Ten of Cups [Reversed]

My Office—EVENING

There is an office Christmas party, I enter and immediately head towards the bar that has been set up. The Sailor and his wife are sitting at the bar when I come up.

“How’s things, man?” I ask.

“Bills man. They’ve hit hard this month. I’m broke till payday.”

My hands shoot to my pockets expecting to be asked for a hand out. But the Sailor touches my arm and shakes his head.

“No. No, man. It’s cool. I’m playin' in a bowling tournament down the street right now. I’ll pull in a few bucks doing that.”

“Oh! But?”

“Between sets, I come down here to the free bar to drink and focus.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.”

I leave the bar area and heads out to an enclosed balcony where a lot of the staff members, particularly some of the younger girls, huddle in the dark. I look down on the party which is slowly spilling outside and down the street, and out at the night sky.

I remember that yesterday, I was supposed to run a booth at the local job fair for the company. It went Okay. But I should have reported on it the next day, and I haven’t filled out and distributed the proper form to explain my results. It is likely that people at the party tonight people might be still angry about it. Except for Mary, of course, who as usual seems put upon to be flirtatious. It feels forced and awkward when she says “Hey, you!” and squeezes my shoulder as I approach. I feel a tad on the spot like a performer too. It always feels like she is interested in me only because I am the only single man around. Since Andrea that is. She gives me some Christmas presents, some books which I fawn unconvincingly about, though honestly wanting her to continue liking me.

Just to be liked.

When they start singing and handing out gifts I cannot quite hear and fail to rise or sit on cue. At one point a black guy next to me slaps me in the shoulder for standing too long. The Boss and I notice each other in the dark. She waves me close.

As I cross the room unwittingly, The Boss scowls. “Mary has something she wants me to ask you.”

I feel somewhere between fear and hope, “This is rather high school study hall; have the girls have been gossiping again?”

The Sailor pushes past with his drink. “Cluck. Cluck. Go the hens.”

The Boss continues, ignoring us men. “She wants to know if you are sleeping with that girl you talk about bleeding on all the time.”

I am confused and irritated. “I’m not sure. I remember a redhead that was on the crew for only a short time. I had cut open my face and didn’t know. She pointed it out to me and then dabbed at the blood to clean it up. I might have mentioned that that was a sweet thing to do, but I don’t even remember her name. Guys, anyone remember?”

Three of Pentacles

In The Mountains—DUSK

While I wait for the rest of the crew to finish up. I look in the bushes by our old cargo van; I am pretty sure the last time I saw my watch, I was machete-ing through the brush here.

Hate to lose it. Track of time, that is.

Although it is only 4:30 PM, it is already dark and as the crew reassembles, Sailor and I discuss that while the Boss wants us to work till at least 5 PM, it really is impossible. Besides, we have all worked a very long and rough day in the brush anyway.

The last technician, one of our newbies, a redhead, finally emerges from the bushes. She loads her equipment and herself into the van with the rest of us, all the while complaining about the jokes made about her by the more seasoned crew. “Don’t worry, you’re a rubbergasket,” says the Sailor from the driver’s seat as we soon coast the long winding road, “Those things just bounce off your chest.”

“And you’re a pennyloafer, Sailor Lou.” I joke at him from the passenger’s side, “We only pay you pennies so you just loaf around.” We talk about what comedian used to make dumb jokes like, glad to be on a new subject.

With the van packed with a van mix of the old and newer crew members, it strikes me how people are the same all over, and I say as much:

“It strikes me how people are the same all over,” I sigh. “Funny, really. Each crew has its joker, its show-off, etc. It is like a parallel dimensional mix up from some cartoon show. Meanwhile he redhead is complaining again as the sun pulls back behind the Mountains.

“Listen, we don’t even need you,” I joke. “You are just new. We already have a Complainer on the crew. Right Lou?”

She says, “You wouldn’t say that if I weren’t a redhead.”

