Life''s Golden Ticket

  I sat. A few minutes passed; I heard weeping.

  The curtain opened, and Harsh the Hypnotist emerged. He stared at me in surprise, then fixed me with an ominous look. He walked to the tent exit. “You better be worth it, kid.”

  As the tent flap closed behind him the voice behind the curtain called again. “Come on in. We haven’t got all night.”

  Pushing back the curtain, I saw a woman wrapped in a tattered purple robe, sitting behind a small round table. Her face was leathery with age; her gray hair was wrapped in a faded red bandanna, and silver hoop earrings hung from her ears. On the center of the table in front of her sat a crystal ball. A haze of incense smoke lingered above us.

  “Sit,” she said, looking me up and down. “I’m Meg. And you’re the one causing all the talk.”

  “All the talk?” I repeated.

  She looked at me expectantly and held out her hand. “Sorry, this old gal only barks for a buck.”

  “Oh,” I said, embarrassed. I fished in my pocket for a dollar. “Here you go.”

  She snatched the dollar from my hand and put it in a little pouch hanging from her neck. Satisfied, she said, “Now, what do you want to know?”

  “You said I’m the one ‘causing all the talk.’ What talk is that?”

  “I’m a fortune-teller, not a gossip,” she said, suddenly testy. She stood up and relit an incense stick.

  “Okay,” I said, confused. “So what are we supposed to do here? Look into the crystal ball and see my future?”

  “No,” she scoffed. “You watch too many movies.”

  She sat back down and pointed toward the crystal ball. “I got that dumb thing for two dollars at the flea market. It’s a fishbowl turned upside down.”

  She saw the look on my face and broke into laughter. “Boy, you’re just like Harsh—way too serious!”

  I remembered what I’d heard in the waiting area. “Harsh . . . I heard him crying while I was waiting. I guess he must have found out some bad news, huh?”

  “He sure did,” she said flatly.

  I cocked my head. “Well, can I ask what the bad news was? Or would that be gossiping?”

  “Of course you can ask. It has to do with your future. Harsh was asking about it.”

  “Harsh was asking about my future?” I asked. “Why?”

  “He was wondering if you would change in the future. He said you were full of excuses. He was worried you wouldn’t.”

  The image of Harsh towering over me flashed in my mind, and I felt a flare of anger. “What does he care whether or not I change?”

  “Oh!” Meg said, raising her hands to her cheeks and feigning surprise at my anger. “Don’t get so worked up, dearie. I don’t think he really does care about you that much. He cares about Henry, though—that’s why he was weeping.”

  “The bad news was about Henry?”

  “Yes. About Henry . . . and you.”

  “Bad news about both of us? What is it?”

  Meg leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, then said matter-of-factly, “The bad news for both of you is that you don’t change.”

  “What? I don’t change?” I thought about all that had happened to me in the park so far. “I don’t believe it.”

  Meg looked at me dispassionately. “It doesn’t matter whether you believe it. It is so. And that’s bad news for both of you. That’s why Harsh was weeping: because he heard the bad news about Henry.”

  “I don’t understand. Why is it bad news for Henry?”

  “Because, of course, Henry wants to see you change. He sacrificed to get you in and wants to see you succeed.”

  “What do you mean, ‘he sacrificed’? What sacrifice?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not for me to say. Henry will tell you in time, I imagine. Unless Harsh tells him the bad news first.”

  I looked at her in disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘not changing’? Listen, lady, you got it wrong. I have changed already. I am changing my life the second I get home—you don’t have to worry about that. Neither does Henry.”

  Meg raised an eyebrow and nodded as if impressed. “Oh, good for you, dear.” Then she sat silently and just stared at me.

  An awkward few moments passed.

  “So,” I said, feeling a bit rattled, “you don’t think I change?”

  “I know you don’t,” she said.

  “How do you know? Why don’t I change?”

  “Let me see your hands,” she said.

