“That’ll be $37.57,” Jennie said to the heavyset woman in hot pink shorts. Her attempts to be perky usually ended up in the claims bin with broken merchandise these days, but it never hurt to be nice to people now did it?  Jennie had been working in the junk shop on the corner of Gordon and Eager for three years, since she first came to college with something called “hope.”  Endlessly circling in dual cul-de-sacs of cynicism and despair, her days consisted of a never-ending string of sunburned, Mickey Mouse clad tourists and the occasional maniacal fan on the lookout for his particular brand of junk.  The latter group was the one that truly terrified her while the former merely roused her ever-shrinking sense of pity for the human race. 

            Jennie said goodbye to the woman in the offensive shorts and then walked out from behind the dusty counter.  The shop was empty, and as always, badly in need of a cleaning and reorganizing marathon.  “I’ll be damned if I’m going to bust my ass in this place!” she said aloud, “Greg barely pays me enough as it is.”  Greg, the owner of the hole in the wall where Jennie was forced to waste away, was a tightfisted git with a receding hairline and two prominently displayed crooked teeth.  Unfortunately for both of them, he had taken a liking to Jennie—supposedly for her skills with people and her three years of customer service experience, but really it was the sight of Jennie’s suntanned legs in a pair scandalously revealing white shorts that had secured her position with the company.  She had been hoping that her physique had not been the sole reason for her employment, but Greg only confirmed the ugly truth one idle Tuesday afternoon as she stocked shelves.  In one of the most lamentable pick up attempts in recorded history, Greg of the crooked teeth and exhibitionist forehead exclaimed, “I love the way your legs just go make an ass of themselves,” punctuated by the appropriate miming gesture of squeezing her plump cheeks.

            That had been years ago, but Jennie still shuddered every time she thought about Greg’s hands in such close proximity to her body.  Luckily, her boss had met a willing woman a few months after Jennie’s arrival in Florida and he had laid off the poor sexual innuendos and attempts at witty repartees.  In truth, she sometimes found herself missing conversations with Greg—at least they kept her on her toes and out of arm’s reach—because so few people came to the shop to speak with her.  The shop, aptly named House of Dreams, was removed from the strip of sandy beach, and sun dried tourists and wasted party goers often didn’t venture too far away from their vices.  Sometimes if the weather permitted, Jennie would open the opaque glass windows of the shop and listen to the sounds of carnival music and live bands drift down to her lonely location.

            Filling an eight to ten hour shift in the House of Dreams could sometimes become a mammoth task, but Jennie had found sly ways to pass the time.  The first had started on a whim, a dare she made to herself knowing she would balk all the while.  However, the second had been the byproduct of her rambling brain and a misplaced item in a recent shipment.  Too busy to sit and occupy herself with the new hobby, Jennie resorted to “Plan A”—conversation with The King.  Whistling “All Shook Up” under her breath, Jennie walked briskly to the back of the shop to straighten items on the shelves and sweep the floor.  One of the most wonderful items in the shop hung on the back wall, forgotten by everyone but her, and she smiled at the youthful face of her savior as she reached for the broom.  The velvet Elvis print hung larger than life over her upturned face as she worked, and she spoke to him like a confidant about her troubles and woes as she wasted away beneath him.  And on particularly bad days like this one—she often imagined him answering her in his “Aww shucks darlin’ that ain’t nothing” voice. 

“I’m not asking for redemption, or even complete rebirth Elv, but Karma’s credit plan just isn’t working out this time around the horn if you know what I’m saying,” she spoke to the consoling print.

And in her most stereotypical Elvis accent, she replied to herself, “Uhh huhh huhh little mama. I know what you’re saying…look at me. I died on a toilet.” 

Laughing in spite of the horrible reference, Jennie suddenly remembered it was her turn to clean the bathroom.  The bathroom.  The room that only became public if you bought something from the shop.  The terrifying bathroom with the flickering light and rattling lock that reminded her of rooms where women were raped just out of shouting distance.  Jennie usually managed, through careful monitoring of her Aquafina water and Diet Dr. Pepper intake, to skip a trip to the potty during working hours.  For some peculiar reason, she was terrified of being trapped between its four porcelain walls even for the briefest of moments.  It was truth that in times of desperation she had used the bathroom—with a sturdy wooden office chair wedged firmly under the doorknob to keep the door from slamming shut as it had in her nightmares. 

She grabbed the same reliable chair now and braced it under the same doorknob, wincing as her slight movement caused the lock to rasp loosely against the hollow wood.  Thock…thock…thock in rapid succession, like a headboard against a tenement wall.  As if the bolt was somehow getting lucky and disturbing her as it fucked the door on which it hung dependent. It was the same subtle noise you hear in movies when the killer slips behind the half-naked prom queen who is attempting to defend herself with a pen knife—the overwhelming power of a candle on her side in the fight against evil.  The sound of impending doom…

“Jeeeesus Jennie! Get a hold of yourself! It’s a freaking bathroom!”  she said aloud, unsure if she should use her own voice or that of the late, great earl of Graceland.

