The Sceptic's Tarot - A Short Story
The Sceptic’s Tarot.
It is difficult sometimes, to choose the life you are going to lead. Those who assume that they are following life on blindly are merely trying to avoid responsibility. Some people have to hack a way for themselves out of nothing, for others it is merely the decision to set their feet on a path that has already been prepared for them; you might think that the second case has it much easier than the first, but in fact there are traps for both. The town of Potter’s Plains lies in the east of California at the beginning of the Mojave Desert. During the war, it’s distance from the coast, general isolation and lack of population marked it out as an ideal place for the army to store ammunition, far away from the Japanese. The war ended and these features pre-destined it for use as a site to explode out-of-date ordinance, of which the army had a great deal. Years of daily explosions had littered the area with dangerous chemicals, so the town was evacuated and left alone for a while; then it was re-purposed. All of us who are now here have come for something or other- it’s the only thing we have in common.
I don’t care so much for company, so I try to get to Charlie’s early, then leave when people start to fetch up. It tends to be pretty empty in the middle of the month anyway, so if I can just keep my own counsel until after the fifteenth or so, when everybody else has used up their card, I can usually be assured of an undisturbed bar visit. As the town’s book dealer, I can usually get Charlie to supply me with a bottle or two for the beginning of the month in return for something to read, particularly as Charlie has a quite refined taste in literature. The “bar”, as you would understand it, is a drugstore from around 1960, when the town was evacuated. Charlie had some experience with moonshining, so he had had no problem getting the only license to make and sell alcohol. The paperwork involved in this and the card system is ferocious, so he's a well respected figure in the community for the service he provides.
The bar was dusty in a way that made even the last rays of sunlight that were streaming through the windows look dirty. The bar-counter was covered in chrome rails and decorations, which matched the soda pumps and stools, except nobody had polished them in years, so they were all now pitted and the colour of long dead fish. To Charlie’s credit, he was fighting a losing battle with the dust and sand that got blown in using a dustpan and brush, which did little more than send up great clouds which then settled at another location. He looked up from his labours to greet me.
“Jack”
“Evening, Charlie, all quiet?”
“So far”
“Good.” I slid carefully onto one of the semi-exploded bar stools, trying not to damage it further. “Do you need anything?”
“Do you?” He smiled slowly. I pulled four books out of my satchel, two hardbacks, two tattered paperbacks; Charlie turned them over reverentially in his hands.
“Vonnegut, I think I might have read this, but a long time ago, so I can always re-read it, De Profundis, kind of funny when you think, but I’ve never gotten around to that, “ the World of Yesterday”, Stefan Zweig, OK…. And Houellebecq, you're spoiling me!”
“These would go to waste amongst the general population”
“All right, the pressure is on… what do I have for you?” He looked around into the street and then opened a trap door behind the bar. He re emerged shortly carrying an unlabelled bottle of brownish liquor. “This is different from the usual rot-gut it's made out of raisins on sultanas”
“Where did you get those?”
“They got sent in a few Christmases back, this has actually been maturing for a while it should be a good drop. I've got something else as well” I saw the twinkle in his eye and knew it had to be something good. “In the same Christmas consignment was several catering tins of Mandarin oranges. One of those tins and a bag of sugar went missing. It's taken a long time and there isn't much of it,” he indicated a medicine bottle of viscous clear liquid, “ but the Mandarin liqueur is something for the connoisseur and I am pleased to share a glass with you.” I grinned wolfishly. “I really appreciate this” he said tapping the pile of books.
“Ach, they'd only sit on the shelf and then get recycled; nobody here reads real books.”
“Do you want a bottle of the usual as well?”
“The usual is an insult after all the delicacies you've given me, but yes; I want to save the good stuff.”
“Let’s see how you get on with this”. He produced two small liqueur glasses and emptied the bottle equally between them. He passed one towards me and we toasted each other. The liqueur was very sweet, obviously powerfully alcoholic and surprisingly smooth. I Was just savouring its passage down my throat when there was the sudden noise of the badly fitting door being shoved open.