“Well, we already have a redhead, so we don’t need you regardless."

“No you don’t.”

“We don’t?”

“Just me. Far as I can see.”

I don’t like the accusatory tone, so I drop the conversation and sit quietly as Sailor drives.

As I try to think about something else, I accidentally pick up a bottle of dish detergent off the dash console instead of my water bottle to take a drink.

At length, the Sailor asks what my salary is and I hesitate because I probably make a lot more then him. Although not nearly enough, and without any savings to fall back on.

Mary chimes in from the back “I get $50 an hour. I think.” and I realize we are only talking about how much we are billed for, not what we are actually paid.

“Anyway,” I explain, “I don’t know the easy answer, as our commercial rates are dependent on our contract.” I use an example of one our contracts showing how I am billed and my qualifications. “My job duties for this project cover a bunch of equipment and vehicles (such as pontoon boats) which I have never used nor can foresee needing up here In The Mountains.”

As I joke about this, someone requests we pull in at a little roadside stand. The Sailor stops and we get out of the van and mill around still discussing contract rates and find the booth we are in front of is selling carpets. The woman manning the stand is soon very angry that we aren’t ordering anything. She wants to close up for the day. Lou tells her to go ahead and we just pile back into the van.

Sailor Lou pulls us back unto the parkway in the dented crew van, while Mary is now complaining about the route. Specifically, there is a road crew felling black locust trees along the side of the road. Its backed up traffic on the narrow mountain pass as they are indiscriminately letting them drop roll pell mell down the hillside.

We decide to pull over again. This time at a scenic overlook.

O

ut of the van I find a large locust branch at the top of the bluff and decide to roll it off with the others. I spot a Mary and the redhead sitting by the edge a second to late. I watch the log roll, thinking there is no way it will hit them. Then it takes a foul bump and heads in their direction.

I yell, “Watch out for the log!” Just in time for them to look up at it barreling down on them. Luckily it misses. Mary and the redhead watch the scene with disapproval, not acknowledging their near brush with death. They just resume their conversation about the new technology we could adapt for our use surveying. 

By way of apology, I send Lou to the trunk to get the new metal detector the Boss has bought to try out In The Mountains.

It’s almost dark now. Where has the day gone?

Two of Pentacles

My Office—AFTERNOON

I am busy rushing around the office and occasionally peeking in on the training session the lab staff is in. Mary keeps hinting about pizza for lunch. I realize she misunderstood something I said as an offer to buy the crew’s lunch. I tell her that “I guess I owe them lunch sometime, for some reason, but I am busy today.”

She starts to question this as I fiddle with the photocopier trying to scan some historic maps. I get irritated, “Fine!” I throw some money at her and say “Just to eat at my expense.” Meanwhile, she has begun talking to some of the married staff as if she knows what they are talking about. She must be pretending to have a husband again.

I shrug and look at the scan as the machine finally spits it out. It, like all the other historic maps of the Mountains I was trying to scan, had come out distorted. But there is some repetition in the fractionalization of the image. I show it to Mary. I point out the repetition of the image and explain the weird feelings I get working over the map.

We both talk about the spirit rumors. Are the ghosts trying to keep us from our research?

I go for the Sailor for some advice. When we come back, Mary is on a table holding the scan over another map trying to pin point exactly what the angle of distortion is. It is pointless. I attempt to explain the situation to Sailor Lou.

“In short. Everyone thinks we’re haunted. That we brought something back. I guess a ghost is a great theory and all,” I say tossing hip the distorted images to examine, “But we don’t need ectoplasm sliming everything to explain all these events. I am sure there is a simpler explanation. Occam’s razor.”

This is lost on Mary and Lou who are sold on the paranormal story. I hedge.

“Okay. Okay. Let’s say it is a ghost.” I sigh, “But even if it is a spirit, spirits are energy and light. So is the scanner. It would only take some minor presence in the office. I mean, there isn’t a full-blown phantasm...”

