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Page 16.

7. Bagnolet: La 39me Étape

Rick's friend Charley did not answer. Rick stepped across the worn sandstone threshold into the folksy bowels of the Bar-39. He plunged into a crowd of mostly young men and women. Most seemed well dressed. Many were somber-skinned, some with kinky African hair, others with dark eyes in which the moon of Morocco or Mauretania still glowed.

As he did so, he stumbled and brushed against a strong, pretty young woman with caramel face, beautiful sea-blue eyes, and a wide African nose. Looked a lot like Kendra Walsh but wasn't her. This woman stood wearing a beige business getup, nursing a wine cooler with both hands to her breast, and passing time. "Allô," she remonstrated in a melodious accent, vous êtes saoul déjà?—which basically meant, "Hey, you're staggering in here drunk already?" She was obviously hunting for a suitable man, and this staggering salop did not meet her criteria.

Rick dodged some angry men, raising his hands in apology, and slid behind an open table. It was good—a safe corner, a nook, away from everyone, almost hidden behind a wall of people's backs turned to him, wearing coats. Someone had left a half-eaten dinner, waiting to be cleaned up, and Rick looked about furtively before scooping the best remnants under his arm: a half-eaten piece of buttered bread, a few slivers of ham and gristle, a splatter of tomato with Parmesan cheese and basil, an olive-drab stick of army-issue asparagus. They'd left a glass with a splash of wine in it, which he drained. There was a thick white paper napkin with a woman's mauve lipstick print on it. Rick scooped the food into the napkin and pulled it into his lap under the table. Someone somewhere might have made a sound of disgust, but it was distant, like a young woman's voice. Her voice was lost as if across a street of fleeting traffic elsewhere and elsewhen. Bodies crowded all around, and Rick had a whitewashed wall solidly at his back. He felt safe for the moment.

An Algerian looking waiter in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, and black vest and pants pulled the plate and glass away. "Monsieur? How are you this evening?" If he saw the scavenge hidden in Rick's lap, he did not let on.

"I'm fine," Rick said. "Can you bring me a beer?"

"Oui, bien, Monsieur. And what else? Something to eat?"

"Yeah," Rick said, remembering his lunch hours ago. "Un sandwich au jambon avec fromage, peut-être."

"D'accord, et vite," said the waiter grandiosely as he swept the remaining table debris into a little bucket, and ran a black-haired brush across the surface. "Avec plaisir."

The waiter disappeared, and Rick ravenously ate the scavenge from the napkin in his lap. Looking furtively about, he reached down and fingered his sock, digging out a ten Euro note. His money was depleting fast, and he'd have to figure something out or starve to death or become a robber. How fucking sick was that? And he had money, lots of it, waiting in his bank account at American Express back at Vogelweh. But that was a lifetime away, an ocean of circumstances and aching difficulty to cross. Maybe he would find himself a guitar and sit around playing on the sidewalk. No, the French police would nab him sooner or later without a proper license, and there he'd be again. He was running out of time. There was no way out.

The ham and cheese sandwich came—a wonderful baguette warm from the toaster—along with a cool Stella Artois in a mug. The mug had the distinctive Belgian logo on it—Stella Artois, in white letters on a red field, surrounded with gilded leaves folding on themselves. The dot over the i was missing.

He gorged himself, looking around with starving eyes. As he did so, he became aware of a man sliding into the bench beside him from the other direction. The man was older, graying, with a pelt of unkempt whatever, like a mullet, down the back of his neck going into a too-big shirt collar. The man looked French enough, Caucasian, with big black bristly eyebrows, fleshy lips, wrinkled face. The mouth had a hard-bitten quality to it, and the eyes were incisive like a rat's, darting about with hard looks, taking everything in. Rick backed away a few inches from the man's intrusive presence. The man wore a dark maroon blazer, open-collared shirt with a loud wallpaper pattern (at least in a sort of matching merlot). He had pasty, pale hands that looked more like gloves, with loose black pig bristle hair. Looking around, the man briefly nodded to Rick—just a perfunctory look as if to say you're here, I'm here, now fuck off, I am busy with more important thoughts. They dismissed each other simultaneously. The man looked one way, and Rick—seeing the other's inattention—looked away.

What to do? The ham sandwich was finished. The beer was getting low. Must order another. Buy time, try to think, plan something.

At the other end of the table, a different waiter sidled close and placed a fresh beer before Mr. Mystery or Monsieur Mullet, whichever. Rick tried to get the waiter's attention to order a fresh beer, but without success. Frustrated, he drained his glass and pushed it away; then raised it slightly and slapped it down so it made a clapping sound on the table. Through the surrounding blur of coats and the surf-like roar of voices, he could not get a glimpse of his waiter from before. So he waited.

As he waited, he absently reached down and raised his beer glass. Ah, so the waiter had come and gone, maybe through the wall behind him. How else? But there it was, a fresh beer, and he drank thirstily. Feeling a bit giddy, he looked to his right and saw—wait a minute—the other man had an empty beer glass in front of him now. It was Rick' glass, with the missing dot on the i in Artois.

"Wait a minute, what's going on here?" Rick said.

The man slipped out of the booth and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Rick alone on the bench. Rick' hand remained protestingly and questioningly in the air a moment. He felt very, very drunk. He was getting woozier by the second.

Oh god gonna pass out…

Rick pushed himself out of the bench and erect, swaying slightly. Remembering his clumsy entrance, he resolved to make his exit as little noticed (or awkward) as possible.

As he started in search of the door—feeling blind—he stumbled backward and fell on his ass amid a chorus of disgusted and laughing voices, both male and female. People said things in French and in Arabic—he could not make out what. Strong hands lifted him by the elbows and half propelled, half carried him gently but firmly somewhere.

The back door.

Easy, dear fellow, a student voice said in broken English. We won't let the staff call police on you. We'll help you out the back—you sleep it off in the alley.

Fresh air flowed welcome around his face. It would have been wonderful, except he felt terrible. Something in the beer. The guy had switched drinks. Why? The waiter bringing the guy's drink had seemed threatening. The man sitting beside Rick had reacted with fear and finesse—a shifty tactician…

Rick landed face down on a pile of trash, mostly soggy cardboard smelling of rain water and glue. Old refrigerator transport box, it seemed like. For a few minutes, Rick lay helplessly sprawled on the soft cardboard. His palms were splayed on either side of his head, facing downward. His stomach was wet. His legs felt paralyzed.

He heard voices behind him—angry, frightened, then desperate. A man's voice sounded a scream of terror.

He heard something that clicked like the safety on a pistol.

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