by Patrick Bard
“What is it?” Lucas asks, hoping to score a point. “Slam poetry?”
The doctor laughs. “Nope. Just poetry, that’s all.”
Writing isn’t really Lucas’s thing.
“I’m lousy at it,” he mumbles. “And I make lots of spelling mistakes.”
Behind his glasses and a slight potbelly that gives him a jolly appearance, Dr. Flohic is like a beast and he relies on his instinct. He’s sniffed the scent of blood—ink blood—of an appetite for words that lies hidden within Lucas. He’s sniffed out a part of Lucas that Lucas doesn’t even know exists.
“I don’t want to do anything,” Lucas grumbles again.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid?” Dr. Flohic says to provoke a reaction.
Lucas isn’t used to challenges, and even less to being given one.
“Afraid? Afraid of what?” he asks, surprised.
“You’re right, that was stupid,” Dr. Flohic goes on. “Someone who jumps out of a car going seventy miles per hour isn’t afraid of anything, right?”
Lucas looks at the shrink fixedly. The color of Dr. Flohic’s eyes reminds him of oysters, which he hates. Without knowing why, he decides to play it straight.
“Maybe I jumped because I was afraid,” he answers, ill-tempered.
“That’s good, Lucas,” Dr. Flohic says. “You’re making progress. Now tell me, why did you drop by?”
“I’m bored. If I stay here I’m going to die. I’d like to go home.”
Dr. Flohic doesn’t answer immediately. A ding announces that he’s just received an email. He goes slowly around to his desk and stands to read the message. He then raises his eyeglasses to his forehead and sighs as he considers Lucas.
“Here’s what I propose,” he says. “The writing workshop meets on Mondays. You’ll remember that we decided with your parents that you need a complete break. That they wouldn’t come to see you here. You’re going to be bored through the weekend. And the weather is going to be lousy. At the same time, if you want something to do, the boxing club has a match scheduled for Sunday, and the writing workshop begins on Monday. Why don’t you give it a try? If you don’t like it, then you can go home. Deal?”
The doctor extends his hand.
Lucas hesitates. He attempts to guess how heavy the shrink’s pudgy palm will be.
Then he gives it a weak shake.
“Okay. Deal.”
33
The idea of the boxing match doesn’t appeal much to Lucas, but he has nothing better to do. And his neighbor, not the girl who looks like a guy but the one across the hall from him, also told him about it after he left the psychiatrist’s office yesterday. The guy’s name is Édouard and he’s from Guingamp, a town not far from Saint-Brieuc. His problem is alcohol. Beer. He started drinking before he turned twelve, up in the bleachers of the town stadium.
“You know, dude, in Guingamp, soccer is sacred. It’s a religion!” He starts waving a fist in the air and shouting, “Go Guingamp! Go!”
Despite his crazed-dog look, his bright-checked shirt, his curly poodle hair, and his broken nose, Édouard is pretty likeable. Besides, Lucas has nothing better to do.
So when Édouard knocked on Lucas’s door this afternoon, Lucas followed him down to the basement to watch the boxing match. Or, to be precise, the matches. It’s Lucas’s first time at a boxing event. Half of the forty residents are there. Even some staff members, along with visiting parents who’ve come to support their champion. The air smells of leather, talc, and sweat. Even though the building is nearly new, the basement feels worn and lived-in. I guess that’s normal for a basement, thinks Lucas. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it more. The fluorescent lights go off, plunging everyone seated on the simple white benches into darkness, while the vertical light splashes on the slightly elevated ring. A referee dressed in white climbs onto the stage—Lucas thinks of it as a “stage”—same as the one he saw when he went to see a play by Molière on a school trip to Chartres. Murmurs ripple through the audience when Dr. Flohic arrives late. He shuffles into the last row. His arrival is distracting. He nods at Lucas as he passes him. Meanwhile, two fighters are now in the ring. In spite of the leather head guard, Lucas recognizes the first boxer. It’s José, a Portuguese guy who landed at the center because of an online gambling problem. Lucas sat next to him on his first day in the dining hall.
