Most of the travelogue pieces between the reviews in the book were done on the spot and they are things that happened as I wandered from bar to bar. But I had a few adventures planned before I ever started on the book and this was one. There used to be a Psychic on 6th Avenue and their sign said, “Psichic Gallery with Tarot Cards and Palm Readings.” It’s something I delighted in pointing out to people and I used to always say the same joke, “They can tell the future, yet they don’t know how to spell their own occupation.” I always wanted to get my fortune told there and thought it would be fun to do in the confines of the book and it was. Sadly, they moved away years ago. I wonder what happened to the lovely Ann Marie and her lovely kneecaps.
---------------------------
1:15 p.m. The raging, burning inferno-like temperature has somewhat let up today. Instead of hellish 100 degree weather, it’s in the vicinity of a somewhat more Purgatory-like low 90’s kind of day. Although as I walk down 6th Avenue, rings of sweat are already growing in the nether regions of my underarm area. And the rash...well, never mind.
I stopped at a deli between 14th and 15th streets for a diet Mountain Dew caffeine pick-me-up and I’m looking across the street at a building with a garish purple/brown awning on the second floor advertising a “Psichic Gallery with Tarot Cards and Palm Readings.” As I look in my almost empty, lime-green 16 ounce plastic bottle of Mountain Dew, I see a vision...it’s getting clearer...I see something in the future for this “Psichic”...it’s almost visible now...and here it is...it’s...it’s...a spelling lesson!
1:29 p.m. I’m walking up the stairs to visit the psychic who can’t spell straight. I was drawn to this place the minute after reading the spelling-challenged sign. There’s something irresistible about meeting a soothsayer who can peer into the future, but has difficulty putting letters in the right formation to list their own chosen occupation.
As I reach the second floor I spy a nameplate on the door with the name of Anne Marie. It’s the only door on the floor, so this must be the place. But I thought the psychic who couldn’t spell straight would have a somewhat more exotic name. Something like Shayaliah, Kasliamandi or Geraldo at the very least, but Ann Marie? To me Ann Marie sounds more like a baker of cookies or perhaps a June Taylor Dancer than a psychic. Of course with her inept spelling skills maybe Ann Marie is the way she spells Geraldo, I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt and ring the bell. But nothing happens when I press the button, there’s no ringing. I stand there and realize that since she’s a psychic, she probably disconnected the distracting bell, because she already knows I’m here. She must be very, very good.
1:35 p.m. Maybe she’s not that good. I’ve been standing here for close to five minutes and no one’s opened the door. So I proceed to rap on the black, wooden door and it slowly opens up about six inches. I’m now eyeball to eyeball with part of a woman’s face staring back at me. She doesn’t speak, so I make the first move.
“Hi, are you...the...uh...psychic?” I ask as I notice a certain amount of nervousness creeping into my voice. I’m realizing I’ve never spoken to a psychic and all of the sudden I’ve got these weird, first date kind of butterflies swooping around in my stomach.
The door opens up as she answers, “Yes, I’m Ann. Would you like a reading?”
Well of course I have to answer in the affirmative at this point, what am I supposed to say, “No, I just thought I’d drop by and give you the proper spelling for psychic?” Nope I’m locked into this thing now with no hope for retreat, and besides I find myself strangely attracted to Ann Marie. I would guess her to be in her early to mid twenties, she’s wearing a loose green sweater, a blue jean skirt, her hair light brown hair is down around her shoulders and she’s got these big, droopy, dreamy eyes. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m picking up this vibe around her like she’d really be into...well, you know...weird stuff. You know, candle wax, whipped cream, handcuffs, The Jetsons. I’m trying to avoid having some sort of mental sexual fantasy, seeing that she’s a psychic and maybe is reading my thoughts right now, but just like when someone tells you not to think of a certain subject, I just can’t stop myself.
As I follow her into the apartment, we stroll into a large main room where there’s a square table with two wooden chairs on either side of it along with some religious Jesus statues by the window. I’m assuming this is where the reading will be done. So I sit down in one of the chairs. Just then my Penthouse Forum-like fantasy of Ann Marie licking my palm while reading it is shattered by her saying, “I’m over here, this is where we do it.”
Before I even look over I’m processing the words, “This is where we do it.” Oh my. Seconds later I look over to a corner of the room and Ann Marie is seated in a tiny little nook in the wall that has a light green cloth curtain attached to the entrance.
