After Violet and I got married, we moved from Batesville—I couldn’t abide living in a town where my wife had pleasured half the men—to Eureka Springs—where she had pleasured only a third of them. We opened a little fortune teller parlor on Spring Street and worked up a sure fire routine to exploit the vulnerable. I billed myself as the Mystic Mentula* and installed an intercom system under the table. That way Violet could listen in on my conversations with our “clients” and pretend she got the information from ghosts or demons or God or whoever best suited the circumstance. I learned that trick from a faith healer named Peter Popoff. The Reverend Popoff wore a tiny ear piece, and his wife would transmit information to him from cards filled out by people in the audience who suffered from cancer, mental illness, heart break, and a host of other debilitations. Then Reverend Popoff acted as if he was receiving the message from God, and the people would come forward to be healed. He was eventually exposed and went bankrupt, but don’t worry. He started a ministry hawking miracle water that earned him millions. For his work, God has gifted Popoff with the blessing of a long and prosperous life.
But back to our scam, uh, enterprise. After the initial conversation, I would ring a little brass bell as Violet’s cue. The number of rings determined her “character.” One ring would be a nurse; two rings a ballerina; three rings a schoolgirl; four rings a gypsy woman; and five rings a lady in a black evening gown. Violet could make these five characters fit damn near every customer, male or female. She was that good.
Here’s a real-life example of one of our sessions: Once I was “counseling” a youngish fellow, I’m guessing mid-twenties, who wanted to win back the little gal who dumped him. We talked for a while, and it wasn’t hard for me to size him up: “Male, broken-hearted, dim, desperate, and deluded,” a four ringer, which meant that Violet entered as Mademoiselle Philae Gillot: A gold filigree head band encircled her raven black hair; her green silk choli plunged in a titillating V; her firm young legs parted the slits of her lemon goddess skirt to reveal glimpses of periwinkle panties; and her slender feet were shod in silver sandals. (Just for the hell of it, paste that description into your favorite image generator and see what you come up with.)
She sparkled; she spangled; she knew what she was doing. (Just ask half the men in Batesville.)
“How may I help you, Mister Mentula?” she asked with an unconvincing accent and a flourish of her skirts.
“Thank you, Miss Gillot. I want you to meet Alan Stockton.”
“How do you do, Mr. Stockton?”
“Uh,” he replied. All good cons depend on distraction, and Violet was practiced in distraction, well-versed in diversions.
Me again: “This young man fears that his beloved, Betty Firkinbutter, no longer loves him. I reassured Alan that you have a deep spiritual connection with errant women. Can you help us?”
“I can,” she said, whereupon “Miss Gillot” moved behind the boy and started massaging his shoulders. Of course, by then, she had heard everything she needed to know about Betty Firkinbutter: her favorite color, her favorite TV shows, what kind of car she drove, her dog’s name, her bra size, her favorite position. Because of the intercom. So, after a little more rubbing, she said, “I see Bet-tee driving to town in her Cutlass, and she wants you to know, wants you to know . . . she wants to know if you have a ten-dollar bill for ten ones?”
“What?” the boy asked.
“Betty told me she needs change for zee parking meter and zee carwash and to make a long distance call . . . to you. Yes, to you! She says she needs ten ones.”
Then I said, “Well, whaddya know? I happen to have ten ones. Do you have a ten-dollar bill, Alan?” He did, and after some shifty change counting and swapping of bills, we finagled five bucks out of him. He looked confused and pissed off for a moment, but as I said, Violet was a powerful distraction, and his protests were soon pacified by renewed shoulder massaging.
“Is that all she wants me to know?” the boy asked, clearly disappointed.
“No, Bet-tee say she still loves you. Wait, zee pay phone eez not working. She tries and tries—I see her crying. All you have to do is call her, and everything will go back to how it was!” Violet started rubbing his temples. “Oh, mon ami, call and zee girl will be yours!”
“But what should I say?” the boy whimpered; he was stuck somewhere between false hope and certain despair, not to mention a rising response to the temple-rubbing.
Violet answered, “Oh, no . . .”—a whiny pout followed by the stamping of her foot—“I cannot hear her anymore. Bet-tee? Bet-tee? No, she eez too far away . . .”. She stopped rubbing.
“Here—here’s ten more. Please, try again. Tell me what I should say to her. Nothing I’ve said so far has worked. Please?”
“Okay.” Violet put the money in her choli and started rubbing his temples again. “Bet-tee wants to hear you say you are sorry, and you will never do eet again, and you will love her forever.”
“But I’ve already told her those things!”
“Did you say them with an incantation?”
“What’s an incantation?”
“A thing you say that makes everything else you say work.”
“How much is that gonna cost me?”
“Let me ask Bet-tee.” Violet rested her hands on his shoulders. “She say, never mind: She say you don’t love her enough.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“You don’t love her enough to pay for the incantation.”
“What the hell? Of course, I do. I’d give everything to have her back!”
Ah, there they were—the Magic Words, the Great Abracadabra, the Cri de Coeur of the Eternal Stooge; Violet and I couldn’t look at each other lest we snicker or whoop or otherwise betray our joy.
“Everything?” Violet asked. “Eet is not so much as that, Alan. Bet-tee say it will only cost you fifty dollars—so leetle to get so much.” She started rubbing his temples again. The boy pulled out his wallet and gave her the money.
“Just tell me what to say.”
“Zee incantation eez—stultus caniculam amat. Say eet for me.”
“Stultus caniculam . . . what’s the next word?”
“Amat. Stultus caniculam amat.”
