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Page 13.
5. Napoleonic and Homeric Dreams
 Richard Buchan, 25, was rushing nowhere—not toward, but away from. He dimly understood that, but walked all the faster and harder. As an infantryman, this was the one thing that came most naturally to him. He was better at it than at almost anything else, including thinking, shooting, or making love—walking. And walk—or march—he did, endlessly and blindly—along the sidewalks and boulevards, beyond the tourist districts, and into the real gritty but attractive, everyday Paris.
Rick Buchan had been to Paris numerous times before, during his four years of duty in Europe with the last U.S. Army NATO units (not to mention his disastrous combat deployment to western Asia).
He'd seen happier days, read history books, even studied a little French. Funny thing now was, he remembered some of his reading, the memories of which sat on the shelves of his mind like dusty but orderly books. He just had trouble focusing on the messy present.
He'd seen all the tourist magnets during earlier visits—Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, and many more—including the magnificent Haussmann avenues designed in the 1850s-60s by Napoleon III's Prefect of Paris. A hidden agenda behind the wide, light modern avenues had allegedly been to offer a clear field of fire for artillery—the late Uncle Napoleon I's military specialty—to quickly clear the streets of any unwelcome protesters by means of steel chain or grape shot. Napoleon III, like all tyrants, had never stopped fearing the deadly street battles—which, ironically, helped him into power as the Second Republic turned into the Second Empire. (*Endnotes #1)
Rick knew the history and classics, yet he did not know where his next meal or piss break was coming from. He couldn't remember when he'd missed the last hour to take his pills and be sane again; but he could remember history—the endless, repetitive tapestry of human folly. Maybe that was because his life was like a fast-moving car in heavy traffic, while the river of time and events moved in slow motion, giving the appearance of standing still.
He dreamed a typical Homeric aside into this skein: A wide, strong river glows red-hot like liquid metal in late sunlight, and appears to stand still when Ocean's tide rises at its mouth. The river roils as if burning or in pain, and seems to flow backward; but this is an illusion like life itself, which can only flow forward to a man's dark and violent destiny as the Fate-spinners beckon.
Rick Buchan hurried along, lost in thought. He kept his chin pulled in, his head down, and his hands jammed in his pockets. There were no rioters on Paris streets these days—just lots of scurrying, impoverished people, many of them from various worse-off places around the world.
The poetic river of which he'd fantasized was really a roiling current of car roofs glowing in a melancholy last evening light. Countless little people rushed home from work to pick up their children at school, to go home, light the cooking stoves, fill the air with smells of roasting meat and sautéed onions, smells of baking bread and sweet chocolate puddings. Then it was story time for the children, an hour of stolen kisses and weary news for the parents, and precious hours of dark safety through the night.
Rick had once heard the old German folk tale of a beggar who walks into a tavern at night, going from table to table asking for coins until the innkeeper takes notice. The beggar is given a coin by one, a crust of bread by another. He goes to the fire, where a rack of meat is turning on the spit. He holds the crust over the meat to absorb its aromas. The innkeeper challenges him to either pay, or get out. The beggar then wisely says, Since I am asked to pay for the aroma of this meat, I will pay you with the sound of my coin. So saying, he drops his coin on the table, making a clattering sound, and puts the coin away, leaving the innkeeper speechless.
In that same spirit, it seemed to Rick that Paris in rush hour filled him with the sounds and smells of life, but gave him none of it for his own nourishment. He might as well rattle a few Euro notes on a street corner, put them back in his pocket, and call it even. It would be like paying for the illusion of joy with the illusion of money. There was no joy in it for him—he'd left that behind on a bloody road in Huilongistan, and in a suffocating military jail cell in Mannheim.
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Thank you for reading the first half (free, what I call the Bookstore Metaphor). If you love it, you can (easily and safely at Amazon) buy the whole e-book for the painless price of a cup of coffee—also known as Read-a-Latte (hours of reading enjoyment; the coffee is gone in minutes, but the book stays with you forever). You can also get those many hours of happy reading from the print edition for the price of a sandwich (no, I don't have a metaphor for that, like a 'sandwich metaphor?'). To help the author, please recommend this book your friends, and also post a favorable (five star!) review at Amazon, Good Reads, and similar online reader resources. Thank you (JTC).
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