“Oh, you do the reading in there?” I sheepishly ask.
“Please come,” she says waving me over.
“Please come? Sweet mother of George Jetson!” I’m thinking to myself as I walk into this tiny little room. Once inside she draws the green curtain and I sit down in a chair next to a tiny little glass top covered table. Three plastic Jesus statues and a large, unlit, 99 Cent store quality yellow candle decorate the table. Ann Marie is talking but I’m not listening because as I look down I see her blue jean skirt is slit up above her knees and I’m now staring at her kneecaps and they’re really nice. I really like kneecaps and Ann Marie is blessed with a couple of beauties. Sturdy yet soft at the same time. I’m brought back to earth as she coughs and says, “So what will it be?”
I didn’t want her to know so early into our relationship that I wasn’t listening because of my kneecap fetish so I say, “What about the Tarot Cards?” Remembering the information from the infamous “Psichic” awning.
“That’s $ 25 for a complete reading,” She tells me. I notice she never smiles or shows much emotion.
“Okay, let’s do it,” I say getting into the spirit of Ann Marie’s sexual double entendres.
“I’ll get the cards,” she replies in her emotionless, somewhat monotone voice.
For some reason I was sure she’d be nude when she returned. I’d light the candle and pretty soon we’d both be sprawling on the floor barking in unison like two Astros in heat. Sadly this wasn’t to be the case.
She came back fully-clothed holding a colorful deck of oversized cards and placed them on the table. As she sat down, she took the material where the skirt was slit and covered up her kneecaps. What a gyp! Then she told me to shuffle the cards.
I picked them up and half-heartedly shuffled them around in my hands as I was still still reeling from the kneecap cover up.
“That’s it,” Ann Marie teasingly said as I shuffled. I looked down to see her kneecaps were once again visible. If her intent was to tease me, she was doing a bang-up job. She took the cards from my hands and told me to pick out 17.
Keeping one eye on the kneecaps and one on the cards I successfully picked out 17 cards.
“Put them on the table,” Ann Marie instructed.
I did so with a confident sweep of the hand and a cock of the right eyebrow in her direction.
She picked up the cards and swiftly dealt them on the on the table in different formations and started explaining what they meant. We locked eyes as she told me I had a long life span and that I’d probably make it to 87-years-old. I didn’t have the heart to tell her my doctor recently told me if I don’t cut down on my drinking and smoking, I’d be lucky to see 50. She said she saw great success in my future and that a former lover in my life is coming back.
“For what?” I wondered silently to myself, running through a list of luckless women that have bounded in and out of my life spanning from my ex-wife from the early ’80s, to girlfriends from the last two decades. I came to the steadfast conclusion that if any of them came back with the sorrowful intention of borrowing money, they’re shit out of luck.
She spewed out some more generic fortune cookie type forecasts for my future, but my focus was locked back on her kneecaps, for now instead of covering them up, she adjusted in her chair and actually lifted her skirt higher. In my mind the words, “Jane his wife,” sang out loud and clear.
“Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?” Ann Marie asked as I was dropping off into full-bore kneecap fantasy.
I sat there pondering this for a full minute. “Maybe I should ask something dirty to get the ball rolling” I thought to myself. As usual I chickened out.
“Umm...well, it’s a little personal,” I said once again locking eyeballs with the lovely Ann Marie.
She was unfazed. “That’s okay. Just think of the question in your mind and pick three cards. Maybe I can answer without you asking the question.”
As I picked three cards I mentally asked the question, “Can I lick your kneecaps?”
Anne Marie looked puzzled as she studied the cards.
All the while I’m sitting there thinking, “Well, can I or can’t I?”
Ann Marie frowned. I feared her kneecaps were off territory.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” she said while pointing to the tarot cards, “I can’t make any sense of these cards. If you want the answer, it’s best if you ask me the question.”
This is it, do or die time. This is the mark of a real man’s man. I would either ask the kneecap question and take the chance of her either being into it, or slapping me or maybe even calling the cops or wuss out and ask a fake question and have to stoop to handing it to myself while studying my tattered nude Drew Barrymore copy of Playboy later on. I took a deep breath waited ten seconds, exhaled and asked, “Uh...I’m working on a book and I was wondering if after the New Year would be a good time to try and promote it?”
The lovely Ann Marie said it would be and walked me to the door, and said goodbye. As I walked down the stairs I thanked God for Drew Barrymore and Playboy.
---------------------------
Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 5:01PM 
