by Tim Sandlin
What I didn't see was the classic truck stop condom machine French tickler. I blew seventy-five cents on one once in Arizona, to see what it was, and discovered a latex ring deal meant to fit over your pecker, with plastic fringe along the top that theoretically brushes up against the clit as you move in and out. I was too embarrassed to pull it out in real life, afraid the girl would either scream or laugh. Maybe French ticklers are like French toast. There's no such thing as French toast in France.
A blue beaded curtain hung across a door at the back of the shop, beside what looked like a medieval rack. Barring secret passages or cubbyholes, Remi must have gone into whatever was behind the curtain. I looked back at the nice lady who had her head down and was speaking earnestly into her phone. I imagine it was a domestic situation. With her head down, I seized the opportunity and went through the curtain.
Three Japanese businessmen were sitting on folding chairs, looking through a glass panel at a man and woman who were performing live sex. The viewing room had ultraviolet tube lighting so the businessmen glowed a faint shade of purple. I think it's called mauve.
The man and woman behind the panel were in a room decked out like an artist's studio, the kind you find in an attic. They were facing each other on a desk chair with wheels. The man looked early fifties, and the woman late thirties. Neither one had an ounce of fat. You could count their ribs. Her breasts dangled a bit, bouncing up and down not quite in sync with her hip action. Screwing in a chair is an overrated art, so far as I'm concerned. I've tried it now and again, only to prove how open I am to new experience. After a few minutes jiggling while my feet go dead from lack of blood, I've managed to channel the exercise back to a more Christian position.
For a while I thought the businessmen were looking through a one-way mirror, until the man in the desk chair shot me with his thumb and index finger pistol, same way the guy had back at the money-changing booth in the airport. He leaned down to whisper in the woman's ear and she looked back at me and laughed.
I've never understood the lure of watching other people have sex. It's like watching people eat. If you can't do it yourself, I don't see the thrill. I've shared motel rooms with rodeo cowboys, saddle bronc riders, as a rule, who watched pay-per-view soft porn all night. I can take about five minutes before cracking open a book.
To me, the Japanese guys were more interesting than the couple behind the glass. One was a generation older than the other two. They all three had on earphones and the old one wore wraparound sunglasses. I decided to write a poem about a rich man in Japan who wants to teach his sons the finer points of love, so he flies them to Paris, where they end up watching a man and woman screw on a desk chair.
Maybe they weren't even Japanese. I have no experience telling Japanese from Chinese or Korean. You throw a bunch of Navajos and Cheyenne in a room, I could sort them out, but I know nothing about Asians. It's probably a cultural bias to say the men watching the sex show were Japanese.
"You guys see a runt with pointy sideburns come through here?" I asked.
They ignored me. No doubt they didn't know English, or maybe the headphones were cranked up high. I can't help but wonder what they were listening to.
I said, "Don't mind me," and went looking for an alternative way out. The wall on each side of the glass panel was covered by a velvet curtain over a door. The door on the left led to the filthiest bathroom in Europe. Which is saying a lot. The toilet was a hole in the floor with shoe prints painted yellow on each side to show you where to stand. The sink looked like men in the viewing area had used it for relief. I'd go on the sidewalk before I'd go in there.
The curtain on the right covered a staircase leading up. I chose door number two.
Two landings later I walked through a door into a bare room that I would call cheerless. Pine floor, plywood walls, one window, it reminded me of a stock grower's office. A computer sat on a card table connected to a printer on the floor. Papers lay scattered about, as if placed by the wind. Bailed tracts were stacked next to one wall and sabotage supplies along the lines of wine bottles, rags, and red gasoline cans lay next to the other wall, all the makings of trouble. From a door on the far side of the room, I heard the murmur of people talking French. Remi's was the only voice I recognized.
I crossed to the computer and glanced down to see what they were up to, but it was all gobbledygook. There wasn't time to dick around on it like I had Giselle's. All I had time for right now was counting one, two, three then busting through the door and kicking French ass, which suddenly felt easier to do in theory than practice. Before I reached two, a cell phone over there played one of those little tunes that make cell phones even more irritating than they are naturally.
