Winter Solstice (or Vernon's tale) (Short Story)

Winter Solstice (or Vernon's tale)

My story begins on a December morning, 1991. It was on the approach to Christmas. Days were passing quickly, as they always do at that time of year. It was cold too, no colder than usual, just the same as I’d always remembered.

We led happy lives, happy but busy. I’d always thought too busy, weren’t we missing stuff, important stuff, family stuff, but that was the way of the world, even back then. It was the 90’s after all. We were a normal family just fitting in to society, just blending.

The place was New York, where else could such a tale be staged?

Our apartment was on Madison Avenue just off

5^th Avenue

next to Central Park. We’d lived there for 5 years now, 5 quick years. It was a fantastic home, situated in an old building at the side of The Carlyle Café. What a place to live, it fitted us and we fitted it.

I worked at a local fitness club on

East 78^th Street

and fitness was my world. Fitness and family.

Central Park was my godsend, a gift from almighty. It was my breathing space, my retreat and one block away from my doorstep.

I ran every morning at 6am and every evening at 10pm. My route took me around Turtle Pond, and down the south side of The Lake, passing Cherry Hill Fountain and then home again. It was around 3 miles and took me 20 minutes maximum on a bad day. I managed to fit it around my life, I was lucky.

I had friends there too…… well acquaintances. I’d met them day after day, in all weathers, they were there, jogging, roller skating, dog walking, even Tai Chi went on. And some diehards, whom I could have betted my apartment on being there….no matter what……

The old lady with the red coat and her Westie, the skating Rastafarian, the odd looking couple power walking and of course old Vernon the bench tramp. I think he had permanent residence there, always kicking around, feeding birds or up to something.

It was on that December morning my luck changed. I was struggling that particular morning, it was frosty, slippy and I wasn’t really up for it. But I set off as I usually did and soon got into the throws of things.

The snow was beginning to fall as I rounded the Turtle Pond, I could feel it crunching, freshly underfoot, or under my New Balance trainers. I took great pride to wear only the best sporting wear, one of my few needful habits.

15 minutes had gone and my daily routine was nearly completed when approaching Cherry Hill Fountain I glanced over to Vernon’s’ bench. I stopped in my tracks with dread. He was lying on the ground propped up against it, with a thin layer of snow blanketing him. He was dead, he had to be, he looked dead anyway. I looked around as I made my way towards him, the park was deserted, just me and Vernon.

I wiped the snow from his face and spoke softly to him,…… his eyes opened. He beckoned me close and whispered huskily…..”The Ramble”. Clutching my hand he gently offered something into it………..

As the snow continued to fall…….he sadly slipped away, right there in front of me, I was the only witness. Was I…..his last vision, his last sound, maybe his last thought?

“Dear old Vernon”, I thought as the snow stopped……..

                                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 2

The ambulance pulled away with old Vernon’s mortal remains in it.

The two paramedics, who had looked a lot like Laurel and Hardy, had given him a cursive look before bundling him into a body bag.

“He’s all sweaty,” said the fat one.

“Like he’s been running,” confirmed Skinny.

I hoped that Vernon was now lying in the sun on a beach with a Tequila Sunrise in his hand.

“Cheers Vernon,” I whispered. “Enjoy…….”

I turned and looked across the park. I could see the impression of Vernon’s footprints as they were slowly covered by the falling snow.

I walked alongside the prints and tracked their way back towards the Lake.

He had been running, I could tell by the distance between the dints.

I crossed over Bow Bridge and entered the Ramble.

“Vernon had whispered something about the Ramble hadn’t he? “ I asked myself.

The trees grew thickly in this part of the park and I knew that members of the Gay Community liked to use the area for their clandestine assignations. I crept along in trepidation of coming upon a lover’s tryst; some of the partners were muscular giants!

Eventually I followed the trail to the edge of the Lake. The water lay grey and sullen and I imagined it was pretty cold in its murky depths.