His opponent is a huge guy with prominent lips due to the protective mouth guard. Lucas doesn’t know him.
“I’ll explain,” Édouard says, leaning in to his ear. “The guy in white is the referee and the other guy is the trainer. The little—”
“José. I’ve met him. And the other one?”
“The other one is Johnny. Don’t know what he’s here for. But I do know that José is going to eat dirt.”
The referee brings the two opponents’ gloved fists together by way of greeting, and then the bell announces the start of the first round of the match.
Johnny immediately pounces on José and pummels him with punches. It’s brutal and direct, and though Lucas knows nothing about boxing, he guesses that Johnny’s style is unorthodox. But he’s efficient. Each punch lands and poor José is pinned against the ropes where all he can do is protect his face with his gloves while his adversary pounds his ribs as if he wants to fell a tree. Each blow is delivered with a loud shhhhh. Lucas is glad José is wearing a leather head guard. With great effort, José manages to fend off his opponent by keeping his red gloves close together. Johnny takes a step back. Thrown off balance, José opens his arms—a fatal error. Johnny seizes the opening and lands an uppercut, followed by a hook.
José falls to the ground as the referee starts the count.
“No way he’s getting up,” Édouard says.
Édouard’s right. José concedes before the end of the first round. The boxers quickly hug and leave the ring after Johnny raises his arms and draws an imaginary V in the air.
“It’s the girls’ turn,” Édouard announces.
Lucas is surprised. “Really? Girls box?”
Édouard shrugs. “Yeah, of course. Don’t you know?”
Lucas did not know. He was unaware there was even a female world boxing champion, until Édouard tells him. The only women he’s seen box did so sluggishly and without much conviction, punching into the void in a porn video.
By the time Édouard finishes talking, two new fighters have replaced the boys in the ring.
“Look, it’s Fatou!” Édouard says, excited. “She’s been here two months!”
The girl Édouard just pointed out attracts everyone’s attention. She’s tall and lean, all legs, with satiny dark skin. Her purple leather head guard reveals only her eyes and shiny lips. She’s wearing shorts and a matching tank top and, unlike her opponent, fills them out.
“The other girl is Eloise. She’s from Angers. Got here more or less at the same time as Fatou. She doesn’t stand a chance,” Édouard says, adamantly. He gets to his feet and shouts, “Go, Fatouuuu!”
Lucas stays rooted to the bench. He recognizes Eloise as his next-door neighbor and suddenly understands how she got the purple bruise under her left eye.
A flight of black ravens unfurls across her protruding shoulder blades. Another tattoo on her thin forearm spells out HELL IS EMPTY, ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE in capital letters.
She’s a boxer. He wonders how she can possibly be one with her spindly legs. They look like matchsticks poking out from her electric-blue shorts. With her flat chest, she’s about as feminine as a pit bull, thinks Lucas as she suddenly leaps toward Fatou like a she-devil. Fatou’s feet are firmly planted on the ground as she takes the pounding full-on. She protects herself by raising her shoulders into her neck, all the while looking for her opponent’s weakness and shuffling right and left to dodge the blows.
“She’s letting Eloise tire herself out,
” Édouard predicts. “It’s not going to last long, you’ll see. Too awesome!”
In fact, Fatou lands a direct punch that makes Eloise wobble just as the bell signals the end of the first round. With her thin arms spread across the ropes, Eloise lets the trainer daub her already swelling cheekbone and puts her mouth guard back in. Her concave chest rises as she breathes in, and at the sound of the bell, it’s as if she’s catapulted toward the center of the ring. Feeling assured of victory, Fatou steps forward calmly, not expecting the raw bundle of nervous energy that pummels her with blows. And though she finally steps back to protect herself, and though Eloise’s punches lack power, her initial right-hand hooks land. Fatou tries to gather herself, her eyesight no doubt clouded by the punches. Still, she doesn’t lose confidence and resumes her tactic to tire out her opponent. Eloise’s blows start to slow down. She dances on her spindly calves. Then all at once, she seems to defy the laws of gravity and becomes weightless. Her moves become aerial. Fatou is thrown off balance; it’s her turn to step up and take charge. The roles reverse. Now she tries to land blows as Eloise dodges and dances around the ring. The crowd whistles in disapproval.