Charlie concealed the books under the counter as swiftly and calmly as he could whilst fixing the new arrival with the glare of the professional bartender; aggressive vaguely curious and bored all at the same time. I kept my eyes in front of me whilst gently shoving my satchel with the two liquor bottles out of sight with one foot and observed the new arrival obliquely through the dulled bar mirror in front of me. He was about 24 or so I'd say with wild hair and wild frightened stare. That and the fact that his clothes, although the same as everybody wore, had recently been through a steam press marked him out as a newcomer.
“Welcome, friend”, said Charlie slowly, although I instinctively knew that he had put his hand under the counter to grab the short hardwood club that I'd only seen him use once to restore order. As the only licenced barkeep in the town he was the only one legally permitted to have a weapon of any kind.
“You’re open?”, he blurted out. Although Charlie was the one standing behind the bar, he looked between us as if he wasn't sure which one of us owned the place.
“We’re the only thing in this town that is right now,” answered Charlie, “can I get you anything?”
“I don’t have any money”. We both looked at the booze sick youngster, obviously shaking and laughed. “Neither does anybody here”, Explained Charlie, “didn't they give you a card?” The kid nodded and handed over a brand-new card, which Charlie then fed into his card reader to confirm what we already knew. “There’s nothing on it. That’s a problem.”
“I thought they might have given me something, just to get started”. We both shook our heads slowly.
“Here I am, just trying to run a bar, but I have to run a reception and counselling centre as well! The idea is that you’re supposed to find something you can do that people here need and that makes them put points on your card.”
“…but they gave me food at the canteen”.
“A sustenance level amount of food and water is available to everybody who turns up, but it’s only enough to keep you alive. If you want to do better than that, get access to books, the once weekly movie…”
“Once a week?”
“…on Saturday. Tabacco and alcohol,” Charlie slapped one of the long dry soda taps for emphasis, “then you need to get down to the labour exchange in the old savings bank tomorrow and see what suits your particular skill set”
“…and if I don’t have any particular skill set?”
“Then you won’t last long*
“What do you mean?”
“Nobody does a rollcall around here” Charlie let that one sink in for a moment. I wouldn’t normally have done it, but I decided to stick my oar in.
“The thing is, you’ve been lied to.” I heard my voice, unused to conversing with strangers, how scratchy and unnatural it sounded, how different from the one going on in my head.
“Who by?”
“Society. You think you don’t have any skills because that’s what they told you. You survived out there for a while at least; that took some skills.”
“What did you do out there when you were klamm and booze sick?” asked Charlie. He nodded at the kids right knee, which was bobbing rapidly up and down.
“Do you have an old pack of cards?” Charlie looked at him blankly. We weren’t allowed to have anything to do with gambling, but nobody really policed it because nobody even wanted to have to come in here; still, it wasn’t something that you wanted to be caught with, so I could see him weighing up the pros and cons in his mind. Finally he snorted loudly and opened up one of the lower drawers behind the bar with his left boot. Without moving his hands, he tilted his head back and forth, closing first one eye then another, until he located what he was looking for. Without taking his eyes off the kid, he bent down and picked up an old, greasy pack of cards that said “Dewars” on the backs. The kid picked them up and started telling them through his fingers very loosely, his hands trembling violently.
“You don’t look like a sharper to me,” I said, “you’re shuffling that pack like a seven-year-old.”
“You have to. You can’t keep too tight a grip on the cards, you have to let them go where they want to, see? The cards have to pick up on my vibe as well, they’ve been through too many other hands.”
“Well, I can’t stand much more of this.” Charlie gave me an appraising look and I laid my card on the counter. Charlie shrugged and poured the kid a shot of the rotgut; he seemed to hesitate a moment before picking up my card and subtracting the price of the shot from it. I understood that it was nothing personal; in a place like this it wouldn’t do for the only bartender in town to be seen as a charity. The kid took the shot and came up gasping.
