VIN (a.k.a. "Untitled") PT 4

After a few moments, I feel like I can breathe a little better. I look around. People are still smiling and walking around me. No one is showing concern. I must be hiding things well. I need to get out of the way, find a quiet place. There’s a park close by. Where? I join the rest of the foot traffic and head east. I walk two...no three blocks. I turn to the left and find the open space of the park and notice a narrow trail on the far side of the parking lot. I take it. A pair of kids ride up the trail on their bikes in front of me. I follow quickly hoping to find a secluded spot and end up on the outer fringe of a rose garden. This must be part of the museum grounds. There’s a stand of shade trees and a bench at the garden’s entrance. The bench is empty until I claim it.

As I sit down, the panic that I have been holding back pushes forward. The waitress’ words echo in my mind, “He left. Ten minutes ago.” Oh my god, I was talking to someone who wasn’t there. What do I do now? I let go of the thought as quickly as I can and substitute it. I settle on. It’s never happened before. It’s never happened before. It’ll be okay.

Eventually, I shorten it and ‘it’ll be okay’ is the phrase that I hold on to. I start to go home with a plan to lock myself in the apartment with Don Quixote and concentrate on not having a full blown melt down. I stop myself in the middle of the park. Isn’t there this thing about challenging things that you believe to be true? At the moment, I believe that for some crazy reason I spoke to someone that wasn’t there. How do I challenge that belief? By proving that Not-Necessarily Mean Man is real. I shake my head. There’s no way that he’s real...why? It reads too much like my story notes. Hiding really won’t help. I decide to continue my outing and put my mind to work on the problem. That will give it something else to do besides panic. I turn around and retrace my steps, walking through the rose garden and around to the front of the art museum.

Not-Necessarily Mean Man stops me just outside the door.

“Where did you come from?” I ask

“Where did you go?” He asks.

“The waitress said that you left ten minutes ago. I went to look for you outside and you had disappeared. I’m fighting off a panic attack right now. If you don’t mind.” I say gesturing towards the door.

“Don’t go in. Please.”

I look at him. Normally, I would have ignored him but today...“What do I get?”

“A piece of candy.” He says with a grin.

I glare and reach for the door.

“Oops. Not funny.” He says and reaches out to stop me. “Sorry. I am sorry about everything. Will you please talk to me? I’m Earnest, by the way.” He smiles.

It is a charming smile. Disarming to many I’m sure. I am not one of the many. “Earnest..like anyone names their kid that anymore.”

“It is my name.” He says. “I can offer you another if you’d like.”

I think for a minute, wondering whether I should believe him. Who goes around offering other names, hookers? Maybe. But on the other hand, who would admit to having a name like Earnest if it wasn’t really their name? Against my better judgment, I let Earnest lead me to a nearby tree with a bench under it, explaining his lack of physical existence to him all the while.

“I am a real person.” He says.

“If you’re a real person, explain this.” I order, handing Earnest my notebook.

“If I wasn’t a real person could I be doing this?” He asks as he sits down and flips through the notebook’s pages.

“Probably not, but on the other hand, I do have a vivid imagination.”

Earnest looks at me. “Where is it?” He asks.

“At the front. You have to go back to the front.”

“It just says, ‘Vin’.”

I sigh. Explaining my insanity is becoming frustrating. “The page before that one.”

He turns another page. “This one? With all the writing on it?”

I give him my ‘duh’ look.

“From the top?” He asks.

I nod.

“Okay, from the top.”

He reads without making a sound. “Very interesting. This is almost our exact conversation.” Earnest looks at me. “How do I know that you didn’t write this after our conversation in the diner?”

“Let me think about that, write it after, claim that I wrote it beforehand, and then freak out? Why would anyone do that?”

“Attention?”

“Getting carted off to some hospital while half the city watches is not the kind of attention that I would want. Under any circumstances.”

“Nor I.” He says as he looks at my story.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“The difference between your story and reality. Something that proves to you that I really do exist. Ah! Here it is. The handsome stranger in your story is described as a Spaniard. I’m not a Spaniard.”

I lean in close and read over his shoulder, “What else?”

Earnest offers no other supporting evidence of my sanity.

“That’s it?” ‘I’m not a Spaniard’ is your entire argument?”

“It’s what I have for you.”

A feeling rolls through my stomach, one of pure fear. My hands begin to shake.

“Whoa. Whoa.” Earnest says when he notices my response. “Wait a second. That’s not everything. There’s something that I want to tell you.” He gestures towards the trail in front of us. “Shall we walk?”