Hand-Me-Downs

“Come in, Child. Sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?” The sun outside was high above the mountain desert, and it baked everything it touched. A note in my handwriting beneath one of the journals on my breakfast table read: Stage Four. Six months – 1 year. I knew my time was running out, and this was my only chance to leave a legacy. I spoke to the girl as I would a granddaughter, as I always have. She had a mind for business and a nose for bullshit, just like me.

“Mari, it’s been twenty-four years since I inherited this stupid house.” I didn’t say what Mari probably knew: that the house is overrun with mice which may or may not be carrying hantavirus, and which, in the summers, is overrun with all walks of people on a particular circuit of tourism in the West—the spiritual circuit, to be exact. These travelers sought all things paranormal or out of the ordinary, objects of myth and legend, and evidence that these things are true. I happened to live where one grows in the yard of a house I inherited from my Aunt Paonia, who had no children. I had nowhere to go, no partner, children, career, or path for that matter. “This house became my home.”

It took me awhile to catch on, and I used to chase the tourists away with my broom and a serpent’s tongue, spitting venom crafted specially for the ear of its victim. But my third year here, I got smart.

“You see, in my humble yard of dirt and not much else in central New Mexico stands a healthy and vibrant pear tree. It is not watered. It is not fed. It simply is.” And apparently, it has been for decades—longer than any of the locals remember. The pear tree in my yard is a mythical creature of New Mexico, and with the advent of the internet, of the world. Legend has it that, if consumed, the fruit of the tree confers upon its consumer a gift of extrasensory vision that can last up to three months.

∆∆∆

I remember the day I wised up like yesterday.

It was a Friday afternoon. I decided to lay in wait, drunk on cheap whiskey, behind a shed at the front of my property, which was lined with a fence made of adobe and iron, where I kept my rusty hoe and shovel that I sometimes used to try to plant a potato or an onion, usually to no avail. As I laid there in wait, I listened, ready to jump out and cackle and howl at the next visitor who took a detour off of Highway 285 just to come to the stupid tree. My heart pounded.

I heard the unmistakable sound of tires on dirt and rocks, big and small. My muscles tensed. A car door opened with conviction, and another followed, but it slowly creaked. Needs WD-40. A child’s voice emerged from the void of reality I’d melded all existence into as my eyes keyed on the place where the fence met the dirt and little weeds grew from the crack.

“Momma?” The words made my heart ache, which soon turned sour. I remembered what it felt like to be a little girl.

A hush hissed from the other side of the fence. A woman’s whisper knocked on the door of the silence of the desert. “We don’t want to disturb the woman who lives here. She’s a witch.”

A witch! My mind blew wide open. A witch. Huh.

A little hand pushed the iron gate to my yard open without regard for trespassing laws. My eyes narrowed. A tiny girl with blonde curls and a woman with dark hair pulled up and back in a tight bun and sunglasses that covered half her face walked toward my tree. The woman looked around to see if anyone was home, deduced that no one was, and let the child lead her to the trunk. The little girl shook the tree, but nothing happened. The woman shook the tree, and still nothing happened. They looked at each other and pushed on the tree trunk, four hands in all, repeatedly, until a small pear fell from the tree. The little girl ran to pick it up, and promptly took a bite of it. Her mother swiped it from her hands.

“Not without washing first! You know better, Mindy.” The little girl let out a huff. “I need this more than you do.” The little girl’s mouth watered. “You know your father’s been working late. You know that he is never home anymore. I need to know why, and I need to know what will happen to us sooner than later.” The woman scarfed the entire pear faster than a tumbleweed crosses a country road, but not before a lightbulb went off above my head.

“Well, hello my dears.” My speech was strained, as if someone or something was on the other side of my words, pulling them back into my throat as I stretched them forward. It worked like a charm. Hunched over though I had no hunch, I went to the mother holding the child to her chest in both fear and curiosity of the woman with a hobbled gait meandering toward them, too young to seem so old. “I see you’ve found my tree.” I motioned toward the tree with my right, crooked forefinger. “Would you like a pear?” The woman nodded and followed me toward the tree, child in tow.