Armand grunted, "C'est qui?" I remembered his voice from before — oily slick — like a singer who fronts for a band but doesn't play an instrument himself. I've never had any use for those guys. They think highly of themselves.
Armand exclaimed something I translated as Jesus Christ, then he came charging into the room where I waited.
He said, "C'est ce foutu cowboy."
I nodded to the gas cans. "You planning a revolution here, Armand?"
Remi, Leon, and two tough guys I hadn't seen before followed Armand into the room. The tough guys had broken-nosed sneers, like Jack Palance in Shane. I think they were brothers. A woman I hadn't seen before either slinked out after them — anorexic, multi-pierced, shaved head with an amoeba tattoo over the crown — followed by Giselle herself. Giselle wore a McDonald's uniform shirt with the top three buttons open, revealing the top edge of a demi-cup bra.
Armand looked over at Remi and snarled something I didn't catch. I imagine he wasn't happy Remi had led me to the hideout. Remi whined his excuse, Lord knows what it was. He had no excuse.
Armand turned his attention back to me. "Starbucks must be desperate to rely on someone so stupid as you."
"You're the one relying on Remi here. Who you calling stupid?"
Armand made everyone wait while he lit a cigarette. I hate that. Smoking's bad enough without forcing others to go on your schedule. "Remi was a fool to lead you to me." Armand blew smoke my way. "You are a bigger fool to invade my offices without a weapon."
"Who says I don't have a weapon?"
That stumped him for like three seconds. "Produce it."
I shrugged. There wasn't much I could say that wasn't flippant or foolish. This didn't seem the time or place to fall back on either of those.
Armand said, "I thought so."
Remi smirked. I hate smirkers. He and Leon were drifting up opposite sides of the room, as if I wouldn't notice if they stayed casual. The other two guys flanked Armand. They were all obviously expecting to rush me soon, and were only awaiting the signal. I figured the longer I put off the signal, the better.
"I'm here for the buckle. Give it to me and there will be no trouble."
"You cannot possibly expect me to believe you came all the way from America to retrieve a belt buckle."
"It has sentimental value."
Armand frowned. I don't think he knew the word sentimental. Giselle leaned against the door frame and glared at me with the kind of hatred you can only have for someone you've slept with. The bald girl was more aggressively snotty. Those were the two I had to watch out for. The guys might beat me to a pulp, but those two women would happily cut off my balls.
"Armand," I said. "Bud. You've got an impressive operation going here." I swept my arm to show the tracts, computer, gas cans. The works. "You don't want to risk losing the ranch for a belt buckle." He smoked, listening. I needed to keep him listening. If Armand stopped listening, I had a problem.
"Let's say this turns out terrible for me and you have old Leon there break my neck. The Paris police aren't going to sit still for killing an American tourist. It's bad public relations."
He held the cigarette between his finger and thumb like a joint instead of a cigarette, showing off how cool he was for the girls. "That might be true if
you are a simple American tourist, but we know you are not."
I made a mental note to strangle Pinto Whiteside. "Whoever told you that CIA and Starbucks baloney was pulling your chain." Baloney and pulling your chain may have been too much slang to expect a French purist to catch in a single sentence. I went on anyway. "They wanted to see if you would buy it. They lied."
"The information came from a trusted comrade."
"Yeah, but the man who told him lied. Your trusted comrade passed on bad information."
Armand flicked ashes on the floor. What a slob. "Why would I believe you over an ally in the battle against American tyranny?"
"Because I don't give a damn. You can throw all the smoke bombs you want, it doesn't affect me one way or another. What you do to McDonald's is your business."
At the word McDonald's Armand stiffened. The whole bunch stiffened, even the ones who didn't know English. You'd think I just peed in the vino.
"What do you know about McDonald's?"
