The room was spartan, of tan and ochre tones, with a medium in white linen seated at a table composed of yellow beeswax. My eyes widened at the sight of a crystal ball placed before her glittering like a small galaxy. It looked like the real thing. A strong smell of cinnamon filled my nostrils. It was unexpected, peculiar. A smell more suggestive of bakeries and spice shops than a medium’s space. I sat down opposite her, my chair stiff as bones. When I went to rest my elbows on the table she shot out a hand and shook her head to forbid me. Her face looked soft and almost featureless given her tiny eyes and nostrils and the thin blue line of her mouth. A white silk scarf covered her head and chin creating the impression that her face floated there disembodied. I didn’t know if I should say something or wait for her to speak. I smiled and nodded but she didn’t acknowledge me. With her half-shut eyes I imagined she was meditating on the future or planning her next business move.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked all of a sudden with a thin, piercing voice that took me aback. She sounded like some kind of alien.
“No reason,” I said.
“You smile for no reason?” she said.
“Sometimes,” I said, pinching my thigh. I should have said, I’m an idiot, okay, but I kept that admission to myself as I wanted my fortune not to be tainted by prejudgment. What did I want to know? Beats me. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I thought it would make a good goof, something to recount to my poker crew. Or maybe I harbored a genuine concern about my future. Would finding out or believing I found out what lay ahead change me in any way? Hard to say. Who can predict how one acts with foreknowledge, or fake foreknowledge? Perhaps the medium could predict that, ha.
“You’re smiling again,” she said.
“Am I?” I said. “And you’re neither smiling nor frowning. Indeed, I’m getting no vibe off you whatsoever. So how does this work?”
Her eyes were so small and deeply set I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me.
“I am reading you,” she said.
“You’re reading me?” I echoed and immediately regretted it. Of course she was reading me. That was her gift, or her gimmick. She didn’t need to ask me stupid questions or deal out Tarot cards or roll bones or whatever else goes on in these situations. She held her small pale hands to her forehead as though a massaging an emergent migraine. I pinched my thigh to make sure this wasn’t one of the fucked up dreams I’d been experiencing since I stopped smoking weed. I pinched myself hard enough to endure no doubt about the current reality.
The medium lowered her hands from her forehead with a small sigh and placed them over the twinkling crystal ball. The thing seemed to have a life of its own. It darkened as she continued holding her hands over it but took care not to touch it.
“Should I do anything?” I blurted.
“Shh,” was her response and of course I felt like a jackass for breaking her concentration. I wondered if doing so would affect my fortune. The crystal ball began to flicker with pale blue light. I saw no wires attached to it and tried to determine if the crystal ball had an unseen power source, perhaps batteries, or if it was made of an exotic element or compound with mystical properties. The latter seemed unlikely, and yet the crystal ball continued fluctuating and flaring. It changed from pale blue to green, then turned a ruby red that lasted for several minutes whereupon the medium snatched her hands away from it as though scalded. The red drained away and the crystal ball returned to its former night-sky state.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
The medium rubbed her hands together, but said nothing.
“What is it?” I asked, somewhat concerned by her demeanor.
She stood up. “You should go,” she said.
“What?” I said. My hands were about to fall on the table when she jabbed out her flattened hand to block that from happening.
“You should go,” she repeated. “There’s nothing I can tell you.”
I was stunned. It took a moment for me to process what was happening. “You want me to leave?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, more forcefully. “Get out!”
I had no idea what was going on. The cinnamon scent had become almost overpowering. My eyes started watering. “I’m not paying you,” I said.
“I don’t want your money,” she said. “Now go.”
I stood up and exited the studio. It was a damp evening. The street looked like it had just been sprayed with black lacquer, the white enamel stripes laid down simultaneously. I was unfamiliar with this part of town and noted the shuttered and blackened storefronts. As I walked to my car, a thin, pockmarked man in a filthy red track suit stopped and pointed at me. He was grinning, his long gray teeth hanging on the gums.
“You’re the one,” he said.
