Young and Revolting: The Continental Journals of Nick Twisp

by C. D. Payne

“Yeah, Nick, lots of my old girlfriends feel that way.”

  What a stuck-up creep. I gave him Lacey’s phone number and wished him luck. He didn’t ask me to keep in touch. I didn’t ask him to eat shit and die. I’d call it a draw.

  SATURDAY, May 29 — My third week as a married person.

  Well, they say the first year of marriage is the toughest. I did knock a piece off my old lady, though I’m not sure a 15-year-old really qualifies. We’ve both found that energetic intercourse is a good way to work off one’s frustrations. Were this not the case, I’m sure the divorce rate would be about 99.5 percent. The murder rate, no doubt, would be similarly elevated. Since Sheeni dislikes clingy guys, I don’t tell her that I love her, though I’m willing to admit it when asked. She doesn’t. Nor does she mention that she loves me. There seem to be so many topics married people don’t discuss. For example, this morning when we were doing it for the third time I was wondering what was going through Sheeni’s mind. Was she really into it or was she thinking about breakfast? I often feel oddly strange on third go-arounds. Like I’m trespassing in some way on my bodily functions. I climaxed again, but I could tell my prostate was resentful.

  An extravagantly warm and beautiful day. Paris certainly knows how to do spring. Frisky Maurice led me all over the neighborhood. We stopped at the intersection of boulevard Raspail to inspect a large statue, which turned out to be of Honoré de Balzac, the notable dead author. I expect when I’m a celebrated writer, the city of Oakland will be erecting statues of me. I only hope they’re a bit more flattering. As captured in pigeon-flecked bronze, Mr. Balzac appeared to be undergoing an especially agonizing case of writer’s block. Or perhaps he’d just received a particularly groin-pummeling critical review.

  When I returned, My Love was serving coffee and snacks to the Boccata brothers. She made the introductions. In turn, I had my limp hand crushed by Baldo, Bartolo, and Bernardo Boccata. Such muscles! With all that sinew concentrated in one small room, things soon felt quite claustrophobic—especially with their compulsion to juggle everything at hand. I never imagined so many of our possessions could be circulating in space all at once. Communication was difficult because their English is rudimentary and apparently their French is even worse. My Love gave it a stab.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  Although she was too polite to mention it, I could sense she was troubled by the airborne gyrations of her precious French typewriter.

  Baldo, the eldest, was elected to respond. He pointed out the open door toward their apartment across the hall.

  “I mean in Italy?” added Sheeni.

  “Pisa!” announced Bartolo, the hairiest, as all three inclined sideways at a dramatic angle while continuing to juggle.

  Enchanted, Sheeni burst into applause; I managed a grudging smile.

  “You are Americans?” queried Bernardo, wearing the tightest t- shirt and pants. He appeared to be extremely well developed all over.

  “Yes,” replied my wife. “From San Francisco.”

  “San Francisco!” exclaimed Baldo. “North bitch! North bitch!”

  I bristled. If these cretins thought they were going to insult my wife in our own home, they had another thing. . .

  “Yes, North Beach,” nodded Sheeni. “We often go there. Don’t we, Nickie?”

  “Er, not lately that I recall.”

  “Nickie, these nice fellows have given us free tickets to their circus. We’re going tomorrow evening.”

  Uh-oh, I seem to recall a previous engagement. Damn!

  “Make like ball,” said Bernardo, flopping on the floor. “We tumble you.”

  “Sorry, some other time,” I replied, as the other brothers dropped down and poised with their legs thrust obscenely in the air.

  “Really,” I insisted. “I just had a heavy breakfast.”

  But the brothers and my once loving wife would not be denied. I gripped my knees tightly, tucked in my head with its delicate brain, and was twirled about in the air and tossed back and forth by my sadistic neighbors.

  Just another sunny day in Paris, France!

  SUNDAY, May 30 — Another beautiful morning. No wonder tourists are descending on this burg in unstoppable hordes. As a harried resident, I can’t help but wish they’d go someplace else. I hear Vienna is nice. Since no one was up for church, we decided to go to our local flea market, the Puces de Vanves. Sheeni declared she “couldn’t live one more day” without a cheese grater. An odd craving, I thought, since I do 98 percent of the cooking and have yet to feel the need to pulverize cheese. Madame Ruzicka requested we keep our eyes peeled for a “parrot muzzle.” A jest? It’s hard to tell with brusque old ladies.

