Good News, Bad News

Good News, Bad News

         The hand-lettered sign read: "Gypsy reads tea leaves - ONLY $10."  A young girl sat at the doorway, teetering on two legs of her chair, her slippers under the chair and her bare feet crossed and wedged against the door jam.  She couldn’t have been more than thirteen, but with the eyes of an adult.  Her attention was on a cartoon playing on a TV in the showroom window next door and I didn’t think she saw me approach.

         Without even looking at me she lowered her feet and moved her chair to let me through.  The hall had the heavy odor of sour cabbage and decay; another sign back past the staircase pointed to the last apartment door.  I hated that room.

         Inside the apartment an old black woman sat in the kitchen door, cleaning string beans, she held out her hand; I handed her two five dollar bills. 

         “You sit, wait!”  She pointed at a wood chair just like the one the girl was sitting in out front.  “Take shoes off!”

         The floor was covered in worn, but clean linoleum, the floor was cool under foot.  The heat that poured out of the kitchen was unbearable; I could feel myself begin to sweat.

         “Will Teresa be long?”

         “Dee time, it take what it take…”

         Beyond the inner door was that room.  I could hear the murmur of conversation and wondered what Teresa was telling her client, what she was seeing in that bowl.  Knowing how hot this place would be, I purposely wore a thin cotton dress and no stockings, but it didn’t help; sweat was now dripping off my nose, down my legs and back, my dress was clinging to me. 

         The door opens and a young woman, in her twenties I guess, came out carrying her sandals and crying.  Her hair was matted to her head, her blouse spotted with sweat along with her shorts.  With red eyes and makeup running down her cheeks her eyes momentarily locked on mine, then she pushes past me running down the hall in her bare feet.

         “Okay lady, you go in now!”  The old woman pointed to that room.

         The room was dark except for one light hanging low from the center of the ceiling.  It was carpeted with an Indian rug, there’s the low table that we always sit at, the stains of past readings mark its surface.  Teresa was in the back room fetching hot water; I sat down on the large cushion where I always sat.

         “Miss Woolsey, have not see you in long time!”  Teresa was a large woman, she wore an African dress and head wrap, her enormous breasts were so large they overflowed out the top of her dress.  She was carrying a tray with a pot of steaming water, a mortar and pestle, a bowl and a small glass canister of whole tealeaves. 

         Teresa looked at me and without saying a word her face faded from her bright normal smile to sadness.  She lifted the lid of the canister and as was the custom, I removed one dried leaf and placed it into the mortar.  She handed me the mortar and I breathed on the leaf.  She then ground the leaf into large bits and put them in the bowl, pouring in just enough steaming water to cover all of the pieces. 

         She held the hot bowl in her hands slowly moving it in a circle, making the liquid slosh about.  As was the custom, we watched as the pieces settled to the bottom and she offered the bowl for me to savor.  I slowly sipped the hot tea in this hot apartment until there was no more.  Where ever the leaves lay was to determine my fate.

         I sat upright and closed my eyes.

         “Miss, dis is not good.”  There was shock in her normally calm demeanor.  “I sees you in bad karma!  You not did some’ting bad did you?”

         “Just tell me what you see there!”  My eyes still closed.

         “It be some’ting terrible Miss.  I sees dee reaper and he be comin once and once mo’.”  She took my hands in hers.  “You gotto say what you did Miss.  Is Mista Woolsey in trouble?”

         Now tears are beginning to mix with the sweat that is pouring from me.  “Mister Woolsey is…”  How do I tell her?  “He’s at rest Teresa.  He won’t hurt anyone, ever again.”

         “Oh no Miss.  I know he be bad man…”

         “Teresa he is no more.  He won’t hurt me, he won’t hurt Anna any more.”

         “Where is little Miss Anna?”  Her warm, caring expression was soothing.

         “She’s with my mom!”  I could see her compassion and genuine caring.  “Tell me what you see, Teresa…”

         Tears are genuine, they fall from her face into the bowl, “I see you go away, long time!  It no nice place, you hurt and sad for long time.” She held me for a long while and we cried together.

* * *

         And so it was, they called it Justifiable Homicide; but I served seven years anyway, Teresa was right, it was a terrible place.

W.C. = 863