Tarot on Tap
Tarot on Tap
“…What the hell.”
“Go on…”
“Why are there suddenly tarot readers everywhere today?”
“Go on. Give it a chance.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I already know exactly what this is gonna feel like. Weird incense. Dim lighting. Somebody staring into my soul while holding a crystal the size of a baseball.”
“You sound defensive.”
“I sound experienced.”
Ari glances at another storefront as he drives past.
“Besides, my mom was into all this stuff when I was little. Palmistry. Psychics. Energy readers. She dragged me into those places constantly. Although she never did get into tarot…”
“And?”
“And it freaked me out.”
“Why?”
“Because it felt witchy.”
“Witchy.”
“Yeah. Spells and curses and hidden knowledge and weird women staring too hard into your eyes. I hated it.”
“That’s not the whole truth.”
“…”
“You also hoped they’d fix her.”
Ari’s grip tightens slightly on the wheel.
“You prayed somebody would magically make your mother kind to you again.”
Silence.
“Yeah, well.”
“That clearly didn’t work out.”
“No.”
“The child version of you kept hoping anyway.”
Ari exhales sharply.
“Cool. Awesome. Love this conversation.”
“Anyway, we are definitely not stopping at a tarot shop.”
Five minutes later, another psychic storefront passes by.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Anything with the word ‘psychic’ on it, I am driving directly past.”
Ari keeps driving.
Ten minutes later, another storefront appears.
PSYCHIC • TAROT • PALM READING • WALK-INS WELCOME
Ari squints.
“Okay, what the hell.”
“Have these always been here?”
“Probably.”
“No, seriously.”
“You’re noticing them now.”
“Is this confirmation bias? Like when somebody buys a red car and suddenly every car on Earth is red?”
“Maybe.”
“Then why does it feel weird?”
“Go on. Give it a chance.”
“No, because what would I even ask?”
“You already know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’d ask if you’re crazy.”
Ari immediately laughs.
“Okay, first of all, absolutely not.”
“Imagine pulling up to a tarot reader like, ‘Hey, just checking in real quick. Am I losing my fucking mind?’”
“And what if they said no?”
“I still wouldn’t trust them. That’s literally their whole business model.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You distrust anyone who sees through you too quickly.”
“I distrust scams.”
“Same reflex.”
Ari rolls his eyes and keeps driving.
Twenty minutes later
Traffic thickens as he enters the city. The music is lower now. The window is cracked slightly.
Then he sees it.
There is no storefront. Just a folding table on the sidewalk covered in tarot cards. Candles. A handwritten sign.
LIVE READINGS
Two people sit across from the reader, completely locked in.
Ari slows slightly as he passes.
“…What the fuck.”
“No, seriously. I have literally never seen that before.”
“Street musicians?”
“Yeah.”
“The silver statue people?”
“Obviously.”
“Bucket drummers?”
“Constantly.”
“But a random live tarot-reading station in the middle of downtown?”
“And yet, there it is.”
“This has to be coincidence.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“I’m unconvinced because today, specifically, they keep appearing like some weird side quest.”
“Maybe life is full of side quests.”
“I’m not getting out of the car in downtown Chicago so some woman named Moonwater can tell me my aura looks tired.”
Ari starts laughing despite himself.
“You know exactly the type I mean.”
“You’re scared she’d be accurate.”
“I’m scared she’d charge me forty dollars.”
“That too.”
Ari shakes his head, smiling now, while city lights move across the windshield.
“Whatever. Gotta be coincidence.”
He keeps driving.
Toward his nieces and nephews. Toward noise. Toward family. Toward something softer than the things he came from.
Still, every now and then, his eyes drift toward the sidewalks. Looking for another sign.
Rain had moved through earlier that evening, leaving the streets slick and reflective. Neon and brake lights stretched across the pavement in long, broken lines, as though the entire block had been lacquered over.
Ari sat in his car outside the bar, staring through the windshield.
The breakup was still fresh enough to feel unreal. His phone lay facedown in the passenger seat. His mind kept replaying conversations that were already over, rearranging words that had already landed, searching the same pile of wreckage for a different ending.
Ari stepped out of the car, pulled his hood up against the damp cold, and crossed the sidewalk.
Then he saw it.
TAROT ON TAP
Ari stopped beneath the neon sign.
“…You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
He stood there with one hand on the door, seriously considering turning around.
Then exhaustion won.
He pushed inside.
