She grins, and for a moment, she looks like a teenager. “Mercedes because I wanted a car I couldn’t afford. And Dantes… like Alexandre Dumas. The Count of Monte Cristo . A man wrongly imprisoned who becomes a ghost of vengeance and mercy.” She taps her temple. “I was wrongly imprisoned? No. I was guilty as sin. But I chose to become a different kind of ghost. One who reads cards instead of holding grudges.” As I leave, she calls after me: “Hey. That Ten of Cups? Don’t go looking for it. It’s not a destination. It’s a decision you make every morning when you wake up and decide not to be an asshole.”
I step out into the Oakland sun. The Botánica next door is playing a corrido. A child is crying over a spilled slushie. Somewhere, a car alarm wails. tarot mercedes dantes
She leans back. “That’ll be twenty dollars. Or the name of the first person who broke your heart.” She grins, and for a moment, she looks like a teenager
“Prison is the best divination school on earth,” she tells me, finally lifting her gaze. Her eyes are the color of whiskey left too long in the decanter. “You learn to read men in three seconds. You learn which ones will stab you, which ones will save you, and which ones will cry when the guards come. Tarot is just that skill with pictures.” Mercedes’s signature deck is a modified Rider-Waite she calls The Concrete Arcana . She has scrawled over the traditional imagery with Sharpie and glitter glue: The Hanged Man now dangles from a fire escape. The Tower is a public housing project collapsing in slow motion. The Devil wears a police badge. The Count of Monte Cristo
Fourth card: “Obstacle. You have all the tools but you keep waiting for permission. Who the fuck gave you that rule? Was it your daddy? Your third-grade teacher? Because I can call them. I have no problem yelling at ghosts.”