Fleabag, Forbidden Magic, sports
I’ve never really cared for magic, but I went to a fortune-teller once. It was Claire’s idea. At least kind of—it was her mailbox the flyer (“We offer tarot readings, palmistry, and other forms of divination as well!”) ended up in, and it was too funny not to consider.
“We have to go!” I said. She was pacing around, worried about some Martin or work thing (I had stopped paying attention to her pacing reasons long before that), in one of her moods.
“Why would you ever think I want to do that?”
“Seems funny.”
“Funny,” she said as if it were a slur. “What it seems like is a waste of my time.”
But it took only a month of pestering for her to finally agree.
The fortune-teller’s place gave off a “newspaper ad from the 1980s that makes you question your life choices and whether or not you’re getting murdered by a cult later that night” kind of energy. Velvet curtains hid the windows (a wise choice; on the other side, there was nothing but a bunch of garbage cans), and candle wax covered the surfaces of books that smelled like old people. There were four chairs, one round table, and in the middle of that table, there was a crystal ball.
I won’t tell you what happened there; it’s a story for another time (there was some swearing, some crying, and some very green French fries involved). What matters is that at the end of our meeting, the fortune-teller lady looked me deep into my soul and said, “With each big loss comes an equally big win. Use the power wisely, and remember, it comes at a price.”
Back then, I did what any sane person would: nodded, got out, and thought to myself, “What a crazy old bitch.” Then I forgot about it for over three years.
Until the priest came to wreak havoc in my life and left.
Then, one night after a particularly bad date, half-asleep in the guy’s bed (the date wasn’t that bad), I understood what the crazy hag really meant.
“So you gamble now?” Claire is dissatisfied but not surprised. It takes much more effort to surprise her nowadays.
“Not gamble,” I say. “I do sports betting.”
“And how is that different?”
“I always win.”
“Well, do you.” She doesn’t look up from her magazine, so I take a bunch of one-hundred-dollar bills from my pocket and strew them over her head.
“What are you doing!” She jumps up from her seat. “Did you steal this?”
“What? No!” That is offensive. “I’m telling you the psychic-teller lady gave me magic powers!”
“To win sports money?”
“No, to win disgusting amounts of sports money. Keep up.”
“Didn’t she say it would bite you in the ass"—the “ass” is a whisper—"too?”
I laugh. “I’ll be too far off in my Ferrari to notice.”
“You’re joking.”
I was, but only partially. It’ll be a Rolls Royce.