Warmth hit him first. Then noise.
Low music. Glasses clinking. People laughing too loudly. Dim amber light stretched across dark wood and velvet booths.
At first, the bar looked normal.
Then Ari looked farther in.
The bartenders poured drinks beneath shelves of liquor. Beside them, seated at small sections of the bar as though they had always belonged there, were tarot readers. Candles. Velvet cloths. Decks of cards. People drank cocktails and nodded solemnly while having their lives decoded between sips.
Ari froze near the entrance.
He reached automatically for his ID.
Nobody asked for it.
Slightly offended, he slipped it back into his wallet. Apparently the gray in his hair had already introduced him.
“I have literally never heard of this before.”
“And now, suddenly, it’s a thing?”
“Since when is this a thing?”
He scanned the room.
To his left, a woman in a leather jacket cried over a martini while a reader pointed at a card. To his right, two guys in business casual laughed too loudly while one of them asked whether Mercury retrograde was why his situationship had ghosted him.
“Okay.”
“That tracks.”
He almost left.
Then he remembered he had nowhere better to go.
Home sounded too quiet. His car felt too small. His own thoughts had become unbearable.
He walked to the bar and slid onto an empty stool.
The bartender approached, wiping the counter with a black towel.
“What can I get you?”
“Whiskey.”
“The Whiskey of Wizardry?”
“I’m sorry, the what?”
The bartender points toward a themed drink menu hanging beside the shelves.
THE WHISKEY OF WIZARDRY THE HEX ON THE BEACH THE NEGRONI NECROMANCER THE COSMIC COSMO THE MARGARITA MERCURY RETROGRADE
Ari stares at the menu. Then at the bartender. Then back at the menu.
“Um, sure…”
Ari mutters under his breath.
“…What the fuck is this?”
“You walked into a tarot-themed bar.”
Surprised the bartender heard him, Ari finishes his sip.
“I gathered that.”
“And yet, you’re still here.”
“Because depression is exhausting.”
“Fair.”
The bartender turns to prepare the drink.
Ari leans his elbows on the bar and rubs his face. His eyes feel swollen and heavy. It is the kind of tired that sits beneath the skin.
Then he hears it.
Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.
His attention drifts sideways.
The sound catches him first. Then the movement.
Cards flow between fingers. Quick. Fluid. Controlled.
Ari narrows his eyes.
“…Huh.”
For half a second, he is 16 again, standing behind the school gym with a deck of Bicycle cards, trying to convince himself he is the next David Blaine.
False cuts. Palm transfers. Forces. Color changes.
Hours alone practicing until his hands cramped.
He was never exactly popular. People knew him, though.
“Oh, shit. It’s the magic kid.”
Another shuffle snaps him back.
This time, the artwork holds him.
The cards look nothing like he expected. Intricate. Strange. Beautiful. Nothing like the tacky occult flash cards his childhood brain had filed away with incense shops and his mother’s friends who wore too many rings.
Ari leans slightly closer, trying not to look interested.
“Okay…”
“Those are actually kind of cool.”
“Careful.”
“No, seriously. I thought tarot cards were creepy little flash cards for witches.”
“And now?”
Ari keeps staring.
“I mean…”
“They look artistic.”
A small pause.
“I wonder why my mother never got into those.”
The bartender smiles.
“Most people don’t.”
“Why is that?”
Deep down, Ari assumes it is the same reason he never did. Cards are for play, not prophecy.
“Because tarot tells the truth before most people are ready to hear it.”
Something tightens beneath Ari’s ribs.
He had spent years avoiding the truth. Then weeks watching someone else bury it beneath denial.
The bartender slides the drink toward him.
“Whiskey of Wizardry.”
Ari lifts the glass in a small salute.
“Please never call it that again.”
The bartender smiles and moves down the bar.
Ari takes a sip.
Burn. Warmth. Relief. Ari continues looking down at the glass while taking a deep breath.
Then a figure abruptly appears across from him.
Ari nearly jumps as he looks up.
The tarot reader smiles at him as though she was summoned by the first sip. Ari gives the woman a good look before taking another sip. She is tattooed, white, brunette, with dark eyeshadow smudged in a way that somehow looks intentional. A small silver nose ring catches the amber light whenever she moves.
She looks completely comfortable around drunk strangers, emotional collapse, and people pretending they are less curious than they are.
“Hi…”
The reader meets his eyes calmly and spreads the deck in a smooth arc across the counter.
