You'll never believe what happened in Paris: Quai D'Austerlitz
I interviewed people in Paris for memorable stories that happened to them in specific locations. Here's one. *Strong language warning.
Quai D'Austerlitz
The movie was over but I was still seated in the theatre.
In my defense, the ending credits were still scrolling up the screen, so it could be argued that the movie wasn't over. Then again, I was the only one left in the theatre, watching every name drift up one after the other.
John Whatever was the assistant to so-and-so.
Suzie did something too.
I guess I was stalling.
Not to say that I don't care about the work that's put into a film. But at that moment, it was like "my practice." I say that in the way that yoga people say it. Or, "a meditation."
I was just trying to clear my mind of him. I was inputting stimulus to push him out. But every name that scrolled was just another name that wasn't his, which just made me think only about his. So, really, the whole effort was moot to begin with. I sighed and dropped my head. Hopeless.
A triumphant final note crescendoed. The last credit disappeared up to movie heaven. Black out.
What a shitty movie that was.
The ushers entered to clean up the casualties. They'd probably seen many a person sitting there in post-film limbo, between getting up and giving up, so I felt like I was in good company. Walking down the aisle, they took their sections and began to sweep, working quickly, hard candies hitting the back of the dustpan. One of them moved to another aisle and stopped short. He called over to his friend laughing in disbelief. "People make such a mess!"
Tell me about it buddy.
Let's just say, I felt like I was standing in my kitchen after shattering everything that was shatterable on the floor, and realizing, after seeing my shoes on the other side of the room, that I was barefoot, in my kitchen, with broken glass shattered across the floor and no way around it. Sure I could make a SOS call to a friend with my trusted phone never too far from reach, but I'd still have to cross the room to open the door. I was stuck. Trapped in my own fucking mess.
I caught eyes with one of the sweepers. "Bonsoir." he softly smiled. He knew I was stalling. I quickly dropped my head and picked up the box of jellybeans that was resting on my lap. I shuffled it around. Two left. I popped one in my mouth. I don't even fucking like jellybeans.
The man I loved was my best friend. Earlier that day, he had asked if I wanted to go dancing on La Peniche du Coeur, a boat on the Quai d'Austerlitz, run by a famous hyphenate: clown-actor-artist-boat owner. I wanted desperately to dance with him, but then I had a flash of myself barefoot, in my kitchen, now doing the salsa all over the shattered glass and pretending like it didn't hurt to be that close to his body (to say the least) and in front of his boyfriend (who I really did like by the way). I scrambled for an excuse. The best I could do was some abracadabra that I already had plans to see movie with a friend. He then logically proposed I meet them after the film and I got stuck. I acquiesced. Thus the plans were made.
I wasn't angry. Two people who love each other can get a little confused sometimes. I don't know about anyone else, but I remember those games we used to play as kids like "doctor," which was just an excuse to touch body parts you were curious about. It wasn't that. He wasn't curious about being with a woman, maybe that was a part of it, but what drew us from the "never would even consider it," to the "wait a minute...is there something?" to the "I want you by my bedside, on any side, next to my side" was real love. I had never thought something would happen given his orientation, and neither did he, but we met on the dance floor and we left the floor laughing and holding each other like old friends. And it built from there until one day it tipped over and we fell for each other. All over each other. All over the apartment. Still makes me blush.
I peeled myself off the seat, turned left and headed towards the door. The carpet was plush. The four ushers were scattered throughout the room sweeping: one quickly, another softly, another slowly, and one who just wanted to bang the dustpan. Row after row of empty crimson seats disappeared in my wake until I reached the door. And down the hallway, past the bright-lit foyer, and to the exit, the sweeping of the broom quartet was stuck in my head like a catchy refrain.
I stood in front of the long white boat, La Peniche du Coeur, crisp like it had been starched. Maybe it just appeared that way because of the black backdrop of the sky. It was beaming, glowing with lights. Sounds of people having a grand ol' time were flowing in the wind like my white summer dress. I wasn't ready to go in.
Strolling alongside the boat towards the very left edge, I noticed a closed passage onto the boat, blocked by a locked white fence. Hyphenates only I guess. I stopped. I started walking back towards the entrance. He was my best friend. He did love me, just not in the way I wanted, which was a very childish way of looking at things. I stopped. I turned back towards the Seine. But, often, a heart breaks in places that have been broken before, like fault lines, and all you can do is run for cover.
The Seine opened wide in front of me. The lapping of the water against the peniche, the air, the seductive music, stung, like alcohol on a wound. It was cleansing, antiseptic even, but painful. And like a parade of boats floating slowly past, one after another, memories of past heartbreaks came drifting down the Seine.
