MadameMantra Fortune Teller and Visions from Alice B. Toklas

I had a five year old 1964 six-cylinder Ford F100 pickup. It was made for the redneck South. It had an empty gun rack but had I been able to afford it, I would have had a shotgun hanging on it. Oh well...I loved pheasant hunting. Anyway...

I lived for a bit in Oklahoma City. It was early Spring and I was 'cruisin' for burgers' and saw the sign that said, "Christian fortuneteller", Tarot and Palm Reading".

I had to stop.

I was a bit apprehensive seeing anyone that claimed to be a Christian fortune teller. I about a quarter ounce of hash brownies in me and it was just enough to glide me to the fortune teller's porch. I knocked on the door scraping my knuckles.I agree with what you are thinking right now, honestly I do.

A fortune telling Christian? Yeah right but it was such an oxymoron I couldn't resist.She opened the door, greeted me and stood before me in a sun dress and an apron. I could smell baking coming from the cool air behind her.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No...but I thought maybe...you know...you could ... like ...." my voice trailed off into nowhere and I felt stupid.

She sized me up and opened the screen door to welcome me in.

"Sure buddy, come on in." She was 40ish and quite pretty, luscious actually.

"Have a seat, I'll be right there honey." she said.

I looked around and the place didn't seem all that strange. It was just a normal southern house piled with nik-naks and pictures of her family. She offered me an RC Coca-Cola and a chocolate Moon Pie. I had the munchies and my eyes were burning from the Alice B. Toklas hash brownies.

She emerged from a doorway inside this 1930s bungalow and showed me to the parlor. She had me sit at this small table and she sat across from me. She was the sign of a sweet Southern lady. No one else was in the house.

She grabbed a deck of cards and began to shuffle them. Then one by one she pulled cards from the deck and laid them before her. Her face grew serious and studied each one. I tried to make small talk but she told me to shut up.

"Dear...I can't make hide nor tails of this if you don't be quiet. Please, don't say a word."

I nodded and STFU. Minutes went by I was unsettled at the time. Today it still gives me chills.

"Can I see your hand?" She grabbed my left hand.

"You ARE left handed right?". Again I nodded yes.

She studied my hand and didn't say a word. I was squirming in my seat at this point and was wishing I had eaten just a couple more brownies cause had I done so, I wouldn't be sitting at that spot. I would be in my apartment totally fucked and with a bottle of bourbon and a fan watching a baseball game on TV.

But no...I had to get out in the world and drive around in my 'new' Ford pickup and happen across the sign that said Fortunes Told. Then there I sat only a Mockingbird breaking the silence and the aroma of Magnolias began to fill the room. At least I thought that was what it was.

For those that have never been there, the South is filled with these obscure people that pop up out of nowhere. There are snake handlers, tent revivalists, Christian fortunetellers and holy rollers. Those are the ones I remember. I am sure there are weirder ones. They would make Catholic pedophiles seem innocent or so it would seem. Sorta like the Jewish Kabala that somehow managed to take over a small town in Mississippi.

Her Mind Is Like a Steel Trapdoor and Mine Had The Clarity of Mud
I felt like I either had heart worms or malaria sitting there. I began to sweat profusely and started FREAKING OUT. What kind of dumbass nonsense had I stumbled upon and my mind was screaming for a shot of bourbon or a blow job. Indeed I had what everyone calls a 'racing mind'. These are usually brought about from monstorous consumption THC and paranoic visions of Alice B. Toklas.

She searched every inch of my LEFT PAW and I realized that brunt of the hash brownies were beginning to hit me in full force. The cards that she had laid out and studied seemed sinister but her light touch holding my hand seemed to begin to calm my rattled consciousness. I no longer wanted to screw in light bulbs or stick my hand in a wall socket. She had such a calming effect on everything, even the cat was asleep in the corner of the room. This reaction to everything came and went came and went. I felt like I was somehow swimming in duck soup and simmering in the broth of total bewilderment and astonishing lack of clarity and focus.

Finally, she looked up at me. I thought she was gonna speak to me and reveal the rest of my life and spit it out on a dinner plate. I was getting bad stoned and it was a steam roller.

Drastic circumstances require drastic measure and I had nothing to counter any of this so I sat there dumber than a Souther Repulican when asked whether or not to plead guilty to something.

And this is all I remember...
"Suga'" she said in that sweet Magnolia voice. "You're gonna have an interesting life. I can't tell you all of it though.".

I was afraid of that.

"You will have two kids." she said. "You will live somewhere where it is green, dank and wet. You won't be married to who you are with right now."

I paid my 6 dollars, said thank you and got the hell outta there.

~~~~
Years later when I had forgotten all about it, it popped in my mind. These things have a way of bubbling up from the depths of some primeval horror. They are like dormant seeds waiting for just enough water and then popping out enough to recognize them for what they are.

I recall now that I did indeed have two kids but the ex aborted them. I lived for a number of years in the Pacific Northwest. So now I can once again put them back in their compartments and look to see where the future will lead.