“You get a free reading with your first drink.”
She points lazily toward a sign behind the bar.
BUY A DRINK, GET A FREE READ
Ari stares at it.
“It should say, ‘Buy a drink, get a freak.’”
“It really should, shouldn’t it?”
Ari freezes. He looks up slowly. Direct eye contact. His stomach drops.
Holy shit. Had he said that out loud?
He genuinely doesn’t know.
The reader continues smiling faintly.
Ari clears his throat.
“Uh…”
“I’m good, thanks. You can give my free one to somebody el—”
Before he can finish, she pulls one card cleanly from the middle of the spread.
Flip.
She turns it over gently.
Everything in Ari goes still.
His eyes lock onto the image.
The man. The water. The stars overhead.
Broad shoulders. Strong arms pouring water from two vessels. Something grounded about him. Steady. Ancient. Almost godlike without trying to be.
Something painfully familiar.
Ari leans closer without meaning to.
“…Wait a minute.”
Suddenly, another memory surfaces.
Sixth grade.
His best friend sits cross-legged on the bedroom floor, talking excitedly about tarot. Ari half-listens, eats chips, and plays Grand Theft Auto III.
Fast-forward two decades later. Birthday wrapping paper. From the same friend.
A gifted tarot deck. Unopened to this day. That exact card on the cover.
The Star
Ari pulls his body closer to the image.
“Sometimes we have to do that.”
Ari barely hears her.
“We have to lean in a little closer to really see a star.”
Her voice sounds distant now. Muted beneath memory. Beneath recognition.
The reader continues explaining the card.
“Hope. Healing. Guidance. Renewal.”
Ari is no longer listening. He is staring at the man pouring water from two vessels.
The image stirs something old inside him.
He does not know much about tarot. He knows that image. Somehow, he knows that feeling.
His mother had been deeply into astrology. Enough that fragments of it stayed with him whether he wanted them to or not. He could never remember every sign, at least enough to get them right on the first try. He never understood birth charts. He could not explain houses, moons, or rising anything.
This, however? This he knows.
“That looks familiar… The, uh…water bearer.”
The reader looks impressed.
“Exactly. Aquarius.”
His sign.
“I didn’t know astrology was in tarot.”
“Zodiac signs and tarot go hand in hand. It’s all connected, just like we are.”
“That always tripped me up.”
“What did?”
“Why does Aquarius sound like ‘aqua,’ like water? It’s called the water bearer, yet it isn’t a water sign. It’s an air sign.”
“Aquarians are often considered the most misunderstood sign in the zodiac. Known to be cold. Detached. Rebellious. Stereotyped as eclectic or erratic. Nonconforming. Hyper-intellectual. Deeply intuitive. Unique.”
Ari feels something land deeply inside him. He pretends it does not and leans farther back in his chair.
“Doesn’t sound like a misunderstanding to me…”
“The part most often misunderstood is that they pour the water of knowledge. They pour it in a way that breathes life into those who have been stranded on a desert island.”
“That sounds poetic. So I assume the misunderstood part is that everyone thinks they’re about to save the world or whatever… Then they find out it’s just saltwater.”
The reader laughs out loud.
Ari’s eyes meet hers directly. His stare softens.
God, the beauty of a woman who laughs.
It has been so long since he made someone crack up like that. He takes another slow sip. He likes knowing he made her laugh.
Maybe, even if he is dead inside, he can still help someone else come to life a little.
Holy shit.
Maybe that is exactly what she means about the water and the desert.
He looks back at the godlike Greek figure. Strong biceps. Broad shoulders. The legs of a man who has never skipped leg day.
His eyes zero in on the entirely unreasonable six-pack situation.
Then his eyes drop. Almost by accident. Down to his own body.
The hoodie stretches slightly over his stomach. His belly is bigger than it has ever been. His arms and legs have softened. His body carries the evidence of a long-term relationship where, somewhere along the way, he carried most of the weight.
Emotionally. Physically. Quietly.
The kind of weight that does not announce itself. Until one day, he looks down and realizes his body has been telling the story too.
Ari looks back at the card. At the muscular water bearer.
“…Dammit. I wish I looked like that.”
He takes another sip of whiskey.
“Thanks for that.”
He sets the glass down, assuming the whole thing is over.
The reader laughs lightly.
“It’s not one card, silly. It’s one read.”
Ari’s hand pauses on the glass.
