"Can I brush your hair," I asked from inside a curl of empathy?

The old, nearly toothless witch weazed as her peach core brown and bloodshot eyes slowly lifted like two cardboard boxes full of rotting tomatoes. Three crooked brownish-yellow teeth, the lost and only ones left in her vodka ravaged mouth, cheered from the top front row like dedicated Chicago Cub baseball fans stuck up in peanut heaven.

"Why yes you can beautiful man."

"You have such long lovely hair," I sorta lied.

It really needed washed, conditioned, and loved but it was entangled in scraggly. The short linebacker-squatty Indian woman was from the unrecognized Canadian nation, Athabascan. Her tribe, Vuntut Gwitchen, 'The People of the Lakes', had lived in the Old Crow on the Porcupine River. Subsystematically living on the caribou that migrated through frozen spaces amongst space in the midst of time.

"Well... If you are goimg to brush thru this mess then I must do something for you. My palm reading is not on so well today, but my window is still open. How about a tarot card reading?"

"Okay my friend but for what should I ask?"

"Ask for anything... Ask for love... Ask how... Or just ask for a general three month reading."

"Whoa... Three months is a tad large for me... I'm a... Well... I guess the best way to break it down is that I'm having a 'now-gasm'. Can I only ask about 'now'?"

Lola Luna and I were acquaintances as a result of those criss-crossing vibrations that dance in the only 'Dance' their was, Existence. Ours, was a homeless jitterbug, a triple step, triple step, rock step that had Lola sleeping out in front of the womens fashion and accessories store, Lola Luna, on the corner of Bacon and Newport, right next to the Mad Max 99 cent super-store. She had written permission from the owner while nature okayed it for I to dream inside of a bush full of Warblers by the sea.
"Well sure... That is a new one but if it is 'now' that you are interested in... Well than 'now' it is."

The cards got unwrapped from a silky green and white handkerchief. Silk held the vibrations in the deck, as well as keeping others vibes out. Lola said that if you wanted to catch a persons vibration, then wool was the way to go. Wool absorbed and held vibrations. As I got the bewitching in-dock into the occult, Lola slowly shuffled the tarot cards and then handed the black magical deck to me with instructions.

"Think about... Hmmm... I guess you just concentrate on your 'nowness' as you shuffle and when you are ready, from left to right, lay out three piles for me please." I followed Lola's directions. I must confess, that it was all for Lola. You see, it was just as important to 'street-people' as it was for the 'Normals', to trade, to exchange, the whole 'this-for-that' merger. A seen give and take to the relationship built the bond, it made it a sticky web, like Lola's confused knotty head and it layed the equitable foundation for a liquidated future.

While I had no interest in the dark arts, I was also not fearful of them. Neither Lola or the occult could penetrate me. I knew that the 'un-seen', for those seeing with more than their eyes was just that. In other words, just because someone was seeing more than the average essence, it didn't mean they had any business, unless it was a business, to interpret it. I only knew that Lola needed love now and I simply had love to give.

So she re-stacked and transmundanely dealt destiny, fate, and whatever else it was that flew thru her window. Palm readers, psychics, and tarot card readers were like an astrally challenged three stooges with a clueless dilemna occurring for them. How much to charge for what they had gotten a grain of sand glimpse of. And like a radio antenna picking up various stations, the real danger lie in the interpretation. It was like listening to a song and believing that you knew exactly what the band was saying and really having no idea. It was like taking the mathematical concept 'Pi' and trying to quantify your everyday happenings with it. It was pure madness, which was also why it was a billion dollar biz-ness.

So a 'Fool', a couple different 'Queens', an 'Ace of Cups' and then some spilled onto our roundtable of fortune. When it was all dealt and done the message, a warning actually, was that the Angel of Death was lerking around me. We hugged, exchanged real names and searching glances around us. Lola insisted her hair was too tangled too brush and besides she didn't have one.

"Maybe next time and we will have to get some KFC, a big ol bucket of it with mashed potatoes and gravy with some of that cole slaw stuff. It will be our own hairbrushing picnic. Say... do you have a dollar, for a donation toward the reading? I usually charge 5 bucks you know."

"No Lola I don't but thanks for letting me know that Death has a close eye on me."

"Oh honey... It was my pleasure... Anytime... See you tomorrow my beautiful man..."

"Seeing you now... Seeing you now..."