A large set of caterpillar tracks were filling quickly with snow as the blizzard increased in its severity. The tracks led from the water’s edge up towards the

East Drive

and I wondered what Central Park vehicle had made them. I looked down into the water and tried to see if anything had been deposited there, but it was opaque due to the muddy nature of the lake bed.

Then I remembered that Vernon had slipped something into my hand. I quickly checked the coin that lay in my palm. It looked gold in colour and had a pattern forged on both its sides. It looked expensive and I wondered where a ‘man of the streets’ like Vernon could have got it from.

The wind was beginning to rise and spindrift was being blown about. It felt like getting ground glass hurled in my face. I leant forward and began to make my way back through the teeth of the gale.

Suddenly something blew up off the ground and I instinctively grabbed it out of the air. It was a flyer and I carefully unfolded it.

““Pirates Treasure”, a display of wealth in the Guggenheim Museum.” It read.

I shoved the paper in my pocket and

5^th Avenue

.

Once I got home I showered and put on my dressing gown. The apartment was warm and I stood by the window enjoying the heat as I watched my New York neighbours struggle with the heavy fall of snow. The buses had stopped and only a few motorists were able to make progress up Madison Avenue.

“Honey, I’m home!” called my wife Sylvia as she took off her coat and boots and shook snow out of her lovely brown hair. “What you been up to today?”

 I waited till she had made herself a coffee and then I told her of Vernon’s death.

“Poor old boy,” Sylvia said. “I hope he’s at peace now.”

“What do you think this is?” I asked her as I laid down the coin. My legacy from Vernon.

Sylvia picked it up and looked at both sides.

“It looks a gold doubloon. Where did you get it?”  

I told her about following the footprints into the Ramble and of my discovery of the tracks by the Lake. Then I spread out the flyer which I dried in the kitchen.

“Do you think there is a connection?” I asked as Sylvia’s eyes widened.

………………………………….+………………………………………….

Part 3

I hardly slept that night, tossing and turning thinking of poor old Vern, the doubloon and the exhibition in the Guggenheim.

`There must be a connection, I thought, no way, was this a coincidence`

Next morning after copious amounts of coffee and three lashings of Pancakes and Maple syrup, I set off for the museum.

It had been years since I had been there, my grandfather Serge frequented the place, and he would often take me along with him. Of course Lloyd Wright’s architectural masterpiece predominately displayed wonderful pieces of art, from Impressionist, Post Impressionist to contemporary. Every once in a while though the museum would host an impressive unconnected exhibition and clearly this pirate thing was one of them.

I grabbed my jacket and scarf, picked up Vernon’s doubloon shut the apartment door   and walked out into frozen Manhattan.

Interestingly on that particular day I actually noticed the building, I must have walked past the museum a million times without actually paying much attention to it but on that day for some unknown reason it stood out, like a giant sentinel watching over `The lung.`

I entered by the main entrance paid my fee and made my way toward the exhibition.

Pirate Treasure this way. I followed the sign.

The exhibition itself was small in nature but it contained some wonderful exhibits. Ancient chests, containing jewels, reputedly booty once owned by Captain Kidd, a telescope once held by Bluebeard and a large portion of a ships Keel claiming to be from the Black Pearl. Browsing, I was soon caught up in the romanticism the exhibition offered.

As I was peering into one of the display cabinets, I spotted it, my heart skipped a beat. It was a pile of doubloons and they looked the same as the one Vern had given me. Gingerly I fumbled in my pocket and took it out, it was, it was exactly the same.

The glass case held many little snippet’s of information and there were fragments of what were reported to be  treasure maps. One little piece of parchment caught my eye, a dried up piece of goat skin on what appeared to be markings. The map looked extremely familiar, I stared hard and long and then the epiphany hit, and it hit hard. It was a map of Central Park, it depicted various locations in the park but referred to them differently, I was however still able to pinpoint the locations the map was referring to. At the bottom, it had the stereotypical X marks the spot and beneath this was a signature.

Here be treasure, the finder will be richer than in his wildest dreams.

Captain Vernon Tab -lender. Of the good ship Venus.