  Alphonse drove us all in his Twingo. Since I invited Señor Nunez to accompany me as my designated haggler and change checker, we were more than usually cramped. My Love claimed the front seat to coddle her toe. Although height challenged, Señor Nunez is more than a little broad in the beam. To accommodate him, Babette was obliged to sit almost in François’s lap. This enforced propinquity to her concentrated Welsh femininity I did not find at all objectionable. She smelled wonderfully enticing and her lovely neck, just inches from François’s famished lips, cried out for nuzzling. Quite stimulating, but I was spared an embarrassing T.E. as my prostate is still prostrate from yesterday’s exertions.

  One good thing about shopping with a dwarf is that you could look like Elvis himself and no one would notice. All eyes are on the short guy. This despite the fact that Señor Nunez was dressing conservatively today in a rugby shirt and blue bermudas. He and Alphonse competed for the title of most outrageous flirt in our party. They chatted up all the pretty sellers, while single-minded François concentrated on the winsome Babette. We had a fine time feigning excitement over the many peculiar items offered for sale.

  “Ooh, a framed photo of Charles de Gaulle,” she cooed. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been needing one of these.”

  “Very nice,” I agreed. “And here’s a rusty carpet beater for you. Just the thing to use on poor Alphonse.”

  I bought a frighteningly sharp German-made butcher knife for future fish decapitations. My Love unearthed a passable cheese grater, which the elderly vendor priced at a hefty E7. Señor Nunez came to the rescue and negotiated the price down dramatically. He persuaded the seller to toss it in as a bonus when he bought an old tambourine. The shrewd negotiator scored both for a mere E5, which he celebrated by performing an impromptu dance with his tambourine.

  The guy does know how to attract a crowd. According to Reina, he’s quite famous in his profession.

  A display of used baby clothes brought a serious aside from Babette.

  “Rick, if your wife is having a baby, she ought to go to a clinic for prenatal checkups.”

  “I wish you’d tell her that, Babette. She won’t listen to me.”

  Later I noticed those two engaged in earnest conversation while trying on shoes at a booth that sold fashionable designer surplus. Sheeni bought a pair that verged on the sensible and wore them the rest of the day with positive results. She had me carry her old pair, which I “accidentally” misplaced. I accepted the subsequent angry reprimand as another sacrifice for love.

  On the ride home we had to drive around forever to find a place to park. All that bouncing around with bonny Babette revived my dormant prostate with predictable results. If she noticed, she was too polite to mention it. Really, she shouldn’t lean over a guy so familiarly to scan out the window for parking spots. I won’t mention where her right breast wound up.

  5:15 p.m. My Love just left with the Boccata brothers for the circus. The men have to get there early to change into their costumes, adjust their jockstraps, and tape up. I expect even brawny guys risk sprains or hernias tossing each other about like that. Pleading a debilitating headache brought on by excessive brain whirling the day before, I was reluctantly excused. They went by Métro, so I expect there will be some sibling competition to see who gets to sit next to my
wife. Not too apprehensive as three beefy Italians seem somehow less threatening than one intellectual Frog.

  10:45 p.m. Back from my “business” social outing with Reina. For the first half hour or so I regressed again to monosyllables. Such overpowering comeliness can be intimidating even to François. Instead of the many tourist boats that ply the Seine, we opted for a city public transit boat. Less expensive, and according to Reina, this choice spared us the “obnoxious amplified commentary.” We embarked on the quay opposite Notre-Dame and cruised sedately downriver. Disneyland should offer a ride so enchanting. Afloat on a river of green under the bluest of skies through the heart of Paris. The quays, trees, and grand buildings washed in gold by the setting sun. Then plunging momentarily into an echoing coolness as we sailed under the arch of a bridge. The quays alive with families, joggers, and lovers enjoying the warm evening. Tourists waving from passing Bateaux-Mouches boats. And then looming suddenly over the southern rooftops: the Eiffel Tower! Immensely tall, ablaze in lights. Wow!