“Thank you, sir”.
“…. So, you know how things work here and you realise that you now owe me?” I reminded him gently.
“Of course, and I plan to repay that debt right away! Is there anything you want to know? Any question that has been bothering you?”
“Here was me thinking you were just trying to wipe your luck all over those old cards.”
“Do I look lucky to you?”
“I don’t really believe in luck”
“Hey, not so loud, now! The cards’ll hear you!” The booze had started working already and his personality was coming through; he was starting to shine in the light like a ten-dollar cocktail. “So, Mr…?”
“Jack”
“Mr Jack. What is your question for the cards?”
“ A question? Well, see here, around these parts a question is a valuable thing.; I’m not sure I have any by me right now and if I did, I think trading it for an answer might not leave me many the richer.” The kid looked at me in a kind of startled way for a second, like my answer had derailed him.
“So how am I going to repay you then?”
“I’ve been much obliged, over the years, to the gentleman on the other side of this bar. It would also serve me if you were to give him an answer for any question that he might have on his mind.” Charlie had been watching the kid’s hands since the moment he picked the cards up and I knew he was hoping that I would defer to him.
“Now, what could that possibly be…? “Inquired Charlie of the thin air. He looked blankly at the little solar powered ceiling fan that was moving the dust around and said” …Hmmm.”
“Gentlemen, I am most grateful to Mister Jack for the elegant way he passed on a reading, as he did so without damaging the atmosphere. When I asked you not to speak badly of the cards a moment ago, it’s because that if you do, the obvious will become true; they will become just bits of paper. However, with my hands on them and the energy that the three of us put into this space, they become a key to the past, an illumination of the present and portals to the future.” The way he said this, I knew that it was a set piece that he’d memorised and one which usually went down big at that. “I’m going to have to be entirely earnest and concentrate on one question, could be a simple one, that you really want answered, otherwise it’s not going to work.” Charlie looked at the kid like a parishioner about to receive communion from a younger member of the clergy who he found altogether too flippant and said, “OK”.
Whilst the kid had been gracing us with his spiel, he’d divided the cards into three piles, stacked them into three piles, then repeated the process until he’d done it three times; three was the magic number, then. He had completed all of this with none of the sloppiness that he’d displayed during the shuffling. Finally, he put the pack, ratty and dog-eared as it was, on the centre of the counter and put his middle finger on it, indicating that Charlie should do the same.
“What is your question?” he asked.
“I guess the only thing it makes any sense to ask is “will my current state ever improve?”” The kid nodded sagely.
“…and do you sincerely wish for an answer to this question?”
“I do.” the kid nodded again and picked up the cards.
“The question seems simple, but it is more than just a yes or no, so I’m going to use a lay out different from the straightforward three card one, I think your question deserves a proper answer.” He laid one card in the middle of the counter, then four cards around it on each side, then he lent forward, his head balanced on top of his folded hands and his eyes flicking from card to card. Eventually, he gave a little “Huhh” of recognition and nodded to himself. “Well, Mister Charlie, I think we know a little more now; You want to be happy now, don’t you?” I snorted with disbelief.
“That’s not what I’d call a mystic revelation, the only two things that we all have in common is that we all want to be happy and we’re all going to die.”
“Now, I can’t argue with the second one at all, but I don’t believe the first one. There’s people been unhappy so long they wouldn’t know what to do with happiness if you gave it to them.” I shrugged. “ You see, that card in the centre is where the question came from, the motivation for it; the desire for happiness is mighty strong inside you, Mister Charlie. That Five of Diamonds in the middle there, that’s the card of happiness and contentment right there, that shows that was what you were striving for,” his finger slipped down to the card at the beneath the centre, “when you decided to take a little short-cut.” He tapped the card accusingly. “The Eight of Spades, that led to your downfall. This arrangement is called the Celtic cross, it doesn’t just show the future, it shows what led up to it as well. Like I said, the card in the middle shows your intention in asking the question, the impulse behind all your actions; this card down here, it shows what happened in the distant past. Moving clockwise, then,” he tapped the card on the western side of the cross, “the Jack of Diamonds. Could there have been a younger man involved in your past, maybe one that talked too much?” He looked up to Charlie who looked back at him with a face of stone. “This represents the recent past, so how recent are we talking about here?”
