Meet the fortune teller (& the snow cone man)

 

An excerpt from my most excellent fabulous novel, BY THE LIGHT OF THE CARNIVAL.

 

When Joe got about halfway down the midway, and his worm can was full, he heard a woman’s voice. “You there! You! Come here!”

He looked around. From the fortune-teller booth, an arm stuck out and waved at him through a garish beaded curtain. He checked to see if she could be talking to anybody else. “Me?”

“You! Boy in the orange shirt!”

“Me?” He stood in indecision.”

“Don’t be a nincompoop, get over here.”

“Okay.” He walked towards her.

She yelled, “Come at me from the east. The east is over that way.”

He paused. “Why?”

“I drew a sacred circle around my trailer last night. It helps me feel a little more rooted. You have to enter it from the east the first time you enter for it to work, and I’m feeling really spooked right now. Just do it. You work here… maybe you’re going to need protection now, too.”

He stepped inside. “Why would I need protection?” He looked around. The wall dividing the front from the back of the small trailer was covered in coarse brown fabric threaded with gold lurex. The sidewalls were black, dotted with stenciled six-pointed stars. The air smelled sweet with floral perfume. Leaning wearily against a little table that held a plastic plug-in crystal ball was an older woman with exquisite jowls.

She had thick black hair rolled up high. “Go across the way to the snow cone man and tell him Lady Fortuna has cracked her head and needs ice for it!” Her eyes were painted top and bottom so thick in black kohl that it almost had a skull effect. “I’m sure I deserved it. I’m sure the angels decided I needed a good whack on the head for my stupid ways.”

“Sure!” He spotted the concession booth and hurried to it. Joe reported, “Lady Tuna cracked her head! She says she needs an ice pack!”

The snow cone man stopped setting up a Pepsi paper cup dispenser and looked alarmed. “Lady Fortuna? Is she gonna be okay?”

Joe shrugged. “I don’t know.”

As he scooped some ice into a plastic bag, he asked, “How'd she manage to crack her head?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Do you work here this week?”

“Yep. Just started today. Now. I’m worm pickin’.”

The snow cone man looked at the ground and made a sorry face. “Lots of them washed up. Didn’t they? It’s the first of the ten deadly plagues. I bet it is. I’ve never seen it so bad for the worms.”

Joe was puzzled. “What?”

“If we get to ten plagues in one week then I know the Angel of Death will come. Then paint blood on your door and hope he leaves you alone, just passes you by.”

“Door? I think I’ll be in a tent all week. I brought my sleeping bag.”

The snow cone man became more serious. “One week we had a terrible plague. A swarm of bees. But don’t ask about it or you’re fired. It upset everybody so much, Miss Toulon has completely forbidden it to ever be mentioned again. But that was it, only one plague. Last week we got up to three plagues, so the Angel of Death didn’t bother with us. But this week we might make the big ten. Look at that sky. It’s almost spelling out its hatred for us. The clouds spell trouble.”

“Spell?”

“Not with letters. Sometimes you can see ghosts in the storm clouds. We did twice in Iowa.”

“Iowa? Why there?”

“I guess it’s a flyover state.” He didn’t smile.

Joe asked, “Was that a sign?”

“I don’t know if ghosts have anything to do with the Angel of Death. Just don’t know.”

“But they’re dead.”

“The Angel of Death takes you to Heaven or Hell. Who knows what ghosts are up to, way up there.”

“Up?”

“The riders on the storm. Some of them have no place to haunt so they just circle the earth with the winds. I think it’s all the guys who died in foreign wars and they’re trying to find their homes. Because usually ghosts have such a strong sense of place. So, they wouldn’t be up in the sky like that. Blowing. Just blowing. And I suppose the dead gypsies are up there too. No home.”

Joe shivered. “And the washing up of earthworms is plague number one?”

“Number two, already. The day we arrived we all had diarrhea at the same time.”

“Oh, be serious.”

“It was very. That was pretty bad. You can’t imagine a carnival with everybody having diarrhea at the very same time. Not with everybody trying to get into the same porta-potties at the same time.” The snow cone man gave Joe an even more unpleasant look. “It's gonna be a long summer.” He went off to the fortune-teller booth and asked Lady Fortuna, “What happened? Do you need the first aid kit?”

“It’s about time. I saw you two yapping over there like there was no tomorrow.”

The snow cone man repeated, “What happened? Should I get the first aid kit?”

“No. A band-aid won’t fix this.” Lady Fortuna grabbed his ice. “The stupid townies are buffoons. I wouldn't get on any ride they put up; they don't have any finesse.”

 

 

 

 

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