Forsooth Sayer

Harry made suggestive gestures around the voluptuous crystal ball, his eyes rolling back into his head revealing only the bloodshot whites. He chanted words that could have been Arabic with a smattering of Hebrew recalled from a Bar Mitzvah. Most of the words were gibberish.

The teenage trio at the table tried to hold back, but one couldn’t manage. “Dude, it’s like you’re grabbing a boob!” Hysterics ensued.

Harry’s eyes rolled forward to glare. “It’s how I connect with the spirits,” he said, any trace of an exotic accent gone. “Do you want your fortunes read or not?”

The kids nodded, but one asked if he’d be grabbing a boob any time soon. He gave the name of a girl. The others sneered, saying he didn’t stand a chance, and anyway her boobs were too small. “Nothing to grab!” sneered one.

Harry adjusted his blue satin turban and said, “Let’s see what the future holds. Maybe it will hold a breast. Or two. They tend to travel in pairs.” The boys didn’t get the joke, but Harry held his composure. He went on offering the standard fare: you will meet someone, you’ll win money, you’ll want to be wary of a dark stranger. With a glance to his little crowd, he added one would get into college and be successful. Two of the boys punched the chubby one in the arm. “Gotta be you, Poindexter!” one said.

“Cross my palm with silver,” said Harry in the most resonate baritone he could deliver.

“Huh?” said the boys in unison, oblivious to the term used by fortune tellers in B-list movies long before they, or their parents, were born.

“It’s an expression,” said Harry. “It means a little gratuity might influence things.”

They left Harry a one-dollar tip, which wasn’t bad, considering he rarely had his palm crossed with silver or any metal after people paid the five-dollar ticket for a reading. But he had pandered to this group when he told the boy wearing a Red Sox shirt that he’d make it to third base. He didn’t say whether that would be in a game or with a girl despite the boy’s pleading. “Soon,” was all Harry said. “Very, very soon.” The boy’s face turned red. Baseball season was over.

Harry wasn’t a sham soothsayer. In fact, Harry wasn't a soothsayer at all. He never overtly claimed to know the future; he just hinted at it. What he was was a very out-of-work birthday party magician, a once part-time actor, and a bit too seedy at seventy-four to come up with much related to those marginal talents .

Harry’s biggest role was playing a prisoner in an Alka Seltzer commercial where he banged a tin cup on a table while demanding “Alka Seltzer, Alka Seltzer, Alka Seltzer!” He still had the cup.

He did a stint as a greeter at Walmart but never could remember which aisle had what. Whole Foods had a program for his sort, retirees looking to do something, but standing at checkout counters didn’t agree with his tired legs, and he told too many stories of his theatrical past to shoppers keen to get their baggage home, not his. Plus, he refused to double bag .

The double-bag gimmick was old magician’s ruse. You put the object to vanish in the outer bag then show the inner bag empty after the usual “abracadabra” and wand wave. Harry cheated on his taxes, lifted items from his Walmart – waiting until they were out of date – and parked in handicap spots with a tag left at checkout by a nasty old lady who insisted on paying with all the change left in a very large purse. But he would not, ever, violate the magician’s oath; I promise never to reveal the secret of any trick to a non-magician.

He was encouraged to leave after he pulled a fake rabbit from a bag, causing a child in the cart to scream.

Magicians, especially mediocre ones, weren’t in high demand even at cut-rate prices. He did a few kids' shows, altering his act to fit the genre, the genres being ages three to eight. A birthday girl walked up to him, in the middle of a sponge-ball act, his specialty, and said “I have Asperger’s.” She did indeed have Asperger’s as did most of the other kids at the party. It’s a thing about Asperger’s that those with the syndrome miss “normal” social norms. Rather than be swayed by his professional misdirection, these vacant-eyed children watched the other hand—so to speak—and readily shouted out how he executed his subterfuge. One boy’s mother pulled him away when he started screaming, “It’s up his ass, it’s up his ass.” The parents in attendance didn’t appreciate it when Harry bent over and told him to check .

That was typical; Harry retaliating against his hecklers with sarcasm. When the birthday girl stated she had Asperger’s, Harry naturally replied, “Hey, that’s usually my pickup line!” The girl’s mother asked him to leave, to which Harry said, “What, no cake?” At least he was paid his $150 fee. The girl had wrapped up a slice of Black Forest cake for him. “Was it really up your ass?” she asked.

His fortune telling was an offshoot to his magic. Under the advice of an AARP coach, he set up a table at a depressed flea market to unload cheap tricks he’d accumulated as party favors and even cheaper swag from the rare corporate event . Alas, there was little demand for multiplying balls whose package warned “choking hazard” or cards bearing an Enron logo. At least the flea market managers didn’t charge him for the space. That’s because parents would drop their kids off and tell them to sit and watch the show while they went off to buy the dust, rust, and faded memories of unwanted junk.

