Editor’s Note: This is a return to part of the Mac Showers saga. It will drop into the back of the book, the small part that deals with Life After Mac.

I will be meeting with the Historian of the Navy later this holiday week to gain some insight on the activities that went along with a couple of his tours that we never covered in much detail. Notable among them is his time at the Schoolhouse, teaching the art of Operational Intelligence (OPINTEL, in Navy-speak) over in Anacostia, or what he was doing besides Vietnam issues when he returned to the Pacific Fleet headquarters as the war raged in SE Asia. There was so much that I regretted not asking him about, and the questions that were so easy to have answered and now would never be articulated. The subject of the tarot Cards was evocative of the mood, just as it is this morning. I got some bad news from a close pal, and parallel subject of babies and new life existed in tension with the realization that this is all painfully finite, and we should enjoy it while we can. Another year looms, complete with a new cast of actors. So, as we count down the days to the New Year, we will all be pondering what is in the cards for what is to come.

– Vic

(Happy Hour White, a peach martini and candlelight at the Willow Halloween party. Photo Socotra.)

I was thinking of the time after Mac took his leave. It felt like a hole had been wrenched in the fabric of our little band of Willow Irregulars. It was four years ago, and on the eve of the Presidential election that would produce a second Obama term in the Oval Office.

I was feeling apprehensive, and I was feeling down about Mac’s death. On the personal front, I managed to hold it together and get through Mac’s memorial ceremony, and the hurricane, and the power outage and notification that the government is going to actually act on the big new contract vehicle I am supposed to be managing. Maybe the blue mood came from the realization that something is really going to happen to cause the great gears to begin to turn with the new term.

The Halloween Party had been scheduled for the real night, but the loss of power and minor voyage damage to Washington from Hurricane Sandy dictated delay.I walked over after to the restaurant after work to check the costumes, though I was not fully in the mood. I was not going to wear one for the first time in years. I felt as if I were in a form of mourning.

Distracted by other things, I suppose. Brushes with the Alpha and Omega of life do that to one, I guess.

I hoped that is all it was.

(Sabrina, the Willow’s in-house mystic and mixologist. Photo Socotra.)

I had the prefect answer. I would get my fortune told.

Sabrina and Tinkerbelle are both bartenders, along with Big Jim, and both have mystical sides, and owner Tracey O’Grady set them up in the little private dining area up front. I am neither a believer nor an apostate on the matter. The proliferation of odd things I have observed of late suggest that there are manifestations of the human mind that we do not comprehend and certainly cannot control.

A friend of mine has had good luck in channeling truth from the cards, and I think there is something to a mechanism that frees the mind to contemplate the unknown.

Sabrina is named for the teenaged witch in the old television show, and that tells you something about where her parents were coming from. She has embraced her avocation while continuing to hold a day job, as many of us do. She was working the Tarot cards, and Tink was reading palms. I threw a twenty in the middle of the table and invited the ladies to work their predictive magic.

I thought nothing would come of the experience except some fun, but I was curious, wanted to help the girls make a little extra money, and seemed like a diversion that could help raise my mood.

I understand enough of the psychology of human interaction to know that a good reader will play off things the subject will freely admit, and the truths that can be revealed are often not from the deck of cards or the lines of the palm, but from the articulation of things already well known but not said.

Sabrina has a bosom that is quite remarkable, and was fully on display in some sort of cantilevered undergarment, the better to distract the subject, I imagine. It certainly worked.

She had me cut the cards as I attempted to avoid gazing at her secondary sexual characteristics. She dealt three: the eight of coins flanked the four of swords to the left and the ten of coins was placed to the right.

She had the patter down well. The four swords met on the card, the tips of the epees meeting exactly. “The Four of Swords shows a period of rest and recovery after a time of challenge, since the ability of the tips of the blades to stay precisely aligned is finite. Once recovered, you can and will return to the challenge. In the meantime, the cards show a new challenge, which is to stay silent and inactive. This is the time build up your mental strength. Meditate and spend time in a calm atmosphere. You need to replenish your strength and spend time in spiritual thinking.”

“You need to rest and relax,” she said calmly.

I nodded, my attention still distracted by the magnificent and unassailable majesty of her breasts. “The coins mean something else. This card can mean work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business, perhaps in the preparatory stage. Steady patience with achievement kept in mind.”

“Seems reasonable,” I said.

