Turtle

Viv shakes her head, perplexed, giving up on trying to remember, instead has another sip of warm watery bourbon left sitting beside her far too long, the tumbler as alone and forgotten as she feels. Allen’s mouthing words of something or other again, she doesn’t hear what, only notices his thin nearly translucent lips flapping, too much gum showing, that smile, like the grimace of a ferret, sharp white teeth, his brown truculent eyes flickering her way now and again, protectively territorial, then back to Darrel, the brothers standing together in a crowd of manly faces—a façade of whiskers, high foreheads, jouncing jowls—in the smoky liquor-crowded room.

A crinkled hand reaches out to flip the first card. The crone peers up at Viv a long moment, eyes so black they seem all pupil, then returns her gaze to the card, studying it so closely it seems as if this is her first time ever seeing it. Viv has to admit the old gal sure puts on a show.

“The Fool. You are open to the world like a child. For other people, such a card may represent thoughtlessness, even a prescience of danger due to the nature of their immoral decisions, but in you this card shows someone of faith, a person with belief, even while you deny your basis of intent. You are about to dive off a steep cliff into an unknown abyss, desirous of making a profound change in your life, yet simultaneously holding back out of fear. You’ve been made to feel you aren’t good enough, bad enough, terrible enough, smart enough. By beginning your journey as The Fool you are nearly guaranteed not to accept yourself.”

The tarot card lady lifts her eyes from the table, again stares at Viv for a long drawn moment, then theatrically flips a second card, a seemingly carefully choreographed dance of crooked arthritic fingers, black fungus-rotted nails, all part of the show.

“Ah, The Lovers.” Viv quick scans the room to see if anyone is watching. They are not. She doesn’t believe in such bunk, has only consented to paying ten dollars for the reading as a way of placating what she takes as the beseeching glance from the old woman seated alone in one dark corner of the room who seemed as lost as Viv. “A new beginning is coming. You are the dreamer making her dreams real yet a fool who is lost in the midst of her journey. You are of a split mind having two relationships, one new, one old, but neither of those romances present as the right one. You are a pawn, a useless drone being controlled physically, emotionally, spiritually by others. You must desist in this behavior, go elsewhere to find your true partner, perhaps even so far as another country, another time.”

It’s gradually beginning to dawn on Viv that she’s never been understood, not by her husband, not by his brother Darrel, not by anyone she’s ever known, that it’s too late to ever win back the strength she bartered years ago for that leaky bucket of watered-down love, that this is best things will ever get, how unless she acts now her feet will sink ever deeper into the mire, to her knees, then to her waist, then up to her neck as this thing called her life gradually pulls her down, down, down like quicksand until finally only her raised face, a white porcelain fright of a mask, is floating on the black bog staring up at a hard uncaring sky waiting for help that never arrives.

The third card is revealed.

“The Five of Pentacles.” Her raspy cigarette voice little more than a gravely whisper, as if imparting some ancient mystic mythical knowledge to Viv and Viv alone. “You have reached the top and do not understand how to continue. Your other problem is you do not see all you have. Abundance surrounds you yet with your poverty mindset you cannot grasp the opportunities afforded you. You are comfortable in allowing yourself to be just lunch for others. Time to stop being so obedient. It is time to grow.”

Can’t grasp the opportunities? Please. She’s already punched her ticket, hasn’t she? But she has said nothing to Allen about the one-way trip, nor to Darrel either. Too, she senses how she’ll pull back at the last instance, refuse to board that flight, because does she have the strength to leave, truly? She suddenly feels like crying then remembers someone has burgled her tears, fears how by this time tomorrow she’ll be light years from here while what was once her life as a wife continues humming right along without her. Oh yes, her replacement is already here in the house, Liv has seen her darting about the room tonight, a tiny golden-haired mouse dressed in a proper brown knee-length skirt topped by a beige angora sweater, a girl who will nest nicely with the professor.

“Death,” the tarot card lady intones, voice a rusted bell, turning up the fourth card. “Feelings toward you from someone close are deeply conflicted as well as demeaningly demonstrative, meant to keep you cemented in your place. Beware. The way they see you now is different than how they saw you before. These cards, all of them so far, show only emotion. Death points to a need to use your intuition in this situation, this intellectual quandary of yours, not your heart.”