Harry’s crystal ball was one such bit of detritus. He thought, he could use it in his act.

The kids didn’t have much patience for Harry’s stale tricks, and Harry didn’t have much patience for kids removing a finger up their noses and touching his things. Eventually, the flea market’s managers said they needed the space for a guy selling well-fingered copies out his ample collection of Playboy, Penthouse, Oui, Cavalier, Dude, Stag, and Swank at $5 a pop. He was doing well with the nostalgia crew.

But that vendor liked Harry’s turban, vintage jokes, and had hopes that as his soft-core inventory diminished, Harry’s fortune-telling might attract a broader audience his other wares: vintage Mad, National Lampoons, and an eclectic collection of titles such as Tales From the Crypt, Creepy, and others of the ilk.

The vendor’s father didn’t approve of his son’s magazine fetish. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” he warned him. If only his father had been alive to see him sell one Mad for over four hundred dollars. He allowed Harry to set up behind a beaded curtain bought at a headshop in Cambridge Massachusetts in the 70s.

The cover of one Creepy showed a grinning wizard gazing into a crystal ball. The wizard’s hands were raised to the skies as if to say “voila!” He was wearing a turban that looked surprisingly like the one on Harry’s head. That didn’t go unnoticed by a young, worn, woman who looked through reddened eyes from the cover to Harry and then back to the cover. If only, she thought.

The vendor said ten dollars. For that she could have her fortune read by the guru behind the curtain for free. After scrounging in her wallet, she came up empty with a sad shrug. The man smiled, said “one dollar,” and thumbed over to Harry.

“Cross my palm with silver,” Harry said. She said that she thought she got a free reading with the magazine she was waving. “It’s an expression,” said Harry, less sultry this time. “To get the mood going.” She gave him a look that said she had enough mood for the day.

Harry closed his eyes, took in a deep breath through shaggy nostrils. His nose hairs were almost long enough to be twisted into a Salvador Dali mustache . He made a wide arc with his hands as if to bring silence over the sounds of flea market haggling, leaned forward, his hands neatly fondling the crystal ball. His look was intent, a contrived mien from an early magic act. He would speak. “I see concern, deep concern. It’s about love, a friend, but not a friend.”

Standard fare that worked 75% of the time. If someone balked, Harry would tell them to think deeper, perhaps they didn’t realize the worry, or, yes, the worry would come. Based on the responses and body language, Harry would milk it until dry for his infrequent clients. Kids were easy: toys or school. Teens were easier still: the opposite sex. Though nowadays, Harry had to finesse the concept of an opposite sex. In those ambiguous situations, he settled on “You will meet a person.” Adults were entirely gullible. Their questions revealed more than his answers.

Harry looked from the ball to the woman sitting before him. She didn’t look so young up front, late 20s maybe. Shadows under her eyes hinted at someone troubled. He’d go easy and lay off the “concern” with a friend bit.

He did the hand thing around the orb, which always gave him a few seconds to think of something to say. Usually. But he had to do a double-take, then triple, and then push himself away from the table, shaking out the cobwebs in his brain. “You okay?” asked the woman. Harry hesitated too long. “Swami? Kreskin? Hello?”

Harry stuttered that he was fine, just getting a vision. But what he saw was more than even his imagination could conjure; he saw this woman’s life.

Harry had never seen anything in the ball beyond his own fish-eyed reflection. But there she was standing in front of a sink overflowing with filthy dishes and pots caked with burnt lasagna. How could he know that? He saw her grab a bowl and hurl it across the room. He didn’t see at what, but he did see a hand whack her across her face, blood spurting from her nose. A coarse voice screamed, “Stuck up bitch.” Then she was packing a bag, a scuffed blue suitcase, with a scratched American Tourister label under its handle. It was night. The only light came from the dim greenish-blue glow of an LCD radio clock. He could see the name, Proton, and one of the numerals was winking on and off. He knew that clock, a Proton 320. He owned one once; it died around 1990.

He offered her the generic musings of a part-time fortune teller—had he really said something about a tall, dark, handsome stranger? — made-up ideas to keep her engaged as he followed the drama in the ball. She was in a car, a beat-up Honda, parking right at this flea market. She kept looking over her shoulder and biting her nails. She was walking toward his curtain. Then she was back at her car, peeling off.

It seemed so real. No, it was real. This woman was in danger and he, Harry, had to tell her. He had to tell her what he was seeing: the kitchen, a Pabst Blue Ribbon clock on the wall with the wrong time. How did I know that? He heard the slap, he smelled the musty odor of old suitcase, he heard her whimper as she stuffed clothes into it. There she was locking the door to her Honda, double-checking the lock. The details he revealed frightened her as much as Harry.

Harry described the bag and the clock and asked if she’d burnt her dinner. “Who is Butch?” he asked. She stared at him. She grabbed his wrist and would have drawn blood if her nails hadn’t been chewed to their stubs . Did he know Butch? Was Butch here? She spoke as if she was trying to cough up something, like just before a dog throws up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I should stop.”