Surely there was no way it could have been Vernon, old Vernon the Central Park tramp. I pulled my mobile from my pocket took a few shots of the map, stuffed the doubloon back in my pocket and made my way to the exit.

……………………………………………………………………………………

 

Part 4

The place indicated on the map was the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park.   I couldn’t put off going to the park to continue my treasure hunt, I was just too excited!  Although of course it was more than likely just a wild goose chase, old Vernon had a gold doubloon in his dying hand, that was more than enough to arouse my curiosity.

It was a cold, crisp December morning, so I stopped off in a little diner for a hot coffee before I continued my quest.  There was a little place I knew that did the best Joe in town and the waitress was a nice little dish too, an Estonian immigrant who didn’t speak much English but had lovely eyes. 

 The cold was a blessing in disguise! Usually Central Park was a magnet for cranks; the sacred haven of sexual deviants, flashers, cranks, psychos, flakes and nutters, but the cold would surely keep them away!  I could continue my quest with only the sub zero temperatures to worry about. 

When I got to the park it was about lunchtime, some of the office workers were milling about, there was a choir singing at the gate and a guy in a Santa Suit for the kids.  I laughed to myself; I knew a guy at work called Graeme who wouldn’t need that padded suit to make himself as jolly around the middle as that guy was!

Another guy, a resident crank stood with a sandwich board, usually it said ‘THE END IS NIGH’ in huge letters, today it said ‘HAPPY CHRISTMAS NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!’.  I tried my best to swerve this unhinged loon, he tried to engage passersby in conversation and the last thing I needed today was this distraction. 

I made my way to the fountain, I knew a little of its History.  ‘The angel of the waters’, it was designed by Emma Stebbins, the first famous female sculptor from the city, she lived in the 1800s.  It was an imposing structure and the place that the ‘X’ on the map seemed to indicate.  But what did that ‘X’ mean?  Would the prospective treasure be under the statue, in it, near it or in the water?  Or would there be another clue on the statue itself?  Or was it all just a wild goose chase, a hoax? 

And here I was, gazing up at the angel of the waters.  But the problem was, what would I do now?  I’d have to wade out to get a close look at it, but in this weather paddling in the icy waters would be crazy.  Nah.  I went home and went on the internet.  There were enough photos online of the sculpture from every conceivable angle that I could investigate in depth. 

Finally I found something interesting, a poorly taken photo on a tourists blog, but it showed something interesting! A few tiny letters carved into the base of the statue that didn’t seem to be connected with the date it was carved.  There were low down, just where the icy cold water of the fountain was lapping against the stone:

VTV thesaurus ex aquam veni XXIII

I searched online and couldn’t find much mention of this little piece of carved graffiti, that seemed promising!  I tried to translate this Latin phrase. 

VTV, that could stand for Vern Tab-lender Venus.  Or so I hoped!  ‘Thesaurus’ was Latin for treasure-trove.  Ex aquam veni meant ‘I came from the water’.   XXIII were Roman numerals- 23.   But 23 what?  23 paces from the fountain, 23 feet under it’s icy waters? 

 Maybe I could go back later, late at night when the park was empty and pace out 23 paces in the water.  I would wear a pair of waterproof boots.  Yea, that was it!

Part 5

I am nearing the end of my story now and not a moment too soon; it’s the 20^th of December – if I thought the days were passing quickly before, the last week since Vernon’s death has been a blur of activity.

In that week the preceding account has been delivered in one form or another to all concerned. I have written it up for the record – as Vernon suggested. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself here, digressing. But by the time you read this you will know the gist of the story anyway; I’m just aiming to fill in the missing bits and of course give my version. We will all have our own versions now but the real story is Vernon’s version. 

  

So, to get back to my story, as you know I went back to the fountain that night; otherwise I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it. At first I couldn’t find anything; I almost gave up but then I had one last idea and eureka! I found what Vernon had hidden. It wasn’t what I had expected, what I had hoped for at the time.

