Swamp of Shadows - Chapter 4

I’d been on that stifling Texas bus for two hours. The toilet in the back sloshed like a cauldron of the devil’s stew, and something foul bubbled up onto the puke – stained bus carpeting. It resembled a mess of tuna salad gone wrong, like a disgusting latke. I held my breath for as long as I could, but I kept getting distracted. A freckle – faced, intellectually disabled guy was singing with spit bubbles dribbling from his mouth.
“ Heartbreak Hotel.” He was a nice enough fellow, but damn, he butchered Elvis.
Mosquitoes buzzed everywhere, biting my rear end. And that fat driver just chewed his Big Red gum and laughed at the disabled guy for over fifty miles.
Jeez, some people have no tact, you know? That being said, it was the most miserable bus ride I’d ever taken. And to think that was my first experience as a free man.
First of all, I’d be better off with my ’70 Barracuda out of the police impound.
But I didn’t have twelve grand to get it back. Maybe if I asked God real nicely, Elvis Presley would swing by in his shiny Cadillac and lend me a dozen hundred
– dollar bills. Yeah, right.
Anyway, let me set things straight. Any of you who know me know I didn’t kill
anyone who didn’t deserve it. That Tom Wilson guy? He had it coming. But that didn’t matter, in the end.
Yes, I was free. But I still needed time to think and a swig of Jim Beam. Hell, all things considered, I was lucky either way you looked at it. The police had
nothing on me in the end. I’ ll thank my high school ring for that. Yep, they had no case. So, bam! Jack Thompson Dennis walked out, that is, after two long
years.
The court assigned me this mousy, little woman named Ms. Harper. A county parole officer, she was barely four feet tall even when she wore those hideous polka – dot stilettos. Might as well stab me with them. Her face had no wrinkles, probably because she never smiled. She had a button nose, nice thick lips, but crooked teeth. I was supposed to meet her for coffee that afternoon to discuss my employment options if I ever got off this godforsaken bus.
Two hours and more in this stinky box, all the way down to Riverside Café, just north of the Bowie County line. My back hurt, I needed a haircut, and my knuckles were still swollen from all the fights in prison. There were a lot of creeps in there, more than you’d think. I’ m not a big guy, but I can pack a punch and I have forearms like Popeye. Even so, I hadn’t been in jail two days when the first Nazi – loving idiot tried to mess with me. Let me tell you, he never got the chance. I gave him a beating and put the fear of God in him. I’ m Jack D. I’ m not about to be some white – power thug’s plaything.
The bus jostled us around. I twiddled my thumbs, watching the street signs change: First Street, Second, Third, Fourth. Not many people were out. Then again, the humidity hung over the town like a massive blimp. The Hindenburg of sticky Texas heat. And heat tends to drive people crazy, at least in Bowie.
There was one guy in particular, a homeless man. He was bundled up as if it
were the ice age and was rocking back and forth outside a small fortune – teller’s shop: Isabella Rodriguez’s Tarot. The man was cradling what I hoped was a sleeping alley cat and talking nonsense. Insect – ridden dreadlocks hung from his head like vines, dangling and swaying as he rocked with the motionless feline. He flicked flies away from the cat with fingers as thin and see
– through as fish bones.
The bus brakes screeched. I stumbled off, hit in the gut by the sticky Southern air. The homeless guy stared at me. I lit a menthol cigarette, pulled my wet underwear out of my crack and handed him one. “Smoke?”
The bum took the cigarette, eyed it for a moment and then popped the whole thing into his mouth like a stick of gum. He chewed, petting the clearly dead
cat.
“Take care now,” I said, noticing a nosy woman staring at me from her shop window. Her big, bright eyes followed my every step, watching intently through the dilapidated window. The building leaned to one side, with a few steel support girders visibly added to keep the whole thing from collapsing.
She tapped the window. I ignored her at first, then she tapped again.
“Yeah?” I stopped in the street, blowing a cloud of menthol smoke against the pane of glass.
“You don’t come from around here,” she said. “ I can tell.” Bells jingled when the door opened. A waft of burning incense and cinnamon came from the shop.
“ Don’t you want a reading from Isabella Rodriguez?”