Gritting her teeth and brandishing the Q-tip toilet scrubber before her like a samurai sword, Jennie cleaned the bathroom at a frantic pace in an attempt to avoid imprisonment in her own very personal hell.  And to play down her fear via distractionary methods, she began her ritualistic muttering of Elvis’ impressive list of song titles under her breath. 

“Hound Dog…Love Me Tender…Devil in a Blue Dress…Crying in the Chapel…In the Ghetto…Caught in a Trap…oooh…don’t say that word!...Jailhouse Rock…claustrophobia setting in…Help!...wait that’s Beatles tune…I need…Amazing Grace!…Get this over with…oh please God…”

After having swabbed the floor, perfunctorily swabbed the toilet and flushed it with one Keds-clad foot, Jennie rapidly wiped the polished steel mirror and replaced a supply of toilet paper in easy reach of an unwitting, desperate customer.  Finally, with her heart pounding like a trapped rabbit’s, Jennie squeaked out of the bathroom with a time that would have made a calf roper proud.  Figuring she had earned a break for her bravery, she put away her supplies and closed both of the back doors securely.  She was safe from death and dismemberment until next Thursday when the job was yet again hers to deal with, and joy turned to despair.  She was never going to get away from this. Still, refusing to tempt fate, she placed a thankful kiss in her lemony scented palm and stood on tiptoe to deliver the message to her dark angel before returning to the front counter.

The second pastime Jennie employed to avoid severe brain atrophy involved a deck of tarot cards shipped to the store in error.  The cards were brand new, mixed in with plastic bottles full of play box sand and rickety and unstable coasters made from seashells, and Jennie had eagerly snatched them up and hidden them under the counter before Greg the Dreg could send them back.  She’d pay for them if she had to, but she considered this gift of mental manna a sort of unsought bonus for all her hard work.  She had no idea how to read the silly things even though a cursory instructional manual waited inside the colorful blue and yellow box.  She enjoyed shuffling the bulky cards, larger than the purple Old Maid deck she had enjoyed playing with as a child, and laying them out in odd patterns.  She would imagine herself on the glossy surface of the card, posing as the Hermit, the Hierophant, and one of the blissful Lovers, or attempt to discern meaning from cards like Judgment, Justice, and Death.  Her favorite daydream involved the Lovers and Death—where she sacrificed her artistic talent to save the man she loved from the bony grasp of the Grim Reaper.  The whole saga ran reel to reel in her head every time she cued it up in her memory, and new details were added and removed on a daily basis.

“Let’s see what fate has to entertain me today,” Jennie said as she pulled the cards out from their hiding place under an ancient phone book.  The cards cast a much needed breeze across her sweat smeared face as she shuffled and fanned them in a practiced display of showmanship, and she decided to lay the cards out in a seven card cross pattern with four cards running vertically and three cards running horizontally.  The second vertical card, the one in the center of the cross, would have meaning for her today.

“Whatever this card says, I’ll go with it. Hell, life can’t get much worse,” Jessie said to herself as she snapped the cards crisply on the cool glass of the countertop, “I mean honestly…what do I have to lose?”

With each satisfying pop of cardboard on glass, Jennie reaffirmed her decision to embrace fate in its cosmic entirety without question or complaint.  If the cards told her to stay in this shithole waiting for life to begin, she would wait.  If they said to move to Vegas in search of a millionaire and a Chapel-O-Love, she was gone.  If they said to jump of a bridge…

“…Let’s not get that drastic,” she finished aloud.

Eventually the cards lay in two razor straight, diametrically opposed rows—waiting to dispense meaning and purpose to her.  Hesitantly she reached for the second card from the top—the money card as her baseball card collecting father would have dubbed it—and suddenly her hand stopped.  What if something terrible waited beneath the intricate pattern of green vines laced across the card?  Would she really go through with this? 

            “Shit...” Jennie muttered as she drummed her outstretched fingers on the counter and bit her lip in frustration, “Oh well…fortune favors the brave now doesn’t it?”

For what seemed an immeasurable gap of time, her hand performed the simple task of righting the capsized card, and she was greeted by the blissful face of one card she had seen and thought little of since the discovery of the pack.  The Hanged Man.  Aghast, Jennie could only stare with unblinking eyes at the poor inverted figure suffering on the card before her, her breath caught in her throat.  She had been hoping for guidance, answers, purpose—and she had gotten this.  Righteous anger replaced shock and Jennie railed against the message of the card aloud.

“Well damn it, what is this supposed to mean?” Jennie shrieked, “How can I plan if I don’t understand? This is like following stereo instructions!” and with one clean motion, Jennie swept the rest of the cards from the table with her free hand.  Staring at the upside down face of the Hanged Man, she could discern nothing of the card’s meaning. 

