Circe Read Free Page A

candle."
    For a while the topic was dead. We found a bar and sat and talked. Mostly we drank until Jeff's speech disintegrated into a slurred mush of y’alls and fixin' tos. It was like being a teenager again. At that moment, I had to admit to myself that I was happy to be home again. I had missed my brothers. We could just sit and laugh about nothing for hours. Mostly we talked about football and women. I was the only Auburn fan in my family and my brothers rode me hard about it. It didn't matter though. It was the same things we had always talked about. Nothing changed with them. It was as if they had been living in suspended animation.
    "That's it," Jeff declared around midnight. "You’re on your own. I'm too drunk to sit in New Orleans without seeing something besides tits."
    "I thought we finished this talk," I said. "Do I have to kick your ass?"
    "You’re gonna have to. I'll meet y’all back at the room." He just left with a sheepish grin, and Jeremy followed him.
    I sat there for a while finishing my drink. I wasn't mad at them. I couldn't blame them. That was who they were and that is what they had always done. I wouldn’t have expected them to change or do anything different. The only difference was that four years ago, I would've gone with them. And I couldn’t judge them. I had my own vices.
    After a while, I just got up and wandered the streets. I watched the swarms of people interact. A couple of frat boys had glowing spin sticks that they spun above their heads to read, "Show your tits." Men chanted at teenage girls. Other men curled up and vomited on the curb. Finally, I made it away from the Bourbon Street chaos to Cathedral Square where the fortunetellers sat at card tables or on benches. Most of the fortunetellers looked like teenagers who had bought books on palmistry at the local Books-a-Million and were just trying to scam the tourists. Others looked like some of my old patients. Either way, they did not seem like wise men or prophets that one would go to learn about one’s past or future. I stood in front of the white cathedral watching the people move. Watching their gestures and trying to imagine what diagnoses I would give each of them. I thought that when pathology was as grotesque as it was in New Orleans, maybe I could tell by just watching.
    I didn't see her at first. She had been just part of the crowd, but once I saw her it seemed impossible for her to be part of anything but herself. Her green eyes stared out at me through the heat and I stopped thinking about anything but the moment. Her hair was short and cropped. It hung off her head in sharp knots, like feathers. It glowed an artificial blue-black in the dim streetlights. She moved deliberately, like she wanted to draw attention to herself. She turned and smiled at me, showing me her back. She wore a black slip that left her entire back naked. The eyes of an emerald green peacock stared out at me from the enormous tattoo on her back.
    I moved towards her without thinking why and she never took her eyes off me. When I approached her, she didn't smile or greet me in any traditional way. She just took my hand and looked at my palm. She had a youthful look about her, but her exact age was impossible to determine. She seemed like a tiny bird. Her skin was cool and soft against mine.
    "You’re going to die young," she said.
    "You’re doing it wrong," I answered. "You’re supposed to placate me with vaguely positive predictions about the future so I feel good and pay you more money. You’re supposed to figure out what I want to hear and say it."
    "You don't have much faith in my art," she said.
    "I'll have faith if you tell me to," I responded.
    She just looked at me for a minute with a complete self-confidence that only made her more desirable. She knew the effect she had on men. "Do you want to hear the rest of your fortune?" she asked.
    "Only if you’re in my future."
    "I don't think so. I see other women in your future."
    "You see