I’d made plans to meet Fred at a bar near the Pompidou Center, though “plans” might be a big word for our arrangement. I’ll probably get there at around 11, 11:30, he’d said, you show up whenever you want, meaning he wasn’t sure to show up at all and didn’t much care if I did either, unless he did show up and then got bored, in which case he would text me: tu viens [u coming]. I wasn’t any more interested in Fred than he was in me, we’d simply said that we’d get together for a drink sometime and this was that time, or not.
It was early August. I rode to the Beaubourg quarter on a public bike and parked at the Velib station on rue Saint Merri. As I turned to walk up the street I was surprised to see that the entire wall of a 5-story building was covered with the image of a face of a man with a finger to its lips.
The man was calling for quiet: Shhhhh. He had Dali eyes.
I’d passed this way, by the Stravinksy Fountain and Saint Merri Church, hundreds of times since first lunching by the fountain over 20 years ago, but never noticed the mural before.
This disturbed me. As much as I enjoy coming upon a good surprise in this increasingly conventional city—an elephant walking down the street, say, or a boy playing Frisbee with a homeless man—I’m disturbed to discover something so clearly a part of the landscape that I’d never noticed before, such as the time that I realized that the trees on my street weren’t lindens after all.
I was headed in the direction of the mural to meet (or not) with Fred, and as I approached I saw that there was writing on the wall, which may or may not have been graffiti.
It wasn’t. It read:
Fresque réalisée / en juin 2011 /par Jef Aérosol [Mural created /in June 2011 / by Jef Aérosol]
So the mural was recent, painted earlier this summer, no reason to be disturbed, simply surprised.
Eh-oh, I heard a voice.
I didn’t see anyone around.
Tu peux me laisser tranquille là? [Would you mind leaving me alone?]
Strange, I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.
I continued reading the writing on the wall.
Assisté de [With help from] / Ender, Asfalt,/ Joseph Loughborough / David Amar / Fradelrico, Sevan Ahsan
Eh-oh. Tu peux me laisser tranquille là? The voice, an angry whisper, asked again to be left alone, but still I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Merci à l’ircam [With thanks to IRCAM, the Institute for Acoustic/Music Research and Coordination] / Et au Centre Pompidou [And to the Pompidou Center]
Eh-oh, tu peux pas me laisser pisser tranquillement là? It was a woman’s voice, now less of a whisper, more of a hiss.
The voice seemed close, but I still couldn’t see anyone.
I was standing by a rail to read the words on the mural and I now had the reflex to look over it. On the other side a woman was squatting down in the corner in a small dip in the pavement. She was right below me, looking up. Her jeans down to her knees and she was peeing. I could now hear the sound of her stream against the pavement.
Oh, I said.
Arrête de me matter. Je pisse. Dégage. [Stop checking me out. I’m peeing. Go away.]
Je suis venu regarder la fresque de près. Je ne t’ai même pas vu là. [I came for a look at the mural. I didn’t even see you were there.]
Arrête de me regarder alors. Matteur. Merde. Dégage. [Well stop looking at me then. Voyeur. Fuck. Go away.]
She finished peeing and stood up and awkwardly pulled her jeans over her hips. She was clearly drunk.
Ca t’a plu alors? she spat. [Like what you saw?]
Pas très beau, I said. [Not very nice actually.]
La prochaine fois tu ne regarderas pas. [Then don’t look next time.]
Je voulais voir la fresque de près. C’est tout. Comment savoir qu’il y avait une pisseuse dans le coin. [I just came to see the mural up close. How was I supposed to know there was a woman pissing over here.]
T’aurais préféré un pisseur? she laughed. [Would you rather it had been a man pissing?]
Peut-être qu’un mec serait plus gracieux. [Maybe a guy would have done it more gracefully.]
PD. [Fag.]
She started to leave her dip in the pavement then stopped to look up at the mural, which destabilized her, so she held onto the railing and looked up.
Pffff, she said. C’est d’la merde. [Bunch of shit.]
She pushed off from the rail and walked away in the direction of the Pompidou Center.
I sat by the fountain to write a draft of this story. I entitled the page “Merry” since I was facing Saint Merri Church, also written Merry. I thought of that as the girl’s name, though the saint was a man. His remains are in the crypt of the church.
I went to meet Fred at the bar. It was 11:45 when I arrived, maybe closer to midnight. He wasn’t there. Or I didn’t see him. Maybe he was in the john. I didn’t go looking.
© 2012, Gary Lee Kraut
What a great tale — and it encapsulates so much of what I love about Paris. What a way to start my day — thanks.
A happy readers makes a happy writer. Thank you!
Gary
Great story, Gary. A good example of interesting things we happen upon, on our way someplace else. Especially when that place wasn’t so interesting in the first place.
–May we all have interesting experiences along the way…destination reached or not.
Gary, I was delighted that you found the drunk entertaining enough to carry on a conversation.
The photographs were fun from the perspective of both ends of the converstation. Nice job!
Hallo!
Such a lovely ‘Scène de la vie parisienne’! You did well to record it! And so simply and beautifully. It was a joy to read it.
This is a fantastic story, very amusing, different look at Parisian life!
I adore this story.