I don’t know where Alfred sleeps but it seems no matter how early in the morning I get to the Jardín, he’s already there, picking up trash, dipping a tin can into the fountain to water the pots of bougainvillea, feeding the street dogs scraps. Sometimes he moves around from bench to bench offering to read your cards.
“You’re no angel, no saint,” he told me the first time he examined the tarot cards from his ratty pack.
I gave him a look.
“It’s not coming from me, you understand,” he said. “I’m just the angel’s messenger.”
He was sweating, his brow moist like a sponge, flipping the cards rapidly, as if turning over stones concealing snakes.
“The angels have their rules,” he said. “Don’t ask me about it.”
Alfred, the tarot card reader. Photo by David Lansing.
Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the Jardín, listening to the gackles in the trees and the ringing of the bells of the Parroquia when I spotted Alfred sitting on the bench next to me talking to himself in a low whisper. His eyes were red and moist. I went over and asked him what was the matter.
“The light against the Parroquia,” he said, nodding towards the church looming in front of us. “It hurts me.”
I patted his leg and he smiled at me. “Sadness sharpens the senses,” he said. “It’s the heaviness that makes you feel closer to god.”
And then he wandered off to go tell someone else’s fortune.
Tags: Mexico, San Miguel de Allende
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Ah ……..means what to you?
Smiles
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What are the three icons across Alfred’s front? The two pins and the “N” bolo?
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I’ve zoomed in on the photo and can’t really make out the lapel pins. The one on the right might be something like a VFW pin…or maybe Rotary (there’s a strong ex-pat Rotary presence in San Miguel). The one on the left is an animal but I can’t tell what. Not an elephant (if you were thinking Republican). It looks like something whimsical…like an armadillo? As for the N on the bolo, you’ve got me. Nothing to do with his name.
And Sonia, I’m not quite sure what your question is to me. What “means what to” me? Alfred or the reading of my cards or…?
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The card reading? what did you think he meant with the reading?
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If you email the full photo file to me, I’ll use a tool or two on the pins.
I’m the odd sort who won’t put a bumper sticker on my car, or wear any jewelery, even a wedding ring. That others do, often provides a glimpse of something about them. Since Alfred claims to know ephemeral things about you, I thought you may be able to glim a bit about him.
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Of course, the N bolo adds spice, of French adventures in Mexico back in 1866 or so under Napoleon III.
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