Alex took now, where he'd just get in the car and drive, staying in cheap motels and visiting the locals until it was time to go back home.

"Daddy, didja see that sign? It said there's a old west thing up about five miles. Can we go if its not too much money?"

"No. We're already behind schedule since you boys had to stop and piss at that last exit."

"But..."

"Shut up, we're not gonna stray from the schedule. I don't care if the damn thing's free."

Alex crossed the border into California, and decided to stop for breakfast in Blythe. Besides, he had to call in to work and let them know he wouldn't be in for a few days. The clouds above him began to grow heavy, and with their new weight, they sank closer to the earth like a suffocating blanket.

When Alex pushed through the heavy door at the roadside truckstop, he looked worn and beaten to the other patrons, more than most travellers ever looked. As he passed each of them on his journey to the counter, they looked sympathetically upon him, this stray dog. The waitress took Alex's order, and Alex got up to make his phone call to work. He resumed his position at the yellowed formica counter, and began rubbing the scar on his left forearm nervously. He wasn't even aware of it until the man next to him pointed it out, saying, "Boy, you best quit that 'fore you rub the skin right off your arm."

Alex had received the short, thick scar in one of his many fights with his father. Neither of them had really caused the fall that led to the scar, Alex just became clumsy in his anger and tripped into a coffee table, cutting his arm. However, that space on his arm was always a reminder to Alex about his feelings for his father.

Alex remembered the dream he'd had the night before. He wondered about the makeshift bandage over his bleeding arm, it had been in the same place as his scar. He decided it was only a dream, ate his breakfast when it arrived, and returned to his car to continue his trek westward.

Alex's father had always been a bitter man. He worked hard to support a family that he thought was unappreciative. But they knew quite well how hard he worked, because he told them every night. It's not that he didn't love his family. He did, very much so, but was unable to tell them or show them. So, to his children, he seemed a cold-hearted man.

"What the hell is this crap? How are you ever gonna make something of yourself with grades like this? What are you, stupid?"

Alex had never thought about his father much before. He wasn't sure how he felt about him now. It hadn't really phased him when he found out his father was dead.

Passing Palm Springs, the clouds above grew even more thick and dense. They became grey, threatening all with rain and floods of biblical proportion.

As he drove, Alex continued to rub the scar.

"Don't you screw up your life by knocking up some pretty girl like me, Alex. Don't take it the wrong way, it's just that you could do so much more."

All Alex heard was that he'd ruined his father's life. Now, in retrospect, he realized that his father had been trying to say something completely different.

Alex felt uncomfortable with himself. When he was seventeen, Alex hit his father during an argument, triggering a chain of angry fist fights between them. He could have dealt with his father better, maybe done things differently. For the first time, he had regrets about his relationship with his father.

"Daddy, how come you have a tattoo?" A scarcely seen smile crept onto the man's face.

"Come here, I'll tell you." He lifted his eldest son onto his lap and rolled his sleeve up to his elbow, exposing the colors on his forearm.

The hues were brilliant. The bird, wings spread, was a deep reddish brown with gold talons that clutched a snake of red, green, blue, and black. Below the snake was a banner with the name "Cole" printed inside.

"When I was your age, I noticed that my father had a tattoo, the same one, and I decided that I wanted one too. So when I turned eighteen, he took me down to the parlor and this was my birthday present. Now, its a reminder to call grandpa every week."

Alex saw that he was approaching L.A. He stopped in Pomona for lunch before venturing into the metropolitan area. After eating, Alex drove through the city to stay in Van Nuys so he wouldn't have to deal with the morning traffic.

The room Alex got was small. In the center of the room was a single bed with an olive green bedspread draped across it. On one side of the bed was a space heater/air conditioner, on the other side was a wall. Above the bed was a cheap print of some unknown artist's worst painting. There was a small bathroom opposite the bed, and nothing else. Alex fell onto the bed in exhaustion for an afternoon nap.