She pursed her full lips. “Of course,” she continued, “reversed, they can mean voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction or usury. It can also signify the possession of skill, in the sense of the ingenious mind turned to cunning and intrigue. That it is to the left of the four swords means you have practiced and honed your craft in the past.”

“True enough,” I said. “It has been an interesting decade since I went ashore from the Navy. It has had everything: action, danger and romance. Not that it worked out the way I thought it would.”

Then Sabrina turned to the last card- the one that refers to the promise of the future. “The Ten of Coins is a sign that despite challenges and setbacks along the way, you will finally reach a point of completion and accomplishment in your journey. This sense of accomplishment is likely to be as a result of an improved career path, more solid financial reserves, a stable home environment and a possible committed and long-term relationship.”

“Yike,” I said. “I don’t see any of that on the horizon.”

“Trust the cards,” she said, and captured me in her dark eyes. “This is one of those cards that shows that everything will eventually come together in a wonderful way and you will feel highly successful and proud of everything you have achieved at the end of your journey.”

“OK”, I said. “Does it say anything about next week?” Sabrina gave me a Mona Lisa smile. “This is not the internet,” she said. “The cards say what they say.”

“Unless they are reversed, right?”

Her bosom heaved in ambiguity. “I don’t think that is what the cards say. Constant stress and tension will break even the hardest and most resilient of people, but if you rest as the Four Swords say you should, this brief period will enable you to refresh your energy, concentration and focus and be ready for the next challenge. The cards with the coins demonstrate that you have built your craft in the past, and will continue a journey of accomplishment, healed in body and mind.”

She smiled that unreadable smile, and I thanked her. The reading done, she scooped up the cards and returned them to the thick deck. I turned to Tinkerbelle, who was going to do my palm.

(The Willow Sooth-sayers).

I think the world of Tink. None of her tattoos were showing, not the Tinkerbelle on her bicep or the Mickey Mouse in the strategic location on her ample bosom. She wore her dreadlock wig over heavy makeup on eyes and cheeks. She looked positively otherworldly. Normally she is cute as a button, but tonight her evident fertility and exotic garb accented something much more primal.

She is carrying her first child. She has named the infant within her “Nola,” for New Orleans, Louisiana, her place of origin. It is a mystical battered and resilient place. “I fond out the baby is seven pounds already, she said with a little shiver. There is a long time to go, and I have no idea how big she will be at birth.”

“Our first was late, and over ten pounds,” I said. “A big baby should be a healthy one,” I said.

“I certainly hope so,” she said, acknowledging a bit of apprehension about the miracle that she will perform in her time. Tink had her cheat sheet concealed in a iron-bound box with the lid propped up to conceal it from my view.

She traced the lines on my upturned had, furtively stealing a look at whatever was inside the intricately designed casket to her right.

She marveled at the length of my lifeline, as did I. I do not anticipate an extended stay in this world, certainly not like Mac’s long and good life. She furrowed her brow as she traced a line across the middle of my and. “Stubborn, aren’t you?” she asked.

I nodded in affirmation. “Old and stubborn, yes. No question.”

“Not so old as your life-line suggests you will be,” she said. Then she traced a parallel line to one that predicts my remaining time on the planet. “This one is your creative streak. It is deep and profound. It means whatever you do, you will do well at.”

“Does it mean business?” I asked. “I don’t care that much about it.”

“No,” she said. “It is about what you do. They are not the same thing. There will be satisfaction there in a job well done.”

I did not want my hand back, since her touch was gentle and inviting, but she gave it to me anyway.

There were other Rubes waiting outside the curtain, and I thanked the ladies for their time and attention. They did a nice job. Now that I have the rest of my life mapped out, it seems like time to get on with the period of reflection and get on with it. I bade a bon nuit to the usual suspects at the bar, and those behind it: both Johns, the one with and the one without, the Lovely Bea, Old Jim and Mary, Chris-as-Tex and gypsy-clad Liz-with-an-S. She had done something mysterious to her normally doe-like hazel eyes.

Quite mystical, the whole thing. I left the bar more than a bit pensive, but managed to avoid being run-down in the cross-walk on Fairfax Drive as I limped back to the garage to find the Panzer that would take me back to Big Pink.

When I got home I listened to the political ads that poured from the big screen, allowing myself to watch, rather than flinch in avoidance.

This last four years has been a period of uncertainty. It has not been without its moments, but I think it is time to move on and get back to work, or whatever it is that will take up the time before we proceed to our inevitable home.

No question about it: my call is for the Ten of Coins, all the way.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com