Evil Jester Digest, Volume 2

by Holly Newstein

  The Tardy Hand of Miss Tangerine

  Jon Michael Kelley

  Her departing gift to me—a beneficence, let’s call it—was a tattoo of letters and numbers across my chest, taut as clothesline between the areolas, drawn in her own hand; a font so gracefully balanced and femininely stylized that it seems to flow upon gentle currents: willowy beginnings rolling into tighter lowercase, slanting a bit left, with the last letter’s descender, or stroke, plunging down and finishing in a tight, grasping coil, much like the prehensile tail of a seahorse.

  Wangari, it reads, 14 May 2021 Must Hurry, followed by a methodical placement of eraser-size dots, all drawn by a lover who fueled this and other divinations with a diet of pulpy fruit.

  It has been four years since she magically scored this riddle into my flesh, though it didn’t begin appearing until five weeks ago, taking three of those to reach full maturity, its color now that of forest green in shadow. This happened just after the spring equinox, and having known her to be an avid botanist I cannot entirely dismiss its blossoming along with the columbine and forsythia as coincidental.

  Wangari. An exotic name that turns out to be Kenyan in origin, specific to females. And that date, curiously military in its orientation, is obviously portending some kind of event. Well, I should amend that present participle, as the date in question has already passed some months ago, long before it ever began appearing on my skin. And I’ve looked from earthquakes to sun spots, tsunamis to polar shifts, hoping to validate my suspicions that some kind of connection exists between that date, that name, and something catastrophic or remarkably momentous. After all, those gifted with prescience seem never to waste their talents on things inconsequential, at least when committing their predictions to the written word; e.g., Nostradamus didn’t burden his quatrains with frivolous market trends in aquarium fish sales, or the recurring concerns of Little League umpires.

  Then, lastly, there’s Must Hurry, which needs no explanation, followed by that peculiar sequence of dots, appearing very much like Braille, at least in cursory examination; a dead ringer for the letter T, to be exact. Just picture two colons side-by-side, then jack the right colon up one space.

  I had thought of Morse Code, but those characters are normally laid out horizontally. There is a visual way to learn that alphabet by superimposing each sequence of dots and dashes over its respective letter, achieving the desired dimension, but that method does not produce the configuration on my chest; not remotely so. Nor do they appear to be, or acting as, some kind of diacritical mark, those ancillary glyphs that hang over, under or between letters, normally used to change vowel sounds.

  And to confound matters even more, this conundrum is in reverse image and needs the assistance of a mirror to become properly legible, just as your rearview mirror brings out “ambulance” when it has been spelled out backwards on the hood of such vehicles.

  Although all of her predictions (at least the ones I know of) manifested in this fashion, they are of course quite decipherable on their own, as a mirror just conveniently decrypts the communiqués with less fuss. Nonetheless, having it painted this way in my flesh heightens the intrigue, as it perpetually reminds me of a chronic anxiety from which she never recovered: her catoptrophobia, or fear of mirrors.

  I had originally assumed this malady of hers to be eisoptrophobia, or fear of seeing one‘s own reflection, as my research into such anxieties revealed. I remain inclined, however, to favor the other term as it seems more fitting; that her fear was of someone, or something, lurking inside those silver depths, and not of her own countenance, as I had once seen her marvel over its distorted image upon a kitchen appliance.

  Given those conditions, it was easy to assume why she chose to write her predictions in this backward fashion: they were simply an extension of this phobia; a kind of droll attempt at self-mockery (although I do admit this seems more like impaling oneself with fun rather than just plain poking).

  Now, that remarkable resemblance I’d earlier mentioned to Braille, specifically to the letter T, needs some clarification at this point, as I was using those dots’ virtual, or mirror, image to make that comparison. And just to be thorough, I determined that the real image did not have a twin in Braille—not that I believed Braille was going to emerge victorious in this matter, but it does raise a curious point.