The dream returned to Alex. He was back in the strip bar, drinking and smoking. His arm was again bandaged, and Rebecca was again on stage. The sounds of the buzzing and the bird, the image of the serpent, everything was the same.

Alex saw the tattoo on Rebecca's breast and felt the same sense of urgency. He reached into his wallet for a dollar, placed it on the table, and rose to leave. When he opened the door, he was not in the parking lot of a bar, but on the front porch of his parent's house. He descended the steps to see the neighborhood he grew up in. Children were playing, parents were working in the yards, the Good Humor Man was serving children down the block.

Alex turned to go back into the house. Inside were his mother and brothers. They were dressed in black, crying, mourning over an oak coffin, stained a deep red-brown. Alex moved beside them to look into the open casket. In it was a face he did not recognize, a face that bore some resemblance to his father, but one that was much more content, much younger than Alex remembered.

Alex reached for the scar, to rub it, but could not find it. He looked down, the scar was gone. The bandage that he wore in the bar was not there, either. In its place was a clean, untainted patch of skin, a fresh piece of canvas. He turned to his mother, but she was no longer there. Through the window of the room, he saw an eagle ascending into the heavens clutching a serpent in its talons. Alex woke to sweat-soaked sheets in the motel room he had entered a few short hours earlier.

Sitting in the chair, Alex's stomach was in knots. The artist shaved his forearm and put the transfer on to the bald area. Alex gave him an O.K. and he set up his ink tray and gun. Alex looked away, not wanting to watch. Then he heard a high pitched buzzing sound. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. The artist saw him flinch at the sound and assured Alex that it was only the sound of the gun's motor.

Outside, the clouds that seemed to follow him from Phoenix opened up, releasing the flow of water onto the earth below. Alex tried to think of anything but the tattoo, but then he felt the needle touch his skin, moving in and out hundreds of times per second, piercing his skin each time. The sensation was unique to any other. There was pain, but nothing unbearable. It was more uncomfortable than anything else, and Alex noticed it less as time went on.

Ninety minutes later, Alex was again seeing the tattoo his father had worn for so many years on his own arm; it now covered the scar he had worn for the last nine years. It looked so different, excess ink mixing with blood on the surface. Alex hoped he had done the right thing.

When he left the small tattoo parlor, Alex took a deep breath. The cold air filled his lungs, cleansed them. The rain had stopped and everything was glowing, reflecting the city lights. Alex smiled, climbed into his car, and went to find a place to eat.

That night, back in his motel room, Alex had another dream. Again, he sat in the bar, holding the darkened bottle to his lips, tasting the cold beer and the warm cigarette. But this time, there was no girl, no sounds, no other patrons, just Alex. He felt no urgency, no pain. The bandage on his arm was replaced with a faded tattoo, his arm aged and wrinkled.

He rose to leave, left the dollar, and moved toward the door. Outside, the moon reflected off the street. Alex stood before his parent's house, it looked dark and empty. He moved slowly up the steps, and reached to open the door.

Inside, he saw a young couple standing over a baby's crib in the center of the otherwise empty living room. The woman wore a long t-shirt, the man wore boxers and a tank-top. They held each other close, obviously in love, gazing in wonder at the child in the crib. Then the young man reached into the crib, raised the child into his arms, and kissed the infant on the forehead.

Alex watched the couple for some time, amazed at their intense love for each other and their child. He stood, unable to move, unable to know what he was seeing. Then the man turned and walked toward Alex. As the man moved closer, Alex again saw the face he had seen in the casket in his previous dream, and on his forearm was a tattoo like his own.

The man held the child out to Alex, inviting him to hold the infant. Alex took him, amazed at this being who knew nothing of anger or hatred, only love.

The father took his son, still not a word spoken in the room, and returned to his bride beside the crib. Alex turned and closed his eyes.

When his lids raised again, Alex was back in his motel room in Van Nuys, California. He dressed, checked out of the motel, and got some breakfast. After eating, Alex climbed into his Nissan Sentra, stared ahead at the steering wheel for a few moments, and turned the engine. Alex was on his way home.

THE END.