Gypsy Blood (14 page)

Momma nodded, as if she understood.

“Yeah. Me too. It’s all crap. But I have to help my little Val.”

She should have known better. She’d lived so long with Carnival’s father, in the back of that truck, that her spirit had become forever trapped in that roaming Romany world of magic, mystery and murder.

Heaven held no welcome for her, no more than her parent’s home.

Not that there was that much difference. Not the way she was raised. Her father had crucified himself daily as a kind of lifelong guilt trip, without even the benefit of air miles. He used the god-book like a stepstool to look down on his whole family. Even himself. His wife and children, verbally nailed up as examples like sacrifices hung to a blind uncaring god.

It was foolish. He thought his sternness could burn out the stain that history left upon his bloodline. That could never happen. Momma and her momma before her came from a line of witches far more powerful than any Gypsy. Momma’s grandmother’s grandmother conjured in
Salem
. She’d survived the massacre thanks to her spell work. Not even Cotton Mather could have sniffed out the smokescreen that fourth great grandmother lay down.

And the line went farther back than that. Momma’s ancestors were real witches. They didn’t just pose and mutter. They didn’t dance and they didn’t fly on broomsticks. They didn’t even call themselves witches. That was a tag that someone else dreamed up.

Her father didn’t care about any of that. She was a badly made receptacle for his holy remaking. Marrying Poppa was a relief compared to the way her father tried to mold her but it had also marked a turning for Momma. She turned her back on the ways of her parents, on the way of her father.

No. There would be no help from either up or below. She had to handle her own trouble. Still, the boy was tougher than even he could imagine. There was far more to him than showed outside the shell.

She looked down below her. There was the old man, hacking at the grave dirt with a trowel. Cursing his dead wife and begging for her forgiveness. She could have told him that begging forgiveness from the dead was a waste of time. Begging just didn't work but why spoil his party? Let him have his fun. He didn’t need his body.

The thought preceded the deed by half an unbeating heartbeat. She stepped into Jim Miller’s body like he was a pair of borrowed shoes just her size. She walked away out of the graveyard and into the street.

Behind her, trailing like a hound dog after a butcher’s wagon in mid-July , the spirit of Olaf’s memory and guilt followed along. He smiled in the hot summer sun, thinking scalpel thoughts and tight razored dreams.

Trifecta Tarot

T
here are very few quiet places in this city. Carnival had just left one of them. The
Public
Gardens
was another. A few acres of trees and flowers bordered in by a large wrought iron fence. Everything beautiful in this city has to be caged. If you paid the city for the privilege you could buy a vendor’s license allowing access to one length of iron fence and about a yard of grass in between the fence and the sidewalk. Carnival knew this because he’d set up here one summer, reading palms.

I remember that year. You were always hungry. The growling of your stomach kept me up for days on end.

“It wasn’t that bad.”

You’re talking to yourself again.

“Lots of people talk to their self.”

I see one, over by that tree.

Carnival looked. There was a lean one-legged man, with the tight and eaten out face of an accomplished alcoholic. He was wearing a coat of thin black cloth, with newspaper clippings stapled across the coat, a headband of cardboard wrapped in aluminum foil.

Shiny side out, for maximum reflection.

“Just a nut, Poppa. There’s lots of them out here.”

I’ll bet he probably talks to himself too.

Carnival walked a little closer. He did miss it. The community. The familiar faces. Business was always good. The bankers, business folk, and tourists passed by daily. You could grow one hell of a tan out here.

Tanning give you skin cancer. You ought to wear some aluminum foil.

The politics on the fence were rough. Like one man gangs, everybody fought for their bit of turf. The city always sold a few more licenses than there was available space.

Wars are always made by civic decree. Haven’t you read your history books?

“Bad things always lie in the past.”

Yes. They lie and they lie in wait. Open your eyes, boy.

Carnival opened his eyes to stare at the street vendors. There were so many different kinds. Peddling paintings and needlework, twisted wire jewelry and face painting for the kids. A short trollish stump of a man sold hand carved walking sticks. A lady with hair the color of bleeding poppies, sold gaudily beaded handbags.

All roads lead to the market. Everyone must sell something. Even the Rom must peddle his wares.

Like lions on a skinny iron veldt, they sat patiently in their lawn chairs and stools or squatted on their haunches waiting for the customers that fate might bring them. Occasionally they called out a friendly “Hello” to anyone looking more than a little interested. A half hearted sales pitch, a smile they didn’t really mean to offer.

They’re hungry. I can hear their bellies growling from over here.

Carnival threw a little loose change in the guitar player’s case to buy some luck.

Look, there’s your friend.

The one-legged newspaper coat man limped towards Carnival, moving from tree to tree, skulking through some private battlefield.

Even he knows what he’s doing.

Carnival watched the one-legged man’s approach. He touched every tree that he passed. Perhaps for balance but trees held secrets. A few of the older timbers still clung to a bit of the wood-spirit. Further into the park stood a gibbet, masquerading as a weeping willow. The ghosts of dozens of past hangings gossiped with the evening breeze.

The one-legged man got close enough for Carnival to see him. He was talking, letting the words spill out, like his mouth was an open wound. “Somebody’s dreamed too hard. The para-dimensional barrier slipped. Things are coming together. The world is ending,” He called to Carnival. “Tell your father.”

The mad made sense if you knew how to listen. Carnival smiled. The world looked fine to him.

