Johnny got up very early. He’d been going to the movies for a week now, checking the guide and travelling through town. Hable con Ella, Scarlet Diva, La Haine and City of God. Every great film made him want to see another.
This morning, on the southside at Balard, they were showing Once Upon A Time In America. The full, uncut, four-hours. He guzzled his coffee and left.
On the Metro, standing, rattling along between Chatelet and Cite, he was reminded of a trip once taken. He had spent a day in London in his youth. There, he’d spied what he took to be Cosmo girls, revelling in their natural habitat. Pretty mid-twenty year olds, tottering about the high street in search of bags and shoes. These were women with make-up and highlights, armed with enormous sexual vocabularies. Their love lives in reality consisted of lying still like cadavers, wondering why the fool on top wasn’t making the earth move. They were sexy and empty at once.
Anyway, he was in no mood for thinking of them, and eagerly awaited the film like a child on Christmas morn. He paid for his ticket and entered. The theatre was very small, maybe 12 rows of red seats, and he slipped in mid-aisle near the back.
When it started, with a phone endlessly ringing, he noticed there were only two other people present. He hadn’t been aware of the fact. They were both closer to the front than he was, a man and a woman, not together. On the screen a soft breast was exposed.
There was a break after two hours, and he stood outside with the others, smoking amidst small talk. It was a funny moment, the three of them in the middle of the day, sharing smoke and conversation in a quiet part of the city. The day was cloudy and still, no hint of sun rain or wind, just a slow and gentle day, with a chill to it.
The woman had Christmas shopping to do afterwards, an MP3 player pre-paid for to collect. Johnny didn’t know what that was. She told him and then he remembered, it was just he’d never heard of the name.
The next two hours passed quick, spent in the company of gangsters and deceit. De Niro and Jimmy Woods had their differences. Johnny scratched a shaving cut around where the jugular vein was, or at least where he’d always thought it was located. Maybe his anatomy was shaky.
He let the credits roll out before leaving, the amount of people involved in film-making unreal. The construction of a movie took an ant colony. He read the names of hundreds whose remit he couldn’t fathom.
Every other moment leaves a distant one forgotten. Every other name does much the same. They scrolled past, Mark this and Sarah that, and he understood quite clearly that a life was nothing more. Seconds blazing in your consciousness, and then lost.
April 6, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 15)
April 5, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 14)
The ice on the ground was unpredictable. As he slipped and nearly fell, Michel cursed and grabbed a railing top, steadying. He was in Jardin du Luxembourg, having just been turned down for a part in a play. It wouldn’t have suited him anyway.
He’d arrived for the audition early, taken a quick snort and rehearsed, but he knew the lines were no good for him, the character impenetrable and cold. Nevertheless, he’d attempted it.
It was six months since he’d found any theatre work, and he wondered sometimes was he foolish to not audition for ads. Was it still selling out if you had to? Borrowing money from his parents was getting harder with each visit, his mother clucking and fretful, his father dismayed by his son. It might nearly be easier if he was angry with him.
Michel sat down, rubbing his hands and shivering. The expelled performance adrenalin had him horny. He could never think of Karen in this humour, feeling it a betrayal of her to do so. Instead he would settle for a magazine, or recall some skinflick once viewed.
There weren’t many people in the park, and those that there were weren’t idle. They were moving from one thing to another. He felt savagely depressed in that moment, cold and alone on a bench, while the world carried on unaware of him. He gripped at his hands and his elbows.
Only his bones made him move again. They were aching and stiff, and so he stood up and walked to relieve them. He left by the south exit, and crossed over Saint Michel. The cold was stinging his cheeks. He jumped on a bus that was heading back north, grateful to just sit and be carried. Some gangsta’s slouched on and didn’t pay.
The bus wound its way toward Bastille. It was arrested in traffic near the quai. Michel bit his fingernails and watched the people, crossing the road and scurrying along the path. What was that phrase from the English, a ratrun or something like this. He knew what was meant by it anyway.