  “Can you imagine the effect when it was built in 1889?” asked Reina. “Rising in a few months in the middle of Paris—the tallest structure in the world?”

  “Pretty impressive,” was all I could mutter. I was thinking: “Damn. Eat your heart out Golden Gate Bridge.”

  The ride back upriver in the deepening twilight was just as enthralling: the indigo Seine now outlined on both sides by ribbons of lamps. The ornate facades of riverside structures illuminated from below to stand out against the darkening sky. Passing cruise boats, lit up like Christmas morning, sweeping the quays with inquisitive searchlights. And at my side, the exciting, unsettling, nerve-roiling presence of Reina Vesely.

  We had dinner at a small untouristy bistro near the Pont Neuf and quais des Augustins. I was beginning to appreciate the French fondness for leisurely meals. Hey, what’s the rush? Who cares if the waiter is bogarting the check and your neighbors are puffing out toxic clouds of nicotine vapors? Don’t be so uptight, you Type-A Americans. And candlelight, we must remember always to pause and light the candles. Did anyone in the history of public dining ever look more ravishing illuminated by candlelight than Reina Vesely? I doubt it.

  She told me the story of her accident. In keeping with family tradition, from girlhood she had been a trapeze artiste. She performed all over Europe with her father and older brother. (Her mother died of meningitis when she was nine.) Several years before, the circus was making a jump from Toulouse to Arles in bad weather.

  “We usually performed in public halls,” she said, stirring her café creme, “but in Arles we would be under canvas. There were delays. Everything was rushed. My father checked the rigging as he always did, but he did not have much time. The tension on the cables was not balanced. When my brother swung onto the platform where I was standing, a shackle snapped. For some reason there was no redundancy. The platform collapsed. Dusan was killed. He broke his neck. I was not expected to walk again.”

  “Didn’t you have a net?” I asked.

  “Of course, Rick. But it did not extend completely under the platform. It partially broke my fall and flipped me backwards so that I landed on my right leg.”

  “That’s awful, Reina.”

  “I was in a bad state. I grieved for my brother terribly and my poor father was inconsolable. My leg was so shattered I was—how you say?—immobilized for over seven months. My aunt graciously took me in—hospital bed and all.”

  “What did you do all those months?”

  “At first, not much. I couldn’t read or sew. I was too distraught. I stared at the walls. Then my aunt had the wisdom to present me with my baby Jiri. He and my other darlings gave me a reason to live, and to try to walk again.”

  “And your father?”

  “He quit the circus. Papa blames himself for the accident. But these eventualities are not so uncommon in our profession. That is why people come to see us. To confront their fears. They watch a man in a cage with tigers, or a woman dancing with a bear, or us performing stunts high in the air. For a moment they feel, uh, vicariously . . . That is the correct word?”

  “Yes, vicariously.”

  “They feel vicariously those terrors they would not wish to face in real life.”

  “Where is your father now?”

  “Back in Prague, Rick. He got a job painting the poles of highway signs. He does not mind the heights!”

  She laughed and looked at her watch.

  “Oh my, it’s late, Rick. We don’t want to alarm your patient wife.”

  Amazingly, she extracted the check from the waiter in less than 30 seconds, then embarrassed me by insisting on paying. Riding home on the Métro, she confessed that in her 17 years she has never had a serious boyfriend—just a “platonic” beau a few years before. That twit was a Czech horn player. I was flabbergasted. Yes, she’s had numerous volunteers for that position from our building, her circus acquaintances, fellow parrot enthusiasts, and the Czech expatriate crowd, but nobody’s quite made the grade.

  “I have a hard enough time getting my birds to do what I want,” she laughed. “Can you imagine how much trouble a boy could be? Your wife—does she cause you difficulties?”

  “Endless ones,” I confessed.

  “I thought so. That will teach you to marry a beautiful woman. They never give anyone a moment’s peace.”

  Somehow I knew she was including herself in that statement.

  When I trudged up the stairs to our apartment, My Love was already flossing her exquisite teeth.

  “Nickie, where were you? I was beginning to worry.”