“Of course it is.”
She slides her fingers over the deck. Then she stops exactly near the place where his hand and drink had been resting.
“Let’s see what’s closest to your energy.”
Flip.
She turns over the next card.
The Magician
Ari almost spits out his drink.
“No way.”
He leans in, eyes wide. Then, without realizing it, he says aloud—
“I used to do magic! Is that really a card? In the deck?”
The reader smiles.
“It’s the first one.”
Ari blinks.
“Wait—what!? How many are there?”
“Seventy-eight.”
Ari almost spits out another sip.
“Seventy-eight!? That’s more than a standard deck!”
That one, he knows, he said out loud.
The reader laughs softly.
Around him, the bar suddenly feels more alive than before. Like his confusion has accidentally become part of the atmosphere.
Two women and a man sitting a few stools down have clearly been half-listening the entire time.
The woman closest to him leans over slightly. She rests her arm against the edge of the bar while peeking toward the spread.
“My favorite card is card zero.”
Ari looks over at her, immediately confused.
“…How do you have a card zero?”
She smiles like somebody who already knows she sounds insane to outsiders.
“The Fool.”
Ari stares at her. Then he looks back at the reader. Then back at the woman again.
“You people really named a card The Fool?”
“Technically, it’s one of the most important cards in the deck.”
Ari laughs once through his nose, then stares back at the woman.
“Sounds like something a fool would say…”
He tries to be funny. He does not realize the joke failed to land.
The man sitting beside her raises his drink slightly.
“Honestly? That’s exactly what somebody with Fool-card energy would say.”
That side of the bar laughs quietly.
The reader taps lightly against the edge of the card.
“The Magician…”
Ari studies the figure with one hand pointed toward the sky and the other toward the Earth. It feels annoyingly intense for a casual Friday night.
“As above, so below. As within, so without.”
She continues.
“Focus. Creation. Intention. Potential.”
Ari is only halfway listening because he has noticed something else.
The people beside him are still paying attention. Gentle eyes. Half-smiles. Simply listening.
The woman who mentioned The Fool keeps glancing over between sips. The man beside her is invested now, too, as though Ari has accidentally become tonight’s entertainment. The second woman smiles softly whenever he reacts to a card.
Ari becomes hyperaware of himself.
How loud he has been. How rude and skeptical he has acted since walking in. How he is now publicly participating in tarot.
Fantastic.
He shifts awkwardly on the stool and rubs the back of his neck. The reader continues…
“The Magician is the manifestor. Reversed, it becomes the manipulator.”
Her finger traces the image.
“Yours came up upright.”
Ari scoffs.
“Tell that to all the people I haven’t heard back from yet.”
The reader smiles and gestures that she needs a minute. She steps away to give someone else their free reading for the night. Ari nods, then looks around.
Trying to regain control of the conversation, or perhaps simply accepting that they are already emotionally seated at the table, Ari turns toward the people seated beside him.
“Okay, I’ll bite. So what does The Fool mean, then?”
The woman’s face immediately lights up. Like she has been waiting to be invited in.
“New beginnings. Leap-of-faith energy. Starting a journey without fully knowing where it leads.”
The man beside her chimes in while lifting his drink slightly.
“Beautiful card, honestly.”
“People hear ‘The Fool’ and think idiot. It’s actually kind of hopeful.”
Ari looks back down at The Magician in front of him. Then toward where The Fool supposedly exists somewhere inside the deck.
“So…these cards say I’m a star and a magician. And the one card that comes before all of them says I give off the energy of a dumbass about to walk off a cliff?”
The woman laughs.
“Basically, yes.”
“To be fair…”
She looks back at The Magician. Ari’s eyes follow hers.
“Most manifestors start as fools first.”
Ari looks down at The Magician still sitting faceup in front of him.
“Well… That definitely resonates.”
The people beside him look over again instinctively. Like they can feel something shifting in his tone.
Ari swirls the whiskey in his glass for a moment before continuing.
“Because apparently I’ve been the fool.”
The woman beside him softens immediately.
Ari continues staring at the cards while he speaks.
“I just found out I was basically playing a supporting role in somebody else’s double life this whole time.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“And I really thought…”
A small pause.
“I really thought I was chosen.”
The noise of the bar suddenly feels farther away. Muted.
Ari stares down into the whiskey.
“Turns out I never really was.”
Nobody speaks for a moment. Even the nearby laughter from the rest of the bar seems quieter somehow.