“About fifteen years” Charlie spat out.
“Oh, well, I guess time moves a little slower around these parts.”
“…or it stops meaning anything at all” I put in. The kid looked at me a little shocked for a moment, then went on.
“Things changed, though. This card right here,” he tapped the card at the top of the cross, “This six of clubs is achievement. It’s interesting that the only two cards you have from the same suit are the two Diamonds. Diamonds are like real diamonds; in tarot they’d be pentacles, they can bring power, but they bring all the other baggage with them. Could it be that most of your encounters with real wealth haven’t ended well? You don’t need to answer that. But here, what you can build up without wealth,” he gestured to the bar around us, “that goes pretty well now, don’t it?” Charlie still didn’t say anything, but it was obvious that that one had gone home. “…and it looks like things are going to get better” the kid indicated the card on the east side of the cross. “There’s a woman in your future and she means well for you.”
“The Ace of Hearts? Shouldn’t that be the Queen?”
“Well now, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? But see; have you ever looked at a pack of cards and asked yourself why there’s two male cards, the Jack and the King, but there’s only one female card?”
“Now that you mention it…”
“That’s because there’s a lady that’s hidden in plain sight. The Ace is a female card”
“…so she’s like the King’s concubine?”
“Could be, she can change her value, for instance”
“…and she’s reduced to a cipher…”
“…but because of that, she’s a very powerful card, bringing death and chaos at her worst, but this is her at her best.” Charlie seemed very satisfied with his reading.
“I would say you’ve earned yourself another shot, young feller; Jack?”
“No thanks, I’m done; I think I’m going to leave you guys to it” I started to gather up my bottles and get ready to leave.
“Are you sure?” asked Charlie.
“Yes. I just need my own company for a while.”
“Well, all right then; I’ll maybe see you tomorrow.”
“Maybe. Enjoy the books.”
“Certainly shall.”
“Wait a minute, “said the kid, “books?”
“All we’re allowed round here. No TV, no Internet, just books. Go and see Mister Jack when you’ve worked up some credits on your card; he’s the town book dealer.”
“I’m not much of reader”.
“It’s about the only thing that’ll stop you going mad around here.”
“Well, goodnight, Fellers.”
“Goodnight”
I closed the door of the bar behind me like you would the door of a sick person’s room and decided to take the long way home to clear my head from all that had happened this evening. I soon found myself on the edge of town. The inner wire fence wasn’t barbed like all the others as it was just there to mark the boundary, but you could still be shot for going past you, as a rust flecked old sign explained to you in English and Spanish. The sign began with the words “U.S. Penal Institution, State of California – Potter’s Plain Conoly for the Criminally Insane.” About half-way through the evening, I’d worked out who the kid was. We were all cut off from news deliberately as all of us had done something so bad we had to be permanently separated from society, however, sometimes the boxes of old books that came from the outside accidentally had old newspapers in them. The kid was a serial killer that the press had called “Three Card Monty”, owing to his habit of always leaving three playing cards next to his victims; they had only been able to imagine that this had something to do with gambling instead of cartomancy. I looked deep out into the night towards the guard post that was manned 24 hours a day and imagined a bored eye watching me through a viewfinder, weighing up the pleasure of squeezing the trigger, doing society a favour by ending my life, against the paperwork and evaluations that would follow such an act. Nobody here was ever going to get out of this place alive, so what made the authorities think that we needed a fortune teller here? Then again, they never asked us anything and they hadn’t this time and they’d sent us one anyway, so that was all right.
© Gavin A.F.Hill, 7/8/2023