Viv understands how these people play with your mind, these imitation gypsy fortune tellers, how the old woman is simply making blanket statements which just about anyone can relate to, and yet, and yet… The hag’s tremulous hand reaches out to flip the next card. The fifth. Suddenly, Viv is terrified, not of this silliness, oh no. Horrified by an uncertain future, of ending up lost and alone in a faraway place like this old woman. She fights down the urge to stand up, walk away. Run.

“The Devil. You are truly afraid of facing your fears. This combination side by side with Death is about your own inner wisdom, your own truth, your own fear. You are working in contradistinction to your own inner self as opposed to the outer self which you present to the world. You are reflecting and projecting upon each of these selves various fictions. As a result confusion arises. Remember. It is imperative to understand how the anticipation leading up to the event is what troubles you so, not the action itself.”

Viv has an abrupt urge to smoke a cigarette though due to Allen’s continued haranguing she quit last year. Or has it been two years now? The tarot card lady’s eyes are boring into her as if just now realizing she is here, peeling her back like an onion, exposing her for all to see, as if it’s possible to tame the rage building inside Viv with just that stupid deck of cards, the fear. The witch flips the sixth card.

“Ah. The Tower. Dreams can and oftentimes do come true. If we do not prepare for it, however, this sudden seismic shifting of realization can come as a shock. Stay true to yourself and what you want from your life. What is your life purpose? This is the question standing before you now. Everything which isn’t realistic or achievable, that which does not serve you, will be destroyed, swept away. Only that which you truly need will be granted.”

The simmer of well-inebriated voices chills the air like the poisonous chirping of a billion noxious insects, the obscene discordant croaking of ten million toads, not one of them distinct enough to hear but for the low groans of the old woman sitting in front of her. How much longer will this charade continue? The seventh card is turned.

“Two of Cups. This card in relation to the Tower portends a change is coming to your life, if you act upon the times. It is likely you will resume a relationship you long ago set aside. This card is indicative of a need for change, a need to deepen this relationship, but these cards all point to signs you are both considering your options and attempting to mete the bad from the better. The order of the cards suggests there is distinct possibility that what will happen will be a thing you do not desire, however. Once you tilt in the direction of your desires, do not be persuaded to turn back. If you do, you risk forfeiture of not only your freewill but your life.”

Viv has been to any number of these soirees but she knows no one here but for Allen. And Darrel, of course. There is no one to rescue her from the grips of this woman, this foul enchantress. That her husband has abandoned her does not surprise Viv, this is a thing she’s grown used to over the course of their marriage. And this old woman, will she never stop? The eighth card appears.

“The Queen of Wands. This card may indicate you are in the process of realizing that which you aspire to be. Paired with the Two of Cups, it also could also suggest you get what you want through appearing to others as you believe they hope to see you. It could mean a person close to you makes you feel pretty, wanted. You are proud to be a woman yet also project a bit of the diva.”

Viv senses a sudden urge to reach out, to clutch those horrid cards in her hands, to rip and to rend them to pieces. What right have they to peek into these dark private dirty little corners of her soul? She reminds herself of her disbelief, unclenches her fists, sips her bourbon. The ninth card is revealed.

“Moon reversed. This card suggests you are at a crossroads in your life. Your feelings of not knowing what to do will wax then wane. You are concerned how your decision will reflect something others in your life will not like. You must accept your feelings for what they are. This indicates action is needed immediately yet, ever-present, the need for acceptance always is there. To break the chains of even a self-imposed bondage requires great will.”

One card left. She does not want to see it, desires nothing more than to sit in silence for the remainder of the evening, wills the hag to vanish. But the old woman is relentless. She reaches out, flips the next card, the tenth, looks up at Viv.

“The Hanged Man. You are too focused on what your environment is saying. Your opinion is based on what other people want for you, not on what your own heart is calling out for. These people pretend to like you, to even love you, but all that is an illusion. They do not tell you the truth, they lie to you for selfish reasons. But you are doing the same thing to yourself. You are lying to yourself by taking their approach to the truth, making it your own. But you already know the truth. All these cards are combining to tell you how there will be an opportunity to come to a conclusion which will cut through the fog with mental clarity.”

