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A Beautiful Cacophony
The first day of spring break smelled suspiciously like the beginning of summer.
Backpack slung over his shoulder, Marco hopped onto his bike and checked one more time that neither Alejandro nor Alma was following him. In Alma’s case, it didn’t much matter, he knew — even if she wasn’t following him now, it didn’t mean she couldn’t pop up uninvited later if she wanted. She had an eerie knack for it.
But it was Alejandro he was really concerned about. Ever since Marco’s miraculous recovery from near-death and his visit with God, Irma was convinced that her son was protected by Divine providence. It had never occurred to her, of course, to inquire whether the god in question was The Father Almighty, the Holy Triumvirate, I Am That I Am. If she had known that this particular god was an impatient Leporidae with a self-proclaimed penchant for beer and no omniscience or omnipotence to speak of, things would have turned out differently. But for a devout Catholic woman with little exposure to cultures outside her own, the word “god” had only one meaning. Which was lucky for Marco, for the upshot of her new conviction was that she believed whole-heartedly that her youngest son was immune to the perils of the world. She had largely withdrawn herself from the role of his protector; as long as he was home for dinner, Irma no longer inquired about her son’s whereabouts.
But her leniency toward Marco did not extend to Alejandro, an injustice the older twin sought desperately to right. In the past, Alejandro suffered Marco’s presence grudgingly, but now that Marco had much freer range than he did, Alejandro became Marco’s shadow, stealing opportunity for adventure and trouble.
But a thorough check assured Marco that Alejandro wasn’t following now, so with a smile and a breath of relief, Marco took off for the Badlands, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
Satsuko and Mitsuo were sunning themselves on a couple of beach towels when Marco rode up. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Satsuko sat upright, smiled brightly at the boy. She waved to him, dropped him a wink. “The prodigal son returns!” she called. “Thought you forgot about us, little man. Thought maybe you were too good for us.”
Marco hopped off his bike, nudging the kickstand into place with his toe. “Naw, I didn’t forget,” Marco said. “I just had school, and my brother’s been following me everywhere even though he’s not supposed to. It’s spring break now, though. I think he got other friends to play with.”
Marco dropped down next to Satsuko, crossing his legs Indian style. He leaned back onto his palms and looked up into the sky. “It’s getting hot,” he said. “Last year for Easter me and Alex didn’t find all our chocolates and they melted in the sun.”
Satsuko giggled, mussed Marco’s hair. “You ready for your tarot lesson? We have ice cream.” She said this last part with a broad smile.
“Cookie dough?”
“Candy jar,” Mitsuo said.
Marco nodded his approval, and the trio gathered the towels and made their way to the ramshackle trailer Mitsuo and Satsuko called home.
Satsuko kept her cards on the top of an overflowing and dilapidated bookshelf. While Marco cleared the paper plates and soda cans off the kitchen table and Mitsuo scooped out three cones of candy jar ice cream, Satsuko retrieved the cards, shuffling them noiselessly in her expert hands. She placed them on the table in front of Marco and pulled up a green plastic lawn chair to sit beside him.
“This,” she said, tapping the deck with her index finger, “is for you.”
She pushed the cards towards Marco, who looked up at her with wide, incredulous eyes. “You’re giving these to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know how to use them.”
“Someone has to give you your first deck,” Satsuko said. “It’s bad luck if you buy it yourself. So I give you mine.”
Marco took the cards in his hands and rifled through them, taking in the strange imagery and the stark primary colors. They felt good in his hands — they had the worn feel of old paper and smelled of cedar. They pulsed with the warm, erratic undercurrent of Satsuko’s energy. He set them on the table, face up. Mitsuo handed him his ice cream.
He licked around his cone to keep it from dripping, and with his free hand he spread the cards over the face of the table. Satsuko plucked one from the pile and placed it on front of Marco. “This one is the Fool,” she said. “This is where everything begins. You have to start here. Like a baby. Babies don’t know nothing. But not because they are stupid, they’re just new. This is brand new, you get it?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
Curious, Marco eyed the cards, a beautiful cacophony of obscure imagery he didn’t understand. After a moment, he found a card depicting three women dancing together, holding golden cups in their hands. He tapped it with his finger. “This one is friendship,” he said. “This one is us.”
Mitsuo leaned in to get a better look at the cards. “What? No, that’s all chicks on that card.”
Marco picked up the card, pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. He knew the people dancing were all women, of course, but to him it made no difference. All the people he had ever really cared about — his mother, his Aunt Conchita, his grandmother, Alma, all his teachers since pre-school — had been women. Men like his father, or his brother, or that rascal Cheehawk Parker, had only let him down. Chucho, though a decent enough man, was never around. The foundation of his world was built on a bedrock of loving femininity.
He put the card down, unruffled. “It’s us,” he said again.
Satusko winked at Marco and leaned in close to him, keeping her voice low. “That why I don’t teach Mitsuo the cards. Got no imagination.” She tapped at her temple with her forefinger, her smile growing brighter.
Sitting back, Satsuko accepted her cone from Mitsuo, and slapped the table with her free hand. “So! Let’s see our first story. You mix up those cards real good and when you ready you draw three. Let’s find out where your story begins.”
“Satusko,” Marco said, uncertain. “How do you know I got a story? Maybe I don’t.”
Satsuko grunted and waved her hand. “You only eight, little man, but you got a story. Everybody do.” She licked her cone and smiled.
Marco couldn’t shuffle the cards while holding the ice cream, so he handed his cone to Satsuko. “Don’t lick it,” he warned, cutting his eyes at her. He liked Satusko, even trusted her, but you could never be too careful with your ice cream.
“Cross my heart,” she said.
Marco gathered the cards in his hands, tapped them lightly on the table top to help them settle. They were overlarge in his small hands, and he frequently dropped them as he attempted to shuffle them. But Satsuko didn’t seem to mind. Patiently, she licked her ice cream — and only her ice cream — until Marco was satisfied that the cards were sufficiently shuffled. He plucked them down on the table in a neat stack and reached for his cone.
Satsuko nodded once in approval, a brisk up, down movement. “Now choose three cards,” she said. “And lay them in a row on the table.”
Marco slipped the first card off the top of the deck and flipped it over. It was a picture of a man walking along a river, his back toward the viewer.
“The eight of cups,” Satsuko said. “Pull another.”
Marco pulled the second card. It was a man wearing a cloak by a river near a few overturned goblets. He appeared deeply troubled.
“Five of cups,” Satsuko said, brow furrowed. “One more.”
Marco didn’t notice the look of worry that had settled into Satsuko’s expression as he flipped over the last card. It was a image of a large heart, floating in the middle of a rain storm, pierced all the way through by three swords.
Satsuko studied the cards a moment, making up her mind. Then she sighed, turned so she was facing Mitsuo. Her face was full of the soft contours of resignation. “Come on, Mitsuo. We have to show Marco the shrine.”
April 6th, 2010
Moar, moar. Please.
Do you have a rough date for the next update?
April 6th, 2010
I never know when I’ll be able to update; I try to update weekly but sometimes other stuff gets in the way. And I try to make sure each entry is polished before I post it. (Which doesn’t, as you know, preclude it from having typos and other errors, but I do like to try to make sure each chapter sounds as good as I can make it sound.)
That said, I’m so glad you’re enjoying the story, and I’ll be working on Cacophony Part 2 today.