But I am being ignored by this point.

The Sailor, waves away me and Occam and our razor. He picks up a nearby telephone thinking out loud that, “If this is ghost energy like an EVP, that is, an electronic voice phenomenon, then we could better contact the spirits through an electronic device. Like this one.”

Lou holds the phone to his ear. “Are you the spirit of someone who died in the In the Mountains?” he asks the supposed ghost.

“Perhaps in the hurricane?” Mary presses.

“Perhaps,” Sailor Lou agrees, then continues, “If you are. If you died in the hurricane, then I respect you. It was a horrible tragedy and if that causes you to stay around, it is Okay with me. I understand...”

Sailor Lou goes on and on chatting with the ghost who may or more likely may not be on the telephone. In the meantime, I am looking at some pictures of some old machinery that the crew has taken In The Mountains near the village. They tell me they are a bunch of tractors or something and I want to confirm exactly what they saw in the field. I haul out the old turn of the last century Sears and Roebuck catalog we use to identify old odd trinkets. I open to the section and point.

“Was it like this?” I ask Mary, “A slurry?”

“No,” Mary speaks up assuredly, “It was a trafalmodide.”

“Yes,” I muse over the term, “It is a hard word to say.”

But I am thinking now about the hurricane. I wonder if our Park Ranger friend got out of forest before the storm hit. I hadn’t seen him recently. We hadn’t even needed to radio in recently as we typically did whenever passing through park property. As I recall, he was manning a watchtower In The Mountains about the time of the hurricane.

Now in a panic I snatch the receiver from the Sailor and call into it: “Tower 170 dash 3! Have you evacuated? Repeat. Have you evacuated!?”

Four of Wands [Reversed]

On The Front Lines—DAY

I have to do site guard duty on the contaminated site. I am crawling through the underbrush, with my rifle. I am attempting to check various weak points on the perimeter fence. My stomach has pains. I wonder if that is radiation sickness from whatever nasty bombs had been dropped here, but I guess I don’t care so much about my health.

Wouldn’t be here if I did right?

I find my way out of the brambles and find the old messenger’s motorcycle they have given me to get around. I first run it into the bushes trying to figure it out, but soon have it zooming not too fast down the path back towards the main entrance.

There is a guy with a broken down car and a Weimaraner along the path. They inspect the perimeter fence walking sideways. The dog jumps up on the fence as the go, almost able to scale it. Not sure what they are up to but I ought to get back to my post.

As I pass him, the guy starts running. I struggle to pass him on my old junker but manage after a bit. But he keeps after me, saying he is here for a meeting with the electrical folks, so I let him catch up and jump on the back, since I am going that way and want to be in on any meeting going down too.

Queen of Pentacles

The Market—MORNING

I take my place in crafts class in the market. Maggie and Sailor Lou brought me over here. They told me that this sort of enrichment would do wonders for my disposition in these post-Andrea days.

So here it goes.

The tall, unprepared redhead nearby proves to be Iris, also probably here on something of a dare. I discretely pass some supplies her way as a classmate and I are discussing musical chess. A dumb concept. Iris has always appreciated these ridiculous talks on goofy things and she joins the conversation. After class we walk together. We chat a little but when I suggest continuing the conversation elsewhere. She says she has to go shop and disappears.

“Shop?” I think, “She has changed, for sure.”

I find she has pressed an envelope into my hand as she left. Now, I open the envelope. It its taped shut tightly and when I pull it apart an orange powder sprays out. The teacher tells me the orange powder is a riddle.

“It’s just mascara isn’t it?” I ask, mistakenly not calling the make-up correctly. “I mean it’s blush, right?”

The Sailor is in the back of the room reminiscing with an old stock boy about some old-time actor that they grew up with and knew before he made it big. Well, it turns out that only Sailor Lou knew him.

