The cards confirmed what I’d known the moment he walked in: Bruce Claiborne was a dead man.
“Sit down,” I said as I flipped on the tape recorder, an act I now regret.
“I’d prefer to stand,” he said, folding his trench coat over the back of the chair in
front of him.
“I may need to see your hand.”
“Then you must not be very good.”
“All right, then,” I said and started turning cards immediately after he’d cut them.
First was the two of Wands, heralding his dread. Next came the Page of Wands, who told me this man was secretive,
yet curious, and the Queen of Pentacles told me he that was embroiled in a difficult affair. I remained silent as I turned
the third card, a reversed Ace of Pentacles, the evil side of wealth.
“You’ve had some bad luck,” I said, and he didn’t respond. I turned more cards:
The four of Cups, inconsolability, the two of Pentacles, obstacles, dark entanglements, and then the nine of Pentacles,
a strong woman in possession of material wealth. I understood then that this woman would not leave her wealthy
husband, but she would see Bruce Claiborne dead before she released him.
“There is a woman who carries your heart in a treasure box,” I said. “She is raven-haired. She is powerful. She is
tormented.”
I did not look at him, but felt his anxiety coursing through me with such ferocity my temples ached.
“Is she going to kill me?” he asked.
I turned a card. The seven of Cups is merely a dark child. “Not yet,” I said. “Maybe never.”
Next came the eight of Cups, the child growing. “She’s thinking about it,” I said.
The reversed Queen of Swords was next. “She’s here,” I tapped the card. “This queen has intentions that, in the
reversed position, can not be exercised.”
I turned the King of Swords next and knew this was the man before me, brave but troubled.
“This is you,” I said.
“And?”
And for the first time since I can remember I was blank. “And that’s it,” I said. “You know who you are.”
The six of Pentacles, prosperity, followed by the Knight of Pentacles, more prosperity, and then insight.
“This Knight of Pentacles,” I said, “is the queen’s husband.”
“But he’s not a king.”
“You’re the king,” I said, “without a kingdom.”
Next I turned the Queen of Cups, the card of the loyal spouse and good mother, the fair woman forsaken by Bruce
Claiborne. I remained silent and turned the ten of Swords.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“He’s on the ground with swords in his back. That doesn’t look like nothing.”
“There’s no blood,” I said, but for the first time in nearly two decades I was shaken. He knew, even if he didn’t know
for certain, that this was the card of violent death.
“Tell me,” he said.
“This could be pain—or worse,” I stared at him. “I see the raven-haired woman.”
“Yes,” he said, shifting his weight to stand squarely on both feet like a man about to take a punch.
Next came the Ace of Wands, or rebirth through death, followed the reversed three of Pentacles—his young children
grieving.
“The Ace of Cups,” I stammered, “the Ace of Cups is a fair woman who gives you the gift of vision.” He stared at the
cards intently, almost as if he could read them, but said nothing.
My heart constricted, and I understood that he was closed up tight, that most of his thoughts and feelings were buried
deep in that timeless place beyond all knowing. I found it difficult to read fluently because he kept blocking the path to
discovery, so I simply translated what appeared, knowing he would interpret my words more precisely than I could.
The reversed Knight of Swords took us back into doom and I began to see a skeleton before me. Peril, corruption,
perversity. My querent was in over his head.
“Danger may not be imminent, but it is present.”
“I know,” he said with resignation. “I know.”
I turned the four of Wands, a sign of domestic tranquillity in any position. Then I saw his wife’s face hovering over the
card. She would remarry, happily.
“You’re thinking about your wife,” I said. “She’ll be all right.”
I proceeded to turn every Pentacle left in the deck and felt confident when I said, “Your biggest problem stems from
money. Or lack of it.”
“Me and five billion other people,” he said.
I didn’t take this as an insult of my psychic ability because what he said was true, but what I said was far truer. Next
came the six of Swords, the card of swift journey, and if the man before me had been a beloved friend I would have
said, “Your death will be expedient.”
◊◊◊
I am not comfortable telling clients that tarot readings are for entertainment purposes only, that they are not to be
considered financial, legal or psychological counseling, but I do. And that’s what I told the detectives who visited me
three days after the skeleton slipped the tape into the pocket of his trench coat and threw a fifty on the table.
“I heard on the news,” I said. “But I can’t help you.”
“Well, you can’t claim client privilege,” said an elderly detective with watery eyes as he pulled the tape from his
briefcase and slid it at me. “Sounds to me like Mr. Claiborne felt he was going to be killed. Now how do you suppose
he came to that conclusion?”
“He knew it when he walked in here.”
“You sure didn’t help matters.”
“I’m not here to change the course of fate.”
“Did you discuss anything you didn’t get on this tape?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“He wasn’t a talker.”
The detective with the acid trip necktie unfolded a front-page newspaper article describing the strangulation death of
Bette DiLorca, wife of steel magnate Stefan DiLorca, with a tiny corner photograph of her very handsome killer, Bruce
Claiborne.
“Maybe,” he said, “this will jar your memory.”
I stared at the photograph, even touched it. “Nothing,” I said.
“So he thought Mrs. DiLorca was gonna kill him,” said the detective while wiping his eye with a yellowed handkerchief.
“Why do ya think she’d do a thing like that?”
“I guess you’d have to ask her psychic. Listen,” I said, “a reading is a pretty subtly constructed story, and my divination
was mediated through Claiborne, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to withhold information.”
“What do you mean?” said the necktie.
“I mean...he could pass a psychic lie detector test.”
The detectives glanced at each other. “You never saw him killing her?” asked the handkerchief.
“I saw death,” I said.
“Strangulation?”
“No. Faster, cleaner. I don’t know what. And I saw it on him. All over him.”
“Well, you’re good then,” said the necktie. “‘Cause he’s gonna get the chair.”
The detectives turned to leave, but the handkerchief stopped to thumb through his notebook. “One more thing,” he
said. “Who’s the fair woman who gives him the gift of vision?”
I closed my eyes and saw her telling Claiborne she could prove his lover had dark intentions, saw her slipping my card
into his trench coat pocket, saw his wife’s fair and smiling face land gracefully onto the Ace of Cups.
My work has appeared in the Connecticut
Review, Carve Magazine, Clackamas
Literary Review, New Millennium Writings, The
Cimarron Review, the
Chicago Tribune and others. I am the 2000
winner of Red Rock Review's
Mark Twain Award for Short Fiction, the 2002
winner of New
Millennium's Fiction Award, and a 2003 winner
of the Chicago Tribune
Nelson Algren Award. I have been nominated
for a 2003 Pushcart Prize,
have won the 2004 Bridport Prize and have
received a creative writing
fellowship from the National Endowment for
the Arts. My short story
collection, Voices of the Lost and Found,
forthcoming from Wayne State
University Press in 2007. I teach writing at the
College for Creative
Studies and at Wayne State University in
Detroit.
Dorene O'Brien
The Gift of Vision