  As I mentioned, it happened over four years ago. We’d met our junior year at a small but notable college, its campus nestled in the shadow of some famous peak in Colorado. It had been a clumsy meeting, as I ‘d been nose-in-book, aimless across the grounds, she just as engrossed in a fat, ripe peach (she’d not yet switched permanently to its smaller cousin)—and we collided.

  “Christ! Watch where you’re going!” I snapped.

  “Sorry,” she said, not really sorry at all, pulp snot-smeared across her left, freckled cheek. Green eyes, strawberry blonde hair bouncing just above the shoulders, blanched skin, and an unhealthy thinness any runway model would have envied. Wearing a simple white cotton blouse, a sienna broom skirt wrinkled to a severe degree of geriatrics, and a stack of Chakra ankle bracelets bouncing above a pair of worn leather flip-flops. Well, it was early autumn, and I remember thinking how suitably she imitated that season; not just in supple fibers and September hues, but with her eyes, a loitering omen there of harsher, unforgiving things ahead.

  I had detected a mild musky aroma, certainly not unpleasant, with just a pinch of vanilla extract and clove. She wasn’t exactly earthy (she shaved her legs, bathed regularly, was not unaccustomed to stock cosmetics), but any highbrow distinctions were hardly forthcoming. Had I mugged her instead, I might have expected to find in her suede leather bag an ounce of hemp, the bra she had permanently removed, the peace symbol posing upon a variety of mediums, and a program from a recent Jimi Hendrix concert. Forgive me, it’s cliché—but it is the best fit.

  As I bent over to retrieve James Joyce, she found her nerve. “Optometrists are nothing to fear, you know. I understand they’re listed alphabetically in the yellow pages.”

  “Oh, you’re a comedy major,” I decided, brushing pine needles from my book, clinging statically to the Mylar cover. “I would have guessed something less funny, like maybe tent weaving.”

  Her peach lay nearby, traumatized. I left it lay. To hell with chivalry.

  She looked at me then, an arrogant aspect far too poignant for those farm-girl eyes (I’d thought Minnesota given the slight nasal lisp in her accent, but it was Nebraska, she would tell me later). “Botany, actually,” she said, swiping a cotton sleeve across her mouth, an indelicacy which she further aggravated by extending her sticky hand. “Name’s Lisa. Lisa Coventry.”

  I took it, introduced myself as a member of the campus literary club, then asked for a napkin. And there began the most bizarre affair in the history of affairs.

  Two months into the relationship (sex had been fashionably early, and damned good, if you must know), we found ourselves one cold and blustery night at a hockey game. We had arrived late in the third, with our team down 5-1 against the Golden Knights, NCAA champions of the previous year. The Knights went on to win, giving our team the beating it’d come to expect by then, having maintained the worst record in its division for so long that it had become a source of pride. We stayed long enough to participate in booing our guys off the ice, then went for a hot cappuccino at Margie’s, a popular hangout just off campus, famous for its chocolate scones and jaunty ambience. A place that Lisa once said smelled of burnt umber, and one we would ultimately haunt.

  And it was in just this place where I first saw her intangibly impress words with her magic finger, right smack on the tabletop, third booth from the left as you entered. Words that wouldn’t appear until many weeks later; slowly at first, like the faint beginnings of a bruise, and would eventually achieve the same color: a foretelling that a much-beloved Presidential candidate would win election that November, just weeks away. And he went on to win, just as her writing predicted. He also col
lapsed behind his podium three and a half minutes into his acceptance speech, and later died that same evening from what the doctors eventually identified as a subarachnoid hemorrhage resulting from a ruptured brain aneurism. She had seen that, too, putting it this way: Cole wins then loses big 2016. Not quite as cryptic as Nostradamus, yet refreshingly more flippant than Jeane Dixon.

  Unfortunately, that electoral calamity happened many weeks before her reverse cursive began showing on that shiny gray Formica.

  A belated prophecy—and bad timing is lethal, if not laughable, to the integrity of such things. Tardy, just as she often was for class, dates, or to any function she’d been invited, or not. And it was this immature characteristic I found out of her many to be the most taxing. Even her periods were often late, which caused me more than a few restless nights, I might add, after we’d recklessly consummated our relationship.

