Trashland a Go-Go (5 page)

The old woman lifted the large iron kettle from the fire. She poured hot water into a round-bellied clay pot—which was in dire need of a glaze. Coco figured it must be older than the woman, who turned to Coco, holding it up for her to see. It was the first time Coco had gotten a good look at her. Before then the woman had been a pile of faded black fabric gliding across the hut with the choppy movement of a stormy sea.

She must have been a hundred. Her eyes were sunken deep into their sockets and coated a milky white. Her hair was a thin tuft of white feathers poking sporadically from her liver-spotted pale scalp. Her bony hands moved shakily about the table as she prepared her own cup of tea. “Do you take milk?” she asked Coco as she poured from a small pitcher into her own cup.

The milk plopped into her tea in chunks. She stirred it vigorously; the spoon clinked against the cracked ceramic until the lumps had mostly dissolved. A thin layer of solidified milk particles remained floating atop the old woman’s tea like mini marshmallows in hot chocolate.

“No, thank you. In fact I’m not really all that thirsty,” she said, eyeing the tea pot. Lord knew what was brewing in there.

“Oh, please. Have just one cup with me. It’s so soothing. And then we can get to whatever it is that has brought you here.” The old woman handed the teapot to Coco with rickety hands. The lid clattered against the pot with her trembling.

Coco accepted the pot, lifted the lid, and peered inside. It actually smelled good—like orange blossoms and jasmine. The delicious floral scent was a shock to her senses after spending her entire day surrounded by a rotting trash heap. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.

“See? Soothing,” the old woman said, raising her grey cup. She slurped at the hot liquid and put the cup down. Her hand shuddered and it clinked against the saucer several times before she unwound her spindly fingers from the handle.

Coco held her own cup of tea an inch from her face and breathed heavily, relishing the sweet delicate scent. “Yes, it is.” She took a long slow sip. Then another. She had not realized how thirsty she was. Coco set the cup to rest atop its daisy-printed saucer and looked up at the old woman who was gazing into her tea. “I hear you are an oracle. That you see things, and that you might be able to help me get home.”

The Oracle put her cup down and settled back into her chair. “I may be able to, yes. I can make no promises. I only see what is shown to me.”

Coco picked up the teapot and looked under the lid again, savoring the smell of the fresh brewed herbs. “Do you read tea leaves?” she asked.

“Oh no, I practice a much older form of divination. Its roots run deeper.” The old woman rose from her seat and shambled over to a hutch against the wall. “Here, let me show you.”

“Tarot cards? Or those little rocks with the stick figures on them?” Coco asked.

“No.” The Oracle wheezed as she hefted a large burlap sack onto the table. “Flesh.”

Coco sat stunned and still. The old lady squished a large, sodden burlap sack onto the table.

“Wouldn’t you rather just read my palm?” Coco asked, extending her open hand to the Oracle.

“Not at all. Hands lie. Living tissue lies. It has a will of its own. And the lines of a hand are so limited. They have no character. There is nothing to read but the way a line is frayed, and where it is placed.” The Oracle jostled the bag on the table and the meats inside made cold, damp sounds while strange colored fluids seeped from the seams of the bag.

Coco returned her teacup to its position in front of her face.

The Oracle continued, “Meat is multi-faceted. Which part
of a creature it comes from is just as important as any symbol you might find on a tarot card or a rune stone, or the shape that tea leaves make, settled on the bottom of your cup. The advancement of the decay can tell you so much. Its aroma and texture speak volumes.” The old woman rolled her sleeve up to her elbow and thrust an emaciated arm into the sack. She swirled it around, stirring the meat about in the bag with bare hands.

Coco looked on, eyes wide with shock and disgust.

“While I cannot provide you with a map home, I can provide you with a few pieces of information from the Powers. Things that may not make sense now, but will help you along your journey.” The Oracle looked up from the bag at Coco and stopped mid-churn.“That is, unless you don’t want my help.”

Coco sat watching the ancient woman, up to her elbows in rotten flesh, speechless and uncertain.

“If not, you may enjoy your cup of tea and be on your way. But the draw here,” the Oracle said, as she continued to churn the meat with her hand, “is strong. There are things they want you to know. It would be a shame not to listen.”

Coco let out a small sigh. It was not as though she had many options. There hadn’t been another human around for the whole day and Coco was a sucker for a touch of mysticism.

“I’d like to know what they know,” Coco said. She put her cup on the table beside the bag. “I don’t have to touch it do I?”

“Not if you don’t want to.” The Oracle breathed deeply and closed her eyes. She began to hum as she fished around in the bag.

“How does this work?”

“I feel for what needs to be shown. The energy will call to me and I will choose that piece. Now kindly shut your mouth while I concentrate.”

Coco sat back in her chair watching the old woman work. She whirled her hands through the bag and fished out seven objects which she slapped down on the table in front of Coco. Each piece splashed as it collided with the solid surface of the table.

The Oracle opened her eyes and evaluated each item on the table in silence. Her face bore an expression of puzzlement.

“What is it?” Coco asked. The Oracle’s intense contemplation was making Coco uneasy.

The old woman gestured to the objects laid out in a straight, gooey line across the table. “It’s like a timeline. First, we have this bit of brain here.” She held a gray blob between her skeletal index finger and thumb. She pressed it gently and its casing gave way like pudding skin. It oozed a thick yellow cream that looked like custard. “It signifies confusion. Bewilderment.”

Coco laughed. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty accurate.”

Next the Oracle picked up a long strand of red tissue. “This muscle…” She dangled it in the air in front of her face like a child eating spaghetti, and sniffed it. The old woman wound the sinewy muscle around her bony fingers. “It usually indicates an adventure. Some kind of travel.”

“Look, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

The Oracle held up her hand, motioning for Coco’s silence. She picked up a toe and turned it over in her hand. Picking at the nail bed and examining the inside. “This generally signifies danger. A small one,” she said, waving the toe in the air like a mother would waggle a finger at their child. “So, tread lightly.” She snickered, pleased with her own pun as she set it back on the table.

Coco pushed herself away from the table. “Wait just a fucking minute. This bag is full of human parts?”

“Partially, yes. It’s a rich medley really,” the Oracle said, nuzzling the burlap. “Ah….” She reached over and picked up a small dark brown glob. “This liver means that the danger will pass.”

The old woman kneaded the liver in her hands before placing it back on the table, which left her fingers stained with the faintest shade of olive green.

“Ew,” Coco whispered.

“Oh, but this. This gem…” The Oracle picked up a tubular chunk and held it to the candlelight, peering through it like a telescope. “This is a heart valve. It means there is a great love in your very near future.”

Coco grinned.

“But it has a vegetation.” The old woman held it out for Coco to see. The inside of the valve was dense with what looked like filthy cauliflower. “It means there will be a great many complications.

Coco’s grin slipped slowly down her face until she was pouting. “Hmph.” She snorted and crossed her arms. There always were.

“Oh my. This is very rare.” The Oracle moved slowly to the other side of the table.

She did not reach for the eyeball that had been staring at Coco throughout the entire reading as Coco had hoped she would. It was not only giving her the willies, but she was dying to know what it meant. The Oracle reached for something that Coco had overlooked in the barrage of organs flung from the sack onto the table. She reached for a small, battered dandelion with a long wispy stem. It hung limp and heavy with blood and other fluids.

“A flower,” Coco said cheerfully. “Well, that must be something good. Perhaps my prince and I will overcome those complications.” She bounced in her chair. That would be a welcomed first. Many times before, Coco had sought out love and failed. Miserably.

“On the contrary, it means great loss and suffering. It can mean grave danger as well. This is not to be taken lightly.” The Oracle spun the dandelion between her fingers by its stem and examined it closely. She inhaled deeply at its center, contemplating the scent. Then she licked the petals clean. “You must prepare for a great loss, dear girl. Larger than you have ever known.”

“What is going to happen? Will I be okay?” Coco asked, alarmed by the Oracle’s warning.

“Unfortunately I cannot tell you. The final item of this reading is the eye.” She picked it up by its long string of nerves and veins and let it dangle before Coco like a pendulum. “The eye signifies the unknowable. Something too hazy to be seen. Blindness. Your outcome is unclear.”

“That can’t be all. You can’t sit here and tell me how much danger I am about to be in and then
not
tell me how it turns out.” Coco stood and stamped her foot.

“But I can. In fact, that’s all I
can
do,” the Oracle said calmly.

“There isn’t, like, a follow-up portion? A bonus round?
Something
?”

“I’m afraid not. But nothing is written in stone. At least you have been warned. Consider yourself lucky for that. Some do not get that luxury.”

“Luxury? You think it’s a luxury to be told that something really fucking awful is about to happen to me? What am I going to lose? What kind of danger will I be in?” Coco was having trouble breathing. She sat down at the table again.

“Some people do not get a warning.” The Oracle wiped her hands on the inside of her faded robe.

Coco could see the crusted, filthy material inside, stained from many readings past—other warnings of love, danger and death. She hoped that maybe some were happier and less open-ended.

The Oracle said, “I do not know what you are going to lose. It may be your love, your life, yourself. It could be anything, really. You won’t know what it is until it’s gone.”

“Well, that’s just fucking great.” Coco stood up from the table, placing her hands palms-down on the surface. “Thanks for the tea, I guess. Can you point me towards town?”

The Oracle raised an arm. Her sleeve was still rolled up and bits of meat goo streaked her nearly translucent skin. “It’s half a day’s walk from here, at least. And it is getting late. If you’d like, I could fix up a guest bed. You haven’t had a good night’s rest until you’ve slept on a mattress stuffed with meat. It contours to your body perfectly and it absorbs heat. It’s like being back in the womb.” The Oracle closed her eyes dreamily and held her hands in the prayer position over her heart.

“Thanks but I had better be on my way.” She slipped across the room and wriggled her way back through the intestine curtain delicately, trying to get past with as little skin-to-guts contact as possible.

Coco stood outside the Oracle’s meat hut staring out at the vast expanse of refuse and potential doom that lay before her. A pair of rats stopped and blinked their beady eyes at her before scuttling away. Somewhere out there something was waiting to harm her. If she
could
be harmed here. She still wanted to believe that she was coma-dreaming, but found that rather difficult.

Rudy landed on her nose. He hadn’t been in her hair.

“Where did you go?”

“It was getting heavy in there,” he said.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“And it was making me hungry. All that meat just lying around. So I left. How did it go?”

“Not well.” Coco pouted. She looked out over the landscape. The sun was setting and there was a chill in the light breeze. She shivered and thought of a love she had not yet met, but would soon lose. “We should probably get moving. I don’t suppose there is a hotel around here?”

Rudy laughed and buzzed away while Coco followed him. They traveled until the sky was black. They found a pile of wooden pallets with an old torn mattress perched on top. It had a few brownish stains and springs poked through the fabric here and there. Coco curled up on the mattress and stared up at the sky. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen the stars. Or the last time she hadn’t been on stage at night. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.