When he got off it was growing dark. He walked from Bastille to Belleville, and on to Colonel – Fabien. He entered his apartment and sat down. He’d left a razor blade on the coffee table, and he stared at it in quiet loathing. It was making him look like a fool.
Washing his face in the sink he started crying, the low and useless bulb a witness to his tears. He saw himself as a ghoul or a sleazebag, a creature less than nothing, his weakness without end. He hit at his face with a dirty towel. His need, his lust, his unfulfilled ambition. He was a twenty nine year old loser.
He climbed into bed and then climbed out again. He stood there clenching his fists. It was freezing, he was just wearing his T-shirt, and he tensed up his body to inflict some more pain. His useless fucking body.
He spat on his own floor and once again was crying. He didn’t even have Karen now. Of course she’d left him forever, of course there was no way back. Who would want a fucking loser like him. He punched his own stomach, his chest. To even go to that audition was a mistake. He threw the blanket from the bed around himself. He went out to the coffee table, and used the razor blade to make lines.
April 4, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 13)
Djinn stood by his window in the morning. Sun shone through. Across the street a girl passed slowly, and returned soon after with a bakery bag. She retraced the way she’d come, looking mildly about at the neighbourhood. Her pastries or whatever swung at her side.
He stretched and stood a little longer. He smoked his last cigarette. Scratching at his close-cut beard he felt a sharp unpleasantness, and realised he’d opened a spot or cut unknown to him. A perfect circle of blood ringed his fingertip.
He left it there, feeling it drying, and walked about the room to be prepared. He’d found a job stocking shelves in a supermarket, his unwillingness to talk not a hindrance or a strain. He performed his tasks robotically, apart.
He cleaned around his apartment, washing a dishcloth and replacing it. The wet one he hung off the sill. His cutlery was spotless and in the cupboard, his knife, fork, two plates. His routine in the mornings was the same.
After, he took a bus to go to work. An Arab was staring at a white woman who climbed aboard, flicking his tongue, his eyes cold and hard. Djinn was disgusted by them both. The man for betraying himself, the other an impure bitch. He cast his eyes down in indignation.
At his stop he alighted, and strode past the guard without hello. He changed in the storeroom, the red jacket and white shirt, and made his way to the soft drinks section. Stocks were running low, the orange and lemon Fanta, and he walked quickly to the stores to replenish them. A child banged into him and apologised.
Stacking these bottles of sugared piss in silence, he accidentally dropped one, and it bounced off the floor. It was a cartoon liquid, not fit for human consumption. He picked it up, poison sloshing about, and offered it to the hapless infant, still standing alongside, eyeing the colas. The kid made a scowl and ran away.
An old woman enquired after pastis, what price it was and where it might be kept. He was less than civil and she took umbrage. Her throat bulged, puffing up and swelling in the manner of the bullfrog. Her voice was barely a croak.
He got the wretched drink. Procured it from another aisle, and entrusted it to her bosom. She gasped and her eyes grew wide. She tottered toward the checkout unsteadily. He was certain she’d complain and didn’t care.
The night he spent alone like every other. What need had he for friends? He smoked, planned, occasionally played solitaire. With a three card turnover to make it last. He had learned so much about patience, had become so attuned to its nature with time, that this game was his life in miniature, his being. He reshuffled the deck and dealt again.
April 2, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 12)
Frank and Aria had dinner in Frank’s place. Cleaning took him hours but was worth it for effect. He met her off the bus, so beautiful dismounting. He kissed both her cheeks then her mouth.
When they entered the apartment, he felt for a second like he was on some reality dating show, but then the sensation passed. It was momentary nerves and anxiety. In that flash, he was positioned somewhere, observing them, but within a heartbeat they were seated, and he melted back into himself. He was present now and content with it.
She was wearing a red cardigan, and it really suited her. He was going to say it but didn’t. She complimented his culinary efforts, him fobbing it off and feigning indifference. He’d slaved over that stove like a fool. The wine was good and from Chile, and soon formed a wall inside which they could speak. Unguarded and uncaring.
