I entered the tent with trepidation but a little excitement if I’m honest. It was one of those roadside fairs with a ferris wheel and merry-go-round. There was just one tent where they held the big performance at 7:00 pm each night. It was before all the animal rights activists began their campaign against circuses for animal acts. So they had a lion tamer and a couple of elephants that a woman rode around the ring . They both wore tutus and danced together on stage. The lion master placed his head in the jaws of the lion and I cringed as I waited for the lion to eat him but he didn’t.
I walked around the fair after the main attraction and did the fun house where I looked skinny and then fat by turns and the last room I had two heads and four arms and I giggled to see how strange I looked. I bought some ice cream and sat on a bench and watched the groups of kids from the high school walk by and then the pharmacist and his young wife eating cotton candy. That is when I saw the fortune teller’s tent squeezed in between the painted lady and the Incredible Hulk type bodybuilder who was advertised as a giant.
When I finished my ice cream I walked towards the the tent and stood by the door. I could see a woman dressed like a gypsy with a colorful bandanna wrapping her hair and long tiered skirts in orange and red and green layers. She was looking at a tarot deck and her silver bangles tinkled as she turned the cards. She even had an honest to goodness crystal ball that glinted in the darkened room. The only light was from a large set of candleabras that stood on pillars on either side of the table.
She glance up when she saw me at the door. She waved a hand and beckoned me to come in. Then she smiled the most beautiful smile and her face lit up and all my fears dissapated as I walked towards the tables and sat in the comfortable upholstered chair in front of the table. She scooped up the cards and shuffled them holding them in her hands covered with gold rings in every style and with colorful and expensive looking stones.
“What do you want to know?” she asked. “Let us see what dreams of the future the cards will reveal”.