“Stultus caniculam amat.”
“You have got eet! So, tell Betty Firkinbutter how sorry you are and how you will love her forever and take her hands and utter the words—”
“Stultus caniculam amat. But tell me, what do they mean?”
“Eet means that all your dreams will come true.”
Of course, the words really mean “the idiot loves a little bitch.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!” The boy ran out into the street looking for a payphone, whereupon Mademoiselle Philae Gillot and I retired for a little celebratory recreation.
So, that’s how Violet and I worked, and things were going pretty well until one day an old man wearing a black three-piece suit came in carrying a briefcase. I had on my royal blue tuxedo with the amethyst brooch, and Violet was reading People magazine in the backroom. The old man and I took our seats at the séance table, and I turned on the intercom with my knee.
I began, “I am the Mystic Mentula, and I will be your portal to the Misty Mount. Please, tell me how I can help you.”
“Uh, yes, sir, thank you so much. My name is John St. John, and to speak frankly, my heart is broken, I fear forever. My dear, dear wife recently passed—God rest her soul—and she left her family’s estate to me. We never had any children, you see. It was an old family fortune she had inherited from her father, and she and I lived amply off the dividends for years. Never touched the principal at all. I haven’t worked a day since we were married.”
Now it was my turn to say, “Uh.” I swallowed and said, “So what is it you wish?”
“I just want to say ‘thank you.’ Mrs. St. John and I were faithful to one another our entire lives. I never so much as looked at another woman. And we never once exchanged a cross word.”
“So, you would like for me to summon your departed wife to express a final word of gratitude, is that right?”
“Are you able to do that?”
“Why, yes. Yes, I can.” I picked up a candle, but my hands were shaking so hard, I had trouble lighting it. Once it was burning, I turned out the lights and pulled down the shades. “We need silence and peace,” I said.
I put on some tinkly-shit music with a Hindu hum and burned some incense in a brass bowl. I closed my eyes and pretended I was going into a trance. Then at last, I whispered, “Someone is calling me; her name is A—Ann? Do you know someone named Ann?” I always used the name “Ann” because I had learned over the years that everyone knows an Ann somewhere.
“I have a niece named Ann, on my wife’s side.”
“Yes . . . your niece. Ann says that she has had contact with your wife . . .”
“Ann has heard from Sarah? What did she say?”
“Sarah told your niece that she is happy and content. She has but one worry—”
“What is her worry? I would give everything I have to ease her soul, all my worldly riches!”
There were the Magic Words again! I rang five times, the cue for the lady in a black evening gown, but this time, Violet ignored our signals altogether and bounced into the room in the schoolgirl outfit, except she had unbuttoned her blouse halfway down and hiked her skirt so high you could almost see her hoo-ha. Mr. John St. John seemed to perk up a bit.
“Hello, mister,” she said to Mr. St. John. “You’ll never guess who I just talked to.” Violet was leaning over the table and wagging her ass.
“Where is the Lady Aeon?” I asked, puzzled at Violet’s departure from the old protocol.
“Oh, Aeon told me to tell you she’s in syzygy with Jupiter and that Venus is busy occluding Saturn and so Sarah talked to me.”
Mr. St. John gripped the edge of the table and leaned forward. “Tell me young lady, what did Sarah say?”
Violet left off wagging and walked over to him. She draped her arms around his shoulders, let her hands rest in his lap, and whispered, “Sarah says her only worry in heaven is you! And you know what else she said? She said, ‘My husband is just the most precious man that ever lived!’ She said, ‘All I want is for my John to be happy!’” Then Violet lowered herself onto Mr. St. John’s lap, and that’s when I figured out what was going on, but what could I do?
Violet sat suddenly upright and said, “Wait! I’m gettin’ a message right now.” She put her ear against his bony chest like she was listening to his heartbeat (which she probably was), and then she looked up, wide-eyed and smiling. “Oh, my gosh, Sarah just told me that she wants you to marry again!”
“But I promised her—”
Violet giggled and put her finger on his lips. “No, no, silly! Sarah said to forget all that! She said that nothing keeps a man young and healthy like a new girl!”
By this time, I had had enough, “Listen here, Violet! Knock it off!”
But Violet ignored me. Instead, she said to the old man, “Sarah said the key to happiness is right in front of you! Oh, wait! That’s me!” Giggle, giggle. Then she ran her fingers through his combed-over hair and kissed him full on the lips.
I tried again, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Violet only stuck her tongue out at me and said to Mr. St. John, “Sarah says we should get out of here and have dinner and forget him,” with “him” being me, of course.
As you might imagine, old St. John was in a state of rapture. “This is more than I could have ever hoped for, more than I ever deserved! Praise be! She was always a wonderful woman, just wonderful! Thank you, Sarah!” The old man lifted eyes full of tears to the ceiling and clasped his hands. “Thank you, my dear!” Violet slipped off the old man’s lap and held out her hands. He threw twenty dollars on the table and said, “Well, young man, you’ve got a cracker jack parlor here—best séance I’ve ever been to. C’mon, darlin’.” He took Violet’s hands, and she helped him to his feet.
After they left, I was pretty upset, but then I noticed he had left his briefcase. Inside I found a whiskey flask and a note. The note said, “From one bullshitter to another: Here’s a little tonic to ease your distress. Ha-ha,” followed by a smiley face. I thought, What the hell? Might as well have a snort, but when I opened the bottle and sniffed, I discovered it was only Listerine. Of course.
*I thought “mentula” referred to the mind, you know, like “mental.” Oops.