Paris Jet Set
Excerpt from FRANCE (LOVE)
The sights and sounds of the city came fast and hard. Wes and I sat on the corner of Rue du Faubourg St. Martin and Lafayette, drinking absurdly priced coffee drinks and waiting for David to arrive. When the garcon put the receipt down and I realized that my one drink was more than 4 euros, I nearly fled the scene.
Wes said, "Your drink costs the average monthly wage of a farmer in Chad."
"The menu should read '1 cappuccino' and have as the price 'Chadian Farmer Monthly Wage,'" I added, with decadent French cream in my beard.
"An amazing idea!" said Wes, "A restaurant whose major profits go to development funds in the Third World."
"The profits from the particular dish you are eating go to the region from which the food came," I suggested.
Wes said it could be supported by Oxfam, who would seek out all the funds and would supply the bulk of the research. We could propose the plan to Carly. It seemed like it might actually work, if not as a restaurant, then as a weekend-long event at a five-star establishment with a strict dress code in the heart of a city like Paris, New York, or London.
The nascent, idealistic thought bounced around across the table for a bit as people of all stripes crossed in front of us:
Moroccan guy. Pulls up in clanging Benz. Fes on. Hold's wife arm as she gets out of car. Children pour out. Beautiful Parisian women out of a Jacques Prevert poem. Fast, unapproachable, looking off, always off. West Africa man. Leather jacket and cap. West Africa man. In Gaberdine. West Africa man. Holding hand of other West Africa man.
David.
He walked around the side of the café, looking lost and Ambien-soaked. He wore a ratty sweater, stocking cap, and big black rocker boots. The three of us rejoiced. He drank a coffee and we took him around the corner to meet Puta. We sat inside of her, Dave wide-eyed and excited.
"I don't know what you guys are thinking," he said, "but I'd like to get down to West Africa."
"Oh, yeah," said Wes. "Us too. We spent longer in Holland than expected but now, now it's a straight descent."
"Nice," said Dave. "Nate, I saw your parents before I left. They told me to give this to you."
I unwrapped a card and inside was a Valentine's Day card and a hundred-dollar bill. "So what's the scene like back home?"
"Everybody's reading your blog. It got really strange."
"Whatta you mean?"
"Frank and I read that last one, about facing grief. We were wondering what you're on."
"Because I wrote about facing grief? Why is everyone in the States so afraid of feeling real feelings?"
"No, it's just that your trip seemed to take a drastic turn. And there was that picture you sent us called 'Tripping Balls in the Forest', so, ya know, we just figured."
"Oh. Yeah."
"It's also funny talking to parents back there. Half of them are convinced you don't have a clue about the under workings of the van."
Wes laughed. "He doesn't."
"No," I said. "I don't. I'm the Biff monster strength. You know this."
"Your mom also said something funny before I left," Dave said. "She said Camille's life here in Paris is the epitome of the leisure class. She told me to tell you that."
I think maybe she doesn't want me to get hurt again.
I looked down at a love-struck woodland creature leaping for joy on my Valentine's Card. Both my parents wrote large, excited characters followed by multiple exclamation marks.
We gathered some cookery and went up to the flat of Camille. Now that I am back in Paris, things have changed. She now lives with Claude, who was with us much of the time those years ago, waiting on the outskirts of our romance. They fell for each other shortly after I left. The blow was softened by seven hours of Atlantic. I took refuge in reading, writing, filming, and chopping onions at my local dive pizza place.
We are just passing through now. I know Claude has a certain amount of jealousy because I am here. I know there have been anticipatory discussions. But I bare no threat. We've spent our nights drinking, cooking, and listening to tunes. Whether Claude has taken issue with me or not, we can still toast and look at each other in the eyes like men and not sweep the dusty residue under the rug. I think.
The theme of our evenings has been Claude's perceived lack of money and his subsequent anguish. He claws at his own walls because he is unable to eat out much or travel. The cushion of comfort seems deflated, even though they spend 1200 euros a month on their flat! On top of this, he has a convertible, his family owns a ten-ton boat that could sail to Fiji, and he just bought a Blackberry-type cell phone. He keeps offering us drinks. I accept. Wes wants to decline but is sucked into it: Beer, wine, rum. Peruvian pesco. We make loud toasts.
I know there are different shades of wealth and that this extends beyond the material. There are those who are content with the small amount in their pocket and those who panic because they can no longer afford all the beautiful things they've surrounded themselves with. I see red flags being thrown on the ground in front of me. I see people who have been on this earth ten years longer than me in virtual paralysis, like some devil sucked the joy from their eyes. A build-up of clutter. The relationship between money and happiness here is in sharp contrast with Holland, where I was scolded by youthful Wout for spending 12 euros on food for a dinner I was planning to prepare.
As our small group walked to a bar, we noticed a line of tents on both sides of a canal as long as a football field, like a refugee camp. Outside, the homeless cooked and smoked. A few of them jumped in the street in front of us. Some of the men howled at the women as they passed. The scene was borderline volatile, like the classes, in miniature, were about to clash. We walked into a chic brasserie with enormous windows and a clear view of the tent community. One of the destitute tried to get into the bar and the manager physically pushed him off the sidewalk. A few more of them gathered and remained calm and stood there watching all of us.
Camille leaned over and told me that the Paris homeless started to build this movement last year, coming out in troves and camping in the streets so their people were painfully visible to socialites, tourists, and politicians. Because of this, Chirac passed a referendum, putting into effect building initiatives for new tenement houses and development plans for those without a mortgage. It really feels like democracy in action, like a tiny people's movement.
As in Holland, the French people I spend my time with are sickened with the state of current politics. The upcoming French presidential election involves Segolene Royale, a Leftist with a mottled game plan and no media savvy, Le Pen, a Fascist dinosaur whose ambitious misdemeanors stretch back to the Algerian colony, and a Reaganesque media darling named Nicolas Sarkozy.
My French friends speak of the latter with spit and venom and clinched fists. He has already cow-towed to Bush and Cheney, offering his sympathy on behalf of the French people towards their junta in the Middle East. According to Claude, his approach is one of all teeth, a masquerade where he can speak to all demographics with equal ease. He feels the pain of everyone. He is, though, like Reagan and the Bushes, at the tit of big business. The clincher for many is a comment he made last year, after the immigrant riots in the suburbs, where he said publicly he'd flush them all out with Kärcher, the cleaning liquid. Even if hyperbolic, these words seem to the be the major source of ruination of these people's trust.
My vague conclusion at this point is that many people in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France feel that Europe, after its centuries of progress, is digressing backwards in the same direction as America: a widening class divide, sprawling chains and mega stores, and taxes put in all in the wrong places. With all this said, the homeless movement would have me believe otherwise.
I kept asking questions and found myself deeper in the scene, ending up at tables with perfect strangers, easily able to hurdle over all small talk and cut right at the throat of these issues that make up this fascinating time in France's history.
Not as interested, Wes and David told me they were headed back to Camille's flat. They meant it when they said they wanted to keep going south. I know the three of us will tug each other in plenty of directions, beginning now. Paris will be short-lived.