Paris is diabolical - sucking all your money and dreams away and distancing you from the essence of life. And, the masochist who chooses Paris as his drug of predilection returns for more without fail, despite, the cost, despite the roteness to it all. Paris is the cemetery of Western civilization, the place dead souls gravitate to, in an obsessive quest for meaning, where there is nothing but concrete, cafés and artefacts. Don’t go anywhere near the place if your delusions are fragile. As a matter of fact, don't go near the place, period. Either plunge into complete denial or go into social work. When I walked out of the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire, and shuffled down the Quai towards the pont de la passerelle, I felt like part of the great, lifeless museum – grey, petrified, a relic of another age.
I recalled a day, thirty years previous, when I had experienced a similar feeling. I’d run out of money days previous, and had been living off tea, Drum tobacco, and a bag of onions, tomato paste and baguette. And, as I recalled that sunny afternoon, and being skinny as a rake handle, moving down the Quai des Orfebvres, the realization came to me that I was never happier than when life taught me I was anonymous, and that my periodic fancies of myself as a moral man were nothing but pure fantasy.
So, here I am, thirty years later, waiting for an appointment with Caracalla, in Le Rouquet, mulling over all this, and telling it more or less to a man who has joined me from the neighbouring table without being invited, and to whom I was now exposing my theory of the useless white man and the city of light.
“You are dismissive of your life, but I suspect there is something of interest underlying all of this. And, it’s not just a woman, it’s something more. Of course there’s a woman involved, this is Paris, there’s no getting around that.”
“Not really unusual though, is it? We’re like a generation who can’t be lost, because we never got found in the first place.”
“It’s the doggedness of your pursuit that impresses me. You say you’ve lost your parents, your first two wives, three children, your friends, your business. Yet time and again, something pushes you back here. What is it? Does it give you anything in return, this Paris you claim to love?”
He was looking at me funny, mister American, he seemed to sympathize, but with what, who knows?
“Sure, it removes me from other things, other people, temporarily.”
“What about peace of mind?”
“C’mon, be realistic.”
He laughed.
“It’s identical for me. Actually, it’s a real struggle when I’m here. It wasn’t in the beginning, when I was young, but now, it only underlines the futility of things. And, yet I have to return. And, what’s funny is that my French is actually deteriorating, I’ve trouble expressing myself. What do you expect, I live in Toledo. Most of the people I knew before have died, or gone insane, or I’d not be caught dead with them. Christ, they might come and visit me, know what I mean? Would you mind terribly if I joined you for a drink or ten?”
I glanced at my watch.
“I’m not sure, I’ve only about two more days to drink, but…of course, by all means, mister beans.”
“So, is it true, are you really a writer?”
He laughed again.
“Well, I’m sorry to put it like that, but, why shouldn’t I? I don’t know you, but, then again, maybe it’s better, maybe it’s better. if I’d heard of you, I’d not have approached you. Celebrities make me shy. Would you mind if I confided something in you.”
“Sure, no problem, if you can do it in less than ten minutes.”
“Well, I come here three times per year. As far as family and friends are concerned, it is to write the great Parisian novel, the dream of a lifetime. But, actually, I haven’t written a word in the last fifteen years. The entire project has defeated me. You see, my entire life had been devoted to Paris, which I saw as a window into my soul, and the oracle of beauty itself.”
We were a legion of carbon copies, men of better than average potential, but not a hell of a lot more, who turned our backs on convenient materialist lives to chase something we’d never really sat down and defined, but for lack of a better word, we called it beauty. And, no word was sneered at with more disdain than beauty. If you were an artist – but the road this perfect stranger and myself traveled wasn’t artistic – then it was better in the dying years of the old millennium, and the early ones of the new, to stretch pig bladders over Styrofoam cups, and cover it all in shite, than to even mention the word beauty. We spoke the same language, and intuitively recognized each other within minutes of beginning a conversation. Nothing measured up to the illusion we pursued. Occasionally, a whore, or an all night drunk on champagne in an underground bar on de la Huchette, or rue des Lombards, might give you a sliver of it, but, for the most part, the trip into the city was a solitary drift from café to café, waiting for time to do its inevitable work.
It occurred to me that I’d spent almost all my time here in a dream state. Years, accumulated like scrap metal, a pile of debris, without record, without shared experience, without any record of having done anything useful. Paris was nothing if not insanity. If you looked at it through jaded eyeglasses, Christ, you were throwing your life away for pommes à l’huile and côte du rhone. It made even less sense when you could probably buy better truffles and foie gras at the mondo shops in Vancouver than in Paris.
“fuck it, I’m thinking of cancelling my meeting.”
“Oh, splendid! Well, actually, don’t do it on behalf of me, we could always take a rain cheque.”
“Well, let’s have another drink and mull it over. I mean a real one – let’s order up a bottle of plonk, and consider what dreamy idiots we’ve been.”
“Done! Waiter, bottle of Sancerre, de suite! Hell, bring a couple of cigars.”
“You know the Closerie de Lilas still has cigarette girls on Friday nights? Can you understand the attraction.”
“Perfectly.”
“Christ, I don’t know what it is about a girl in a cupcake hat and a pleated miniskirt. Sure beats the hell out of the Louvre, doesn’t it?”
“I was never big on the Louvre. I get tired just looking at it from my hotel room.”
“What, don’t tell me you’re in the Quai Voltaire?”
By any account, the man I was looking at was a complete absurdity for the Parisians. An American at seventy-five yards, well into middle age, wearing a chequered tweed jacket, his features weren’t exactly chiseled. More like putty, or unleavened bread.
