Mitch and Charley Read the Tarot
Michael
Jeff, did you want Mitch to hang out with Charley when he's done in Archie's office? Watch TV, chat, play around with Tarot cards?
Jeff
Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Mitch comes out of the office, fuming a little, sees Charley and makes an effort to put on a light and jocular facade. "Hey, kid, you ever have your fortune told?"
(Mitch doesn't usually drink at Livermore but if he wants to, and he does want to, at the moment, is there a convenient way for him to get a drink? Half a bottle of wild turkey in a handy desk drawer, maybe?)
Michael
(Absolutely, and lots of opaque old-school Styrofoam cups by the coffee maker. Drinking at 11 am out of a Styrofoam cup while a kid is playing with Tarot cards; why am I having flashbacks to my childhood now.)
Jeff
(I'm not even going to ask if I can make a Carousing roll in this situation but … )
Michael
Drunk Uncle Energy!
It's risky, if you fail you come off a drunken fool
Mel
Charley sighs and gives a quick look away from the TV to the cards and Mitch. "Nooo," she replies warily.
Jeff
"C'mere, I'll show you." Mitch sits down at a table and gestures such that Charley is invited to sit across from him. He sets the styrofoam cup of whiskey down, pulls his foxed Waite-Rider deck from a jacket pocket, and shuffles the cards while waiting for her to join him.
(As he eyes Charley he tries to read her aura again, for the bonus to Fortune-Telling.)
>>>> ACTIVATE … SUCCESS
>>>> DETECT … SUCCESS
>>>> ANALYZE … SUCCESS
Michael
Mel, you'll want to roll against Mind Block. 13 or less on 3d6.
Mel
3d6 … 9
Michael
(Again, this is just to prevent Mitch from reading her emotions. The rest of the aura sight will go through.)
Okay, so Mitch, Charley's emotions are again a mystery to you. But her aura remains powerful and indigo, and the body scan element of the Aura Reading reveals a perfectly healthy kid with a chip in her head.
Jeff
(Does that mean I don't get the +3 to Fortune-Telling?)
Michael
(Good question!)
Jeff
(I don't think Mitch has ever tried to do a spread on someone with the Mind Block skill before.)
Michael
(I would say no! This is just a call on my part but without emotional data it might be tough to get a read on someone. You know what, I'll give you a +1 for purely physical data like heart rate and respiration and such.)
Let's call it a +1 to the Fortune Telling roll.
Mel
She continues to watch the Looney Tunes that is playing on the television. But after a minute or so she'll come sit down across from Mitch.
Jeff
It's been a long time since Mitch was doing spreads for pot in a cave in Laurel Canyon, but the burnouts and dropouts he dealt with then weren't necessarily more on the ball than a (neurotypical) seven-year-old. He'll skip the patter about how the cards are an ancient and mystic tradition. "Let's keep things simple. The first card tells us who you are."
Fortune Telling-14.
>>>> SUCCESS
Right, that's a successful Sense roll for the Oracle.
Michael
I guess I should try to come up with some cards here, huh?
Jeff
Oh, I'd assumed Mitch had salted the deck and was planning to work off some pre-selected cards, but as I type that it occurs to me that couldn't jibe with using it for Oracle.
Michael
(The right cards will come up. He's salted himself subconsciously. )
(Serendipity, baby)
(Out of character, if you had some ideas about cards to include, I would love to make this reading collaborative. I'll convey what the Oracle tells you regardless. This is all just flavor, really. )
Jeff
"Temperance, I'm sure you know the word," Mitch says, a little uneasy. Back in the cave he'd used Temperance a lot, but usually he'd put it down reversed, and tell the mark that the cards said they were engaged in a binge of hedonic indulgence, which would get a tell-me-something-I-don't-know laugh. Temperance upright was reserved for when he wanted the cards to tell someone they needed to chill out and cool down.
Right now Mitch is looking at the solar symbol on the angel's forehead.
