The Fortune Teller
The fortune teller emerged from the draperies that formed her stall. She had been working county fairs and Renaissance festivals and Earth Day celebrations since she was old enough to rebel against the bra as a "male invention designed to subjugate women." Her long brown hair had only a very few silver threads and it accentuated her pleasantly horsy face. She wore Indian broomstick skirts and Birkenstocks. She draped herself in shawls and beads and bangles. A moonstone wrapped in gold wire hung at her throat. Because she never wore a bra, her body had taken the shape of an aboriginal fertility goddess. She was proud of her pendulous breasts and ample hips as so few women are. She felt gravity connecting her to the earth. She was earth mother.
People came to her booth, or avoided her booth because they expected the occult—tarot, palm, at least a horoscope. She didn’t even ask for a birthday. She sat in a raffia peacock chair she had rescued from the curb on garbage day. Customers sat in the canvas camp chair. Between was a low table made from an upended milk crate draped with batik. She lit some incense, and arranging her shawls, motioned for the first customer following a furtive sandwich break.
The customer stepped shyly forward looking around as though he hoped he wouldn’t be recognized. He wore a pale yellow polo shirt and sharply creased khaki chinos. Even his Rockport walking shoes had been shined. And sure enough, there was the Bluetooth by his silver temple. He was clearly not the fortune teller tent type. She smiled so kindly, that the customer’s awkwardness melted and he sighed with relief as he lowered himself into the camp chair. The Fortune Teller leaned forward and spoke so softly that the customer had to lean in to hear. She spoke earnestly so that the customer never suspected that it was word for word the same speech that she had recited at least half a dozen times that morning.
“I am not a normal fortune teller,” she began, “I have no mystical gifts except my love for you…” Here she would pause and for effect and then complete the sentence, “…as my earth-brother.” This phrase was hokey, she knew, but it worked. “In fact,” she continued, “you are going to tell your own fortune.”
At this point the customer shuffled uncomfortably and stammered, “I’m not really… I just… out of curiosity…while my wife is looking at…”
She raised a finger to her lips and shushed him like a crying baby. “We are going to discover your fortune together through love and trust. So as a token of faith, you are going to place your contribution on the table. If you feel your time was not well spent you simply take it with you.” No one had ever taken their “contribution” with them and her retirement portfolio was looking pretty good.
“Let’s begin. You may close your eyes or keep them open as you choose. Just take some deep breaths.”
As the customer breathed, she hummed a bit of The Water is Wide and with a cleansing breath said, “All shall be well.” This bit was always a crap shoot. Some needed Amazing Grace or the 23rd Psalm. For some she softly cooed. If the customer snickered, she knew she’d guessed wrong and then just breathed--audibly. She instructed the customer to picture a golden light that began at his toes and warmed and healed each body part on its way to the top of his head. When she finally saw the arms unfold and the shoulders drop a smidge, she continued.
“I want you to picture a place where you have been safe and happy and at peace.”
“Can it be an imaginary place, like a desert island?” the customer asked.
“It’s best if it’s a real place from your memory,” she said. “Make it as real and present as you can. See the place in your eyes, hear the sounds right now, feel the air, smell it, taste it.”
“Mmm…” he sighed with a slight smile.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m in the hayloft of my grandfather’s barn. I can smell it.”
“And it’s sleepy and warm up there, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” he answered surprised. He peeked at her out of one eye and quickly closed it when she caught him peeking.
“Now, when I count to ten, you’re going to receive a guest up there in your grandfather’s hayloft. Please do not be judgmental about who or what shows up. It may be someone from your past, present, or future. It may be your animal guide. It may even be yourself as a child or as an old man. Just know that who or whatever it is, is safe and loves you. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, sure,’ the man said.
The fortune teller counted slowly in a dreamy sing-song. It usually took only the count of seven.
“Oh, huh,” the customer said at eight.
“What do you see?” she asked.
“Um…it’s…um…William Wallace.”
“You mean Braveheart William Wallace?”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t look much like Mel Gibson.”
“He wouldn’t, would he?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Ask him if he has a message for you.”
“What, out loud?”
“You can if you like, or just in your head.”
The customer mouthed silently like a child making a birthday candle wish. The fortune teller tried not to smile. She took a parchment index card and a green Paper Mate Flair from the milk crate table. Suddenly the customer’s eyes popped open and his jaw dropped.
“Yes?” she prompted.
“He said to get some rest; he’d take the next watch.”
She wrote these words on the card like a prescription and laid it next to the money on the table.
“So, you’ve been a warrior lately?”
“You have no idea. I’ve been busting my butt at the office. I have to work harder than the twenty-year-olds just to keep from being down-sized or out-sourced. I have to make everybody believe I’m indispensable. I live on Mylanta and Mountain Dew.”
“That’s quite a cocktail. So what are you going to do next?” she asked.
“I’m going to go lie in a hammock with some lemonade and a good book.”
“May I recommend?”
“Please.”
“Forget the ‘good book’, that’s too responsible. I’d go with Hardy Boys or a Spiderman comic book.”
“Archie and Jughead?
Together they said, “Mad Magazine.”
He took the card without even a glance at the money, rose to go, but turned back. “How’d you do that?” he asked.
“You don’t really want to know. It’s perfectly rational and your left brain will spoil it in a few minutes anyway.”
The customer grinned and said, “How about some free advertising?”
She gave him a quizzical look.
He turned to the people waiting and loudly said, “That was spooky!”
She laughed and arranged her shawls and motioned to the next customer.