My rising excitement soon gave way to plummeting disappointment; what I had discovered was a small metal box – the kind of box you might use to keep personal documents safe, which was pretty much what Vernon had done. There was no treasure, no gold doubloons.

Instead the box contained several envelopes; it didn’t look promising.

Back at my apartment I examined the contents of the box: there was an envelope addressed to the ‘finder!’ but more surprising was the envelope addressed to ‘the jogger who sports the New Balance trainers!’ You can imagine my surprise! I new that I wasn’t the only jogger in the park to wear New Balance trainers – but there were not that many others and somehow I knew that the envelope was addressed to me. It was a shock; we had never spoken in life and now Vernon was speaking to me from the grave…and it wasn’t just me; I recognised some of the other addressees: some of them took a bit of detective work - but ‘the generous lady with the red coat and small dog.’ I knew immediately. Vernon actually added Mrs White’s name. I think the descriptions were for my benefit or at least for the benefit of the ‘finder’.

Vernon explained everything in my ‘finder’ letter; it was not until I read my other letter, my New Balance trainers letter, that I had to deal with Vernon’s more personal comments and they were very personal- he pulled no punches; just gave it to me straight: the whole personal morals thing. Stuff I hadn’t really thought about much. I don’t mind admitting that it wasn’t easy to accept.

Later, when we compared notes everyone had a similar experience; how on earth did Vernon know, how did he know me so well? He seemed to know everyone’s stories. I, for one, was convinced that he must have employed a private detective! That’s how paranoid I was, then. Of course I know now that that was nonsense.

It’s so easy to underestimate the powers of observation and insight, which Vernon had in abundance and I suppose he must have been a good listener too; picking up on people’s stories and gossip. Considering that we never even spoke it’s amazing that he knew me so well; he had me down to a ‘T’: warts ‘n’ all, as they say.  It’s the warts that bothered me; if only I could have had more charity in my heart – like Mrs White, like everyone else on Vernon’s list; but I just didn’t think, I had no idea. I ran around the park morning and night in a haze of oblivion, which is a poetic way of saying that I was selfishly unaware of others. I saw everyone but I didn’t really see them – not like Vernon did.

Anyway, enough about me; at least Vernon has given me the chance to redeem myself and I still have some explaining to do -  so I’d better get on with it: you might be wondering about the gold doubloons and the treasure? Well there certainly had been a treasure. It’s still there in the Guggenheim Museum. Vernon almost lost it all to the authorities but thanks to some shrewd bargaining he managed to strike a deal, a concession. If you read his papers he explains it all – but the upshot was that he managed to claim a finder’s fee with the stipulation that the funds had to be used for a charity, a charity of his choice - which suited Vernon perfectly; though he never let on to the authorities at the museum.

This is where we come in; we are Vernon’s charity of choice. These final notes can double as the minutes for this meeting.

The main point on the agenda is how to manage Vernon’s trust. Vernon’s wish was that not only would we take on the role of custodians of the park but that we would also be custodians of those who used the park the most, which primarily seems to be us. That is clearly part of the reason why Vernon chose us in the first place. We have a vested interest.

There has also been some discussion about the trust name: Vernon’s Christmas Charity Club seems to be the favourite but I know some of you liked the shortened version: Vernon’s Club; I see that we are in agreement with that. VC has a good ring to it…and we must make a public tribute to Vernon, something to commemorate him.

The arrangements for the Christmas fundraiser are going well. It’s great to see everyone’s commitment and enthusiasm. Everyone knows their own roles so there’s no need to go into that here.

Oh yes, there was a question about Santa’s grotto: Vernon used to take on the job of Santa. Some of you might like to fill Vernon’s boots, so to speak. Any volunteers’? Ah, feels like everyone has taken a step backwards. Well if no one else fancies it…

Ok, well I could do it but I’ve just remembered…there’s a guy at my work who might fit the bill. I’ll check with Graeme, see if he’s game!

In the meantime and just to get into practice on behalf of Vernon: Merry Christmas one and all!