The Impressionist Read Free Page B

too. And Josh is just like you—a loser.”
    As my mind spun and one fitness buff after another zipped past me in their spandex and Reeboks, guilt and shame bore down on me pushing me to the edge of despair. My stomach churned making me feel like I might vomit, so I plopped down on a bench facing the lake to take some deep breaths. While sitting there some ducks waddled up from the water and quacked around my feet begging for food that I didn’t possess. I shooed them away with my foot.
    “God, are You even there?” I mumbled, taking a long gulp of my Red Bull. “If You are real, You surely can’t be ‘all powerful’ because You made me. What a huge mistake that was.” In quiet desperation, I locked my hands behind my head. A beach in the Caribbean strongly appealed to me—not a vacation, but a permanent escape. I’ve heard about guys who do that. They chuck everything, get a sailboat, and then work at a little beachside resort or something when they’re not sailing around the islands. No worries, no dressing up, just shorts, hat, and some flip flops.
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.
Closing my eyes, I reasoned if I fell asleep and never woke up, it wouldn’t be so bad.
    “Don’t you get it, Adam?”
the voice poked. “
God’s not listening to you. He’s disappointed in you. Just like Paige. He loathes you—everything about you. Josh hates you too. They’ d be better off if you were out of the picture. They wouldn’t even miss you. Just admit it. You’re a fraud. You’ve let God down so many times.”
    “Shut up!” I yelled crushing my empty Red Bull can in my hand and then flinging it toward a garbage barrel that was several yards off to my side. Clanging against the metal drum, the tin can fell short of the goal, just like so many other things in my life. How many opportunities had I let slip through my fingers? So many things that could have been. When I stood to pick up my litter, an elderly man who I figured to be somewhere in his eighties stepped off the trail from behind me and up to the garbage barrel. “That’s okay, friend,” he said. “I’ve got it.” He reached down, one hand bracing his back, and picked up my crushed Red Bull can and dropped it into the trash.
    “Thanks,” I said with an edge.
    Straightening up to a good six-two or three, the old gentleman nodded humbly while tipping his white cap with the black and gold New Orleans Saints logo stitched on it. “My pleasure,” he said. Oddly, a few feet away from him on the trail, he’d left what appeared to be a small, handmade cart filled with an assortment of painting supplies—brushes, rags, a palette, tubes of paint, rolled-up paper, an umbrella, a collapsible easel and stool, and a plastic jug of water among other necessities. I’d seen the fishermen pull similar carts, but never a painter. Not around here.
Probably got mental issues,
I thought.
    “Looks like you’ve got a lot on your mind,” he pressed, stepping closer to me.
    “At least you still have your eyesight old man,” I shot back at him, glaring. Like I said, I just wanted to be left alone.
    He only smiled warmly and rubbed his chin. “Would you perhaps allow me the honor of painting your portrait?” he asked.
    “What?” I snapped. “Do I look like I want my picture painted?”
That’s why the old coot picked up my can! He saw it as an opportunity to sell me! Clever, but I’m no fool.
“Leave me alone, please! Go paint a duck or something.” I thought for certain that my crude remarks would dissuade him, but the old guy simply stood there unfazed. “Are you deaf?”
    “I heard you,” he said.
    “Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but you don’t want to be anywhere near me right now—seriously!”
    He
still
didn’t move, just stared at me. The whites of his eyes sat deep in their sockets behind silver-framed bifocals. His milk-chocolate skin enhanced a silver mustache, bushy eyebrows, and silver hair. I thought about pulling out a