Even Cowgirls Get The Blues Page #2

BRAKE LIGHTS! A Pontiac skids ever so slightly on the

snowflakes. View of the Pontiac insignia on the hood of the

car.

Sissy runs, actually sweating, to its side. She peers in.

OUTSIDE a palmist's trailer is a sign with a red silhouette

of a hand.

Directly under the wrist where the watch band would be is

written MADAME ZOE.

Madam Zoe in kimono and wig lets Sissy and her mother in the

door.

MADAME ZOE:

I am the enlightened Madame Zoe.

Inside. Madame Zoe begins stubbing a cigarette in one of

those enlightened little ceramic ashtrays that are shaped

like bedpans and inscribed BUTTS. The trailer is cluttered,

but not one knick-knack, chintz curtain or chenille-covered

armchair seems to have come from the Beyond.

MADAME ZOE:

There is nothing about your past,

present or future that your hands do

not know, and there is nothing about

your hands that Madame Zoe does not

know. There is no hocus-pocus

involved. I am a scientist, not a

magician. I, Madame Zoe, chiromancer,

lifelong student of the moldings and

markings of the human hand. I, Madame

Zoe, to whom no facet of your

character or destiny is not readily

revealed. I am prepared to...

Then she notices the thumbs.

MADAME ZOE:

Jesus f***ing Christ!

Mrs. Hankshaw and the fortune-teller turn pale and uncertain,

while Sissy recognizes with a faint smile that she is in

command.

Sissy extends the thumbs as an ailing aborigine might extend

his swollen parts to a medical missionary. Sissy's mama draws

a neatly folded five-dollar bill from her change purse and

extends it alongside her smiling daughter's extremities.

Madame Zoe returns to her senses, and takes Sissy by the

elbow to sit at a For mica-topped table of undistinguished

design.

Madam Zoe holds Sissy's hands while she appears to go into a

trance.

She opens her eyes momentarily.

MADAME ZOE:

You have a strong will. Will power

and determination are indicated by

the first phalanx. The second phalanx

indicates reason and logic. You

obviously have both in large supply.

What's your name, dearie?

SISSY:

Sissy.

MADAME ZOE:

Hmmm. I'd say that you have an

intelligent, kindly, somewhat artistic

nature. However, Sissy, however,

there is a heavy quality to the second

phalanx- the phalanx of logic --

that indicates a capacity for foolish

or clownish behavior, a refusal to

accept responsibility or to take

things seriously and bent to be

disrespectful of those who do. Your

mama tells me that you're pretty

well behaved and shy, but I'd watch

out for signs of irrationality. All

right?

She pulls her thumb to her breast.

MADAME ZOE:

I guess the most important aspect of

your thumbs is the, ahem, over all

size. Uh, what was it, do you know,

that caused...?

Mom speaks out from the couch she is sitting on

MRS HANKSHAW:

Don't know; the doctors don't know...

SISSY:

Just lucky I guess.

MADAME ZOE:

Do you study history in school?

Galileo, Descartes, Newton? Lebinitz

had very large thumbs; Voltaire's

were enormous, but, heh heh, just

pickles compared with yours.

SISSY:

What about Crazy Horse?

MADAME ZOE:

Crazy Horse? You mean the Indian?

Nobody that I've ever heard of ever

troubled to study the paws of savages.

Well, I guess that about covers the

three-fifty charge...

Madame Zoe lets go of Sissy's thumbs and wipes her hands on

her kimono.

MRS. HANKSHAW

Husband.

Mrs. Hankshaw withdraws a bill from her rat-skin bag.

MADAME ZOE:

Beg your pardon?

MRS. HANKSHAW

Husband. Will she find a husband?

MADAME ZOE:

Oh, I see.

Madame Zoe takes Sissy's hand and gives it the old tall-dark-

stranger squint.

MADAME ZOE:

I see men in your life, honey. I

also see women, lots of women.

She raises her eyes to meet Sissy's looking for an admission

of the "tendency", but there is no signal.

Mrs. Hankshaw does not approve.

MADAME ZOE:

A husband, no doubt about it, though

he is years away. There are children,

too. Five, maybe six, but the husband

is not the father. They will inherit

your characteristics.

Mrs. Hankshaw, aghast, has heard plenty, and she ushers her

daughter out of the trailer as if she were leading her from

a burning cocktail lounge.

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