  She examined my palms closely for several moments, then looked up at me sadly and squeezed my hands. “Yep, I was right—bad news.”

  “What? What can you tell from my hands? What can you see?”

  “See for yourself,” she said, and slapped my hands onto the crystal ball.

  A searing bolt of electricity shot through my body. My eyes felt as if they were on fire, and the hair on my neck stood up. I felt my muscles spasm as a deafening roar filled my ears.

  A vast white space filled my vision, and suddenly I seemed to be falling at a tremendous speed. The space changed colors: green . . . falling faster . . . yellow . . . faster . . . orange . . . faster . . . black . . . a sudden stop.

  A flash of white.

  My body feels as if it is floating. I open my eyes. I’m in a church. I can see everything around me. I sense that I’m hovering over the parish, but I have no sense of my physical body. I see a handful of people crying, then a man speaking behind the altar. Then I see myself—lying in a casket.

  Another bolt of electricity.

  Hovering above my office now, I see myself sitting and staring numbly out the window. I’m older; my sideburns are graying. Wrinkles line my face. The scene fast-forwards, and I walk down the hall past co-workers without saying a word. I go to meetings about things I don’t care about. . . . I answer e-mails . . . drive home . . . watch TV . . . drink beer. I’m alone.

  Another surge.

  I’m back in the church, hovering above the pews, looking down at myself in the casket. At the altar, a stranger stands behind the podium. “He was a good man. I recently just met him. He’d worked at our company for thirty-five years. He was loyal and he kept to himself, but those who knew him seemed to like him.” A church woman sitting a few rows back whispers to another, “Poor man died alone.” The pastor stands behind the podium. “Would anyone like to say a few words?” No one rises.

  My eyes start burning, and scenes from my life flash by: a gasping last breath in bed . . . a Christmas by myself . . . a bland day at work . . . a night at a hospital bed with Mary . . . a night on my porch . . . a horse ride in an open field . . . an aquarium full of clothes hangers.

  Zap!—I’m hovering in a room. Mary stands silently. I see myself standing not far away in the kitchen. Mary has tears in her eyes. She looks at me seriously. She is saying, “I think I need to go away for the weekend. I was going to ask you to come with me, but I don’t think you’re ready.”

  I hear myself ask a question, but I can see only her face. “Where are you going? I’m not ready for what?”

  She says, “You’re not ready for change,” and walks out the door.

  I feel myself screaming, “Nooo!”

  My hands burn . . . another bolt of electricity . . . a fantastic flash of white.

  I felt myself slam into the back of my chair.

  I opened my eyes to see Meg, sitting impassively across the little round table. The crystal ball was glowing a deep bluish-purple.

  “Jesus!” I screamed out, waving my hands frantically in the air, trying to cool them.

  “No, just Meg,” she said matter-of-factly and stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She pushed aside the red velvet curtain behind me and walked out.

  By the time Meg came back, my hands felt numb, as if I had dipped them in snow and then entered a warm room.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said emphatically as she sat back down. “I won’t let my life turn out like that. I don’t believe what I saw.”

 
She shook her head. “You’re just like Mary—you don’t believe what you see with your own soul.”

  “What?” I said in surprise. “Mary? You met Mary?”

  “Of course.”

  My heart jumped. “Here?”

  Meg parted her lips and furrowed her brow as if to say, Yeah, what are you, stupid?

  “What happened? Why was she here? What did you say to her? Do you know what happened to her?” The questions spilled out so fast that they blurred together.

  Meg looked at me vacantly. “She was here for the same reason as Harsh. She wanted to know if you would change. She discovered the answer was no.”

  “But it’s not!” Pain and anger and hurt clenched in the pit of my stomach. “How could you say that? I will change! How could you tell her I wouldn’t! What did she say?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything,” Meg said. “Mary saw what she needed to see. Then she asked if she should leave you.”

  “If she should leave me? What did you say?”

  Meg looked at me coldly. “I told her yes.”

