Conversation ii

There's a very big difference between trouble happening to you, and you happening to some trouble. Today, I discovered this for myself. And you all (and especially Katherine,) shall hear it.

I think, up till now I can say with an-admittedly small-degree of confidence that any madness that occurred to me, was mostly stumbled across, rather than sought out (with the exception of the Engrams, fair enough.) Today however, I heard the faint call of madness, and rather than turning up my sanity ipod, I ripped off my headphones and wandered happily towards the source. Why? well, why not eh?

So today it was lovely and sunny, and as I'd done weekendy worky things again, I had the day off and I decided that I wanted to go to the park to work on my tan. (Ha. By 'work on my tan', i obviously mean 'get ever more freckled.' If any member of my immediate family accidently step out of the shadows for 15 seconds, they turn the colour of a freshly baked fairy cake. If I lie in the sun for 9 hours, with no suncream and holding up a magnifying glass, all that happens is that my follicle freckle guards call for reinforcements. Major reinforcements. I end up looks like a child's puzzle. Very sad.)

Anyway, there I was, Central Park, soaking up that skyline. Central Park is massive, by the way. Really though. It just goes on and on. I thought to myself, before I leave, I really want to find the fountain that all the 'Friends' do all their happy frolicking in. Standing with these thoughts in the middle of a busy fieldy type bit, I hear a voice behind me, 'looking for somewhere to go?'
I look round, and a man of about perhaps 45, of Indian/puertorican origin (fact- he told me himself, so I'm not even le racist.) with long long silver hair all piled up on his head, one very wonky eye, carrying what looked like a broken computer monitor on a string in his arms. Clearly, this was the person I was meant to meet here.
I laughed, and said 'oh no, I'm just.. waiting, for my friend.'
A cunning and foolproof opening gambit, I'm sure you'll agree.
'Ah. Where is your friend? I shall show you the best parts of central park! Where are you from eh?'
I told him. Seemed like the sensible road to take.
'England! ahh I showed a girl from dublin around the other day! Lovely girl! Come, I can show you the water, the boats are beautiful! I shall show you!'
'But... my friend, erm...'
'Is this a male friend?'
I decided that he was. And I also decided that he was the kind of friend that would be really annoyed if I was late for a meeting. Bit annoying like that, very anal about things, but a good soul. Oh and freaking massive. He's built like a shed, I decided.
'Do you have a phone? You call him! Tell him you will be back in 10 minutes! I will just show you the boats! The fountain!'
Ok, ok. ok. I know what you're thinking (dad), you would be mad to go off with blah blah blah, probably actually a lion blah blah. But this was 2pm on a sunny monday afternoon. Central park was HEAVING with people. There was nowhere to hide anything. He had a gimpy eye. All of these things weighed in my favour in the 'but will he try and murder me' stakes that we invariably play with strangers. I had no plans. I wanted to see the fountain. but EVEN so, I was still leaning towards the 'no thanks, my massive mate will bloody do you if you try anything' type option. And then I noticed something that made me change my mind. On the broken computer monitor he was carrying, I noticed that on the back was a weird pencil sketching of a cartoon goth man. I pointed at it, and made noises
'Ahh yes. I found this! I found it, and i loved the way the lines were so strong, so strict. I decided to draw on it, mirror the lines with the man's strong face. I am an artist, you see.' The man had drawn on a broken computer monitor. In pencil. And then attached it to a bit of string and carried it round. I was sold. 'Ok sure, 10 minutes wont hurt eh?' I said brightly, and off we went, with me staying very much in the bright sunshine, and making lots of eyecontact with passing strangers, just in case.
'So, where abouts in England are you from?'
'Near Manchester, in the North.'
His face broke in a grin, 'ahhhh Manchester! You guys are my friends!'
Slightly confused by intrigued nevertheless, i waited for a reason. None came. In the end I couldnt take it, 'why are we your friends?'
He looked at me (sort of). 'I will teach you something now! Something I bet you didn't know! The people from Manchester, back in the 1600's, they smuggled in machetes for the people of puertorico! Against the wishes of the government! The people of Manchester gave weapons to the public, and gave them back their power! You see that is why they are called MACH-etes. After 'MANCH-ester!' eh?'
Now. I haven't look up the origin of the machete, I'll admit. maybe someone can set me right, but I always thought it had an Eastern birth. The idea that a 1600 Manquinian mobster had handed a bent sword over to the spanish on the down low hadn't really occured to me. So much had never occured to me that I had absolutely nothing to say. I thought for a bit. and then, after a while I said,
'Sorry, machetes.. invented in... in Manchester?'
He grinned and nodded.
'Manchester. The northern town in England?'
He breathed in the clean air and strode on. I suppose so.
So we continued to walk onwards, and soon reached the lovely fountainy rowing boat area, and I happily took touristy pictures, insisted that I got one of him, and waved away his offer to take one of me, a bit worried that he might grab it, shout 'oh! A camera! Invented in Skegness, 2006 by Kate Thornton!' and run away laughing.
This was going very well, I thought. I mean sure, he's obviously a bit of a mad, but he seems harmless enough, and hey, who am I to assume his historical knowledge isn't what really happened after all! Go Manchester! Saviour of the spanish people!