Mel
"Yes, OK? You're reading my fortune correct?" (Can I assume she knows about the Tarot?) Charley is feeling like maybe this isn't how it's done.
Michael
(Yeah, I think she's seen it on TV somewhere. An old black and white movie or an episode of The Munsters or something)
Jeff
Mitch is briefly nonplussed, as none of his usual scripts seem appropriate here. "Sure. Yes." He's unsure how much to explain, for so many reasons. "The first card, as I said, tells us who you are, which is to say, it's how the cards see you. For the purposes of this reading. The other three cards should be read in the context of this card. Temperance can mean lots of different things. Unity, say. Peace, rationality." He's watching Charley, trying to get a bead on when he says something that registers with her either as an apt description of some version of her self-image, or something truly well away from the mark. "Enthusiasm plus discipline. Emotion plus logic. Ethicality plus tolerance. The angel is unisex, as you can see, and they're doing a little magic trick that's meant to impress us while quietly and inoffensively hovering a few inches off the ground."
Mel
She nods and has a slight smile, she is waiting to see if he has more to say or more cards to play.
Jeff
"The second card tells us where you came from," Mitch says, and flips it over.
Mel
"Oh?!" she is interested in this card..
Jeff
"Oooh," Mitch coos, reflexively. "It's upside down."
Mel
"Is that bad?"
Jeff
"When a card is upside down, all of its meaning is flipped, too. So it depends."
"The Queen of Pentacles usually symbolizes a powerful and wealthy woman, like, she's got a crown and a throne and she spends all her time cradling her giant novelty gold coin, right? Reversing it means the opposite of that, a woman poor in material wealth... which implies a spiritual richness, especially in the context of the balance-and-moderation, uh, core card."
95% of Mitch's actual Tarot knowledge comes from the pamphlet that came with his set of cards.
Michael
(So did everybody's in the '60s and '70s. I like Mitch's interpretations so far, I'll flesh it all out once the reading is over.)
Jeff
"So, there's some lady in your past, she was poor in the sense that she lacked power and influence," Mitch tries. "She had to do what others ordered, she didn't call the shots. But she had something special, something internal, which is what the cards are trying to highlight to us, here and now."
Mel
"Hmm, maybe it's my mother?"
Jeff
Mitch looks thoughtful. "Maybe? I mean, what's your mother like?" he asks as guilelessly as he can manage (pretty okay given his margin of success on the Fortune-Telling roll). "The cards seem to be implying she's firmly in the past tense, but I could be misunderstanding."
Mel
"My mother … my mother died."
Jeff
Mitch had expected this but he forgot about the part where he was going to have to say something afterwards.
Mel
She takes the card and turns it upright. And starts to get up.
Jeff
Mitch is in the middle of a long swig of wild turkey, and the words he was composing in his head die on the vine. "Uh, okay, I see you're … that's your choice … but are you sure you don't want to hear the other half of this?"
Mel
Charley just isn't sure about Mitch. This is feeling odd. She starts to take a step back and shrugs. She is still watching. So, it's up to Mitch if he wants to keep going. She might be enticed back.
Jeff
Yeah, while Mitch in 1973 is less concerned with being weird and creepy around a little girl than I in 2020 would be, I don't think he's going to try to push her any further — this was in part a gambit to try to build a rapport with Charley, and if it's failed on that criteria, then it is what it is. He'll shrug and flip over the last two cards for his own edification (the third card tell us where you're going and the fourth card tells us how it'll work out, in the simplified spread system Mitch used to pick up hippie chicks).
Michael
I'll give you the cards and then an IQ roll to put it all together, one sec.
Third card, where Charley is going:
Fourth, how it will all work out for her:
IQ roll please!
Jeff
>>>> SUCCESS
Mel
She’s curious about the cards so she will come closer again to see.