“You know, you might need to eat a lot of these to know whether he will love you for the rest of your life.” The woman gasped, wondering how I knew. “Don’t worry, dear-y. You just need a hobby. That’s all. He’ll come back to you in no time once you stop obsessing over him. Maybe he’s cheated, maybe he hasn’t. Does it matter so long as he comes back?” I turned to her with a pear in my hand, then I looked at her child. “Good luck, my dears.” I tapped the girl on the forehead. “You’ll make a great dancer, one day.” The woman delighted and the girl twirled all the way to their SUV. “I’m Señora Lucita.” I called after them, though my voice deadened in the dry desert air. “Tell your friends!”

∆

After they left, I went straight into Santa Fe, where I bought a stack of tarot cards, a bunch of crystals of different colors, shapes, and sizes, a hat that looked like one Stevie Nicks would wear, a few dusters from a vintage shop, and some coins. Lots of coins. From all over. Oh, and candles. Red ones, white ones, gray ones, purple ones, yellow ones. I put them everywhere.

Every summer night from that point forward, I put on a show for the travelers who were dedicated enough to venture the 3.7 miles off of 285 that lead them to my tree. The legend grew ever stronger. I waited on my porch in a rocking chair, silently, welcoming all with my eyes into my yard, where my silence, candles, and permissiveness drew them to my porch, where I would offer readings. I did a primer on astrology and a purview of Joseph Campbell’s myth synthesis, coupled it with a relatively sophomoric gift for behavioral analysis, and charged $150.00 per reading. I made a fucking fortune, but I never showed it.

∆∆∆

“I told them all I ate from the tree regularly, and the potency of the fruit was strong in me. I told them all that my ancestors ate of the tree, and that the gift of sight ran through my veins. They were already looking for something to believe in, to color in the lines of the unknown, the nature of life; a willing audience, ready to open their pocketbooks.”

“Romantic love was the easiest starting point. Predictability and failure are common in romantic love.” Almost everyone who comes to the tree is in the midst of the angst of the push and pull of a relationship, either not yet formed or in turmoil, seeking clarity and certainty in a realm where there is none. It matters not—fire sign, water sign, rising Aries or descending Leo. It doesn’t matter in which house their moon is resides.

I handed a stack of tarot cards to Mari. “I can twist and turn any astrological or tarot pull to convince my audience I can see things I should not be able to, according to them. Any card will do.”

“It is the rare person who has the real thing, a real love, unconstrained by the subconscious narrative and role playing of society’s overlay. But these rarer breeds are readable in their own way.” They are not obsessed with romance as is most common. They seek clarity and direction as to a deeper draw: the meaning of life. Perhaps they have suffered loss, or, depending on their age, they may have reached the pinnacle of the ladder in their careers and realize that they are still unfulfilled, hungry for something more. Perhaps they’ve tried their hand at filling that void with sex or drugs. I can usually tell by the coldness in their eyes, the marks on their arms, or the missing ring with evidence of a tan line. “Just as predictable as the exterior drama of immaturity masquerading as love is this interior drama that is the journey of the hero. It is easy to help them along.”

“They would not seek if they were not dissatisfied in some way. Such is the beginning of the journey. ‘But everything seemed fine and then I woke up one day, and it was like I didn’t belong!’ If one is honest, nothing stays fine for long. That, and the guarantee of uncertainty, mean good business for me. And this will mean good business for you.” Mari’s eyes sparkled. I wrapped her head in a purple and gold shroud that was hanging on the coat rack behind her and I turned her towards a mirror to her left. “It is yours if you want it.” I stood back and watched her watch herself. “Señora Mari.”

Mari’s half smile was both wicked and innocent. She was in. All in.

That is the last thing I remember.

∆∆∆

It has been five years since that day. I watch Mari bring the tourists to my old porch in twos and threes, sometimes sixes and eights. I listen to her from the yard, from the kitchen closet, from upstairs, from behind the shed. Mari is better than I ever was, and with my presence, tied to that stupid tree for eternity, there is truth to the magic of which she speaks. There must always be some truth in a lie for it to survive the test of time. And the more bizarre the truth, the more obscured the lie. Mari charges $200 per reading, measured for inflation.