Father, Son and Holy Psychic
The first job offer Liam received out of college came from a psychic. Pearl needed someone to answer the phone for her, schedule appointments. He also needed something. Money for rent, to wander out of debt. “Easy stuff,” she promised. “And I’ll give you a free session once a week.”
“Ok yeah I’m down.”
Liam inherited a desk littered with unpaid bills and business cards. He couldn’t find the calendar. Ink covered his left hand with times and names. Margot tuesday @ 5:15 on his palm. Sandy friday @ 11:30 below his thumb. “Pearl, what kind of appointment do I make for the widow?”
The psychic hunched over her laptop. She had pink hair and ice blue eyes that gave the impression of youth. Pearl yo-yoed between corporate speak and cryptic aphorisms.
“Offer the $75 weekly consult,” she said, crows' feet cracking under her eyes to reveal her age. “But let her know about the special offerings.”
“What do you mean, special offerings?”
“Honey, knowledge comes at a cost.” Pearl’s services were written in Expo marker on a whiteboard. Her finger hovered over the Seven Stages of Grief package - $800 per session.
| The Hermit: You have not been decisive because of an excess of concern for your inner world.
Third Eye Sighted shared the same floor as a dentist office, separated by a bamboo beaded curtain. Liam trudged through the doorway a week before.
“I need to have a meeting with my future,” he said unironically. “Child, come sit,” she said. Liam sunk into the fuzzy couch. He told her about the positive pregnancy test. His half of responsibility for it. How he was broke-broke.
“Do you want my honest opinion?”
He rubbed his eyelids, nodding.
“I think you’re coming to me for your problems today, not for the cards.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“When you come as my client, I need you to be open to the cards, the connections between them.” She refused to give him a reading.
“Cool cool cool. So I spent $19 on a CitiBike for nothing?”
“Nothing is always something hun.”
* * *
When he was 12, Liam invited himself to his neighbor’s pool party. He had never met them. The gaudy, stout neighbor woman wore a graphic tee that said: ‘Nobody Tests Your Inner Gangster More than Your Husband’s Smart Mouth.’ Her husband and his mouth were absent. “Busy slinging pizza at Luigi's family restaurant,” his wife said.
Her party included a tarot reader though.
“She’s the real deal,” the neighbor lady said to Liam.
When it was his turn, the reader pulled the Death card. “Don’t worry,” the reader said, “the Grim Reaper rarely represents actual death.”
“Great because I’m too young to die.”
Liam felt detached from the cards’ symbolism. He liked their aesthetics though. They reminded him of his Pokémon collection. Later that evening his mom and dad “had something to tell him” over dinner. They were getting a divorce. Ever since then he always believed in the spiritual dimension.
| The Death card: It’s time to make way for the new: loss, failure, illness or death, and bad luck. That might all sound bad, but you are in a time of transition. It's best to embrace it even if it's painful.
Ten years later, Liam’s curls were only a memory to his skinhead. Cramped in a windowless Brooklyn apartment, he thought about how awkward his newly made man-body felt at the party. How in that shoebox, the brown-haired girl in an oversized blazer and tights moved around with self possession. She was tall and lean in an athletic way, her muscles built from various sports. Her tan lasted all year. He was also tall and lean but in a misanthropic way, his diet of cigarettes and coffee carved his stature. He wore a Carhartt jacket in the summer.
“Hey, I’m Bianca, wanna play poker with us?” she asked, revealing a slight gap between her front teeth. A scene straight from his teenage wet dreams.
| The Wheel of Fortune: Here you are, perhaps with a fascinating but total stranger, and it feels utterly random. It's not.
That all went down two months ago maybe. At the park now, Bianca’s hands were tied. An oat cappuccino gripped in her left, a positive test in her right. Liam could only look at her feet.
“Boys should be on birth control,” Bianca said. Wisps of blonde fuzz. Unpainted toenails, the tips poking out the front of her Birkenstocks.
“Aren’t you already on some?” he said.
“The IUD didn’t work, man.”
There was a tacit understanding they’d fucked just for fun - right? He hardly remembered what materialized after the party that night. Whose apartment did they even go back to? He might have said “pleasure doing business with you” afterward. That was a funny joke right? Who’s to say.
“I just wanted to give you a heads up,” she said to him, deadpan. “Before our kid comes looking for you in ten years.”
“Uh okay,” he said. “Do whatever you want. But I have no money for a baby.” His sperm sprouting into a little person sounded kind of noble. Sort of like the way he admires his friends for keeping plants alive.
“Our baby,” she corrected him. “So by proxy, you’re legally bound to find some.” She could be nasty like that. If she were in a high school mock trial she’d have rocked that shit.
“Can’t you just have an abortion?” Plenty of seeds never become plants. It was a reasonable question but his tone conveyed pathology.
“I literally have no money,” she said.
He turned catatonic.
“Ok sorry nevermind,” he finally said. Liam put his hands up, backing away from the bohemian Birkenstock girl from that party that turned out to be annoyingly liberal. He told Bianca he needed some time to think and skirted out of the park.
| The Tower: You may see yourself as just being direct while others consider you as being tactless. Take extra care with your words and actions.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” he said outloud down Bedford Ave. He couldn't remember the psychic’s number. Liam could only remember what Pearl had told him: “It’s not what the cards say, it’s about what you see in them.”
Pearl was no shrink. She had no professional qualifications. Though Liam was relieved to see her contact information existed online. He called the number on Google. Pearl handed him a truth he could bend. Truth he could bear. In this way she was more like an anesthesiologist than a psychic. Pearl answered on the first ring.
| The Hanged Man: There is a halo burning brightly around your head. You are being suspended in time. This may symbolize breaking old patterns and setting things right. The reverse may symbolize your egotism and inability to change. It’s up to you.
* * *
Liam picked up her phone now. He twisted the landline cord around his thumb half-listening to the client on the line, distracted by Pearl’s voice. She was crowdfunding her idea for an empathy chatbot over Zoom. She sounded out of character, like a valley girl. Liam didn’t know anything about this woman. Under the pen cup on the desk, he caught a wallet-sized photo of Pearl without pink hair. Her hair was brown there and she held a baby.
“Is this yours?” he asked.
Pearl nodded. She muted herself online. “Yep, that’s my lil chicken. Just the two of us. Big boy now.”
The answer struck him without his consent. He peered into some version of the future. Strangely enough, the past also converged in his brain. The prospect of Bianca raising a child, in the way he grew up, spoiled Liam with sadness. He made a promise to himself he would pay for her abortion: an act of chivalry.
* * *
Ten years later Liam laid in bed, doom-scrolling on his back like Gregor in the Metamorphosis. Because if you look long enough at the Instagram Feed, the Instagram Feed looks back at you. He hardly checked social media anymore after getting canceled for a racist tweet. He thought it was harmless humor. But in less than 140 characters he said something offensive enough to stay off the grid.
Tonight, he found himself back. He drank a few too many with not enough buddies and returned to his twin bed in his Bushwick apartment, alone. A pixelated square image of a young boy kicking a soccer ball reflected in his eyes. The same flop of sandy brown curly hair he once had. The same wide bright blue eyes. But the boy's face had slight alterations from his, rendered with Bianca's features.
He went to her profile to message her, say something, see if he can meet his son. But the girl from that party didn't follow him back. He wrote to her anyway. The message popped up on her message requests but she didn’t accept it and never plans to.
Sheridan Wilbur is a copywriter and contributor for On®. She holds a BA and MA from Duke University. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and Outside Magazine, among other publications. This is her first piece of published fiction.