She asked about his leg, saying she’d noticed him limping. He told her the story without hesitation. Berlin, the bus crash, recovery both body and mind, and already he knew she related, and then she told her story too.
He poured more wine, and they paused to let things settle. There was no rush, and no need for it. Frank went to take her hand, but then decided not to. They were already joined as it was.
Outside the moon was maybe a day from being in fullness. The same might be said for the lovers in its light. They slept together that night, first time, right time, and Frank was lost in pleasure like no other he had known. The bed was hardly perfect, creaking and groaning from their weight.
In the morning Aria went for croissants. He showered and after they ate. She’d had some funny conversation with the woman in the bakery, an impromptu discussion on men, and she was still laughing at the woman’s advice, which was avoidance for life. Les hommes sont impossible!
They turned on the radio and the sun broke through – crystal, piercing wintersun. An ad came on for the mayor’s office, some concert or spectacle planned. Frank smiled at Aria, how guileless her laughter could be, and he knew he was totally in love with her, her presence her soul and her past.
April 1, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 11)
It was the 15th of November. Soon another year would end, 2004 would usher in, and he would still be here, dissatisfied. The exile alone on the square.
He spat on the ground and a wing flapped. Pigeons could be eaten if boiled. He thought of this for a second, boiling all the pigeons in the streets. They were bothersome and utterly without merit. He swiped his arm angrily to disperse them, a movement which he felt defined his life. Another week and he’d retire till the springtime.
Johnny was not conscious of how much he missed his homeland. Sometimes, at two or three in the morning, he became so. But that was different. That was half-awake, murmuring, maybe in someone else’s bed. It was unreal and forgotten by daybreak.
The night before he had dreamt of Michel’s girlfriend. Of following her down the street and watching her undress. Was this unwholesome owing to her blindness? He was more concerned by this than the fact she was with Michel, and he thought it funny he should think of her when he’d only seen her twice. Not for a year or more either.
He stood up and the years echoed. The history of his endless routine. He stretched, yawned, scratched at the back of his neck. He would grow old performing these functions.
The wind started blowing, carrying flecks of rain. He ran/walked to shelter under the bowels of the building, huddling near two security guards who sentried the Pompidou elevator. One of them nodded hello. Johnny took out some cigarettes and made a half-hearted gesture to offer them. Both men declined. He lit up, shielding out the wind, and dragged passionately. There was very little else he could do.
A Dior bag blew across the emptying piazza. A well heeled woman clattered after it. Her shoes clopped like a horse’s hooves , her skirt riding up her leg. Johnny watched ambivalently, aware the guards did also.
She recovered the bag with her hair all aflutter. Her highlights needed to be redone. Johnny dropped the cigarette and spat onto the tile. He was disgusted by his callousness in watching her. A part of him had delighted in her predicament, her exposure and mishap, and he wondered why this could be, why it was his attitude. The guards started talking about her legs.
He left the square and went to the movies. He paid in an abundance of change. Five and ten cent pieces, lining the pockets of his jacket, were handed over for entry. The ticket girl rolled her eyes. It was a film by Michael Mann. Heat starring Robert de Niro and Al Pacino, all alive with the mystery and beauty of the world. A heavyweight meditation, masquerading as criminals and cops. It was profound, breath-taking, cool and neon blue, a soundtrack like a soul humming. Destined to be revered for generations.
Johnny watched in solitude, aching from the images. Loneliness and the drive to be lonely. He rubbed at his eyes and pretended he was nowhere, a floating being unburdened, left in aesthetic contemplation. Would his body let him continue feeling this way?
Afterwards he departed gingerly. His psyche had been breached or brought to life. He drifted down the streets feeling different and much younger, a part of him quite certain that the future wasn’t dead. It just needed gentle coaxing.