Sadly, all of a sudden, it had to go a bit wrong.
'You see, usually, down there, is where I do my Yoga.' He pointed towards a foresty grove with a sign outside it that read 'murderers cavern'.
'I'll show you? Show you the forest part?' He looked at me hopefully.
Suddenly my pissed off massive friend started to ring me. Silently. But he was ringing alright.
Oh the art of the 'fake phone conversation'. I have honed it over many years of not trusting taxi drivers when riding alone.
'Hi Mum, just on the way back now.. will be about 20 minutes..... yep. the registration plate? What do you want that number for?.. oh mum I'm sure it'll be fine.. mum come on... well.. alright if you insist... and the Taxi driver's name and licence number too? A physical description and any striking attributes? Oh you do worry mum don't you, you silly thing. But ok then...'
etc.
I got off the phone and informed my guide sadly that I really was due back at the grassy field. My date was very worried about me. His brow furrowed. 'No, wait, I just want to show you this area, its so beautiful, the light, really-'
'No, its just, I.. erm.. I really dont like heights.'
The foresty bit was on a slight incline. By all accounts, this was a fairly ridiculous thing to say.
'It... it isn't high.'
'yeahhhh but.. you know.. I get scared really easily, ahahaha, wont catch me up that empire state building, thats for sure hahahaha. hahaha.'
He looked at me sadly. The monitor drooped in a disappointed way.
'Ok, ok, I'll take you back. We'll go round.'
At this point I was thinking that everything really had gone wonderfully, and was congratulating myself on going with my computer art based instinct. Sadly, then things took a slight turn for the mad.
'You know, I am a lucky man!'
'Oh yes?'
'Last week, I came here, met a girl in the park, she ended up taking me to a fancy hotel bar, bought me champange! 4 glasses for 100 dollars! We ended up at a party, and only parted ways at 6 in the morning, it was wonderful.'
He looked sideways at me (obviously), and a bit hopefully. I kicked a leaf.
'Shannon, her name was. She was a lawyer!'
I suddenly wondered whether that lawyer was the same one the subway naked man had gotten to pose for him. It seems that 'having a lawyer' involved in some way is the benchmark by which you an call yourself not a mad. As I was musing back on the hilarity of the naked subwayer, my companion said
'You know, I am an artist, I often ask girls to model for me. But usually we go out to dinner first, as you know, they get, they worry about me, they think I am frightening.'
I nodded, hoping he'd take from that whatever he wanted.
'Do you think that you would like to-'
'WOW central park is huge isn't it!' I said VERY loudly, DETERMINED that I was not going to end up in another ridiculous subwayer situation. Even if he wasn't going to say that. Not worth the risk. Not the greatest observation, to be sure, but it was all I had on the spot.
We were nearing the field again now, and crunching through a bit of leafy-tree-y bit, he said huskily 'this area is, is very romantic, yes?'
I decided to have a brisk coughing fit.
We reached the opening of the field-y bit, and it suddenly occured to me that he might assume he was walking me TO me friend. my friend who, on the whole, didn't exist. Oh dear.
'What are you doing tomorrow?'
'oh erm.. I dont know.. my, my flatmate is organising something for us to.. do. I think, erm-'
'Do you have the internet?'
'Its just gone down actually.'
'Do you have an email address?'
Yes. Yes I did. NatashaYak@gmail.com was back to the rescue, despite her terrible personality problems.
'I will email you, we can meet up again! I'll show you the cove.'
I made some sort of noise, and tried to walk away in the most final, well, see you later then, way possible. He continued to step with me. Dismayed, I stopped, and wondered what the hell I was going to do. As my mind was full of fretting, he said
'I don't do abdominal work-out, you know.'
'I'm sorry?'
'Its all Yoga. You see my chest? Touch it.'
I politely declined.
'I don't do any crunches, anything like that. It's all just Yoga.'
I assured him that I could believe it. Shook his hand. And bid him farewall. I started to walk away, but did a little look round on the pretence of a final wave and he was STILL bloody watching me, looking a bit confused. 'Your friend?'
I nodded wildly, and then.. oh and then.. oh god.
I saw a man (yes) walking in the same direction as me (ie AWAY from Yoga) and without thinking (WHY without thinking???) caught him up, and apologised. Step one, always apologise to a stranger for no reason. That out of the way, I quickly explained that I needed him to pretend to be my friend for the next thirty seconds, so that a man who had sort of ish started following me a bit would leave me alone. Oh dear. Oh the shame.
The man, was ,not surprisingly, rather surprised. And I apologised again. Its what we Brits do best. Then I thanked him. We do that well too. I looked round one more time and Yoga was walking away. What a mess I am. Spencer- my best friend- asked me, interrupting my alternate thanks and apologies, when he started following me. And, well.. well he didn't, did he? It was all my fault. I made up some lie, as seems to be my custom these days about him talking to me at the fountain, left out the bit where I was entranced by a line drawing of a computer goth, and thanked him again. Bemusedly, he said it was fine, we turned a corner and went our seperate ways. 5 weeks in New York and I've finally done it. I've become a mad. Maybe Yoga came to this city as a fresh British girl set on a 6 week internship, but his fascination with the crazies landed him with long silvery hair, a funny eye and a penchant for expensive champagne. I just glimpsed my future, and its not looking good. Oh well. At least I'll have superior upper arm strength, and I'll never even need an abdominal workout.