Then the woman beside him leans forward slightly. Her eyes drift toward the cards again.
“That’s exactly why The Fool matters, though.”
Ari looks at her tiredly.
“The Fool isn’t stupid because he hopes. He’s brave enough to begin again after reality humbles him.”
The man beside her nods once.
“Everybody becomes The Fool eventually.”
The reader, who reappeared at some point, remains quiet. Then, finally—
“Sometimes people confuse being chosen with being used to help somebody avoid themselves.”
That one lands directly in Ari’s chest.
Ari looks away immediately. Toward the bottles behind the bar. Toward literally anything else.
One thing leads to another, and somehow Ari finds himself talking. Really talking.
The unpolished version. The unfunny version. The version people rarely get.
The whiskey has softened the edges enough for the words to escape his ribs.
“I broke up with my fiancée this week.”
The group quiets.
“Announced it online less than twenty-four hours ago.”
The reader leans back, listening now. Ari rubs his face.
“I’d had our dog with me all week. But she came by and picked up our dog for the weekend.”
That one hurts more out loud.
“I knew the house would be empty tonight. So I drove downtown instead.”
His voice catches slightly.
“Because I don’t wanna be home without her. Without my dog. Without…Rosie.”
A small silence settles over the group.
Ari gives a tired shrug and looks around at them.
“So I’m here instead. Hanging out with people I’ve never met. Learning about something way over my head. And…honestly, it’s the best night I’ve had since this year even started.”
The guy beside him releases a quiet breath.
“Damn.”
The woman closest to him reaches over and touches his shoulder briefly. Like pure instinct.
The woman farthest from him gives a gentle smile. Then she looks directly at the bartender and points toward all of them.
“I’m getting us a round of shots, please.”
Then she lifts her arm dramatically.
“Round of shots on me!”
The entire side of the bar erupts immediately. Cheers. Raised glasses.
“LET’S GOOOO!”
Ari bursts out laughing so suddenly that it catches him off guard.
For the first time in what feels like months— he feels included somewhere.
Not analyzed. Not needed. Not carrying everyone. Not performing stability.
Just… there.
Part of a moment. Part of people. Part of something bigger than the ache he walked in with.
The shots arrive. Then another round.
Conversations grow louder. Warmer. Messier.
At some point, the tarot readers stop feeling strange entirely.
The cards remain scattered across the counter between empty glasses and laughter. Like they have always belonged there.
The guy beside him starts talking about life and heartbreak. About how everybody’s 30s and 40s are apparently a series of repeated ego deaths with cocktails.
Ari laughs harder than he has in weeks.
Then, somehow— and he genuinely cannot explain how— the entire section of the bar starts singing:
“BITCH, DON’T KILL MY VIBE! BITCH, DON’T KILL MY VIBE! BITCH, DON’T KILL MY VIBE!”
Ari is standing now. So is everyone else.
Dancing between barstools. Pointing dramatically at one another. Laughing.
And the funniest part? The song isn’t even playing.
There is literally just a neon sign hanging above the far wall that reads:
BITCH DON’T KILL MY VIBE ✨
Somehow, that is enough.
Enough for the whole room to light up. Enough for Ari to come alive again for a little while.
For one night, he is not sitting in everyone else’s silence. He is not the fool. He is not the supporting character in someone else’s hidden life.
He is simply another human being in a loud, glowing room full of strangers trying to survive themselves.
Hours later
The warmth starts fading slightly beneath the alcohol buzz.
Ari wanders back toward the bar while the crowd continues moving behind him. He slides onto his stool.
“Can I get some water?”
“Good call.”
Ari laughs quietly. He grabs his phone and notices a third tarot card resting facedown where he had been sitting.
He looks around. His reader is nowhere in sight.
“She went to the bathroom. Left that one for you.”
The bartender slides a glass of water toward him.
“Thanks.”
Ari wraps his hand around the cold glass. Then, slowly, he turns over the card.
The Sun
A child rides freely beneath an enormous golden sun. Arms open. Joy without apology. Warmth after darkness.
Ari stares at it.
He does not fully understand the card. He only knows that after taking part in other readings and landing with cards like the Ten of Swords, one after another, this is the first image he has seen in a while that does not look like it is surviving something.
Ari smiles. Then he looks around at the complete strangers discussing tarot cards like sports statistics.
“I swear to God, I walked into another dimension tonight.”
