Elenita, witch woman, wipes the table with a rag because Ernie who is feeding the baby spilled Kool-Aid. She says: Take that cra
zy baby out of here and drink your Kool-Aid in the living room. Can't you see I'm busy? Ernie takes the baby into the living room where Bugs Bunny is on TV.
Good lucky you didn't come yesterday, she says. The planets were all mixed up yesterday.
Her TV is color and big and all her pretty furniture made out of red fur like the teddy bears they give away in carnivals. She has them covered with plastic. I think this is on account of the baby.
Yes, it's a good thing, I say.
But we stay in the kitchen because this is where she works. The top of the refrigerator busy with holy candles, some lit, some not, red and green and blue, a plaster saint and a dusty Palm Sunday cross, and a picture of the voodoo hand taped to the wall.
Get the water, she says.
I go to the sink and pick the only clean glass there, a beer mug that says the beer that made Milwaukee famous, and fill it up with hot water from the tap, then put the glass of water on the center of the table, the way she taught me.
Look in it, do you see anything?
But all I see are bubbles.
You see anybody's face?
Nope, just bubbles, I say.
That's okay, and she makes the sign of the cross over the water three times and then begins to cut the cards.
They're not like ordinary playing cards, these cards. They're strange, with blond men on horses and crazy baseball bats with thorns. Golden goblets, sad-looking women dressed in old-fashioned dresses, and roses that cry.
There is a good Bugs Bunny cartoon on TV. I know, I saw it before and recognize the music and wish I could go sit on the plastic couch with Ernie and the baby, but now my fortune begins. My whole life on that kitchen table: past, present, future. Then she takes my hand and looks into my palm. Closes it. Closes her eyes too.
Do you feel it, feel the cold?
Yes, I lie, but only a little.
Good, she says, los espíritus are here. And begins.
This card, the one with the dark man on a dark horse, this means jealousy, and this one, sorrow.
Here a pillar of bees and this a mattress of luxury. You will go to a wedding soon and did you lose an anchor of arms, yes, an anchor of arms? It's clear that's what that means.
What about a house, I say, because that's what I came for.
Ah, yes, a home in the heart. I see a home in the heart.
Is that it?
That's what I see, she says, then gets up because the kids are fighting. Elenita gets up to hit and then hug them. She really does love them, only sometimes they are rude.
She comes back and can tell I'm disappointed. She's a witch woman and knows many things. If you got a headache, rub a cold egg across your face. Need to forget an old romance? Take a chicken's foot, tie it with red string, spin it over your head three times, then burn it. Bad spirits keeping you awake?
Sleep next to a holy candle for seven days, then on the eighth day, spit. And lots of other stuff. Only now she can tell I'm sad.
Baby, I'll look again if you want me to. And she looks again into the cards, palm, water, and says uh-huh.
A home in the heart, I was right.
Only I don't get it.
A new house, a house made of heart. I'll light a candle for you.
All this for five dollars I give her.
Thank you and goodbye and be careful of the evil eye. Come back again on a Thursday when the stars are stronger. And may the Virgin bless you. And shuts the door.
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Figurative Language
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