  She never discussed or said aloud whatever she was prophesizing, each time remaining mum on those few occasions when I personally observed her finger conjure magic; magic postponed to a date so far ahead that my memory had almost forgotten that any kind of magic had been conjured at all. That first time, anyway. After the tabletop incident at Margie’s, every crook, bend and unanticipated movement of her right index finger garnered my full and undivided attention.

  I learned very quickly to never inquire about such shenanigans, as she volleyed every time with a stern shake of her head, followed by an even sterner recital of that popular phrase “patience is a virtue,” or some other colloquial offshoot just as obnoxious, adding lastly but with the greatest emphasis that frigidity wasn’t just something meteorologists talked about.

  Of course, she had sworn me to absolute secrecy; an oath I have steadfastly honored until the commencement of this personal account. She’s gone now, but I’m sure there remain examples of her writing somewhere out there amid Colorado’s alpine foliage; perhaps upon some park bench or fountain; on the side of a boxcar, the underpinnings of a bridge, the sun-blanched metal stanchion of a street light; all masquerading as puzzling idioms to the curious few, and just plain old reverse graffiti to the rest.

  Although, to be quite honest, I believe they were mostly for my benefit; the inspiration that honed the faith that would be necessary in the end.

  But if her credibility as a futurist languished in the untimely appearances of her prophecies, then by the same token it was rescued by their indelibility. Late one snowy evening I tried removing her penmanship from that tabletop at Margie’s. I sat down with a paperback and ordered my usual double latte; then, when no one was looking, I went to work with a moist pad of smuggled steel wool. And all I got for my efforts was a lesson in the durability of laminates, and one pissed off waitress, who’d finally caught me when a condiment of raw unrefined sugar was sent crashing to the floor. I never so much as dulled Lisa’s writing, which at that point was still in its infancy, what I would call its watermark stage, where the outline was developing more prominently than the meat.

  Not long after my bungled scrubbing, perhaps even within hours, someone replaced that table with a less expressive one. I was never able to track its relocation, having to finally surrender it to the same fog-enshrouded realms that are bequeathed such items.

  After that, I never reprised those efforts upon her other predictions, those that eventually surfaced in concrete, wood, marble. And, finally, flesh.

  Lisa’s nickname around campus was “Miss Tangerine,” apparently coined during a previous addiction to that fruit, just shortly into her first year there. She’d gone on to abuse other orchards, most specifically of the stone fruit variety, but that tag stuck nonetheless and followed her around like a skulking dog. I suppose it was cute in the beginning, but saying “Miss Tangerine” eventually felt less like an endearing moniker and more like a pending epitaph.

  When we met, her quaint obsession with peaches was about to turn, lastly, and most viciously, to nectarines.

  At first I found her quirkiness almost…well, endearing. I’d been around campus halls long enough to know that academia and above-average IQ’s have a way of luring your more obsessed types. Take your pick; any prominent college is full of them. But it wasn’t long into our relationship when I’d begun suspecting something more than just harmless eccentricity, and finally recognized it for what it was: a severe, uncontrollable addiction—as nasty as any alcoholic’s—whose equivalent of delirium tremens was an uncanny ability to inscribe future events across any available surface in reverse image, only to later appear as yesterday’s headlines.

  I distinctly recall my first visit to her apartment, just off campus; a quaint, one room abode nestled within the cavernous interior of a Victorian mansion; just one of many such structures orbiting the college, each having been vigorously renovated to the specs of a honeycomb, accommodating the mostly-rich faction of college students, of which Lisa was an unpretentious member.

  Tapestries were in abundance; a hand-woven assortment of verdure and floral motifs reminiscent of bygone times when pride motivated artisans to lissome heights. And I remember well the sticks of incense, pungent and poking out like quills from their soapstone burners, each of those holders acutely Asian in its carved detail. Clove was dominant, but there had been another spicy fragrance that I could not readily identify.

  “Frankincense,” she’d told me. “It comes from trees of the genus Boswellia, native to Africa. Don’t you just love that word, Boswellia?”

