Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [102]
“Why’d you come here, Dad?”
“I was in the neighborhood, passing by, son.”
“You’re sick? It’s your cancer?”
“Don’t worry, boy.”
“I’m not worrying, Dad. I’m inquiring, that’s all—you’re hanging in there.”
“I’m holding up, big guy.”
“I don’t see what hold-up you’re talking about, Dad.”
“We’re talking man to man, son, it does you good.”
“The trouble with you, Dad, is that you talk when there’s nothing to say, and you don’t say anything when I ask questions.”
“I don’t have all the answers, big guy, you don’t get answers just like that.”
“You never saw the sunny side of life.”
“And you did?”
“I’m going my way, and you’ve always been in the street. You’re the man in the street, Dad, a nobody. Nobody pays any attention to you.”
“How do you like it here? Good food?”
“I’m fine here, Dad, nobody can kick me out and nobody wants to take my place.”
“You’re pretty smart, the way things are now. People lose their jobs, can’t pay the rent anymore, their wife cuts out on them, their boys sell drugs and their girls sell their ass, all of them end up homeless, young, old—forty-eight percent of the French are afraid of becoming homeless. You got a cushy place here, don’t screw around with me.”
“Life isn’t rosy every day, Dad. The National Committee on Ethics reports that prison is a place of regression, despair, violence done to oneself, and suicide. The suicide rate is seven times higher than in the general population.”
“You know, boy, like I say, it’s not exactly all brotherly outside either. Here, at least you’re with people of your own kind. It’s like in Cochin or Sainte-Anne, or the Ursuline Convent. You see your mother?”
“No.”
“Well, I saw her on TV, on a literary show. It seemed to be going good for her: She had nice bright red hair and panther-skin tights. She was testifying about her orgasms, but nothing that could have incriminated me.”
“Hey, while you’ve got your mouth open, you’re gonna do me a favor. Not that I want to boss you around, but … you know the yellow café further down, right next to the boulevard, at the metro stop?”
“I know it without knowing it, it’s not my hangout.”
“The waiter there, his name is Willy, ask him for the package I gave him, and stash it away for the time being.”
“The time being of what?”
“That’s all, Dad, stop your bullshit.”
It’s amazing how much self-confidence this boy has now. A guy who used to give up his turn on the slide to other kids, I see him walking away, towering over the guards by a head. A kind of sun king. Well, a sun locked away in the shade. But with global warming, maybe that’s not such a bad place for it to be for the time being.
“For the time being of what?”
“You can do time without being, dickhead,” the guard answered me. “Get the hell out of here, asshole.”
Once I’m outside, I stare life in the face and I don’t see myself in it and a kind of perplexity takes hold of me, in fact a feeling of melancholy like that twinge of sorrow I used to feel when I dropped off my son, or was it his sister, with the woman who took care of them, a fine woman no doubt, often very easy-going, but certainly perverse.
Come to think of it, I’ve always abandoned my children. I left them with an inheritance of insecurity; insecurity isn’t bad, for someone who likes surprises. One day he’ll have his PlayStation. If I had the money I’d buy him one right away, I’d send him a package. But I don’t have any money, I don’t want any, I don’t deserve any. If I wanted money it wouldn’t be around here. Here, people not only have everything, they know how to use it too. They even know how to use you. They would even use my boy, if he was of any use whatsoever.
Packing Tape
The prison wall seemed even higher and longer than it had on the way there, or else the sky seemed lower.
It was 1 o’clock when I walked back under the elevated train. The café was crowded, Africans eating pink spaghetti twisted in a heap on their plate like handfuls of complicated neurons. People often think Africans are cheerful, but these were sad. It was only the owner who was merry