  “Er, how so?” I asked, cautiously.

  “I feared your headache had progressed to something more serious.”

  My Love does care about my welfare!

  “Since we don’t have health insurance,” she added, “that would be an expense we could ill afford.”

  Revising my previous mental note, I replied, “I was downstairs vacuuming our landlady’s apartment. How was the circus?”

  “Rather overlong. I saw only one outstanding performer.”

  “Not Bernardo Boccata, I trust.”

  “Very acrobatic, but I feel that if you’ve seen one human pyramid, you’ve seen them all. No, I was most impressed with another neighbor. That Señor Nunez is a man of genius. He had me nearly hysterical with laughter.”

  Try as I might I could not imagine my coolly rational wife giving way to uproarious hilarity. It was all she could do merely to tolerate my jests. Perhaps I should add some riotous clown antics to my repertoire.

  “Nickie, your hair smells like perfume and cigarettes. Where have you been?”

  “Uh,” I said, my mind whirling, “it was poker night at Madame Ruzicka’s. She gets a pretty lively crowd—for a bunch of old ladies.”

  Damn. Sheeni’s off carousing with three hunky Italians, and I’m the guy who gets the third degree.

  MONDAY, May 31 — Another post-weekend morning of industrious stair sweeping and trash hauling. Boy, people in this building sure booze it up with the wine bottles. And how come we’re not invited to any of the parties? When I returned from a groceries run for Madame Ruzicka, I alerted her that should my wife inquire, she had hosted a lively poker gathering the night before.

  “Of course,” she replied, tipping me E5 to boot. What a pal.

  While I was swabbing down the lobby, Mr. Hamilton (Maurice’s dad) invited me into the wig salon to meet the staff. It seems he has commissioned a re-creation of Judy Garland’s henna tresses from Meet Me in St. Louis to augment his show-stopping rendition of precocious Tootie Smith’s Christmas Eve crying jag from that film. His weepy, doe-eyed Margaret O’Brien, apparently, has never been surpassed.

  Stout Madame Lefèbvre and her aging all-chick crew seemed extraordinarily pleased to make my acquaintance, considering the unbridgeable language chasm and my lowly janitorial status. The ancient proprietress directed her most youthful underling to serve us all cafes from a battered and blackened espresso make
r. I smiled and gazed about the cluttered workroom. It was a hair fetishist’s paradise. Shelves clear to the ceiling were stacked with old woven baskets piled high with hair of every hue. More hair-laden baskets crowded the worktables where tall ovoid heads of lacquered oak modeled wigs in various stages of production. The entire scene was rather unsettling, as if stirring deep-seated hair loss fears. A few grimy windows and a couple of buzzing fluorescent tubes provided the only illumination. I wondered if the ladies realized they were all going to go blind sewing zillions of strands of hair in such crummy light.

  I sipped my coffee and turned scarlet as compliment after compliment was showered upon me—all translated by Mr. Hamilton.

  The lobby had never been so clean. Such neatness in arranging the trash cans. My wife was quite the beauty. And so young! I was so helpful to poor Mademoiselle Vesely. Not to mention little Maurice. My shoes looked very comfortable. And doubtless were well made. My struggles with French were so endearing. And on and on and on. Quite the boost to a guy’s flagging self-esteem, even if the source of my popularity remained obscure.

  Then it occurred to me that sitting around this dim room month after month, year after year, sewing their fingers to the bone, these ladies must run short of conversational topics. So lately a new subject has diverted them: the young American janitor. Jesus, they probably know all about my date with Reina. And have already debated whether in fact I have the hots for Babette. Apparently, to the wig- makers of this quarter my life was an open book.

  Giggling, the matronly coffee server made a remark, which everyone boisterously seconded. Mr. Hamilton translated: “Rick, before you go back to work, they want a kiss.”

  No time to bolt for the door. I was grabbed, pressed enthusiastically to corseted bosoms, and showered with kisses. In his nearly 15 years on the planet Nick Twisp had never been so popular. And who says the French are reserved?

  1:30 p.m. I was opening a tuna can for lunch when My Love stormed in with a newspaper. She thrust the copy of Libèration in my face and pointed to a small box at the bottom of page one.