The Vinny Code - Chapter 3. (Previous chapters here).
I dreamt I was eating breakfast at Mel's Diner in Paris, Tennessee and everything was rife with filmic associations. Big belly'd guy named Mel. A waitress named Flo. Another man looked the spitting image of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and I heard him tell Flo that someone was going to drop a plate of dishes seconds before they did. I looked out the window and there were baseball players coming out of the cornfield. Coincidence or conspiracy? I started to suspect the Vatican.
I finished my eggs and read the local news. The elderly curator of the local "Early Television History" museum had been murdered and investigators were asking the services of a symbologist from Aztech Community College. A mystery wrapped in an enigma, I thought. Take away reason and accountability. Perhaps my friend Dan Tan would write another book.
I woke up and remembered I was to meet Dan that afternoon. He knew his audience. He had surfed the Zeitgeist well. Three hundred zillion copies in print before the paperback and the obligatory movie version. Reputations were hurt by the book, which was surprising given that it was clearly labeled as fiction. Variety, the Hollywood paper of record, patiently explained that Costner wasn't divine, Elvis wasn't gay, and the Vatican hadn't arranged a conspiracy to keep the film industry down. But there were many who believed in Tan's vision and there was a growing sense among the non-believers that Tan's followers were proof that God gave man too much rope intellect-wise. It seemed a good education was too much a prerequisite, though hardly sufficient, for faith in Christ over Costner.
I met with Dan daily after he cashed his royalty checks since he was always in a good mood then. I mentioned how a poor education seems to affect one's view of the Divine and thus one's view of everything. He shrugged and told me I should ask Colonel Parker. So the next day I asked Colonel Parker.
"Well now the way I see it is everybody's in a state of dupery. It's just some are more duped than others. It takes humility to admit that son. That's not to say the facts ain't important, 'cause they are, but there are worse things than ignorance. Like pride. Like thinkin' you refuse to be duped and you have to know God's particulars in a way you hain't earned. Let me put it this way: ain't nobody on earth real clear on what their own glorified body will be like. Ignorance is part of the human condition of man and thank God for it since it's the only thing that keeps some people humble."
I was going to object and say that it didn't work that way since no one thought of themselves as ignorant even if they were.
"Well, What we need to know, we do know - although with a lack of instruction fewer are receiving what they need to know and that's what bothers me. Look at Tom Cruise--"
"Grace, my boy. Don't underestimate it," he said, offering me a fine handrolled cigar.
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