Dreamt I was visiting a friend in a deep country town. My friend was already the “odd one” of the quaint (read: insular) town so my arrival was greeted with snorts of condemnations and a few stink-eyes punctuating warnings about “acting out of line”. But I had passed by the Old Man’s house on the way to my friend. He was sitting on his porch, in his old rocking chair, seemingly indifferent to what was coming to and fro.
I had nodded at him in polite greeting anyway.
He murmured an acceptance that no one heard but me. In the bone-felt hum was both welcome and warning. I am not authorized to start any shit in this town, and if I did out of turn, that shit was going to come back on my head.
I accepted the terms and conditions and continued to my friend.
On my friend’s porch, we shared coffee and tea. We played poker with tarot cards, and he looked over my few decks with wonder. He asked why I stopped reading with “that wicked man’s deck” [Thoth] but continue to read with “that Catholic deck” [The Universal Waite, a recolored Waite-Smith].
“It’s complicated.” I winked as I said it.
He shrugged and laughed. Good times resumed.
A man came from the street and tried to sneak onto the porch. He stumbled loudly on the first step and fell noisily into the yard. The element of surprise now broken with his pride, he turned himself around on the ground to take a good look at my face. “It’s true. She’s here.”
“Get the fuck off my house, you fucking bastard!” My friend lept to his feet and grabbed what once was a full broom leaning against the door frame. After decades of use, it was now a thinly disguised warstaff. He held it high not as a physical weapon, but as a magical one. “Ain’t a damn thing here for you and ain’t a damn person here gonna help you! Go away while you can before you’re dragged away!” He spat at the fallen man while holding the staff between them.
I was not used to seeing this amount of vitriol and hatred pour from my friend’s face. Everything about his posture screamed his condemnation of the fallen man and a desire to see more anguish heaped upon him. I’m often quick to help the underdog, but this isn’t my town and inserting myself in a conflict I have not been explicitly invited to is a quick way to piss off the Old Man still apparently snoring softly on his porch way down the street and around several twisting corners.
“GIT!”
“No, please…”
“Ain’t none want your bullshit! And I ain’t gonna let you try her patience either!”
I coughed softly. Both men paused in their too familiar dance. “Gentlemen. Pray tell, what the fuck is this about? At least tell me why I’m going to have my ass roasted later.”
The fallen man tried to crawl back on the porch steps, but the very wood twisted under his weight and he tumbled back into the weedy yard. My friend held the broom tight but let the few twigs of bristles rest on the porch floor. “You don’t need to know what he done did or why even I can’t help him. All you need to know is even the Old Man won’t smile at him. And if he won’t, then won’t anyone else.”
Ah. Fuck. There goes Plan A.
“Who knew I was coming?”
“No one. Not even me until I heard you coming up my steps.”
“And who knows who I am?”
“You’re my friend. What does it matter who you are to anyone else?”
“He said, “She’s here.” Why? Who told him I was even in town, and who told him to find me here? Who told him to even seek me out in the first place, when I keep my shit in my coat?”
My friend turned to face the still grounded man. “Yea! Who the fuck told you to come here, anyway?”
“The Black Man did! He stood in my door and told me there was a outsider woman coming to see ya! He told me to ask her for help! So here I am! And I’m asking! Lady! Have mercy! Have mercy on me!”
He reminded me of another fallen man in another grim circumstance. There was no vision of Mary in the sky to comfort me this time, and no broken sobs of Latin falling on the floor in a vain attempt to compel me.
Only the weakness of having a god damned compassionate heart.
Wordlessly, I turned my head and sent my heart’s request to the Old Man. A man in pain had been sent by the Black Man to me. What, if anything, may I have permission to do?
I received the answer clearly. Give the fallen man one last chance to accept responsibility for his deeds and work out the sentence he was already suffering under. If he persisted in trying to pervert “justice”, then do not hinder him.
I knew the role I was being asked to play. The townsfolk will likely blame me for what I was sure would be the outcome, when really, I’m just the person that unlocks the door. I never force anyone to step through it.
“My friend, have you any business with this Black Man he speaks of?”
My friend turned around to me with a pale face and accusing eyes. “That’s the Devil, woman! The Devil sent him here to no good end! None for him and I’m sure none for you!”
“What if I told you the Old Man gave me leave to throw tarot for him? I may not interfere in his decisions, nor advise him to do this or that. I may not even give him a glass of water. But I may give him one more chance to make the decision for himself to do right or to do wrong.” I drank the forgotten tea and winced at the tepid sweetness of it. “You might get shit for it from townsfolk who think themselves above it all, though. This being your porch and all…”
I had lied. I lied to my friend and I lied to myself and I knew I was lying and I knew why I was lying but I now realized I had been caught up in this game before I even set foot in my friend’s town so there was no way out now but through.
