The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show - Ariel Gore [15]
Turned out it would be a year for expansion. Come springtime, we found Lupe and the baby in a tiny adobe outside Albuquerque. Tony wanted to stop, drawn in by the ornate silver and blue Psychic Reader sandwich board propped between two desert shrubs.
Lupe stood at the door in fake leather pants and a white tank top, split lip, eye blackened, her dark hair a mess. Unashamed, she invited us in, spoke in lilting Spanglish. We drank lukewarm coffee at her wooden table, and for seven dollars, she promised Tony trouble in love.
“What can I do to avoid it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No mucho.”
Tony thought about that, lit a cigarette. He was smoking these super-skinny Capri Ultra Lights because he thought they’d help him quit. Instead he just looked like a milksop. “What about you?” he asked, starring at Lupe. She had a little bit of a mustache over her full lips. “What’s your destiny?”
Lupe gestured a quick circle around her darkened house. “Ese.”
From the gleam in Tony’s eyes, I could have predicted his next words. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You can keep the seven dollars, but I’ll be the one telling your fortune today. You’re about to change your destiny. You won’t come with us right now. You have some business you need to take care of. But within twenty-four hours—forty-eight hours tops—something inside of you is gonna click. You’ll come on the road with us. We’ve got a sideshow going. You can tell fortunes.”
Lupe smiled, shook her head. “You’re a sweet boy,” she said. “Simpático. This is the thing that will bring you trouble.”
Tony shrugged. “We’re performing tonight over at the Outpost. Tomorrow in Cerrillos. The Circus House. Invitation’s open.”
Three days later we’re all sitting at this cheesy artsy café in Taos, blurry orange and pastel desert landscapes on the walls, and in walks Lupe in a milk-stained blue T-shirt, baby on her hip. She’d brushed her hair, braided it.
“Took you long enough,” Tony laughed.
Magdelena glared at him.
We’d all recently agreed not to invite performers on board without consulting the group, but even Tony hadn’t honestly expected Lupe to show up. And with a baby?
“You have got to be kidding,” Madre mumbled.
But what were we going to tell a bruised and nursing mother in an artsy café in the high desert mountains? Go home? She’d brought her own car, after all.
As Lupe ordered her espresso and cookies from the bar, Magdelena seethed: “I hope you don’t think she’s getting a share of our ticket sales. We’re already splitting this five ways.”
Lupe pulled up a chair, her biceps impressive for such a little woman. “I’ll charge for my fortune-telling on the side if that’s all right,” she said. “I don’t expect any part of your profits.”
“What happened to the Me No Speak Good English?” I asked.
She blushed. “Makes people take their fortunes more seriously if they think they’ve got an exotic source. I’m actually from Indiana.”
Magdelena rolled her eyes, but Lupe and the baby would make inroads to our hearts before we’d even crossed the Colorado border. Just another virgin mother: charming, charming.
She told fortunes on the side, nursed her baby into a fat toddler, inched her way into the show. With her strong arms, she became Magdelena’s favorite catcher as we daydreamed all the way to the Canadian border and back again, headlights piercing the fog. Her only request: that we not return to Albuquerque. Fair enough. We’d never been able to draw much of a crowd there, anyway.
We washed through Nashville, songs of unrequited love, then crawled toward Pittsburgh, our route dictated by whims and rumors, anarchist houses promising a patch of love where we could roll out our sleeping bags, and paid gigs Tony managed to drum up on his prepaid cell phone. He’d find a new theater in Vermont willing to do promo or a festival in Olympia offering $100 an act, and we’d head off, hoping to rustle up something like a living.