  “What! How could you! Who do you think you are?” I stood up as if I were about to charge out.

  Meg stood and pointed to my seat. “Sit down!” she commanded. Her voice seemed to bounce through every cell of my body.

  I crumpled into my chair, on the verge of tears. I could barely breathe. The room felt like a coffin; the world felt as if it had collapsed on me.

  “Why?” I blurted through my hands covering my face. “Why did you tell her that? Don’t you know how badly that must have hurt her? I could have changed! Why don’t you believe I could have changed?”

  Meg whispered her response: “Because you don’t know what you want in life. If you don’t know what you want, you can’t change from here to get there. You have nothing to reach for, nothing to measure yourself against. It doesn’t matter if you’ve sword-fought with dear old Dad, or ridden horses with Grandma, or swum in the crystal blue ocean with Mary. Just because you feel better about the past and who you are doesn’t mean your life will change. This is now. In here, we talk about the future. You have to know where you want to go and adjust your course . . . or you just drift.”

  Meg paused until I looked at her. Her eyes were compassionate. “I told Mary you were a drifter and always would be.”

  My heart broke. Anger seared the back of my throat. I opened my mouth to let the feeling erupt. No words came out.

  “I’m sorry,” Meg said. “But if you don’t decide what you want in life, you can’t change your course to get it. No goals, no growth. No clarity, no change. I’m sorry.”

  She extinguished an incense candle, patted my shoulder, and walked out of the room once again.

  PART 4

  17

  THE TIGHTROPE

  I sat motionless in Meg’s tent for nearly an hour. My mind replayed everything she had told me and everything I had seen in the crystal ball. I began to realize that I had spent much of my life frozen in the past or paralyzed in the present. I had never really looked at things long-term. I had never thought about the last days of my life and who I wanted to be or what I wanted to have accomplished. Mary’s and Meg’s words echoed over and over: “You’re not ready for change” . . . “No clarity, no change” . . . “You’re a drifter.” Meg’s words still angered me, yet my heart filled with grief at the thought of Mary sitting in this very chair and seeing the future, a future in which I would never change. I imagined the pain she must have felt, the disappointment, the frustration, the hopelessness—the same feelings I felt when I hovered above my life and saw how it turned out.

  Eventually, sadness turned to stillness. I wasn’t sure how to interpret what Meg had said or what she had shown me, but I was going to do something about it. I looked at the crystal ball and decided to defy the verdict. I will not end up that way. I reached up and smacked the crystal ball off the table. It hit the wall and fell to the floor with a hollow clunk. I picked it up. I couldn’t believe it—it was plastic. Meg was telling the truth. It really was a cheap fishbowl turned upside down. I turned it over and over in my hands.

  The red velvet curtain behind me opened, and Henry emerged. He stared at me and at Meg’s vacant chair. “What’s going on here? Is everything okay? Where’s Meg?” His complexion still looked pale, amplified even more by his concern.

  “She left,” I said.

  Henry frowned. “What do you mean, ‘she left’?”

  “She just got up and left.”

  Henry scratched his head. “Why would she . . . well, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m . . . fine, I think. . . . I have a new perspective.”

  “Great! Then Meg was good to you?”

  I took a moment to think about his question. “No, Henry, she wasn’t. She showed me some things that truly broke my heart. I’m not sure exactly what to think. Maybe I needed to see those things to change? I just don’t know. I’m confused. But I’ll tell you what: I won’t let my life end up that way.”

  Henry stared again at her empty chair, looking lost in thought. “I just can’t understand that woman. She knows not to leave anyone alone.” He shook his head and looked back at me. “Let’s talk about it on the way?”

  “On the way?” I asked.

  “To the show. Remember? You were supposed to meet me at the Big Tent.”