I had to give my friend the opportunity to decline, even as I knew he had already chosen to accept.
“Yea. Sure. You’re the shadow-talker, not me. I’m on the outs with those old biddies because I’m not chasing those old biddies and they’re insulted I’m respecting their marriage vows more than they are. Fuck ’em. I don’t like this asshole, and you don’t have the time for me to tell you all the reasons why. If the Old Man wants you do something, though, then you do it. Just tell me what you need from me.”
“To take up everything that is yours off this porch, including that poor excuse of a broom, and lock you and yours inside the house. Do not come back outside until I have left and you can’t see me from your door anymore.”
He took up his broom, his mugs, and his seat cushions. He took up everything that he could carry and consigned everything left behind to destruction. I waited until I had heard all three locks on his front door click securely before putting away all my tarot decks but one.
I looked down the steps to the fallen man and silently reflected on the settling fact that my compassion had condemned him in a way that neither he nor I ever considered.
Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.
With the broom now inside the home, the wards preventing the fallen man from coming onto the porch had ceased. He pulled himself up on twisted legs and dragged himself up the silent steps to the splintering chair across the table from me.
I shuffled the “Catholic” deck and noted the dream had faithfully reproduced each nick, fold, and scratch from my physical copy of the Universal Waite. While I waited for the man to figure what to do with this boon suddenly granted, I wondered if it would be worthwhile for me to get a version of the Rider-Waite colored as it was originally printed.
I felt a shadow looming behind me. Cold ethereal hands that only I could see, that only I could feel, settled softly on my shoulders. The Black Man was here.
«Let me in.»
For a brief moment of insanity, I was tempted to try to bargain a price for access. Fortunately, I realized that was a stupid thing to do before I had even completed the thought.
The Black Man chuckled, having heard my internal argument clearly. «I will leave with nothing that is not mine, and I will leave nothing behind that is. It is better if you are not the one that wills to act. I merely need to borrow your form. The Old Man will not allow me to do anything more.»
Ah. I know this game. Allow me to prepare the stage for your entrance, please.
He chuckled and patted me on the shoulders twice before withdrawing his hands as the living man began begging me for help again and thanking me for helping him.
“Who the fuck said I’m going to help you?”
“But… you said…”
I continued shuffling the Universal Waite as I spoke. “I say a lot of things. But now I will speak clearly to you. Go away. Go home. Go back and reflect on what you did that brought you to the situation you are in now. You are crying that you are being abused unfairly, that you did not deserve the condemnation the Old Man declared upon you. You are pleading that you are the victim of a vicious set of lies tied around your neck for the sole purpose of making a good man suffer. I have heard all this before, some of it even out of my own mouth a few times. And I know how this story ends, but apparently you still haven’t learned to pay attention to fairy tales. This is your last chance. Bear the burden your willful sins have made. Stop adding to them.”
“But…” I watched his wrestling with himself be writ large upon his face. He knew he was in the wrong, but he still felt his wrong did not deserve what had come upon him. I admit, I enjoyed watching him dig his hole deeper and deeper. I realized now why I tell people in the waking world that I am not a nice person.
I will not stop you from hurting yourself.
His struggle ceased. “Help me.”
“I will not. Before I proceed, you must understand something very fucking clear. Once I put these cards down, I will not be here. I will not be speaking to you. I will not be pulling cards. The only thing I know for certainty that will happen is the truth will be coming out of my mouth, but I will not be the one speaking it, do you understand? And no matter what happens, you are still ultimately responsible for your actions and your decisions. There will be a debt incurred for continuing, and it will not be one beholden to me. Think about who sent you and ask yourself if you really want to continue.”
I will never forget the look in his eyes as he gripped the table to better lean over it. Feverish. Soul-sick. He had damned himself a long time ago and this was only the capstone on his sepulchre. Sweat as thick as oil slicked down his face as he stared at me with purpose.
“I don’t care whose hand is it that helps me. As long as I get back what’s mine and I get to crush those against me! I owe nobody nothing and I will owe nothing more! Help me! Or get the fuck out of my way!”
I stopped shuffling and held the deck upright with the cards facing me. I did not look at the exposed card until after I had kissed it. 9 of Pentacles. The debt he is about to incur will last his lifetime and his children’s lifetimes, if possible. I never believed in generational curses, but damn if this isn’t making me wonder.
The Black Man’s hands returned to my shoulders. He was vibrating with anticipation. I placed the shuffled deck face down on the table. Leaning back, I crossed my arms over my chest and placed my hands over the Black Man’s.
“As you wish.”
I yielded to the Black Man and his possession was so swift and thorough I lost cognitive awareness.
But not before I saw the secret in plain sight.
The Black Man and the Old Man were the same entity. With the former being the spirit that inhabited the latter’s body.
Laughter chased me from the dream and I was never able to tell if it was mine or his.