When Lou goes to fetch the car, Maggie tells me to ask about Lou the story when he comes back to the shop. She then goes on to tell me how great Lou himself is with crafts. Woodworking, really. Apparently, he measures the wood just estimating with his hands.

“He drives the same way,” she adds, “That’s why he’s always lost.”

Five of Wands [Reversed]

My Office—DAY

When I get back to the office, Iris is struggling over some calculations in the library area, trying to figure out the acreage of a potential project from a blue print.

The Boss has some “homework” of the same kind for me. The lot is oddly shaped, but I know to break it down into simple shapes and add their areas together, so I zip through the calculations and am finished in moments.

Iris wants help and coyly climbs up upon the light table I’m working at and stretches out to look over my shoulder, rubbing bashfully, but suggestively against me, and kicking her legs behind me. I try to help her and also not get excited, but then am distracted by some of the files and slides when I notice some shots of the Village, and some letters and things mentioning or signed by the Farmer. Iris doesn’t believe it nor find it interesting, but says “Show me.”

I pick up a book seeing a shot of the mountains, but this one is not the Village, it is a picture of the farm compound where we’ve been staying.

Now she is really annoyed that I have lost interest in helping her. Some of her friends come in, chattering and gossiping loudly and making weekend plans. This is my cue to leave, and I leave and head to my own space, cutting through the IT department were the largely Asian staff seems to be getting ready for a party despite the terrible storms that are about to hit.

After not too long a time working at the small desk in my cramped, windowless office space, I finally look up to find Iris again.

Even better, she is sitting on my lap with a slice of pizza feeding me with a plastic fork none too soon after.

“All these months,” I wonder, “You’ve been giving me a look like you wanted to speak to me, why all this now?”

“I guess I’m a little braver now that you are on my turf.” She gushes back.

Ace of Wands [Reversed]

The Market—EVENING

I am browsing an antique booth in the Market with a group from work. But everyone is ignoring me, especially Iris, the new girl, whom I am trying to impress. The redhead.

I say something witty and there is a murmur of appreciation and then I say “That’s me the heart of the group,” and storm off.

I find a display of ceramic elephants that make me smile, but they are too expensive and who cares when you are alone. I find the same effect with art, books, etc. Some neat stuff but who to share it with?

Whatever.

I am going to put all these thoughts together for my publisher. The book will be a fragmented story including sketches and fake correspondence to a publisher. Something of a scrapbook of a failed writer. I think it’s ironic.

I decide to leave the Market passing two kids who are running out the back of the store and I follow because some black cows are beginning to stampede. I ward off a few cows, noticing there is a small cemetery out there behind the Market that the cattle are charging through.

Though he cows go around me I fear they won’t see the kids. So I grab the kids and hold them close to shield them. When the herd passes I take my notes and the kids around to the front. I drop us all at the bus stop to work in peace.

But I can’t.

So I flip through the Market circular. It advertises booze but I overhear they don’t serve them anymore, only ice-cream.

As I sit on a bench. I notice the redheads, still milling around inside. Distracted. I don’t see Andrea enter the bus shelter.

She sits next to me.

“Qu'est-ce que tu fais?”

I shrug.

“Pourquoi êtes-vous si triste?”

“I am shocked,” I say, “I am shocked to be confronted with the all the girls who ever cared for me all at once.”

“All?” she says, “Que voulez-vous dire?»

“My mistake,” I reconsider, “Nope. No one ever cared for me but you.”

“Zut!” She thrusts her arms and legs around me and smiling close to my face, “Try 300. Don’t you know everyone loves you? Look around!”

I shrug this off and say, “Well, I’m a complicated man.”

Page of Wands [Reversed]

By The Shore—EVENING

Later after work, we are all down by the docks and look in on a tattoo parlor. The manager standing in the doorway, zaps the Sailor in the arm with the needle as we pass.

Spurred by his conversation, Iris expresses some interest and she and I go in to look around. The Sailor says that he has too many already; Funny, I see none and suspect he is lying or scared, though I don’t blame him: I don’t want to get zapped by the manager either.