Is this guy mocking me? I thought. Is he on drugs or just nuts? I clenched my fists and prepared to beat him to death if he made a move toward me. I don’t play games these days. “I don’t know you,” I said.
Still grinning, he shook his head violently, so much so I thought he’d move some teeth out. “No, no,” he said. “I don’t know you, bro. But you were in my dream last night. Swear to God. You were in my fucking dream!”
I didn’t know how to respond to this. I briefly thought it might just be a ruse meant to disorient and confuse me in lieu of an attack. But the man pop-eyed expression and grinning wet mouth smacked of earnestness.
“I swear on my mother’s eyes I dreamed about you!”
This was weird. “What did you dream?” I asked almost involuntarily. I saw nothing good coming from this. There was no reason for me to know this guy’s dream, indeed to talk to him any further.
“I dreamed you were walking down a dark street,” he said, pausing.
“And?” I said.
He lifted his head and squinted as he looked me over. “Nah,” he said. “Sorry, bro. You look nothing like the guy in my dream. I was mistaken. I was doing shrooms earlier, see, and I’m a little fucked up. Sorry for bothering you and have a good night.”
I watched him walk away from me, loose-limbed and muttering to himself. I sat in my car for a time before I started it. What the hell was all that? There was no one to answer that question. I started the car and switched on the radio. I couldn’t tune it to the jazz station I always had on though there was no way I was out of range. I fiddled with the knobs for a minute and found a talk radio program. I don’t know who it was— a man talking in a quiet voice. I turned up the volume. He was talking about the great awakening, whatever that was, and how only those with their eyes wide open would be saved. Those living with the blinders of illusion would not be spared. It went on like that. It must have been religious though no overt references to God or Jesus or Mohammed were made. No scriptures were cited. It was just this guy, with a sort of soothing voice—approaching a drone, frankly—talking about some program or manifesto for some kind of spiritual awakening. That was what I gathered. It all meant nothing to me. I was deaf to airy pitches. I drove off.
Minutes later, a flashing police car pulled me over. I rolled down my window, got out my driver’s license and registration, and rested my hands on the steering wheel. The officer took some time getting out and approaching my car. He walked as slowly as I thought possible for a healthy man. I grew concerned. At last the officer appeared at my open window. A square-jawed man with a black moustache and angry eyes.
“How are you this evening?’ he asked, his voice surprisingly high-pitched.
“I’m fine, officer,” I said with a dry mouth.
“Have you been drinking, sir?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Is something funny?”
“Uh, no. No, why?”
“Wipe that grin off your face.
“I’m going to ask you again. Have you been drinking?”
I shook my head again, taking care to blank my face.
“Is that a no?’ he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes, you’ve been drinking?” he said.
“No, I have not been not drinking,” I said.
“You were driving erratically,” he said. The lack of conviction in his delivery that reminded me of guys at my poker game who were bad bluffers. “Are you on drugs?’ he asked.
“No,” I said.
He took my license and registration and told me he’d be back shortly. Before he walked off, he paused with his ear cocked toward my window. and said “Ah, Brother Gordie. My favorite.” He walked off.
Open your eyes, open your eyes … Brother Gordie intoned. I switched off the radio. I waited for an interminable length of time. I almost fell asleep. It was cool out so I rolled up my window. I shut my eyes. I just wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and sleep.
I heard a rap at my window and opened my eyes. I rolled down the window and the officer stood there with my documents. Something was different about him and for a moment I couldn’t determine what. As he handed back my documents I realized with a jolt that he had no moustache now. It was the same guy and I could have sworn he just had a moustache. I was going to ask hm what happened to it. Did he shave it? But I knew it would be a mistake. He would question my sobriety, or my sanity.
I waited for him to hand me over a ticket, but he didn’t. His nostrils flared and he smiled from ear to ear. He didn’t say anything as he turned around and, still smiling, walked back to his cruiser. I sat there and watched him climb into his cruiser and drive off. I glanced in the rearview mirror. My eyes were bloodshot.
Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of five small press books and has had his stories, poems, and essays published in many print and online magazines, most recently Cafe Irreal and RHINO Poetry.
Image: istockphoto.com
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Heavy Feather Review 