March 31, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 10)
Laura left the flat to go to college. She crossed over Republique and was soon at the Pompidou. She took Pont d’Arcole onto Ile de le Cite, and stopped for a moment beside Notre Dame, craning her neck until it hurt. The sparrows up above looked unnatural.
The Sorbonne stood between Saint Jacques and Saint Michel. She entered through the main gates. Passing through corridors and hallways, with multi-national students everywhere, she felt a buzzing in her head, and forgot what she’d meant to remember. There was something to do after this.
The classes were uneventful, taking her up to four o’clock, and then depositing her back on the street. She looked at CDs in Gibert Joseph. The alternative section was pretty good, well stocked if heavy of price tag. There were bands she had never even heard of.
One of these, The Death Monsters, had a picture of a girl being tortured. A guy pushed alongside to study it. Was he a rocker or a Goth, a nu-metaller or a punk? She found herself laughing at these labels.
She moved over to the F section, bands called Fugazi and Fish. Fugazi were D.C. punks. She picked up the record, read the song titles, and saw she knew most of them to sing. This was an album a friend had. Leaving without buying anything, she remembered what she’d planned to get done. It was too late now to accomplish it.
She met Lukas by the river. She was homeward bound again.
“It’s a difficult game for the first time writer,” he said. “You have to write the book with all your heart, and then sell it like a used car.” She hadn’t seen him in months.
They spoke briefly as the wind blew, him flicking his hair and looking iconic. He was depth and mystery until you knew him. She wished him luck with his work regardless, although he’d never let her read a line. She left, sensing he didn’t want her too.
She didn’t look back, but was aware he was still standing there. Watching. She tied back her hair as she went. She crossed Place de l’Hotel de Ville. Pigeons scattered in front of her, cooing and flapping their wings. Their droppings were drying on the stone.
In time they would harden and disappear. Laura felt her ponytail on her neck. She went up rue du Temple as the light fell, crossing and then recrossing the street. Pavements were being dug up and drilled at. This street was so familiar, this Paris life permanent now. It was strange to believe she might one day leave it. There was a Chinese man dragging a mattress, scuffing it up and down kerbs. His face didn’t register exertion. She wondered should she help him, and actually made a first step towards doing so, but the aloofness of his calm put her off. How to initiate proceedings?
She walked on and soon was home. She turned on the light by the door. The neighbours were preparing something spicy and exotic, the smell entering the room as she did. An unwestern concoction of musk. She hung up her coat and sat down by the cooker, observing its rust and small cracks. She was starving to make something great.
March 29, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 9)
Djinn was in the supermarket. He held a basket with fruit inside it, and read from a tin. Did he want to eat this or not? He decided to take it, placed it carefully next to apples, and continued. An old woman stepped to one side.
In the second aisle he studied the sauces, tomato and curry and others in jars. He scanned the top shelf for rice. He wanted cereal as well as this, and walked quickly around to locate it. He avoided the brands made from sugar.
When all was bought and he was back on the street, one of his bags burst. Apples rolled drainward bound. He hated himself for his stupidity, feeling undignified scrambling about, and looked up frantically, making sure no one had seen. A little girl smiled from a window. He clenched tight his jaw, furious.
In the apartment he checked the bruising, the apples discoloured and cracked. He binned them in another wave of fury. This country, its weather and people. He ran the tap to wash juice from his fingertips, kneading the joints together to remove the sticky mess. The soap he was using was useless.
He left after lunch again, stalking the streets of the 14th arrondissement. The air was chilly and sharp. On rue Didot he felt a pain in his side, and leaned against a lamppost, gasping. A dog moved out of the way.
He ventured down roads and alleyways, weaving toward the tower he planned one day to hit. That day was so close he could feel it. At last he stood underneath, staring up at the rooms full of lights. There were people in there so oblivious. He watched the traffic on the place alongside, the stopping and starting, and the people in throngs. It was like his own movie. They came towards him, didn’t see him, were replaced by others in an endless urban dance. They were all just the same and all stupid.