One younger artist asks me what tattoo I would consider and I say a jack-o-lantern. He begins to sketch a big, slobbering pumpkin-demon for me.

I say, “No, no. Too evil.” And begin my own sketch, “Eyes triangular. Big smile.”

Of, course, a cold blooded pumpkin has a big smile.

The others in the shop crowd and laugh. They like it. A lot. I don’t know why one woman comes up with some paints and starts to add color. And a long, forked, pink and green tongue. Just like I was going to add.

How did she know?

King of Cups

In The Mountains—NIGHT

I am going to go camping with Sailor Lou and some friends but return to find Iris instead. She asks if we can go off alone and ditch the others. She sobs. A little.

“Thought it would be better if we were off in the woods by ourselves.”

I tell her no. Flatly. But she insists.

“By doing so we may have the time alone to rekindle the flame. That is to say I am now willing to give us the chance at a romantic relationship.”

No. That isn’t right.

I am going to visit Iris and her sister. She is living in a van on an old hunting road in the pines. Other squatters have also camped around. We are all hanging around the camp at night; the old men suggest that Iris and I get into the back of the van with a night cap so we can fool around. There are some sleeping bags. We go but she is reluctant and nothing will happen. She is till squeamish about love even after all this time.

I decide to spend the night and we lay and talk and nothing else as always.

Mostly we lay quietly listening to the rain plinking on the roof of the old van. Soon the van seems to be moving.

“Mud slide,” I yelp and get out finding the rain is washing the van away down the road. I try to steady the thing, but can’t. I run around and jump into the driver’s seat. The parking brake is off and the van is in neutral. Iris must have put the van into gear. I pull the emergency brake. Somehow that slows the van.

As we skid to a halt on the muddy mountainside, we look at each other as she climbs into the passenger’s seat. I touch her chin

“Iris?” I softy ask, “What the fuck was that?”

“Sorry, I was trying to get us out of that camp. Quietly.”

“Ok. I’ll go along. On foot. The van’s stuck.”

No. That isn’t right.

Iris has been given permission to camp because of some work she has down on the premises. I go along. Just because.

A ranger shows us the park. He takes us slogging through a marsh to show us some fish kills and fungi and then through a barbed wire fence that, having found a clear way around, I pry apart with bare hands so Iris can get under. I am not feeling well and this is the last straw. As soon as the ranger is gone and the tent set up. I climb into a sleeping bag. Iris follows me, straddling me and rubbing my chest and unbuttoning my many layers. It is tender, but feels forced. She has become lonely.

The ranger shows us the park. Iris has been given permission to camp because of some work she has down on the premises. He takes us slogging through a marsh to show us some fish kills and fungi and then through a barbed wire fence that, having found a clear way around, I pry apart with bare hands so Iris can get under.

I am not feeling well and this is the last straw. As soon as the ranger is gone and the tent set up. I climb into a sleeping bag. Iris follows me, straddling me and rubbing my chest and unbuttoning my many layers. It is tender, but feels forced. She has become lonely.

No. That isn’t right.

Iris is asleep when we get to the campsite. I put up the dome tent. It is damp and I wish I had a tarp to put under the tent. I spread out the blankets and slip her inside the doublewide sleeping bag. She might have protested if awake, but in the cold I think best. Besides only our coldest bits, our feet are forced into close, close contact.

Soon, I find a very tender erection pinned under me. I think only moving slightly will cause me to ejaculate. I consider this and wonder if Iris can see. I also wonder if it matters. She knows how her coldness affects me. Before I know it she reaches out and grasps my penis, stifles a giggle and rolls over. I roll over too. I get up since is near morning. She is unimpressed at the camp I have made, so I begin to pack up.

“We’ll just make it back to the ranger station.”

We do. Then head back out. It is the dead of night.

No. That isn’t right.