"No one wants you."
I jumped.
I looked around.
The voice slithered into my ear once again.
"No one wants your kind around here..your kind of...slut."
I turned to my right. On the very left edge of the peniche was that hyphenate passage onto the boat. A red ember from a cigarette glowed behind the white gate. I walked closer.
"No one wants you here...this place is not for you fucking slut."
A young guy, who didn't seem like he was there to salsa, was sitting there behind the white gate, smoking, and moving his eyes up my body like slime. He was young, dark and handsome. His hair was short, clean, sporty. He was wearing a hoodie. I turned my head to see if there was someone else around but there was only us so, this mother fucker was talking to me.
"No one WANTS you here...whore" He was jutting his chin at me as if to shove me, throw me away with lots of breathy insults.
I moved towards him, tilted my head and raised an eyebrow.
"Are you talking to me? What did you say....?"
"Slut, whore, cunt..."
I was taken back. Come on, I was just standing there, I had a broken heart, not doing anything to anyone and he was making an effort to tell me I'm a whore in a list format? To say that I wasn't welcome in a public space, the quai de la Seine?
"Excuse me?"
He spit and threw his cigarette. The butt ricocheted in between my breasts; a few embers went flying like miniature fireworks. The cigarette began to freefall as he continued to shoot rounds and rounds of every vulgar name you could think of like Rambo with a M60. All over my body. I didn't know what to do, where to go or with what to fight back. My eyes fell to the ground. What a monster. What a poorly rolled cigarette. My teeth were clutching onto one another to hold back the tears. The pressure was building. I stopped breathing. And just as I was about to reach the breaking point, I noticed a single ember from the cigarette was still burning red on the ground. The smoke was rising.
With the right combination of pressure and temperature, a mystic event can occur in science called sublimation when a solid form of matter skips the intermediary step of becoming a liquid and immediately turns to gas, like dry ice. Instead of something solid melting, it rises, but a human being can also sublime. Not always in socially acceptable ways.
I stepped on the cigarette. Something cracked underneath my foot. I lifted it. Around the cigarette, a tiny explosion of green shards of glass was sparkling under a shaft of light coming from the boat. I began to follow them all like points on a map until the whole quai became a glittering landscape of broken beer bottles. People do make a mess of things. We break things, we break each other, and nothing is sharper than the edges of a broken heart. And from these fault lines, civilizations can fall but mountains can also rise. My head rose. My feet were burning and my eyes were dry.
I grabbed my tits at him.
In my head I heard a triumphant halleluiah.
That just escalated the situation.
He jolted up and ran towards the fence. Words were flying out of his mouth, and his hands were banging against the fence.
"You're not wanted, you're not wanted here, this place is not for you! Cunt bitch whore!"
He started to climb the fence. I lifted my skirt, pointed at my ass, spat. He froze midway in disbelief. I entered into a kind of trance: I hit my shoulders, I tossled my hair, I let out a cry. I started hitting every part of my body, like the haka, the Maori ancestral war dance.
"Slap the hands against the thighs,
Puff out the chest,
Bend the knees,
Let the hips follow,
Stomp your feet as hard as you can.
This is the hairy man who caused the sun to shine again for me.
Up the ladder, up the ladder, up to the top,
The sun shines,
Rise!"
I ran across to the fence and locked onto his eyes. In them I saw my own reflection but I was not afraid. Two animals on opposite sides of the cage. I screamed in his face. He began to climb again. I shook the cage with all my might. His hand shot out between two bars. I slapped it away and kicked the fence. He stumbled back into the shadows. I ran towards the entrance, feet burning and glass shattering underneath the strength of my feet.
I stopped at the entrance, panting. The adrenaline was causing my legs to shake. The door swung open and a group came out. I was sweating. "Did you just run a marathon?" The question snapped me back to the present moment. One of them was laughing at me. I shrugged and said I was really late. They continued to laugh as if I were a little peculiar, passing around me. Through their bodies, I was searching down the Quai, waiting for him to appear. Nothing. My eyes darted around. Nothing. I even did a 360. Nothing. Leaves were rustling in the breeze. The sound of trumpets called my head back to the door. It was blindingly white. I sighed with relief. I made it. My heart was beating fast and strong. I was no longer afraid. My hand reached for the handle. And it was all thanks to...that monster. My hand froze. I turned once more down the boat with wide eyes, as if I had been duped by a divinity in disguise, wrapped in a demon fiery cloak, who burned down to the wick of my own courage, and set it ablaze once again.