He smoked a cigarette and ignored a scavenging beggar. He spat on the ground to dismiss him. Smoke curled around, escaping from Djinn’s mouth, at Montparnasse, in Paris. A woman eyed him malevolently.
There were dark clouds overhead now. It looked certain it would rain. Others sensed this also, scurried to shelter in time, but he didn’t. He waited and then it began. Massive globular drops descended, attacking him, rendering the concrete world a river or reservoir. He stood there impassive and unflinching.
“Monsieur,” someone called out. “Monsieur.” Of course he ignored this completely. Soon all sound was drowned out by the rain, the passing cars and rumbling chatter unheard. He could feel his sensations shutting down. He clenched his fists and gripped his teeth with his tongue, urging feeling to return so he might suffer longer. His elbows involuntarily shook.
Whenever this rain stopped he would stand for another hour. He decided it there and then. Whenever the water ceased and the world again resumed, he would stand one hour more in this place. Society or conscience wouldn’t move him.
He rubbed at his face as the water thundered down, feeling stinging on his cheeks and nothing in his hands. “Monsieur!” he heard again, as from a distance.
March 28, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 8)
Karen told Michel they had a problem. He was crying when she hung up the phone. She had got right into it, her suspicions and her fears, and she knew by his reactions that she’d caught him unawares. Had ambushed him.
She cried a little herself, re-casting her mind over the conversation. She thought she’d been quite harsh, tetchy. Still, it was killing her. Drugs was a subject foreign to her, irrelevant really, but the change in his energy and mood was devastating and weird. Once she’d noticed it, it was everywhere.
He had protested meekly like an infant, had pleaded with her, but she could tell. What kind of drug was it anyway? She knew of cocaine, speed, and these were fast and kinetic – was it one of these he took? She hadn’t asked, hadn’t wanted to right then, but now she did, now she wondered. He put this stuff in his body.
She got up and went to the kitchen. What was her next move from here? He would call of course, but how to handle it. She didn’t know who might advise her.
She drank some water and thought furiously. Her mind was racing around. The water enveloped her tongue, its coldness bringing clarity, and she took deep breaths until her brain had quietened. She heard a man laughing.
I’ll just let things relax, she thought. I’ll just have to see where this one goes. The man laughed again from wherever.
Sitting on the couch she felt all stressed again, so she got up and rolled her neck. Then she kneaded her fingers. These little exercises never failed to produce results, putting her back in touch with herself, and her priorities. Worry was counter productive.
She felt the air in her nostrils, the softness of it, and she moved her hands. Her wrists bent. Her left elbow cracked as she extended her arm, feeling power and calm. Her neck grew warm and she sensed it. The hairs on her head came alive, the muscles in her calves went tight. Then her hip shuddered.
She went loose, weightless, and the pain passed. Slowly she commenced again. Her knees and thighs braced, bearing weight while she pivoted. Her spine was gently aligned.
As anxious energy vanished, she surrendered completely to the movements. Her mind didn’t think or create. It was empty, hollow, a space alive with peace. The tempo of the world was slower. She stretched and swayed hypnotically, or that’s the way it seemed, no separation of her consciousness. She joined with the nothing outside.
Michel would call when he was ready to. Then she would know what to do.
March 27, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 7)
There were two people from London on the Metro.
“Awwight you cunt?” said one.
“Smashin’ you cunt,” replied the other. This went on until Aria reached Goncourt. She could still hear their conversation as she walked away.
In her apartment with Laura, they prepared the evening meal to music. Aria chopped onion while Laura buttered bread, and the pasta bubbled slowly. They had plates and glasses set out, and wine waiting patiently on the counter. The onion tears started.
They ate and spoke of eating, dishes they should some day attempt. Laura dipped bread in the sauce. There was steam in the kitchen from the boiling pasta water, and Laura got up mid-sentence to let in air. The chill made her soon change her mind.