Seven of Cups

The City—MORNING

We are on a road trip for work. Headed up In the Mountains as usual. Me, Sailor Lou, Mary, and Iris. The news on the radio is depressing.

“I am miserable that we are living in a prison society.” I declare and slump against the door in the passenger’s seat. Iris wants clarification.

“Are we like Australia?”

“At least they had hope that they could leave the island.” I say, “We are on a whole prison planet with no chance of escape.” The Sailor, who is driving, nods.

“I am convinced,” he decides and takes his hands off the wheel. The cargo van hurdles on. 

“Great alignment,” I think out loud.

Everyone else looks at each other, daring someone to grab the wheel. Iris squeals as the van bears down behind a slow moving truck in the morning traffic. I reach over and depress the brake, slowing us enough. But hurtling the Sailor’s fast food breakfast, which had been stuck in the center console, into the back and all over Iris and Mary. At this Sailor Lou relents and takes the wheel back.

“Sorry,” he smiles, “I thought this was one of those new ones you can pilot with a remote.”

“Tell me again why people didn’t want these remote controlled cars?” I laugh. The Sailor smiles back.

“Because they thought people would do things like this!” He takes his hands off the wheel again and we laugh and coast into a gas station where we’re invited to join a small impromptu fair.

They are eating fish tacos and watching a Humphrey Bogart film.

XI. Justice.

A Village—MORNING

I am walking along a canal with Mary. I swing a machete at the vegetation to make us a path through. She looks to me in serious earnest, but I look at the ground and the swooshing of my trench coat mostly. Soon she tugs on my arm.

“What do you think of the other girls on the staff?”

“They are just little girls, Mary.”

She smiles coyly back, and I gulp. I think I have made the wrong impression. “Well, not that I am that old, Mary.”

Mary purses her lips and walks faster, past me. She doesn’t press any further; she is a good 20 years older than me and it is nothing personal even in my depression, not to fool around with her. I want kids. My own. Someday.

Maybe a dog too.

Back in the crew van, I ask the Boss if there is any more pertinent work to do; and since she says no and even hands back my bucket full of tools to me, I decide to work putting together my notes down in my journal as I promised Andrea, I would keep back at it.

Mary is milling around, and I don’t care whether she is happy or not with me. The new cute redhead, is coming back to the van now.

I ignore her.

X. Wheel of Fortune [Reversed]

A Village—LATE AFTERNOON

The last thing I remember is getting grabbed from behind by two huge thugs while sitting at the snack bar in the village. My guess as I am blindfolded, dragged off and shoved about is that my kidnapper must be Spike (likely assisted by Gunny Bill).

After all what other nemesis do I have?

Soon I find myself unbound, unmasked and hurled into the stagnant water at the bottom of a sand pit on the edge of town. In the struggle to toss me into the pit, Spike and Bill have broken a bottle and the broken glass and it is embedded in my hands. I am not waiting around to find out what is next. When they look away, I pull out a large shard from the palm of my hand and counter attack, aiming to slit both of their throats, but knowing that Spike will never be so easy. I grab at Spike's legs and he loses footing on the slumping edge and falls in, pushing me backward unto a pile of trash. I snatch the heaviest metal pieces and hurl them at his head as Bill tries to help him out of the pit. I head through the muck to the far side of the borrow and eventually make my get away.

I make it back to the snack bar where some guys from the crew are still are hanging out. The Sailor is boring everyone with a story. I sit next to Iris and since she currently is disgusted by me, decide to apologize.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, “I must smell awful, I’ve been kidnapped in the woods for god knows how long and I don’t want to bug you.”

She turns, and says, “But I want to hug you.”

“I’m sorry, I said ‘bug you,’ not hug you.”

“Too bad,” She shrugs.

“Of course I want to hug you. I’ve wanted to for a long time.”

She hugs me. She smells like flowers and is soft in her burgundy angora sweater. We leave the bar and I put my arm around her tiny frame.