“Go, Fatou!” Édouard shouts. “She’s so scared, she’s running away!”
Fascinated by the ballet, Lucas says nothing.
Third round. Eloise continues to dance around the ring and Fatou chases after her, hitting into the void. She tries to pin her to the ropes, but each time Eloise darts off like a bird.
Fatou’s sides start to heave as her breathing becomes labored. Her skin is covered in beads of sweat that catch the light and fall in a shower. She briefly grips Eloise and pummels her ribs, but Eloise breaks away and starts shuffling around and around the ring again until, in the middle of the fourth round, Fatou begins to slow down. The outcome takes another turn. Fatou’s moves are now leaden. Meanwhile, Eloise leaps into the air like a tightrope walker and swoops down on her opponent.
She changes from bird to cat. In a swipe of her claws, she nicks Fatou’s chin. Fatou attempts to answer in kind but Eloise keeps her at arm’s length with a series of quick jabs, followed by a direct left jab to the shoulder. Thrown off balance, Fatou opens herself up and Eloise rushes in. Her blows aren’t powerful, they can’t knock out Fatou, but they are quick, sharp, and she unleashes them without letting up.
It’s the referee who ends the bout by raising Eloise’s arm.
Édouard stays fixed to the bench, his mouth wide open. Only when the lights come on and the girls leave the ring for the locker room does he find his voice.
“I can’t believe it!” he says.
Lucas is impressed. He would never have expected that a boxing match could hold his attention. And if someone had mentioned a bout between girls a few months ago, he would probably have gotten aroused, would have come up with lots of erotic scenarios. But nothing doing now. Fatou isn’t bad-looking, but it would require a good deal of imagination to picture his next-door neighbor Eloise in a porn scene.
“Do you know what she’s here for?” Lucas asks Édouard as they climb the stairs toward the dining hall.
“Who? Fatou? Meth.”
“No, the other one.”
“No idea. She doesn’t talk much. Not with the girls or guys.”
34
Even with the medications he’s on, Lucas didn’t sleep well last night. He wakes up in a foul mood and gets to the writing class late. Four people are already sitting around two adjoining tables in a small conference room. The teacher has drawn the curtains to reduce the glare of the bright sun that drenches the space. The teacher is on the plump side, with a goatee and long salt-and-pepper hair that he pulls back in a bun. He wears a green Irish sweater that is a bit too large on him and that has seen better days.
“Come in, please,” he says when Lucas opens the door gingerly.
Lucas notes the kindness in his voice. Kindness is the right word. He immediately likes the guy and his crazy appearance, and thinks that he could be his grandfather or a slightly older dad than his own.
“Good timing. We were just going around the table for introductions. We’ll start again from zero. I’m Alain Troadec. I’m fifty-eight years old, a poet, and I’m from Vannes.”
He points to an empty chair next to him. Lucas takes the seat and spots Eloise’s emaciated frame against the light. He’s crossed paths with the others in the dining hall but he doesn’t know them. Not really. A burly guy in a tracksuit introduces himself as Brice. He explains that he’s sixteen and comes from Alençon. Then it’s Manon’s turn; she’s a blue-eyed brunette in an oversized sweater and her somewhat greasy hair falls like a curtain over her face. She’s from Lamballe and fifteen. Juliette is next, a chubby redhead with milky-white skin who hails from Mans.
Standing, she’s probably no more than five feet tall, thinks Lucas.
Eloise goes next. She speaks with a startlingly deep voice for someone so slight.
“Eloise. Seventeen. Angers.”
That’s it. It’s Lucas’s turn but he’s busy thinking that Eloise isn’t very talkative. Finally, he clears his throat and takes the plunge.
“Lucas, sixteen years old. From Chartres.”