Jeff
Mitch taps the third card. “This looks nice, right? This is your immediate future, where you’re going seen through the context of where you’ve been,” he taps the second card, which he has quietly already flipped back the way it was, “and who you are.” He taps the first one again, for unnecessary emphasis. “The bower and the flowers suggest celebration, domesticity, like, is this a wedding? Maybe. I dunno if that’s meant to be a man and a woman, there in the blue and the green, or, no, blue and red. They’re waving those bouquets around like they just won some trophies. There’s definitely a triumphal element here, a reversal of fortune, especially in the context of the reversed queen. Maybe something good.”
“But it’s not all sunshine, I gotta warn you, there’s an element of enforced joviality to this card. You see the castle back there?” He points. “Its roof is red, the color of blood, and it’s a defensive fortification meant for wartime, even if it’s currently playing host to a maybe-wedding. There’s an undercurrent of danger, something below the surface. The cards are coming down more good than bad, but it’s a weal-and-woe situation, here.”
He moves to the fourth card without waiting for a reply from Charley, since he hasn’t been getting much from her. “The last card is the wrap-up, the what’s-it-all-about, the little orphan Annie of it all, okay? And this is a pretty positive card, I gotta say. Cups, for the cards, are pretty much always full of good things, like, uh, ice cream. So you’ve got ten ice cream sundaes lined up in a rainbow and a bunch of excited people pointing and talking about how much they’re gonna enjoy sharing the ice cream. Not just people, a family, Eisenhower’s America, you know? It’s not sure, like, nothing is ever sure, you can see the red roof is still there? But there’s some room for optimism, which is always nice to see.
“So, uh, any questions? I warn you, I’m not the world’s greatest reader, I might have messed it up somewhere. I think I’m right, with how I’m reading this, but if I thought I was wrong I’d have said something else already, so, there you go.”
Mel
Charley is thinking this guy probably needs a little help.
“No, not too bad. Okay, your turn! The first thing I should mention is that, if you have any silk or cloth of some significance preferably with a rose print you should wrap your cards in that, when they are not in use. That will help protect them from negative energy. But, the other thing you can do is this. Close your eyes and imagine a long, long, cord that travels all the way down to the center of the earth. And that it drains off any bad energy. And then you can imagine, Golden Suns filling up your cards with positive energy. Next we should center ourselves. You should put your cup down and sit relaxed, feet planted flat on the ground, hands open. Now, shuffle the cards and if you have a question about something, focus on that. When your done, split the deck and I will stack them and fan them out. Then you should pick three cards. But make sure you face them down. OK?”
(Mike, apart from what she has seen on TV, I would say Tarot has been touched upon in her instructions. As well as grounding, energy cleansing, spirit guides, the whole New Age gambit. Not that she is well practiced but also it just seems natural.)
Michael
(I agree, also see the message I just sent you.)
Upon reflection, I think it would honestly be pretty clear to Mitch that Charley had some heavy-duty "California New Age" programming laid in her head before coming to URIEL, i.e., 4 points in Occultism via the Renshaw Method. Although one can never discount the possibility that maybe it's that weird thing happening with her aura … I'm just imagining Charley speed-reading every dumb book on channeling or UFOs or the Ascended Masters published in California in the past 8 years.
Michael
Okay then. Mitch is nonplussed but sometimes you fail, that's the game of life. He'll drain the rest of his whiskey before setting the cup down, though.
Mel
Once Mitch has done as directed, she will turn over the first card. “First card is your past.”
Charley looks deeply at the card and after some time, gives you her interpretation. Her speech has slowed and every word has weight. “I see a lot of pain in your past … and regret, for some of the choices you have made. But you were also, being to see that the painful experiences we’re just part of the over all scheme of things. And you started to gain strength and resilience from them.”
She then turns over the second card …
“This card represents the present … I see a man of complete and utter focus a man who is striving for one thing only … to be master of his craft.” She now turns over the final card.
“This card represents your future … Death is my favorite card. It is not something to fear. It is about deep change, the ultimate beginning.. Rebirth. It says to me in unison with the other cards that you are on the path to transformation.” She exhales deeply and looks at Mitch. “So, there you have it: past, present and future!” She smiles at him, quite pleased with herself.