Saturday: on the metro there are further exciting skincounters (I owe this word to arachne) when, on the always-crowded first carriage of line 13 between Place de Clichy and St-Lazare, a middle-aged Arab man places his hands in the back pockets of my jeans. He is either
a) trying to steal my wallet, but rather unsubtly, and anyway my wallet is in the front pocket
b) trying to feel my ass, in which case grope away my Maghrebin friend!
or c) desperately trying to cling on to something since he can't reach the hand rail, in which case who am I to stop him?
So naturally I don't intervene.
You'll forgive me if I elide a few hours here, but suffice it to say that I drank from 5pm until 5am.
And anyone who has ever taken the first metro home in Paris has no need to be saved, because they know the meaning of sadness, they know the meaning of futility, they may as well have committed suicide already.
*******************************
In the cold light of day, I decide that a twelve-hour drinking marathon from 5pm until 5am is a suitable note on which to put to bed my drinking career for good and all, so I take a long walk out to the Bois de Boulogne, and, in a thicket in the forest, depose a small garbage bag containing a handful of symbolic items from my old life: porn DVDs, can of beer, favourite Australian lighter, and a silver ring given to me ten years ago by the only real girlfriend I've ever had and which it's taken me this long to remove.
The wanker is dead. Long live the winker!
a) trying to steal my wallet, but rather unsubtly, and anyway my wallet is in the front pocket
b) trying to feel my ass, in which case grope away my Maghrebin friend!
or c) desperately trying to cling on to something since he can't reach the hand rail, in which case who am I to stop him?
So naturally I don't intervene.
You'll forgive me if I elide a few hours here, but suffice it to say that I drank from 5pm until 5am.
And anyone who has ever taken the first metro home in Paris has no need to be saved, because they know the meaning of sadness, they know the meaning of futility, they may as well have committed suicide already.
*******************************
In the cold light of day, I decide that a twelve-hour drinking marathon from 5pm until 5am is a suitable note on which to put to bed my drinking career for good and all, so I take a long walk out to the Bois de Boulogne, and, in a thicket in the forest, depose a small garbage bag containing a handful of symbolic items from my old life: porn DVDs, can of beer, favourite Australian lighter, and a silver ring given to me ten years ago by the only real girlfriend I've ever had and which it's taken me this long to remove.
The wanker is dead. Long live the winker!
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
Throwing out porn definetley works in the "turning over a new leaf" department. Until it makes its merry way back into your stash...goddamned Transsexual Beach Parties 1-54. They'll be the death of me!
When you made your pilgrimage of abandonment, I can imagine the feeling there. Was it that telescoping feeling where things seem to get closer and closer and quiet, but roaring at the same time? And it all sorta coalesces into that one significant, symbolic moment. I wonder what it was like.
I wish I'd been the arab on the train.