“ Ma’am, no offense. But I’ve been in Bowie my whole life. You can’t be much of a psychic.” It was true. You see, a man doesn’t just remember the place he’s from – he dreams of home when he’s away. And feels it in his bones when he’s hurt.
“There are no psychics here.” Isabella grabbed my wrist and pulled me through a curtain of beads. “ Isabella doesn’t see anything. She watches.”
“ Ma’am, I’ m not new to these – ” She cut me off.
“We play a game.” She hushed me with a short, stubby finger. “ I’ ll read your
”
way.
“ My way?” It wasn’t my first time at a fortune – teller. I’d had my palm read a hundred times in Vietnam. But back then, fortunes came with a little extra
service.
“Your fortune, silly man,” she scolded. “You’ re not from around here, but you think you are. Let’s see what the cards say ”
Isabella led me into a small, dimly lit room with wallpaper that looked like snakeskin. We sat down at a cast – iron bistro table without chairs. In the center
of the table was a jar. A floating, googly – eyed toad stared out through a veil of formaldehyde.
“What’s your name, stranger who says he’s from around here?” The woman produced an elaborate deck of Tarot cards and shuffled them as smoothly as a casino croupier.
“So, it’s a Tarot reading? How much?” I reached into my pocket. “Christ,” I said,
opening my wallet.
Isabella slapped my hand. “ No money for this, stranger man! This isn’t Tarot like you know it. This is the Devil’s Tarot, boy. Played by all the lesser imps and demons, around tables of sticks, deep in the Fallen One’s pit. This is a special telling.” She fanned out the cards and placed three face – down on the table.
And I’ m sure the formaldehyde bubbled when the first card touched the table.
“ Name, please?” she asked. “All of it, not just part.”
“Jack Thompson Dennis.” I stamped out my cigarette in my boot with a sizzle.
“ Draw the first, the Card of the Mind.” Isabella rubbed her hands together furiously. I saw sweat forming in her palms.
I flipped it, revealing a goat – like man with several arms, reaching for swords.
The Roman numeral eight was scratched on it.
“Angry, are we?” Isabella giggled. “The Arms of Azazel says so. I think you want revenge. Just like that stubborn scapegoat from a long time ago.” The woman’s fingernails clicked on the iron table. “ Now, flip the Spirit Card, Jack Thompson.”
I did, turning the second card over to reveal a winged toad in a jar. “ Look familiar?” I said, talking directly to the toad on the table.
“Ah, I’ m learning a lot, Jack,” Isabella replied. “The Familiar Bottle has you cooped up, doesn’t it? But we all have our vices. Don’t we, boy?”
I laughed. “Yeah, Lady. Don’t I know it.”
“ Last card. Very important. Flip and let’s see.” Isabella licked her lips, tapping her fingernails and rubbing her hands, as excited as a child. “ Destiny Card! Flip
it! Flip it!” Her large rolls wobbled as she shook in place. The whole thing was a bit off – putting.
Revealing the last card, Isabella froze. No movement, no finger – clicking, just a stunned stare into the distance, beyond the image on the cardboard.
“Well?” I asked, tapping the image of an angel holding a golden key. “ Does this mean I’ ll unlock opportunities in the future? Maybe my parole officer will get me a job?”
“ Key to the Abyss,” she mumbled. “ I’ve never seen it.” Isabella’s quivering hand hovered above the card, but she wouldn’t touch it. “ It’s not even in the deck.”
“ It’s right here,” I said.
“ No, you don’t understand. The Key to the Abyss isn’t in the deck. It doesn’t belong. You pulled it from…”
I stood up and relit the end of my menthol cigarette. A curl of smoke spun from my fingertips and I breathed in the vapors deeply. “ How much do I owe you, Ma’am?”
“Shut up about your money, boy! You pulled a card from the other side. You’ re not from here! You have a cloud over you. Dark as a spider’s eye. You’re not from here, no sir ”
“ Lady, I’ve been away a long time. But this is home. I dream about it every night.
I feel it in my blood. Bowie is my slice of heaven. As far as I’ m concerned, there’s no other place on earth like it.” The bells jingled as I left, walking down the street to the café . My head hurt, my feet hurt, and all I wanted was a cold
drink and maybe some ribs.
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