But, for all his funny appearance, he was triggering memories of past years, and the fucking poltroons who were once my only company outside of punters. Ah, yes, that's why I came. I came to kill off my immortal soul, or to find it, or to discard it, or to rule it out as a factor.
I recalled a day, thirty years previous, when I had experienced a similar feeling. I’d run out of money days previous, and had been living off tea, Drum tobacco, and a bag of onions, tomato paste and baguette. And, as I recalled that sunny afternoon, and being skinny as a rake handle, moving down the Quai des Orfebvres, the realization came to me that I was never happier than when life taught me I was anonymous, and that my periodic fancies of myself as a moral man were nothing but pure fantasy.
So, here I am, thirty years later, waiting for an appointment with Caracalla, in Le Rouquet, mulling over all this, and telling it more or less to a man who has joined me from the neighbouring table without being invited, and to whom I was now exposing my theory of the useless white man and the city of light.
“You are dismissive of your life, but I suspect there is something of interest underlying all of this. And, it’s not just a woman, it’s something more. Of course there’s a woman involved, this is Paris, there’s no getting around that.”
“Not really unusual though, is it? We’re like a generation who can’t be lost, because we never got found in the first place.”
“It’s the doggedness of your pursuit that impresses me. You say you’ve lost your parents, your first two wives, three children, your friends, your business. Yet time and again, something pushes you back here. What is it? Does it give you anything in return, this Paris you claim to love?”
He was looking at me funny, mister American, he seemed to sympathize, but with what, who knows?
“Sure, it removes me from other things, other people, temporarily.”
“What about peace of mind?”
“C’mon, be realistic.”
He laughed.
“It’s identical for me. Actually, it’s a real struggle when I’m here. It wasn’t in the beginning, when I was young, but now, it only underlines the futility of things. And, yet I have to return. And, what’s funny is that my French is actually deteriorating, I’ve trouble expressing myself. What do you expect, I live in Toledo. Most of the people I knew before have died, or gone insane, or I’d not be caught dead with them. Christ, they might come and visit me, know what I mean? Would you mind terribly if I joined you for a drink or ten?”
I glanced at my watch.
“I’m not sure, I’ve only about two more days to drink, but…of course, by all means, mister beans.”
“So, is it true, are you really a writer?”
He laughed again.
“Well, I’m sorry to put it like that, but, why shouldn’t I? I don’t know you, but, then again, maybe it’s better, maybe it’s better. if I’d heard of you, I’d not have approached you. Celebrities make me shy. Would you mind if I confided something in you.”
“Sure, no problem, if you can do it in less than ten minutes.”
“Well, I come here three times per year. As far as family and friends are concerned, it is to write the great Parisian novel, the dream of a lifetime. But, actually, I haven’t written a word in the last fifteen years. The entire project has defeated me. You see, my entire life had been devoted to Paris, which I saw as a window into my soul, and the oracle of beauty itself.”
We were a legion of carbon copies, men of better than average potential, but not a hell of a lot more, who turned our backs on convenient materialist lives to chase something we’d never really sat down and defined, but for lack of a better word, we called it beauty. And, no word was sneered at with more disdain than beauty. If you were an artist – but the road this perfect stranger and myself traveled wasn’t artistic – then it was better in the dying years of the old millennium, and the early ones of the new, to stretch pig bladders over Styrofoam cups, and cover it all in shite, than to even mention the word beauty. We spoke the same language, and intuitively recognized each other within minutes of beginning a conversation. Nothing measured up to the illusion we pursued. Occasionally, a whore, or an all night drunk on champagne in an underground bar on de la Huchette, or rue des Lombards, might give you a sliver of it, but, for the most part, the trip into the city was a solitary drift from café to café, waiting for time to do its inevitable work.
It occurred to me that I’d spent almost all my time here in a dream state. Years, accumulated like scrap metal, a pile of debris, without record, without shared experience, without any record of having done anything useful. Paris was nothing if not insanity. If you looked at it through jaded eyeglasses, Christ, you were throwing your life away for pommes à l’huile and côte du rhone. It made even less sense when you could probably buy better truffles and foie gras at the mondo shops in Vancouver than in Paris.
“fuck it, I’m thinking of cancelling my meeting.”
“Oh, splendid! Well, actually, don’t do it on behalf of me, we could always take a rain cheque.”
“Well, let’s have another drink and mull it over. I mean a real one – let’s order up a bottle of plonk, and consider what dreamy idiots we’ve been.”
“Done! Waiter, bottle of Sancerre, de suite! Hell, bring a couple of cigars.”
“You know the Closerie de Lilas still has cigarette girls on Friday nights? Can you understand the attraction.”
“Perfectly.”
“Christ, I don’t know what it is about a girl in a cupcake hat and a pleated miniskirt. Sure beats the hell out of the Louvre, doesn’t it?”
“I was never big on the Louvre. I get tired just looking at it from my hotel room.”
“What, don’t tell me you’re in the Quai Voltaire?”
By any account, the man I was looking at was a complete absurdity for the Parisians. An American at seventy-five yards, well into middle age, wearing a chequered tweed jacket, his features weren’t exactly chiseled. More like putty, or unleavened bread.
But, for all his funny appearance, he was triggering memories of past years, and the fucking poltroons who were once my only company outside of punters. Ah, yes, that's why I came. I came to kill off my immortal soul, or to find it, or to discard it, or to rule it out as a factor.
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