the knave of hearts

i had seen him there before, several times.

in his late fifties, i would have guessed, though quite fit. faded, soiled, torn jeans and often a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, on which he had written some slogan or other with a fabric pen. "what is self-awareness for" i remember was one.

and i had become familiar with his routine.

he would lock his ancient steel road bike to a signpost a few doors down, next to the distro box from which he bought the local paper. on his way into the cafe, he would sling a beat up canvas messenger bag onto a small table at the window. and by the time he got to the counter and said good morning to the barista, she had already begun grinding the beans for his espresso.

"morning, zach, bagel today." she would say, tamping the grounds. "morning, paige. yes, thanks, poppy seed if you got." or sometimes not.

he would read through the front section of the paper, local political gossip and bits and pieces of the national press feed, and then turn to the sudoku. as the week wore on and the puzzle got more difficult, this might occupy ten or fifteen minutes.

then, with a second espresso at his elbow, he would start in on the cards, some very severe form of solitaire. i once heard him call it "calculation." exactly three games.

the cards were very worn, the images nearly effaced, many with edges taped. sometimes he would stop after turning up a particular card and write for several minutes in a battered notebook.

today was not a bagel day. no paper either, for some reason. but the cards yes.

about halfway through the third game, a small, bearded man who had been watching from a nearby table said something to him in what i would guess was a russian accent, something about reading his future.

zach looked up i would have said surprised, but expressionless is actually more to the point. he turned up the four of spades and looked at it for a moment. then he looked directly at me.

"okay," he said finally, "let me finish this out." and the rest of the cards all fell into place.

zach invited the russian to sit across from him. he placed a small copper disc on the table. the russian picked it up and handed it back to him. zach shuffled seven times and handed the cards to the russian, telling him to mix them until he felt comfortable.

the russian pulled seven cards without being asked. zach took those, mixed them once, and started laying them face up on the table.

five of spades. "this is about looking out for yourself," zach said, "something in your head." seven of diamonds. "a decision you are putting off." and so on. i don't remember all of the cards.

the upshot was the russian needed to let go of some perceived injustice and embrace an unrecognized opportunity, or something like that. i was trying not to eavesdrop.

the russian sat silent for awhile, his finger tracing invisible lines from one card to another. abruptly he stood up, took zach's left hand in both of his, and quietly thanked him.

the russian left, and zach retrieved his empty cup to take it to the bus tray. i approached him.

"hey, can i ask what just happened here? it looked like you were reading cards to this guy."

zach gave me the same expressionless gaze he had given the russian. "have we met," he said. apologetic, i gave my name. "zach," he said, not extending a hand. across the room someone dropped a spoon.

"yes," he said, "i was reading."

"but i mean, how does that work. i was thinking maybe something like rorschach, but --"

"that is not an entirely inapt analogy," he said, "though it is very incomplete."

"-- but it was you offering interpretations to him, not him looking into inkblots."

zach gestured to an empty table. i offered to buy him another espresso, but he declined. we sat.

"the reading will inevitably be filtered through my individual personality, yes," he began, "but i try to minimize that. the interpretations i offered were very general. it was for him to fill in the details."

"but still this seems to suppose that the cards are coming up in some meaningful sequence."

"it is useful to allow that possibility," he said, "and engaging the querent in selecting the cards helps support the idea. but meaning could be read into any combination of cards."

"so i'm sorry, are you saying the reading you just gave was completely arbitrary?"

"no, actually i am not saying that. what he needed to hear would have turned up in whatever cards he drew."

"this is not making sense to me."

"you mean as a rational materialist."

"okay, yes," i acknowledged. "you shuffled the cards, he shuffled the cards, he pulled some number of cards. how can this be anything but random?"

"have you never attributed meaning to random events?"

that set me back a notch. "probably. but i try to dismiss that kind of thinking."

"why?"

"i want as much as possible to be able to think of myself as a rational being."

zach paused. finally he said, "let me ask you this. what exactly do you think were your motives in initiating this conversation just now?"

i found myself struggling with the answer. finally i had to concede that at some level i had felt threatened by what i had seen, and i had wanted to reassert my grasp of mundane reality.

"you want to paper over something you don't understand with rational explanations."

"okay, yes."

"do you remember what you actually felt in the moment you decided to talk to me, any physical sensation?"

and again i found myself struggling. suddenly i realized that, yes, there had been a distinct physical sensation. it was as though i were waking up, or as though i were stepping back into the cafe from a closet. as though the entire scene with the russian and the reading had been a film.

zach looked at me for a moment, as if deciding something. finally he said, "the four of spades was for you."