“The Hanged Man usually means death, doesn’t it?” she asked the still empty shop, “Am I going to kill myself then? What good does that do me?”  She asked these questions of the Hanged Man, clad in a sky blue tunic and red breeches, as he hung suspended by one elegantly pointed foot.  The other foot was bent at the knee and turned towards the hanging leg—forming a crude figure four.  His arms were tied behind his back as he swung from the sturdy, leaf clad branch above him, and a golden halo of light surrounded his rosy face.  Jessie wondered, “Had he become an angel in death?  What powers controlled this poor boy? Whose cruel whim did he suffer under?”  The card, mere inches from her straining, tear filled eyes, became Jessie’s sole reason for being.  She knew there had to be more to this message than death and hopelessness!  Fate had taken her parents from her early in life, had forced her fiancé to leave days after she packed off for Florida, had compelled the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to revoke her scholarship and give it to his nephew.  She had borne the same cruel burden as the graceful, inverted figure on the card, so perhaps it was only fitting she shared his end.  “I’ve dealt with this shit too long,” Jennie thought, “but I’m going to change that now”.   There would be no more endless, lonely days, no more dreadful visits to the back, no more conversations with imaginary rock stars.  If death was the way…

“SO BE IT!” Jessie screamed as she pounded her fists on the counter.  Scalding tears of frustration spilled from her eyelids and Jennie made no attempt to stop them.  All the years spent in a dusty junk shop waiting for someone to come to her rescue had been pointless.  The wasteful tragedy of it was enough to snap her soul in two, and she wept because there was simply nothing else she could do.  

            The impact of her anger caused the empty tarot card box to bounce and fall swiftly to the tile floor.  It settled at her feet, spilling out the still neatly folded instruction sheet.  With shaking and eager fingers, Jennie snatched the sheet from the floor and tore it open.  Scanning through the brief paragraphs explaining each card, her finger finally settled on “The Hanged Man,” which was written in stylish Edwardian script.  As she read, her mouth became slack and her fingers relaxed around the fragile paper.  As if to confirm the words to her brain, she read the particulars aloud, lingering on each word with measured skepticism,

            “The Hanged Man appears to be a captive, suffering an underserved punishment under the power of an unknown malicious force.  The initial impression generally leaves a novice with the uneasy feeling…however…when viewed more closely, the positive aspects of the card come through.  The young man bears a peaceful countenance upon his face, much more the look of a man content with his fate rather than at the mercy of unknown powers,” Jessie paused, dumfounded, and examined the face of the man on her card.  Unbelievably, it was true.  His face was calm, his eyes shut softly—he almost appeared to be in a state of quiet bliss. 

“How could I have missed it?” she thought and read on.

“The halo is suggestive of his innocence and purity.  The Hanged Man is a willing victim, someone who has chosen the path of sacrifice to attain a higher goal.  Like St. Peter, he is hung upside down to witness the message of Jesus…and when we see him we should consider areas in our lives where we may need to act more selfless in order to benefit others or for the fulfillment of our own deeper needs…”

Jessie dropped the instruction manual quickly as the rapid fire shock of awareness blazed through her.  Perhaps there was something to this.  Had she really fought back when Nate left her?  Had she railed loudly enough when the Dean had unfairly revoked her scholarship?  The pitiful truth was that she hadn’t.  She had been too brokenhearted, too unwilling to ruffle feathers.  Perhaps she had been a willing victim—willing to suffer at the hands of others as she traveled through life, hoping to gain happiness.  That was over now. 

Without even bothering to clean up her mess, Jessie hastily scrawled out a note explaining the actions she was about to take to Greg.  She then ran back to the rear of the store where Elvis hung, still crooning in the growing evening dusk.          

“I’m sorry baby…I’ve got a new muse now,” she said to the ecstatic grin in the frame, “and I’ve got to go where his tune leads me.” 

Without thinking, or perhaps thinking clearly for the first time in her short life, Jessie grabbed the Hanged Man card and slipped it in the side pocket of her suede purse.  So excited that she almost skipped like a girl on a playground, Jessie turned off the bank of eye straining halogen bulbs overhead and locked the door to the House of Dreams.  After hiding the key in the plastic palm tree near the entrance, she turned to face the night.  The brackish smell of sea air filled her senses, and she became drunk with pleasure on long draught of the air that had once been poison to her.  She knew that this was the freedom of letting go.  Like a newborn, lost and confused with all the possibilities life now offered, Jennie stood uncertainly in the middle of the deserted street, a hint of panic brining color to her cheeks.  She rested her hand on the silken surface of the bag, feeling for the reassuring presence of the Hanged Man.  It was then that she heard the siren sounds of life radiating from the nearby carnival.  The bubbling music begged shamelessly for her attention—like a sinner on scabbed hands and knees praying for absolution.  Spellbound and unable to deny the appeal, Jennie began walking.