Viv feels so close to everything she is about to lose, wonders if she has ever in her life made one correct decision. Her friends are gone, her hair gray. She is too old to embark on a journey with no end, isn’t she? She turns, ignores the tarot card lady for a moment, calls out across the room as if for help, as if she is drowning, which she is.

“Allen?”

He’s laughing at something someone said, maybe the mouse, does not acknowledge her. Does he hear? Yes—she notices the quick flicker of recognition skitter across the furrows of his wrinkled brow at the mention of his name—he hears, is simply ignoring her. The low-ceilinged room’s become increasingly boozy over the last hour, still crowded, a few chickadees having flown the coop but not so many a person would notice. The pungent skunky aromatic odor of medicinal marijuana drifts in unseen currents from the kitchen where an impromptu Cheech and Chong repartee’s broken out.

“Now, pick a final card,” says the crone. Has she always looked so old? “One final card to guide you.”

Viv reaches out without thinking, points to a card. The old woman flips the card over. The Turtle. She mumbles something which Viv does not hear and yet she does. It is her uncomprehending mind which refuses to yield. Is it about payment? Maybe. Viv fumbles into her pocketbook, pulls out a twenty dollar bill, then another, hands them both to the old woman. She takes the bills wordlessly, folds them into a pocket, stands, then picks up her deck of cards, melts into the crowd, probably in search of another easy mark, her next victim.

Viv stands, looks out a window. Outside, all the snow has turned back to black water. Christmas days have come and gone. The old lady’s right. This long wide awake vigil’s given Viv time to plan, to reboot a life from the darkness which has disconcertedly settled over her during the past few plodding years. It’s bothering her again now. She attempts once more to dredge their names, the names of the children she one long ago day planned to have. The first, a boy of course, would be named after Allen but to prevent confusion they would call him by his middle name, Trevor, after her father, a difficult diffident man she feels she never knew, a man who conveniently and politely dropped dead the day after her sixteen birthday refusing to spoil the festivities. The second, a girl? Yes, a girl. She would be christened… not after her mother, nor Allen’s, no. Her name would be… oh, what was the name of that doll she as a child once carried around until she sat her down somewhere and forgot to pick her up again? Nellie? Dora?

Viv has summoned an Uber to ferry her home, set to arrive in fifteen minutes. From his increasingly frenetic gesticulations she sees Allen’s just now succeeding in gathering a favorable wind beneath his wings, beginning to soar with an auspicious philosophic updraft emanating from copious iced bourbons that not only fuel his sonorous voice but erase long decades of self-doubt bubbling up from all the years spent languishing in the academic wasteland of teaching in a protracted string of community colleges before finally gaining this break, how when he wakes tomorrow noon he’ll burp remorseful regretful regurgitations about how he’s required, forced, compelled dammit, to participate in these drunken revelries as part and parcel of his increasingly frustrated search for tenure. She’d nod in ex parte sympathy, if in fact she wasn’t halfway across the Atlantic Ocean by then. Perhaps the mouse will offer up aspirin and empathy, yes. Perhaps.

She wends her way down a cramped hall squeezing past people impatiently bouncing foot to foot while waiting in line to use the only bathroom arriving at the miniature master bedroom where earlier she stashed her coat among an accumulated pile of jackets and outerwear heaped on the king-size bed occupying the whole of the room. The party’s host is an associate professor like Allen, incapable of affording a more spacious home that might actually include closets. As she sorts through the mélange for her garments, the door behind her opens then shuts. She doesn’t bother turning to see who it is, only assumes a likeminded soul had their fill of nonsense and wishes to soar home.

The arms encircling her, hands reaching around to cup her breasts, to squeeze ever so lightly, just enough to harden her nipples, don’t surprise so much as alarm. She’d seen him eyeballing her on the way to the bedroom. But this, this is too much, way too risky a behavior, even for him. Jesus, though, this man has a way of making her feel wanted, special, like she might be more than a trophy won, to be kept on a pedestal, taken down once maybe twice year, shined up and exhibited to those with lesser luck.

“Stop,” she says, without putting any effort behind the word. Willing him on. “Please. Not here, Darrel.”

