psychic 1 - gabriela

gabriela smoked while she read my fortune. she had been smoking all of her life; so had her hands. her family was in the back eating take-out, and from the outside to the back room a round, cross-eyed toddler walked back and forth, grabbing her grandmother's chair and legs whining for her attention. she was possessive and not too smart, yet. gabriela said make 2 wishes, 1 you keep for yourself and 1 you tell me. she said "be careful." she said a lot of people who i think are close to me are not that close to me, be careful she says. she says "you're not that satisfied in your 'love life,' am i right?" she said "tonight at night...what are you doing?" "a little work." "at home? or...." "at home, yes, bushwick." "leave your house at 9...go get an ice cream, a coffee...you will meet a man, the man will come into your life around 9 pm tonight."
HOLY SHIT?! i think. i think holy shit at the presumption, how preposterous it all sounds, how magical, how false, how possible, how vapid...holy shit...
i ask her if i'll marry, she says yes, and he'll worship you, perhaps believing that "to be worshipped" had anything to do with what i imagine when i imagine it. my ego seeks the opposite, but fine, gabi...i ask her "you've lived a long life what is the key? the thing? the secret?" she says, faith in god...i say i don't believe in god she says why not? i say i wasn't raised that way, that i have a different type of faith...she tells me to believe in god and that someday i'll find out that everything she's saying is "completely" true.

a) complete
b) completely
c) true
d) truth

what i mean is: don't use these words with me, i take them seriously...

she says: "let me light a candle for you...for your future, for your future love, for the man...let me put a name to the man..."

i say i already have that name and that face though just as frequently it's a strange face with a stranger name and they're all the goddamn same until someone fills it out like a fucking balloon with breath from his lungs. then we twist it, and we're twisted...la cross-eyed stares at me as i leave her grandmother's table. i get 50 feet and turn back around for a photo. i am dishonest in my photo request and she smells it, because Manipulation is the new CK scent and i'm wearing it. she takes another puff and says "sweetie i have arthritis and these are not beautiful, but whatever makes you happy...you want to take a picture? whatever makes you happy." i say: rest them on your knees please, and this make me happy."

shaky focus and shaky palms kept me in well past 9, although i think i stayed in precisely so that i could give la gabi the benefit of the doubt and think to myself, what if? what of that man, who i meet at nine o clock...it was, is, and will be my absolute pleasure, absolute being another word that i take very seriously.