Fishing in Beirut

He stared up at the clock. A gentle sun was hitting the face, the white gleaming beneath the numerals. The rising grandness of the building was pompous, but amusingly so.
Pigeons rested on the roof tiles, gliding towards the ground to scavenge for food. Whenever one found some, an enormous fight would start. The flapping of the wings and the pecking was upsetting, but he didn’t know why. It was an ugly spectacle to witness, to be so close to.
Johnny tuned his guitar and gently touched the strings. He had placed the case out before him on the tile. The place de l’Hotel de Ville was busy but peaceful, less frenetic and fast than the piazza Beaubourg. Today, for the first time in his life, he wanted to sing to them.
He started quietly, feeling into things, never having played here before. Rising confidence raised the volume, and it began to feel natural. Soon coins were dancing in the guitar case, fifties, ones, even a five euro note. It seemed to him he was singing clearer than ever before.
His fingers pushed down the strings, new strings he had bought a week before. They were settled now, no longer slipping out of tune. He felt so centred, making chords, changing, the notes he was producing from his body and his guitar tangled up together. He glided one finger down the fret board to harmonise.
A few business types stopped before him. Three men, two women, smart suits and briefcases. The interest of two of the men was the reason they had stopped. The others fidgeted, hoping by a collective leaning motion to move the party on. After a moment it worked, the interested two showing disappointment.
Johnny moved his legs, keeping time and dispersing energy. His head rolled, and his shoulders kept tightening and releasing. The sun grew stronger, bathing the square in beautiful light. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose.
He felt the buzz of a text message in his pocket. Then another one, or maybe the sender had sent it twice. He looked up at the sky, a plane flying high overhead.
But Johnny wasn’t going anywhere. He let himself imagine what it might be like to be on that plane, travelling somewhere, excited. The tingling anticipation of coffee in another land. What was the use? He was where he was, a guitarist on a Parisian tile square.
He stood up and stretched in the sunlight. He massaged his neck, then pushed his shoulders towards his ears. He could hear the clicking of muscles bunched up, feel the strain of freeing what was used to being caught. His body was so hunched, so constantly bent and folded.
He thought he’d stay playing for perhaps another hour. He’d recently been toying with the idea of getting a job. Nothing too big or stressful, nothing intolerable, but dealing drugs was no longer where he wanted to be. It was depressing, all those fuckers with their jittery eyes and limbs.
He started another song. A slow one. His hand changed chords without him needing to think. He strummed and picked, singing loud, but gracefully, not barking it. The birds and pedestrians were sought out by his voice in the air.

Johnny sat there, tuning. It was an empty square. He assumed they were all spooked by that explosion, tourists and natives alike. The sound of the strings echoed off the concrete and glass.
He had only heard about the bomb two days afterwards. He’d been sick, huddled in bed, some ugly spring flu. It wasn’t until he’d ventured out on the streets that he’d seen the newspaper headlines. He’d been cocooned away, oblivious to the splash and its ripples.
Perhaps it was this absence that significantly lessened the magnitude. He’d missed the initial shock and terrifying reports. Thus, when he finally became aware, it was not so overwhelming, not so strong. Montparnasse was an area he rarely if ever visited.
He strummed a C chord, but the B string was still out. It needed to be flattened by the slightest degree. He played a progression of C, G, Fmaj7.
There is a town in North Ontario,
Extreme comfort, memory, despair.
And in my mind, I still need a place to go,
All my changes were there.”
It was fascinating to sing this song to absolutely no one. A piece of paper skitted along the ground. It blew closer, and revealed itself to be nothing. Just a torn off segment from the classified section of some rag.
Suitable apartments had been ringed in red by the owner. He stretched out, picked it up, and scanned the page. Various pricey possibilities were circled and ticked.
Johnny let the paper blow on again. It rested for a minute beside him before crawling down the slope. He massaged his forehead with his fingertips, moving down to rub his eyeballs and the bridge of his nose. His cheeks felt coarse, like unpainted brick or sandstone.
Lorena once said melody is human duty. The rhythm in your step and the lilt in your voice are your own. It’s impossible to live unmusically, so therefore a choice exists between flowing purity or low atonal drudge. Johnny considered it a fanciful idea, but not an irrelevant one.
Curious noises became audible, like a hacking cough. He listened carefully, this desperate bronchial sound shredding through the air. It rose and fell, stopping and starting, wrenched misery escaping from a stranger’s soul. Somebody in the neighbourhood was doubled up getting sick.