“Not today,” he said to the beggar. “It’s too sunny for Armageddon.”

Don’t be too sure. A world is ending somewhere. I know. He knows. Maybe not our world, not today but the world he looks at? It’s over. He’s caught in a dream, yet even in a dream he knows what he’s up to. All of these people know what they’re up to. You’re the only one out here who doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“I’m looking for advice, Poppa.”

A duck laughed at Carnival from behind the garden’s iron cage. Carnival tried not to take it personally. He thought about what he needed to do. What Maya needed.

Blood. The vampire needs blood. Don’t you watch movies?

Even full of bullshit, Poppa spoke truth.

Let her feed. She’s a big girl. She’s been doing it for a while, I bet.

“I can’t do that, Poppa.”

A tourist looked up in alarm at the man standing there talking to himself. Carnival moved on, following the iron fence. The chalk artist scrawled three separate glyphs. Carnival wondered what they meant. Maybe Poppa was right. He could let Maya feed indiscriminately. Let nature take its course, allowing her the night to wander and kill. It seemed kind of irresponsible.

Finally he saw who he was looking for. The card reader.

“Hey,” he called to her.

“Hey,” she warily answered.

Her name was
Tara
, like in the endless movie. Fiddledeedee. Long straight dark hair. She looked a little native, wore turquoise and silver feather earrings to accentuate that look but Carnival recognized stage props when he saw them.

“Long time no see,” he offered.

Ha. A master of repartee. Dazzle her some more, I’m busy taking notes.

“You thinking of coming back here?”

Listen to her. She’s talking economics. She’s worried about your competition. Be flattered and glad she doesn’t know how bad at this game you really are.

Carnival felt his blood pressure creeping several notches higher. He forced a friendly practiced smile.

“Not me. I’ve got a place inside now. I like it fine,” He kept his tone neutral. It wouldn’t do to sound too successful yet it didn’t do to sound too needy. “I just need a look at the cards. Just a quick flip. Never mind the layout. I just need to turn one.”

He offered her ten dollars. She decided it was worth it. He squatted down on the camp stool opposite her folding table.

“You want me to turn the cards for you?” she asked.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

Look at him. Mr. Self Reliance. Emerson would be so proud.

Carnival fanned the cards out, facedown. He thought about Maya. Thought about how he would feed her. Take care of her and show her his love.

Fegh! Love is for long haired hippies and players of tennis.

Carnival picked one card at random and flipped it over.

Death - a grim looking card, a skeleton in soot dark armor riding a pale red-eyed stallion. He’d always thought of that horse as cold. A king lay trampled beneath the horse’s hooves. Before the horse lay a trembling child, a swooning or dying woman, a yellow robed bishop, his cheeks already fever blotched. In tableau they stood beside a night dark sea. The sunrise is far away. Optimistically, the card spoke of change.

New age hopeful gas. Death is death. How much interpretation do you need?

Carnival scooped the cards back up. He reshuffled.

“It’s not nice to ask twice,”
Tara
taunted me.

“I just need to be sure.”

He fanned them again, and picked another card. Another Death.

That’s twice boy, don’t tempt your luck.

There were seventy eight cards in a Tarot deck. It’s not impossible to draw the same card twice, but the odds are stacked fairly high. Carnival reshuffled, thinking hard on his question. What do I need to do? A third time, he drew Death. Triple Death.

There you have it. Your cards, playing tricks on you for a change. Death, death, death - the trifecta of Tarot.

Only this time the card was red. Dark red, streaked a rusted black, the color of old dried blood. Carnival flipped the card back before
Tara
noticed it.

“Thanks,” He said, dropping the ten bucks on the table.

She pushed the tenner back.

“Call it a favor,” she said.

He left the money with her. It wasn’t good luck, taking a card without crossing her palm.

You drew the Death card, three times running. Good luck isn’t coming into this any time soon.

Carnival walked away. Down the sidewalk, past the iron fence. A painter waved half heartedly. Whether he recognized Carnival or just thought he might be a customer didn’t matter. Carnival walked right on past. He knew what he had to do. First he had to get lunch, to feed the hungry beast howling in his belly. Then he had to get ready for Maya, for much the same reason. Later he would talk to Poppa, continuing the theme.

The one-legged lunatic beggar smiled at Carnival’s passing, his eyes glinting like shards of painted glass. It was barely eleven am yet the night seemed closer than death and sunrise so very far away.

Who Was That Dog Faced Man?

C
arnival’s first stop was a coin shop. He spent twenty of Olaf’s recycled dollars on the necessities for his research. Further down the road he grabbed a burger from a hotdog vendor. The burger meat was cold with the consistency of a pickled jellyfish.

It’s not that bad, for rat meat.

“It isn’t rat meat, Poppa.”

Are you sure? I don’t see any rats around here. Maybe we ate them all?

Carnival made a mental note to promote Jimmy Joe’s Bar and Grill from the worst place he’d ever eaten up to the second worst. He gnawed on the burger over the three blocks he traveled to the river. It was good exercise for his jaw.

It took a half hour to find the river, fighting the current of the sidewalk crowd.

He came to it. There is always a river in every city. Some are harder to find. Cities grow about them like fungus on dead wood. The buildings down here were a cluster of teetering leaning structures, black with age and accumulated mildew. Docks and warehouses jammed together like a lunatic Tetris game.

It’s no worse than your bedroom. I have seen it. All manner of refuse lying about there. Even a vampire.