“Don’t hold me like that,” she hisses. I am crushed for a second, but then she adds, “No hold me this way. Pull the strap of your shoulder bag over my head too and then hold my hand so we look like school children.”

It is getting dark as we reach the end of the boardwalk, and we decide to cut through a field to the ranger station.

We come across two dead bodies lying in the grass.

“Spike and Bill did that, as I recall,” I say, mostly to myself.

“Who?”

“My kidnapper’s gang. Listen, let’s quietly continue on our way for now.”

We do so. The ranger’s station, where the crew van is still parked slowly gets closer. However, a pickup. Spike’s. Now tears across the field and cuts us off. Guillo-Tina lolls out the driver’s window.

“That you, Frank?” she demands.

I nod.

“Where the hell’s Spike?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t seen him.”

“Well, he told me to hold you if I saw you, so stay put. Right there.”

More trucks, which had been prowling the village, now begin to converge on our spot in the field, as Tina radios in our location. We slowly back away, but Tina, waves at one of her gang who leaps out of the back of a truck and trains a shot gun on us.

I whisper to Iris that I will make a distraction and she should run as fast as possible. I prepare to jump at our guard’s shot

gun, suddenly willing to die for Iris.

Meanwhile one of the figures approaching is not one of Spike's gang, but as he approaches the truck headlights, we all see the new comer is the Park Ranger who had been patrolling the grounds. As we all realize what is happening together, our guard, quickly shoots the Ranger and he goes down.

On the ground, the Ranger unholsters his revolver and levels it at the shotgun wielder, and I figure the next round of shots that will likely ensue will cause a distraction allowing us both to run, though I feel guilty choosing to save Iris over trying to help the Ranger. When the guy aims I give her the signal and we both run, but she doesn’t run very fast, I get behind her and push her along. A human shield. Figuring if they shoot they will only hit me.

Five of Pentacles [Reversed]

A Bar—EVENING

I walk into a bar. People wonder why I sit in this depressing place. True, even the sad waitress, Iris never changes.

But right now her shift is over but still. Iris is sitting and drinking.

Iris is talking to other people and ignoring me. Iris is parading her new boyfriend around. Bragging about him. Ex-navy. She thinks he is so cool.

So I loudly talk about how depressed I am and talk about my recent camping trip to outdo the other dudes’ stories. I talk about my recent trip In The Mountains. I camped drunk and miserable. I went sleepwalking and woke up in my underwear surrounded by mountain lions. I didn’t give a shit. Just climbed back in my tent and freezing sleeping bags.

She doesn’t seem to notice my tales. She tells me about how her boyfriend has hurt his back so he is now a security guard, and just sits, buzzing people into a plant.

“At my job I find and protect—!” I yelp I am exhausted, just having returned from an assignment documenting rural village.

She shrugs. Seemingly unimpressed. Not to be outdone though, I start to tell tales of where I’ve been for the federal government and some of the adventures I’ve had. I tell about a war zone I had to pass through on a bus, and had to be armed with an M-16.

“What are you working on now?” Iris asks, slowly being won over. I shrug at my shoulder bag on the bar.

“Paperwork.” I sigh. With no more chance of impressing her, I grab a scotch bottle and hit myself over the head. I fall to the floor.

“Poor baby,” she says and lifts me up, “Can I and walk you home?”

“Perhaps.”

“Does your company ever hire? It sounds fun.”

Page of Pentacles

A Village—LATER

When we spot it, on a dangerous curve, the van swings into the on-coming lane as I try to slow down. The place is a caterer on the edge of the main Village. The Boss must have ordered something for the party. 

We are surveying a smelly dumpster when the caterer comes out and Sailor Lou talks to him.

Meanwhile, I am attracted to something next door, which catches my eye. But between it and me is a screened-in porch and bushes. I open the porch door. The porch is crowded with junk and kittens that scramble for the open door. There is no way through the porch or the bushes beyond. I don’t know how to get through.