Bedava sirke baldan tatlıdır

Norman had a refugee uncle from Turkey who could read fortunes from a pack of playing cards. That was how he learned English so fast - from reading fortunes off of playing cards. If you brought him a carton of cigarettes or an apple pie then he would go into very happy detail for you, which is precisely what I did, right after I heard that Billy the Rainboy caught a Louisville Slugger square on the eyebrow while running dope in Cincinnati.

“Five wands!” It was actually a five of clubs. “Stay away from silly fight.” He squinted at me like it was something that I disobeyed on purpose and sucked on his cigarette three times, real fast, before taking a drag. Fuff-fuff-fuffffffff. I thought of telling him that he only needed to puff like that when lighting up, that American cigarettes wouldn’t just snuff out like Turkish ones, and so there was no need to fuff-fuff-fuffffffff every ten seconds and end up going through a whole goddamn pack in an hour.

But I’m not too familiar with the quality of Turkish cigarettes. It could have just been a habit of his.

“Too many swords.” Norman’s uncle kept right on flipping and fuffing and squinting. He had immaculate eyebrows. That’s not the type of thing I look for in people usually, but you tend to notice weird things when you get anxious. Look around at wallpaper, count ceiling tiles, scratch at cracks in the table. You know.

“What uh, what do swords mean?”

“Swords, not so good.”

I almost asked him “What about bats, huh?” but I thought better about it. He probably wouldn’t get it. And even if he did, I could see how it would sort of sound like a cheap shot, to somebody else. Saying something like that. What with Billy the Rainboy needing a closed casket just a couple days ago. I mean sure, he was king of the raging pricks, the crown-prince of fuck-you-up-the-ass, but I’m just not a cheap shot sort of guy.

"Stay away from silly fight." Norman's uncle had eaten through another cigarette and was glaring at me while rummaging for a fresh one. He stuffed it halfway in his cheek like he was saving it for later. "Also, your mother. You need to visit more."

"Ma's dead, man."

He nodded and reached for my hand. "Yes." Then pried it open. To read my palm, I guess. His fingers felt like a bricklayer's.