John Dies at the End

quarter from behind my ear. But when he pulled back his hand, he was holding, not a coin, but a long, wriggling black centipede. He let it dangle over his fist, turning his hand over as it crawled around and around. One of the girls squealed.

He pinched it between thumb and forefinger, held the wriggling thing up for everyone to see. I noticed for the first time he had a few layers of first-aid tape wrapped around his other hand. He passed this hand in front of the bug and in a blink, the centipede was gone. The girls gasped.

“Well, the bug was a nice touch,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“You wanna know where it went, mon?”

“No.” I wasn’t feeling well all of a sudden. This guy was giving me an odd feeling in my gut. “But, you know, don’t get me wrong. I am one entertained son of a bitch.”

“I got other talents, you know.”

“Yeah, but I bet all your really good tricks are back at your apartment, right? And you’d be happy to show them to me, if only I were sixteen and female?”

“Do you dream, mon? I interpret dreams for beer.”

That’s the town of Undisclosed in a nutshell. This run-down half city with more weirdos per capita than you’ll find anywhere outside of San Francisco. We should have that printed on the green population sign coming into town: WELCOME TO [UNDISCLOSED]. DREAMS INTERPRETED FOR BEER.

I said, “Well, I don’t have any beer so I guess I’m outta luck.”

“I tell you what, Mr. Skeptic Mon. I’ll do it just like Daniel in the Old Testament. I’ll tell you the last dream you had, then I’ll break down its meaning for you. But if I’m right, you gotta buy me a beer. Okay, mon?”

“Sure. I mean, you’ve obviously been blessed with supernatural gifts. What better way to use them than to fish for free beers at parties.” I craned my head around, and thought I saw the dog trotting around a tent where somebody was selling corn dogs. I told my feet to turn and walk after it. I commanded my mouth to tell this guy “never mind.” Neither responded.

I knew that absolutely nothing good could possibly come from this encounter and, somehow, that a whole lot of bad could come instead. But my feet were planted.

“You had a dream early this morning, in the middle of the thunderstorm.”

I looked him in the eye.

Pfft. Lucky guess . . .

“In the dream, you were back with your girl Tina . . .”

Whoa, how’d he know—

“—and you come home, and she’s there with a big honkin’ pile of dynamite. One of those big cartoon plunger detonators, ready to blow. You ask her what she’s doin’ and she says ‘this’ and shoves down the handle and,” he spread his hands in the air, “boom. Your eyes snapped open. The explosion in your dream became the clap of thunder outside your window. So tell me, mon. Am I close?”

Ho. Lee. She. It.

He smiled. All eyes were on me, the naked shock on my face. A girl whispered, “Oh my God . . .”

There is no feeling I hate as much as speechlessness in the face of another man. I mumbled something.

One of the girls muttered, “Was he right? He was right, wasn’t he?”

A raven-haired girl next to her wearing raccoon eye shadow suddenly looked like she had been drained by a vampire. The group had unconsciously taken a step or two backward, as if there was some kind of safe distance at which the world would start making sense again.

“The look on his face tells me I was right,” he said, through a grin. “Wouldn’t you say, girls? But wait, there’s more.”

I wanted to walk away. Up on the pallet stage behind me John was tearing away the solo that marks the end of “Camel Holocaust,” rapping some impromptu lyrics, all over the cacophonous drums of Head “the entire show is one big drum solo in my mind” Feingold, and the band’s thunderous triple-threat bass. I’ve been to a lot of concerts, everything from garage bands to Pearl Jam. Maybe my opinion is biased, but I would have to say that Three-Arm Sally is the shittiest band I’ve ever heard.

“You can guess the meaning of the dream, mon. The girl layin’ in wait for you, ready to wreck your world again. But the dream be tryin’ to tell you somethin’ else, too. The dream be tryin’ to warn you, givin’ you a demonstration.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “You made a lucky guess, somebody probably told you about—”

“You see, you gotta be brave to ask yourself the scary questions. How did your mind, David, know the thunder was coming?”

Thunder? What? Get away from this guy, man. Get away get away—

“What? You’re full of—”

“The thunder came right as she hit the detonator in your dream. Your mind started the dream thirty seconds before the thunderclap. How did it know the thunder would be coming at that moment, to coincide with the explosion at the end?”

Because it’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward, I thought, crazily. Holy shit I’m quoting Alice in Wonderland. This is the worst fucking party ever.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. This, this is bullshit.” I was looking everywhere but at the Jamaican, suddenly terrified that I’d see him floating a foot off the grass. The girls were tittering to each other in amazement, a story to tell in the hallway Monday. Screw them. Screw everybody. But the bastard just wouldn’t stop talking.

“We’ve all had those dreams, mon. You dream you’re on a game show, on TV wearin’ nothing but a jockstrap. At the exact moment the game show buzzer goes off to tell you you’ve lost, the telephone buzzes in real life. A call your mind couldn’t have known was coming. You see, time is an ocean, not a garden hose. Space is a puff of smoke, a wisp of cloud. Your mind is a—”

“—What ever. Whatever.”

I turned away, shaking my head, my mouth dry.

Walk away, walk away. This ain’t right, you know it. You want no part of this guy.

Onstage, John was now crooning the slow, mournful dirge that was “Gay Superman.”“The camel of despairsoars, strapped to his jet packof haunted memories . . .”

“Want me to tell you where your daddy really was when you were in the hospital with that broken leg?” he said to my back. This stopped me, my guts turning to ice again. “Want me to tell you the name of your soul mate? Or how she’ll die?”

“Stop, or I’ll tell you how you’ll die”—that’s what I wanted to say but didn’t.

I walked away, forcing the steps. It was that jarring sensation of unreality, like the first time you see the road go spinning around your windshield in the middle of a car crash. I was actually dizzy, unsteady on my feet.

“Do you want to know when the first nuclear bomb will go off on American soil? And which city?”

I almost launched myself at the guy. But, once again a probable trip to the hospital was avoided by physical cowardice. This guy could probably kick my ass even without magical powers. I was so wired at this point I had the insane urge to punch one of those girls instead. Probably lose that fight, too.

“You know what, mon, why don’t you take your fake Jamaican accent and get back on the boat to Fake Jamaica,” is another thing it would have been cool to say, had I thought of it. Instead I sort of mumbled and made a dismissive motion with my hand as I stumbled into the crowd, acting like the conversation failed to hold my interest.

“Hey!” he shouted after me. “You owe me a beer, mon! Hey!”

Gypsies and psychics and Tarot readers have a hundred generations of practice at their art. And practice is all it is. Cold reading, wishful thinking, deductive reasoning. Throw out some general statement that could apply to any person on this Earth—

“I’m sensing that something is troubling you.”

“You’re amazing! Yes, it’s my husband . . .”