  Eager to please, I might have mentioned that it was worth a second look.

  “What’s your favorite word?” she continued. “Mine’s Alabaster. Definitely my favorite word of all time. The way it just rolls off your tongue; has a kind of regal aroma. Do you have a favorite word?” she asked again.

  I affected a pensive pose, then nodded with absolute certainty. “Vagina.”

  “Really,” she said, feigning serious interest. “How incredibly boorish.”

  “That‘s me,” I agreed. “And what the hell is a ‘regal aroma’? I didn’t know one could smell words, even those of noble descent.”

  She laughed, and tossed me a wink that seemed out of character. “Where I come from, you can taste them, too. Wanna beer?”

  So as not to appear overly affectionate for such items, I allowed just the appropriate pause before committing to an answer. And as she opened her refrigerator (one of those ancient, round corner things that always appear to be unnecessarily thick and moody), a sight was revealed that made me forget to ask her about words and their alleged flavors. Save for the top shelf where only two more bottles of beer remained and nothing else, every square inch of the interior was crammed with boxes supplying only one kind of fruit.

  “That’s a shitload of peaches,” I said.

  “Nectarines,” she corrected, handing me a longneck bottle. “They’re good for you.”

  It was our first date, so she didn’t get an argument from me, although I did caution her about the hazards one might face when overdosing on fiber.

  She looked at me then, a film of desperation sliding down her eyes, where within rose unmistakable paranoia. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?”

  I shrugged, suddenly wondering if I was. “Not on any kind of regular basis,” I said carefully, “but sure, I guess. Hasn’t everyone at one time, or other?”

  As if preparing herself for a particularly nasty draft, she slowly crossed her arms over her chest. “How do you feel about mirrors?”

  I didn‘t laugh, and in the brief awkwardness that followed I easily imagined the reasons behind her phobia, having assumed that it was her own reflection she wished to avoid, the culprit being some kind of self-esteem or alter-ego concern. After all, she was a wallflower who seemed quite comfortable in her solitude; a loner who preferred the company of others in measured doses. And the textbooks are full of the kinds of psychosis associated with those who inflict their own isolation.

  She remained immobile, her eyes fixed, expectant; as if just the sligh
test movement would crack the thin sheen of anticipation that seemed to have gripped her.

  “So,” I began my approach, “you have a fear of mirrors, broken or otherwise?”

  She finally nodded her head; slowly, deliberately. “Oh, yes. They can’t be trusted.”

  From then on, the evening progressed (for me, anyway) from piqued apprehension to the most incredibly ambitious love-making I had ever, or since, been involved. The reason I mention this again isn’t to satisfy some hubristic self-image, but that the most truly interesting thing was found as we lay in the afterglow: I saw on the windowsill of her dormer (and only) window a rather large translucent bowl, tightly lidded, inside of which rested what appeared to be a large seed of some kind. The window had been opened wide, as if she’d anticipated our fevered rendezvous. Sylphlike breathes of fall air puffed against sheer lace curtains; curtains, I remember thinking, whose embroidered design boasted a dexterity no longer viable; of a skill no longer taught.

  From her bed I was able to discern some very thin objects attached to the seed, but was unable to make out just what those objects were. So, to whet my mounting curiosity, I finally rose and strode over to the windowsill, those puzzling objects now well-defined, glinting in the invading moonlight. They were sewing needles; or, things very similar. A handful of them, jutting out like alert antennae. I assumed that some kind of experiment was taking place, one obviously linked to her botanical studies, and inquired upon that theory, as I did the type of seed.

  “Peach?” I guessed.

  “Nectarine,” she said, then confirmed that it was most definitely an experiment and asked me to please not touch the bowl, or its contents. She hemmed and hawed for an explanation, finally resorting to: “Look, darlin’, it’s pretty complicated. Let’s just say that if you don’t know what you’re doing, then you’re better off splicing genes with a chainsaw. The placement of those pins is fundamental to the experiment’s desired outcome.”