‘T he cards
don’t lie.
You can’t erase
such profound
imagery.’
PHOTO BY TRASK BEDORTHA
place is swamped in trinkets — it’s hard to walk without
stepping on something. Most of the stuff is memorabilia
from fl ea markets and garage sales.
Charles David wasted no time. His housemate/hostess
Jimmi seated me and the EW photographer, and David made
his entrance with the statement, “Lemme see your hands.”
Usually when white people demand this of me, they have
badges and guns — it took me a moment to acclimate.
Apparently I displayed my palms in a fashion known as
‘the hand of Jupiter,’ with my fi ngers outstretched. “Most
people hold their fi ngers together when they show me their
palms. People who do that [hand of Jupiter] are just bold,
man.”
Meeting David was also deceptive. He looks and speaks
like he belongs deep down south — in Mississippi or
Alabama. “I’m a local redneck,” he says “My grandfather
was born in Florence.”
“You have a really straight, deep simian line,” he
observed. “That means the depth of your devotion and
feeling is incredibly intense.” Examining my palm, he
continued speaking. “This over here is your love line. Some
people have a totally straight one, but yours is a bunch of
deep little breaks.” I wince. “I don’t need to go into what
that means, do I?” David asked. The EW photographer
laughed at me, not with me.
“The strangest thing on your hand is the complete lack
of a lifeline,” he continued. “Your vitality I mean, it isn’t
very strong.” Images of untimely death fl ashed in my mind:
Ernest Hemmingway, Arthur Rimbaud, Heath fucking
Ledger. The palmist remarks on my scarred knuckles and I
confess to him I’ve done my share of boxing and barroom
bouncing. David informs me that, as a boy, the fi rst black
boxing star, Jack Johnson, was told by a palmist that he
would be the heavyweight champ of the world.
Palmistry began for David as a way to make money.
He practiced in Eugene during the heyday of the counter
culture years. “I was a hippie. We’d go down to the UO
sorority houses and sit outside selling our leatherwork,”
David says, adding that the girls streamed out of their
houses squealing, “I’ve never seen a real hippie before!”
But soon the girls got bored. David used palmistry to
keep his customers interested. He acquired a small book
on the subject and studied it a bit. “When I was young, I
thought it [palmistry] was just a buncha b.s.,” he says. “But
over the years I realized palmistry had nothing to do with
the book.” David explains that real palmistry is far more
than one can fi nd in pages. He is in the process of writing
his own book on Hellenism and its relation to palmistry.
Now, decades later, he no longer reads palms just for
the money. “This isn’t a business,” he says. “It fulfi lls me.”
Although he charges a fee for his services, David only
goes downstairs and turns the sign on when he feels so
inclined. He doesn’t have strict working hours. If you are
— C ONNIE B ENDER
CONNIE BENDER
lucky enough to be in the neighborhood when the neon is
blazing, you can drop by, although many people stop by
whether the sign is on or not. People bang on David’s door
at all hours, demanding readings. Sometimes it is other
palmists, looking to test him. Other times it is night of the
living dead-style tweekers, or a half-naked dude on roller
skates stumbling by to ask him what the winning lottery
numbers will be.
David had a lot to say about my palms. I grudgingly
concede that most of it was relevant. I staggered away with
deep respect for him, his vibrantly colored woodcarvings
of Christ and the devil lining the dark hallway that I passed
through on the way out.
I couldn’t stop looking at my hands.
House of Cards
Connie Bender’s cat meets us at the sidewalk and
escorts us in to her home. A woman in the later years of
life, Bender has been in Eugene forever. She seems like
a character out of a Tom Franklin novella. The daughter
of a water witcher, Bender’s intuitive powers were fi rst
recognized by her grandfather, who owned a parcel of land
in the Corvallis foothills. This man would take each of
his adolescent grandchildren out on the property holding
underground water reserves, to see if they had “the juice.”
Bender had the juice. She says, “the stick felt like a dog
on the end of a leash, pulling me.” Whatever it is Bender
possesses, the trait runs in the family. Her grandmother
read tealeaves.
Bender is a tarot card reader and a familiar face at
the Eugene Saturday Market, where she’s done readings
for more than 22 years. Christian groups and devoutly
religious people sometimes gather in front of her tent.
Some protesters have even become physically aggressive
with her, forcing Bender to call security. “You are so lost; if
only you’d turn to Jesus,” one woman implored her.
Bender once stopped reading cards for several years,
both because she sought to hold down a steady, fulltime job
and because the information the cards showed her was too
overwhelming. “I’m not doing this for theatrics or kicks,”
she says. “This isn’t a game. I’m not doing this because I
get high from this. I tried to make that full-time [job] work,
I really did, but this was calling me.”
Bender knows the history of her calling. Tarot, she
explains, was created for people who weren’t very literate,
hence the striking imagery adorning each card and card
set. When I ask why many people consider Tarot to be so
effective, she replies: “The cards don’t lie. You can’t erase
such profound imagery from your mind.”
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EUGENE WEEKLY MAY 26, 2011 13