“All right,” the poet says as he claps his palms together. “We’re going to warm up with an exercise called Chinese Portrait. Does anyone know what that is?”
He hands out sheets of paper and pens.
“We did that once in our first year of high school,” Manon says. “You have to answer a series of questions to let others know who you are.”
“Right,” Brice agrees. “Shrinks do that to see what’s going on in someone’s head.”
Troadec smiles. “We don’t care about that. Think of it as a game. Which it is, you’ll see. Grab a paper and pen. The idea is to answer questions honestly and without overthinking. Okay, let’s get started. What’s your favorite word?”
“Now, that’s hard,” Juliette says.
Lucas looks at Manon, who’s chewing her pen. He hesitates, then writes: Cuddles.
“The word you hate?”
Lucas doesn’t know. He hates so many words. Tennis. Hospital. Yes, that’s it: Hospital.
“Your favorite drug?” Troadec goes on in a neutral tone.
Lucas starts to write Coke but the poet adds, “Careful. Be honest. We’re not here to judge.”
Lucas pauses and strikes out what he wrote. Who cares, after all, he thinks. He writes down a new word: Porn. Strikes it out and decides on another that’s just as sincere but less risky: Internet.
“Your favorite sound?”
That one is easy. The purr of a cat.
“Your least favorite sound?”
Hmmm. Lucas doesn’t know. Brice can’t stop rocking his plastic chair back, making it squeak, which annoys Lucas and prevents him from concentrating. Say, that’s it! A creaky chair.
“Your favorite swear word or dirty word?”
Fuck.
“Type of work you don’t want to do?”
Easy. Teacher.
“How would you want to be reincarnated?”
“How? Don’t you mean what we’d like to be reincarnated as?” Brice asks.
Troadec smiles again. “What animal, plant, tree, get it? Be precise. Don’t say a bird, because that’s just a creature with wings, or a tree, because that’s just a trunk with branches. If you say a hummingbird, that’s totally different than an eagle. A palm tree and an oak tree are not the same. The precise words are what conjure up images.”
Long before the poet finishes his last sentence, Lucas has written something down: Cat.
“And if God exists, what would you like to tell him or her when you meet upon your death?”
A long silence full of incomprehension follows this question.
“When some comedian was asked that question,” Troadec goes on, “he an
swered, ‘I hope you’ve got a good reason!’ ”
He laughs. He’s the only one.
Against the glare of the light, it’s impossible to see Eloise’s expression.
Since he doesn’t know what to say, Lucas first writes: Hello! Not amazing, but not terrible. Finally, after a little reflection, he revises himself and jots down: Why?
“Okay, time to reveal your answers one question at a time. Your favorite word.”
For Brice it’s soccer. Lucas thinks about Édouard, who’s a fan of Guingamp. For Juliette it’s cake. For Manon it’s sailboat. Nothing startling for now. But Eloise’s response takes everyone by surprise—elf. Lucas says Cuddles.
“Oh, that’s cute!” Juliette lets out.
The hated word for three of them is scab. Only Lucas and Eloise answer differently, although not by much. There is hardly any difference between hospital and psychiatric hospital. At least, that’s what Lucas tells himself.
Juliette’s favorite drug: chocolate. For Manon it’s pot. Brice—beer. Eloise—online games. Lucas reads his response—Internet. Not a word that makes anyone react. Or maybe they’re pretending so they don’t seem to be judging. The insult word is pretty unanimous—fuck, except for Eloise, who reads her word—dickhead—defiantly as she looks at the poet. The word, in all its crudeness, echoes in Lucas’s head. A long, embarrassed silence settles on the room, until the teacher bursts out laughing.
“Bravo. That’s provocative. Great choice. I’ve never gotten that response before. Next.”
Lucas doesn’t really listen to the other answers. A slew of obscene images swirl in his head. He jumps up when he hears his name.
“Huh…yes?”
“What would you like to be reincarnated as, Lucas?”
“A cat.”
He wonders what Eloise will say. He bets on a wolf.