Aria glanced at her, and knew immediately she wanted to steer the conversation. Towards Frank, towards nosiness. Her smile was challenging, playful.
“I don’t know what you’re smiling at, cause I’m not saying a word.”
Laura pursed her lips up.
“I’m not,” repeated Aria, laughing without meaning to.
Someone slammed the lid of a bin.
Frank texted after an hour perhaps, and Laura watched, as Aria thought of her reply. He was alone in a bar watching soccer.
They talked about him then as the bottle emptied, the red wine from Bordeaux easing wordflow. All about the mystery of his look. Whatever she felt, it was new for this guy. He had a quality unencountered, a stance. He’d be alien in San Jose.
The night ended and they were tired. They brushed their teeth side by side at the sink. Climbing up the ladder, Aria shuddered with joy, this guy who breathed also, sending lines to her.
March 26, 2010
Part 6: Things As They Are (scene 6)
Frank watched the wall assembled. The keeper screamed inaudibly, moving the four men left, and then halting them. Guti, Beckham, Raul, and Figo placed their hands over their balls, and braced. Ronaldinho hovered, bug-eyed. Giovanni Van Bronkhurst whispered something in his ear.
The free kick came in and Casillas parried it, Salgado thumping it forward, defenders clearing their lines. Salgado seemed to be hobbling. Frank took a sip from his glass, Belgian wheat beer Leffe, and leaned a little back on his stool. The bar was deserted.
The ball went out over the Barcelona goal-line, skidding off the head of Puyol. Helguera trundled forward using elbows to gain space. Raul and Ronaldo darted and shimmied, as Luis Figo stepped up to take the corner, with two centuries of Portuguese melancholy etched into his face.
Frank ordered another. The set piece came to nothing, the game unsurprisingly tight. El Clasico. Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, a big event in Spain, and all over the world. Loyalty, passion, and once a severed pig’s head. Zidane did some tricks at the by-line.
So it was two weeks knowing Aria, weeks where the ground wasn’t there, and he ate from the free bowl of peanuts, dreamily. Her smile made him want to do right.
He got up to drain some beer, and returned to the spectacle of Raul Bravo doing the splits. Xavi had gone down from this unorthodox challenge, and Raul Bravo didn’t seem to be able to get up without assistance. Saviola scuttled about.
Frank wanted Aria to experience this with him. They could share each other’s interests, joyfully. They had already spoken at length of their lives and their frailties, but they each had something extra, which they hadn’t mentioned yet. Time might provide the occasion.
He sensed into his body and felt some tension in his shoulders. He rolled them slowly around. Tendons stretched and muscles were loosened, and something gently cracked. His hair was warm on his forehead. He watched Raul give out pointlessly to Figo, as it was he himself who was playing badly. Figo batted him away.
Frank sent her a text at half time, and then sat staring at his phone for the reply to come. Seven minutes later he was satisfied. She was at home hanging out with Laura, tired as a dog after work. He imagined them there in the kitchen.
He’d first seen her apartment a week before, and she had yet to see his. Next week. He would ask her down and try to cook something, and he could meet her off the bus and drop her back. Laura was still unknown to him, and often meeting friends is the hardest. The girl’s close companions, who scrutinise.
Madrid emerged from the interval galvanised. The game was taken to Barca in the glorious Camp Nou. Figo sprinted down the right to boos and jeers and whistles, and fired a cross to Ronaldo, who thundered it off the post. Beckham did his best to look pretty. Guti and Xavi battled for midfield supremacy, using whatever questionable methods might gain the upper hand. Ronaldinho bounced like a schoolboy.
Frank felt some pain in his ankle. He could never play this game again, even for fun in a courtyard, and although he hadn’t been good the loss nevertheless registered. It was restriction, lessening. He finished his beer and let the game finish too, and left. It was dark with some frost on the street.
Some guy shouldered past and demanded cigarettes, but Frank ignored him, oblivious. It was sweet to know Aria’s name.
Fishing in Beirut 