Too late. He’s easing her back onto the piled furs stacked upon the bed, she is unresisting as she feels eager fingers popping loose the buttons on her blouse, unsnapping her bra, peeling away her inhibitions. Giving up her weak protestations, she surrenders to his grace, guides his mouth lower as he helps her wriggle out of her panties. She hopes he remembered to lock the door behind him, wonders what might happen if he didn’t, who might walk into the room unannounced, unseen, unheard, maybe stand in the shadows, watching.

A few minutes later, disheveled and just slightly ever so rumpled, Viv slinks away to her waiting Uber, noticing over her shoulder how Allen is still holding forth over the meaningless nothingness that characterizes both his days and nights, his fidgeting hands dancing in the air like mutilated butterflies, punctuating and emphasizing the latest of his most egregiously salient arguments.

“Leave him, Viv,” Darrel implores as she’s setting herself to rights under the glare of his impossible stare, one article of clothing at a time. “Come away with me. We can…”

“Be happy? Oh, yes, and I’m sure our family gatherings’ll be the highlight of our relationship, no?”

He’s silent, he knows she’s right, he must know that. There are taboos and then there are taboos. Running off with your husband’s brother counts as the latter. And she would. Go away with him. If only that elusive feeling was there, if Darrel filled that missing part of her in a way Allen never did. But no. She’s not going to make another mistake with only regret to show for it. Unbidden, the tarot card lady’s voice comes back to her, its hoarse whisper warning of truths she’s always known yet rarely acknowledged, that hers is a destiny not of what others inform her it is but rather what she herself makes of life.

“Promise me to stop by my place. Tomorrow. Whenever Allen’s off doing his Allen thing.”

She momentarily feels shards of sorrow pierce those precious secret places she keeps hidden away from everyone, even from herself, how she is hovering on the brink of extinction, at least this semblance of a life she thinks of as hers, how this time tomorrow she’ll be touching down on a runway in Paris, how she’ll finally find a use for those endless French courses she took in college. For one wild moment she almost opens her mouth to invite Darrel along, how she’ll take a job as a receptionist or secretary at a publishing house while he sits home in their apartment rap tap tapping away on the laptop keyboard penning the novel he’s forever talked about writing.

Yes, that way she will not be alone, that way the world will not seem such a terrifying place. She feels like a child, one who has suddenly learned how one day both mommy and daddy will pass away, leave her orphaned, and even though she pushes this realization way into the back of her mind, the fear remains.

Only even before speaking she knows this man standing before her will only work to shut her down, to remind her of all the reasons she cannot fly to Paris, how she cannot have a do-over, how she doesn’t deserve happiness, how she is married, how Allen deserves better, yes, this same man who just violated his sister in law in the bedroom of a nondescript home, whose semen is even now rolling down her inner thighs with each step she takes, doubtless a testament of an act of depravity in which she too shares the blame.

“Okay,” she says. “Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow.”

Pressing a pacifying finger to his tender lips, Viv walks from the bedroom, from the house, shivering in the midnight air. She climbs into the back of the black Buick Regal parked by the curb, looks at the driver, and remembers. Willy. That was the name of her raggedy doll, the name of her would-be ugly duckling daughter, never born yet wounded by all the years it took to gather those broken toys and faded memories that couldn’t be bought.

She doesn’t know how they slipped away, all those broken hearts and dirty windows, last night and this morning, till every time became just the same. The old woman is right: she has known the truth all along. Like the name of her lost and wounded duckling daughter that rhythmic voice comes floating back to her now as if calling out through the centuries.

“The final card, the Turtle. Turtle understands the need for protection, self-protection, protection of those you love, but remember, you are the most precious of all.”

It was such a silly thing, really, the tarot card reading. Viv does not believe in astrology nor fairy-tales, thinks whatever magic which once might have inhabited the world has long since vanished, yet why then she was attracted to the tarot card lady in the corner? And why do her words resonate so profoundly?

“Turtle has a shell that becomes its home, its sanctuary, plodding along one step at a time. All things come with perfect and divine timing yet do not fear riding the swift tides when opportunities are present. Turtle is ancient, more so than Crocodile and Snake. Born of Earth, Turtle supported Elephant which in turn bore World. Oh!” The tarot card lady stops, looks up at Viv after intently bending over the card, a surprised look blooming in her rheumy eyes. “You are Turtle without shell. You are without home, without succor. This is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. Pay attention! There are both positives and negatives of being without home. Always remember. Your judgement is worth tracking.”