“Go on,” she pleaded.

Harry went back to caressing the ball. A mist inside cleared. Now she was sitting in a park wearing a loose sweater. It was fall. The leaves were a blaze of colors. She was taking notes with a pile of books showing from a backpack. She looked different, better, a little younger maybe, but this wasn’t the past. She’d put on some weight that made her look less gaunt, less taut. She was dressed better. A man came over, not Butch, with two large cups of coffee from a place called The Beanery. Harry smelled caramel and knew it was a sweet latte. She looked up with a smile and mouthed a “thank you” before going back to her work.

“How’s it going?” the man said as he sat down beside her.

“I’ll probably fail,” she said, though didn’t mean it. They both smiled.

“So says the newly minted nurse!”

“Don’t jinx me!” She squealed that and punched him in the arm.

“Ouch! Watch that right jab or I’ll need a nurse!”

Harry saw her now, getting a diploma, waving to someone in the audience who mouthed a “You go girl!” over the applause of the crowd.

She was staring at Harry, not moving a muscle. Harry’s face dripped sweat, the rim of his turban soaked through. “A nurse,” she said. “Are you sure? Is this real?”

Harry shook his head in disbelief, not in doubt. “I’ve never,” he stuttered. “But, yes, a nurse. You’re going to marry that guy, I think. He’s a good fellow.” She gave him that same smile he saw in his crystal ball and dropped $20 in the jar that had a few suggestive bills inside, all placed by Harry.

“Go now. Right now,” he said. “And keep to the speed limit. I’m serious.”

She hadn’t been gone more than half an hour when a hulk came bounding through the aisles, causing people to part ways. A woman at a booth selling cheap cosmetics pointed to Harry’s stand. He looked at the leftovers of the girly magazines for a second before confronting Harry.

“Cross my palm with…”

“Screw that Mohammed! Was a girl here?”

It was the voice behind the slap. Harry lied that there’d been several girls that day and asked that he describe the one he sought. “Ah,” said Harry. “That was hours ago. She was in quite the hurry but was rather generous.” He pointed to the twenty sticking out of his jar. Butch snarled, “That bitch gave you a twenty? The least you can do is tell me where she is.”

Harry pointed to the seat. The big man sat down, hard, almost busting the wooden legs of the chair.

Harry stared into the globe half-expecting nothing. Then a fog developed. With his hand fluttering, waving, the fog moved away from a scene. It was Butch on a loud motorcycle, a Harley. He was wearing the same leather vest he had on now, no helmet. The speedometer showed 90 right behind a beat-up Honda. He got so close he could see her looking into her rearview mirror, frightened. He heard, as if in his head, Butch biting the wind, “I got you bitch.”

The Honda picked up speed then skidded over a long patch of road repair. The workers waved and yelled to slow down, but she went on spraying gravel over them and Butch. “Goddamn bitch!” he heard as Butch slowed down then picked up speed again as he crossed the gravel patch.

“Yo, Aunt Bea, what you got?”

Harry took a deep breath. “She wants to be something, school, she’s moving to that.”

“Yeah, bitch wants to be a nurse. Fat chance for that, moron.”

“You’re following her, on a highway, going to… she’s on I 84 East.”

Butch said he could have figured that out. “She’s headed towards Storrs. U Conn. Somehow got accepted,” Butch said. “I know where she’s going.”

Harry put up his hand. “Wait, there’s more.” He made fondling gestures around the ball. “Follow that road, quickly. You’ll see her car. You’re right behind her. There will be a road crew waving for people to slow down. Ignore them, just speed ahead. I see you back together. She’s pouring you a pitcher… Pabst Blue Ribbon. She’s smiling and rubbing your shoulders.” Harry looked up with a smile all his own. “She wants to be with you but is scared. She thinks you’re angry.”

“Damn right I am.”

“You must catch her. Can you drive fast? Really fast? If you miss her after that roadwork you’ll lose her.”

Butch pointed a tattooed hand at Harry. “Dude, look in that ball of yours. I’ll catch her and she won’t forget it.” He rose, tipping the wooden chair over. He flicked the tip jar with a finger and said, “She paid enough.”

Harry watched as Butch tore out of the lot toward the highway. In his ball he saw the highway, members of the road crew standing away from the unfinished repair work, standing near a “FRESH OIL” sign. The oil was scarred by skid marks. To the west, traffic was at a halt. To the east, just past the gravel patch they’d been working on, were two fire engines and an ambulance. None of the firemen or EMTs were in any hurry; there was no need. Harry watched the tow truck hoist what remained of a Harley onto its bed.

An battered Honda chugged along at 55 mph about 100 miles further east. Its driver glanced into the mirror every so often, marveling that the traffic was so light. A good omen, she thought, a bit of good luck. At last.

Harry went back to kids shows. He got quite good at reading his audience.