I was walking on the egg carton here. Time to think about what I said before I said it. "I'm not an idiot. You have all these McDonald's shirts around." I gestured at Giselle, who hadn't blinked in two minutes. "I assume you're up to more than looking for after-school work. The thing is, I don't give a flying hoot for or against your cause. Be an outlaw if it gets your rocks off. All I want to know is, where's my buckle?"
Giselle reached into her cleavage and pulled out my Crockett County Bull Riding Champion belt buckle. Even though I'd only seen it for ten seconds or less, I would have recognized it anywhere.
She said, "Throw the cowboy out the window."
That was the signal.
Repercussions were about what you would expect, especially if you expect to get the crap beat out of yourself. Remi was a sadistic prick and Leon knew how to hurt people. The two might-be brothers fought like they were the political theorists of the cell and not the muscle. Mostly they waited till I was down and then kicked my head.
Leon was a pro. He led by slapping me, open-handed, in the ear hole. That would have been enough. I would have gladly jumped out the window right then, and I headed that way, but he grabbed my left arm and twisted it up, popping the shoulder ball from the socket. Remi bit my other ear. I could hardly believe it. The bastard thought he could inflict pain by biting my ear off when my shoulder was already popped. Next to a popped joint, all the torn flesh in creation is diddly.
Then I was on the floor and the poli sci majors were kicking my head, until they got in each other's way and the one decided my crotch and kidneys were handier targets. I made it to my knees and crawled for the window. Remi stomped the fingers of my left hand. Leon gave one last rib kick and stepped back to give the others a turn. I looked over at Armand and the girls. They were watching with all the detached interest that the Japanese had shown watching the couple nail downstairs.
After a short but intense spell of pounding, Leon grabbed a handful of hair and lifted me clear off the floor. That's how strong he was. Remi tried for my feet but I kicked him away, which was probably not the thing to do with all my weight pulling on my hair roots. It felt as if the hair had to rip out soon, or the scalp had to rip off. Something had to rip.
Leon turned my body and held it like a baby. The relief was so great, I wanted to thank him. The look in his eyes was not unlike kindness, dare I say love, as he carried me to the window and threw me out.
29.
No two cracked skulls are quite the same. Sometimes you're knocked senseless and wake up to a brutal headache they skip over when the hero gets coldcocked in Western movies. Other times, you keep going on about like normal, only later you look back and there's this gap in your life. A day will be gone. The opposite of time standing still, it's more like time skips. I've seen cowboys come out of a two-month coma thinking they were still in the arena.
I came to after an unknown period of time in a skinny alley with garbage cans and outhouse-looking toilets. Barrels leaking oil-slick rainbows. Walls tagged in French with bars on the windows you couldn't see through for the grime. Directly beneath my head a nice-sized puddle of blood had coagulated, so I'd been out that long anyway, long enough for coagulation. What I could see of the sky through the mist was darker than it had been last time I looked. Night had fallen while I was out.
Up against the wall by a wooden door, a street alcoholic squatted on his heels on a collapsed cardboard box, a bottle in his hand, watching me.
I said, "Christ."
He didn't say much of anything.
I pulled up my knees and tried pushing off the ground. Incredible pain shot through my shoulder. The ball was out of its spot. I could see it over my pecs, inside my chest. The bit-off ear and bleeding head and whatever was wrong with my ribs could have been fought through to the other side, but the shoulder had to be taken care of. Now.
As I made it to my feet, I managed to pull what was left of my shirt off. Lucky for me cowboy fashion demands the button-up. I could never have done it with a pullover. I held the shirt to my temple where most of the blood seemed to be situated.
"I can do this. I make my living on hard falls."
The alcoholic didn't react. If anything, he was in worse shape than me. His nose ran badly, and he drooled a touch. His eyes had pinprick pupils with mismatched directional orientation. One eye stared my way while the other eye drifted off to the sky. His clothes looked like he'd done his laundry with Kleenex in the pockets. The bottle had no label. The liquid in it was green.
"Only difference is out here, nobody's likely to gore a man while he's down," I said.
I stumbled over and held out my left hand. The fingers were fairly mangled. "Hold on here." I pointed to the wrist.
His head nodded up and down just a bit, and he commenced to hum.