  The Big Tent’s entrance was packed with throngs of eager fairgoers. Everyone was milling about, chatting, eating, waiting for the tent to open so they could get good seats. The excitement in the air only amplified my energy in telling Henry about my future, about how damn sure I was that I wouldn’t let my life turn out the way Meg had predicted. The ideas and hopes and dreams about my new life gushed out of me faster than I could process them. I told him about how I would apply all that I had learned at the park. I promised never to live in the past again or get bogged down working on things I wasn’t passionate about. I told him I would never end up lonely at the end of my life. I spoke of love and passion and family and faith. I don’t know if I was reacting to Meg or summoning old ambitions, but I swore to start over and make my life count.

  At some point I began to feel like a kid in a toy store speaking to the deaf ears of a parent. Henry was listening, but he was distracted. He struggled to lead me through the crowd of people to the front of the tent. At the entrance stood two large men in blue shirts with yellow lettering: SECURITY. Both men smiled at the sight of Henry, and one of them pulled back the enormous tent flap for us. The crowd screamed with excitement. The other security guard waved and crossed his arms and called out, “No, not yet, folks! Not yet!” The crowd booed as Henry and I hurried inside.

  “Henry,” I said, sounding like a wheedling child, “have you even been listening to what I’ve been saying? I’m going to change.” I looked at him, expecting encouragement.

  But he just nodded and said, “I’m happy you’re excited to change. But let me ask you something I asked you earlier. Have you ever been excited to change your life before and not done it?”

  I felt the wind go out of my sails. “Yes, but, Henry, this is different. I . . .”

  “I know, it’s different,” he interrupted. “I know you’re excited about all this, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that you want to change. But I know you’ve dreamed before and let those dreams die in the daylight. You’ve hoped before, but didn’t hop out of bed in the morning to make those hopes reality. I am excited for you, and I don’t mean to disparage your good intentions. But I know you have more to learn before you’ll ever change. That’s why we’re here—I want you to learn from the best. C’mon.”

  He led me down the entrance aisle, which was at least twelve feet wide and bordered by two double-high sections of bleachers. At the end of the aisle I could see the true immensity of the tent. Bleachers lined the high canvas walls, and in the middle of them was a circular open area the diameter of a football field, containing three huge, intersecting red rings about two feet high. The middle ring was a qua
rter again the size of its neighbors. A couple of dozen men were securing sections of a large cage in the ring to the left. High above the rings, a spiderweb of wires connected dozens of tall metal towers, making up the structure of the tent. The massive framework of a lighting system hung from the wires just above the left and right rings, so that the entire space had the feel of a state-of-the-art concert arena.

  “Nice, huh?” Henry said.

  We walked about a third of the way around the rings, then up an aisle between two sets of bleachers. At the aisle’s end two more security guards greeted us. One shook Henry’s hand. The other smiled at me and pulled back the flap.

  Just as he spoke, both the guards’ radios squawked, “Get ready! We’re about to let ’em in!” We all turned and looked toward the entryway, where a sea of people began flooding in.

  The guard pulling back the flap looked at me, then at Henry. “Henry, you better get situated.”

  Henry nodded and ushered me through the flap.

  The other side was a scene of chaos. Performers were readying themselves frantically: half-dressed clowns, scurrying trapeze artists, and assistants running everywhere, putting makeup on the performers or helping them step into their costumes. All were hurrying and crying out for more help.

  “It’s always crazy before the show,” Henry said.

  “I guess,” I muttered.

  Henry led me past a long bank of mirrors bordered by enormous lightbulbs. Stopping at the first empty stool in front of the mirrors, he said, “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

  I sat watching the performers get ready for about twenty minutes. Then a gigantic roar came from the other side of the flap. I could hear a muffled announcement.

  “We’re on!” yelled a clown, and a dozen of them filed through the flap. The crowd rumbled and laughed and clapped.

  Ten minutes passed, and there came another inaudible announcement, at which point a group of what appeared to be gymnasts disappeared through the flap. More rumblings from the crowd.

  Ten more minutes passed, with sporadic loud applause. More announcements, and four women with dozens of silver hula hoops around their necks hurried out.