Tonight is a night that Marie is busy at work. Of what kind exactly, I'm not quite sure. For school or the bedroom, I can never be sure anymore. It's always a different boy over, but hey, who am I to judge. My hands certainly aren't clean. Perhaps I just wish one of the boys were me. It's always a fleeting thought, but it comes often, for she is oh, too attractive. There is a French sexiness in which she carries herself. The way she moves. The way she talks. The way she walks around in the early morning and late at night in her underwear. She has a body made for love. A wild lover, I'm sure. But if I will ever know first hand, I cannot say. Probably not. I just don't know. I am her guest and she, my gracious host, and I would hate to cross that line unwarranted.
But I digress. She's at work, and I feel compelled to leave her and her autre homme to their own devices. Nobody likes a third wheel. So I take off. Into the Paris night with nothing but a flannel and a sweater and a scarf to keep me warm. How stupid of me. The petite Monoprix across the way is closed by now, so I search for another. Down Rue Didot. A small Chinese place catches my eye, and my stomach grumbles with yearning at the sight.
It's been hours since I last put fork to food. Too many. And it was just some pitiful amount of pasta with a fish patty and Rigotti sauce. Sound strange? I'm not surprised. And if not, I must be a genius because I whipped it up high. Guivre's weed turns out to be a hit. It's my first spliff in over a week, and I've missed her taste on my lips so. It's about a 20/80, if that, weed/tobacco. A spliff of ole' Saint Nicholas White's to be sure. I don't feel it anymore, but maybe it is now in collaboration with my stomach and the chinois tempts me terribly. Mais, non. I must find my Monoprix. A droit a la Rue d'Alesia and there's another a few blocks down. It's misting now outside, but it's not bad.
Soft drops snowflaking down by the light of the city. Inside, I pace the aisles. I don't even know why I'm here really. Out of old tradition almost, I grab a pack of bacon-flavored Tuc crackers and shove them deep in my sweater pocket and be on my way. To where? I don't know, so absent-minded I stroll off the way I've been going down Rue d'Alesia, off toward that bright-light square by the chapel. That ought to sparkle my interest. Maybe. And perhaps it would've had God not decided to open up the heavens wide above me. The rain's altogether permeable. It's thick heavy clots of it, and I'm soaked in the face, and my hair's all wet black locks, and my pants are already stained through on the tops of my thighs from running through ghastly awfulness of it. Merde.
To the chinois! All I can think of, which sucks because that's a whole six or seven Parisian blocks away, with not many awnings to show for it. I get there and the nice little French-Chinese girl gives me some paper towels to dry up with. I feel pitiful. Like a wet lost dog just trying to avoid it all. The chinois is a hole in the wall place with three tables squeezed in, and I dump all my damp layers at the middle one. But it's still sinking in it seems. So I sink with it into my chair. At least my book's still dry. But I look soaked through. The mirrored walls tell me so. I'm a mess.
Standing next to my table, in front of the counter, there are two portly-looking fellows drying off with paper towels as well. They've both got faces a little older than mine, and they're joking with the girl mixing dishes and the three of them laugh. Presumably about something to do with the fact that it's raining cats and dogs outside. But I can't be sure because it's in French obviously, and my brain's too wet and morose to even try to listen intently enough to try to translate. Probably wouldn't do any good anyways. My French sucks.
One of them turns around. He's got a childish light-hearted look about him. He says something to me I don't understand. "Je suis desolee," I say.
He fires back with a smile, "Qu'est-ce votre nationalite?" He's curious.
Ah, now that I can understand. I tell him I'm American, but that my color's from the Philippines on my mom's side. At once, he's all excited and starts talking in broken English. He sits down at one of the other tables with his friend and we talk and talk into the midnight minutes, through closing hour. My fried rice and meat on a stick's long gone. In the midst of it, they offer me two glasses of the bottle of wine they bought and some of their dessert after. They're the kindest most wholesome people, both just humble employees at the phone store around the corner. He asks what I'm writing about, so I tell him. He thinks me an artist, which I'm not sure about, but he insists, and we talk about drugs and music and addictions and laugh about spout and burn in that grey haze between two languages as the night's crashing down outside. My heart's a little lighter when I leave. "Enchante."