Johnny was back at Beaubourg. The sun was shining, lending everything a faintly promising light. He took out a cigarette and smoked between songs.
“Hey Mister,” said someone. “Hey Mister. Why aren’t ya playin’ somethin’?” Was that an Irish accent or what? He looked up to see a small red-haired boy of eight or nine squinting at him quizzically. He was chewing gum, and the flavour was red on his tongue.
“I’m tired,” said Johnny. “Where is your mother or father?”
“None o’ your business,” said the boy, and ran off.
Buskers gathered over the far side, two young bucks in plaid shirts. A singer and a guitarist, the singer with a tambourine. They launched into some woeful Eagle’s tune, typical shit about lovers and cars. Johnny picked at his nails freeing dirt from the underside.
“Come on baby, don’t say maybe…”
“…I’ve got to know if your sweet love is going to save me!” shouted Johnny. A few people looked, and he stood up, beaming.
He hadn’t seen Michel in quite a while. A month or so, infinity by Michel standards. People pushed gently along across the square, a hit parade of flip-flops and cameras. Paris in the springtime, and the burden of the romantic myth.
Johnny contented himself with watching the throng and listening to The Eagles dudes. All the ‘classics’ leaped out, one after another in the sun. Tequila Sunrise, Hotel California.
Pigeons scampered about in search of bread left in wrapping. Discarded panini, or crepes residue. The pigeons, the buskers, the tourists, the drunks. The piazza Beaubourg was the world in a manageable size.
The sound of a saxophone was audible and then not. Johnny swivelled his head, trying to make out where it was coming from. The breeze and the chatter were revealing and then concealing the notes, lending it an extra-plaintive air. Then he sourced it, a guy in a beret hidden under the library façade.
Now he could see the guy the music was constant. His senses were working in tandem, sight aiding sound. All he had to do was keep looking, ignoring the occasional obstructions of tourist heads. This was some jazz cat who’d stepped out of a novel by Burroughs.
The Eagles effigies had abated. One of those weird moments happened, where suddenly the square cleared. It was Johnny and the jazz artist, frozen, and then there were people everywhere again, posing for pictures and feasting on crepes. The dude kept on playing, squeezing juice through the tube.
Johnny lit up a cigarette, letting all the other sounds encroach on him again – children, a siren. A pigeon landed on his shoe and then flapped away in fright, its internal radar vaguely faulty or askew.
“Welcome to the Hotel California,” said Johnny. “Such a lovely place, such a lovely face.” Then he sang it, keeping his voice gentle and low.

Johnny stood by the window, a cigarette in his hand. It was cold outside, mid-February grimness. He pulled off the butt and dropped the remains to its fate. Someone had been working, graffiti marks all over the opposite wall.
The confines of his room were sufficient for today. He was sure he wouldn’t leave unless it was necessary. There was a magazine centre-fold stuck next to the mirror, but maybe that was stupid. He’d only put it there recently, and now took it down.
He smoked another cigarette, returning to the window. The kebab shop up the street was emitting steam. He watched with interest for a moment, the white billows curling upward, and then a small Turk came out flapping a towel. He cursed and waved it, coughing, and laughter could be heard from inside. Johnny half-coughed half-laughed, and then turned towards something else.
The clack of high heels had caught his attention. A working girl prowled up the street, incongruous in daylight – fishnets, boots, excessive inexpensive parfum. Her dark skin was worn and made her look older. She picked at her lip as she passed the kebab shop door. The inevitable whistles and catcalls ensued. She seemed more warrior-like than sexual, a marauding fierceness coupled with regret. Her frizzy hair was like Medusa.
Johnny’s phone made him lose her. He checked it, looked back out, and she was gone. Off to do battle or maybe just taking a break. He stayed where he was, looking up in that direction at nothing at all. There was a red garage door he’d never consciously noticed.
He stared at it. It was weird – so obvious and blatant now, and so why not on every other day? It was a vibrant red, a looking-to-be-commented on shade. He spat down below and wiped his jaw stubble. Was he going blind, or could he never picture the skyline for all the clouds?
He ate some bread and pretended it tasted better. This was difficult, but better than the stale reality. He drank water and felt breadcrumbs sticking in his throat. He worked the neck muscles, trying to free them, and swallowed.
Melissa had not been around lately. He hoped for her sake it was nothing more than her mood. She was prone to lose consciousness occasionally, to collapse in a heap from not eating. He thought of her for a second, on someone’s floor, and felt cold.
In the evening he went back to the window. It was dusk, twilight, people returning from dead jobs and physical toil. Factory hands, labourers, bakery assistants, and the partners of drunks. Johnny saw a little child scamper ahead of her mother, an enormous African in traditional dress. The girl hid in a doorway and pounced, but the mother was unflappable, deadpan and burdened with bags. Ha, ha, said the girl, and received a clip on the ear.
The moon rose and emptied the darkening street. Some brothers stood around, punching their chests and saying word. American rap lingo, picked up and mixed with their own.
Johnny smoked, and nodded his head when they waved to him. It wasn’t a wave, just a raising of the hand by one. The sense of community could be strong in odd moments, everyone seeming to know where everyone lived. It was hard to escape the idea your history was known.
“Ca va?” came a call to his right.
He turned his head, and coming down the street was Michel. Johnny spat, and went to look for the key.

Karen put down the phone an