I took his hand and showed him how to hold my wrist. He had a fairly good grip, for a wino. My bet would be syphilitic, too. You get a case and don't take care of it, in no time flat you'll be urinating in a bag.
"Hold tight," I said, then I lurched back and yanked the arm straight. I hit the joint with the flat of my right hand and popped her back in the hole there. The relief was dramatic. One moment, you're on fire, and the next, you're not. It's sore as hell, I grant, but sore beats the daylights out of excruciating. The thing is, I'd blown both shoulders three or four times in the past — even carried metal clips in the right one — and, while the hurt never improves, the more times you do it the easier it comes out but also the easier it goes back in. I've heard Houdini the magician could pop his shoulder in and out like opening a drawer.
"Much obliged," I said.
The humming turned to a bit of a song, only I didn't recognize the words or tune.
I said, "I appreciate you not rolling me while I was out cold over there."
He held out the bottle, offering me a swig. The drool and scabby mouth were off-putting, but I've never in my life wiped the lip of a bottle before drinking after a man. I wasn't about to start with a guy who had delivered me from pain.
"Thanks, bub." I drank enough so's he wouldn't be insulted yet not so much to where I was taking alcohol he might need. It's a narrow line.
"Is this absinthe?"
He shrugged.
I held the bottle up like I was selling it on TV. "Absinthe?"
He grinned, mostly toothless. "NyQuil."
I gave the guy what money I had on me. It wasn't but seventy euros or so. Most of what I had was back in Odette's dirty clothes pile. It's a good thing I carry cash in my right front pocket. I'm not sure I could have gotten into my left.
"Go buy yourself some proper whiskey," I said.
He stared at the euros that had appeared in his hand as if they were magic beans and I was a wizard. I suppose having a man fall out of the sky and then get up and give you money must be disconcerting. I looked up at the window I thought was the one I came out of. It wasn't but twenty feet or so up there. I'd have been okay if I hadn't landed on my head.
"Now they've go
t my hat and my belt buckle."
The drunk grabbed my right wrist. I guess he figured if grabbing the left earned him seventy, grabbing the right might get him more.
"No, thanks," I said. "I've got to be somewhere."
The bum fella was hunched by a doorway, only from outside I couldn't see if it led to the Sacré Coeur place or not. I hadn't found a door going out when I was in the live showroom, so rather than take a chance, I abandoned my Good Samaritan and went around the block onto the street. A rat was playing in swill there on the corner. I stopped to watch. We don't have rats in Wyoming, at least, not that I know about. We have chiseler ground squirrels that look like rats. It's funny the difference in how people see squirrels and rats. Squirrels are cute, rats are ugly, yet they look basically the same. There's a lesson in life for you.
The tinkling bell still tinkled. The woman still sat behind the glass case full of toys, but she wasn't talking on the phone anymore. She was reading a French paperback and when she saw me something akin to horror leaped to her eyes. I liked that. I crossed the floor between us quickly and she drew back, afraid I was going to strike her. I wouldn't strike her. I can hardly believe she thought I might. Instead, I ripped the phone from the wall.
Of course, phones don't rip from walls the way they did when I was young. Now, all she had to do was wait till I'd gone upstairs, plug back in, and call Armand again, so I yanked the other end of the cord from the phone itself and stuffed the wire wad into my back pocket. I'd be come and gone before she found another lead-in.
I said, "Stay put."
She didn't seem likely to go anywhere. I must have looked like roadkill itself. My left arm was semi-useless and I hadn't felt to see what remained of my ear. I handed her the blood-soaked shirt.
"Here."
She took it. I don't know why I gave it to her or why she took it. I'd had a crush on her earlier, but that was over. The woman watched in silence as I worked my way down the dildo display, hefting the big ones, testing for weight and thickness. I almost went with the meat hook model I'd first seen at Giselle's. It had a circumcision ridge would have looked nice on Leon's forehead, but I settled on this twenty-inch enamel number, looked like a black adder. I whacked it once on the countertop — Whack — solid and satisfying.
