My
cocktail was delivered by a young 20-something year old girl, an
authentic Parisian Mademoiseille Beauty. All desires for fun and
happiness had surrendered to a single woman at the Midnight hour. Her
name was Marie and in a weirdly literal sense, that is all she wrote.
Before I describe Marie and my professional relationship to her on
this January night, I will explain in writing that our interactions
hinged on our strict and subliminal understanding of the 'game' –
she was a master. Essentially, I was paying her to fuck with my
emotions and to shape my experience – although it is a true
blessing that I was acutely aware of this at the time, do not
underestimate this fact either, or you will fail the test when your
turn comes.
Marie
had rich brown hair, mostly tied so that it falls down to her upper
back, leaving a selection of loose strands to fall at random in
liquid cascades by her eyes - pools of molten brown that
shimmered under the neon lights of the pre-dawn hours, like my own,
framed in flesh and bone. Marie has high cheekbones with soft yet
sharp, slashing features that made me look – reflecting on how she,
from a long line of prostitutes & goddesses, represents the
feminine divine in its penultimate form. Marie has rouged lips,
parted slightly in a delicate smile, rehearsed a million times before
this moment, preparing each day for the final cut. Marie moves with
specific forms of balance and grace – her back is not broken and
her neck is not crooked. Marie wears the slim white shirt of her
archetype, and she pauses occasionally to drink cola. She picks up
her suffering and bears it and in this alone, I think we can all
learn something – she has stared the Gods down, she has looked into
the eye of Horus and decided that she will pursue her Lust for Life.
...
“Do you know the warm
progress under the Stars?,
The Moon is a dry blood
Beast,
O' Great creator of
being,
Grant us one more hour
to perform our art & perfect our lives” - James Morrison,
1978
...
I
Touched Her Thigh and Death Smiled.
...
Morrison's bones lie
just 5 kilometres down the road, I checked they were still there that
very morning and I think I always will whenever I am in town. But he
is a burnt out wreck who finally exploded here in 1971, and the Now
is far more electrifying in this small and loud Café of the Night.
Marie sits next to me, kissing me on the cheek and talking to me about her apartment, her
holiday to Brazil and her passion for Salsa dancing amongst other
things – apparently, the Latin-Jazz is also her kind of thing. The
vibe is right, and Marie is having a good time at work; she likes my
black hair & my money. And I like her eyes, perhaps more than she
enjoys her work – who knows.
By
this point, I had probably spoken and laughed with most of the
strangers around me – the idea that drinking in a bar could be fun
was new to me but the fact that I come from an old family of European
& North African soldiers and artists has probably lent me a
certain capacity for quick adaptation to my surroundings. If you fail
here, then you are fucked – whether you are an artist or soldier or
some mutant abomination that sits between the two.
I
remember flexing my jaw and perching my eyes just behind the rim of
my last empty glass – looking through the windows into the outside
world. The 'Sexodrome' is lit up in white, easily the biggest
establishment for sex work on this Boulevard, but it is perhaps best
avoided – the art of paid sex is not honoured here, apparently -
and you are sure to end up getting stomped by a selection of bald
white dudes. Yes, this is all very hilarious – 24 hours ago I was
hunting wild pigs and I think the original plan was to take a late
night walk through the Jardin de Tuileries but
duty calls, Namaste. Did Veronica Franco die for this? It might be
worse than we ever imagined.
Well,
180 euros later and the Puerto Ricans are still giving it hell and
the males here are still in the business of buying anyone drinks and
generally making themselves obvious. I had Marie bring me over a menu
for one last time, the idea being that I would finally tone things
down with a light cocktail or Pastis, heavy on the water. I quickly
abandoned this plan when I slipped on the stairs and cracked my shin
coming back from the underground toilets – it was time to leave and
retrace my steps back to the last moment where I was safe and
obscure. I apologised to Marie & told her about the malicious
staircase and that I would be ordering nothing more from this place –
I was done – to which she replied “Trop chèr?”while
smiling and slinking away towards a paying customer, grey with age
and fat around the thighs.
WHAP!
Bullseye – damn you all. A small part of me died quickly and
suddenly. The brain locks down, recoiling in horror as the chemicals
of my body turn savage and my cords and sinews go tight. Wow – do
you want to burst into flames? The answer is no, roughly speaking. Do
you want to freak out and shoot something until it vaporises in blue
flame and gunshot glitter? We can sort something out, call me.
Marie
is still sweet and kind, believe me, but I messed up on her and
herein lies the lesson of the thing, friends. What a fool I was to
see the first sign of art here and cling to it as a sign of good
things to come. You do not walk into a nest of Coyotes to feel
betrayed and victimised when the cute one sinks his teeth in between
your ribs – so why had I failed this test, had I learnt nothing
from our species' survival days? I demand answers, not right now but
at some stage of my life, they will become necessary, or I am doomed
to a cycle that none of us can properly name. The brutal reality of
this realm is not to be ignored or underestimated in a drunken stupor
– the French spirit of revolution rests on a knife edge. The
statues of Lady Liberty in Paris all flash their tits, and the
possibilities of life here are fragile, and diminishing rapidly –
the fact that Marie resorts to money insults with a child like me
surely accelerates the process – you tell me, please and thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment