by Dancer, Jack
I go on, “All we need to do is to come up with a reasonably believable story for our friends. Tell them something like, ‘we ran ourselves into the ground trying to make our way down to Barcelona and in the process became so sleep deprived, we had no choice but to spend the night in a Parisian hotel' . . . I dunno. Sound fishy?”
She pinches her nose, grimacing.
“Smelly, huh?”
“Yep, not only will it not happen as I said and you refuse to hear; they'll never buy it. You could produced a receipt for two rooms and they still wouldn’t buy, and if I were them, I wouldn’t either.”
“Not even with a two room receipt?”
“Not even.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s too good, too pat, and therein lies the problem.”
“Okay, you lost me. Wherein lies the problem?”
“Men! This is why we love you so. You’re all dick-think.”
“Is that like group-think?”
“But, with only one head. The big one,” her outstretched index finger pointing back and forth between my lower regions and her noggin.
“I understand the concept. I’ve never heard the term. That’s a good one.”
“More powerful than group-think. Bigger RAMifications,” she says with a little thrust of her crotch, teasing me, dangling her favors with a pinch of humor.
“An expression exclusive to girls, but an affliction exclusive to you guys,” she goes on.
“Interesting. So you’ve made quite a PENETRATING study of this, I see,” trying to hold up my end.
“Yes and a subject matter that deserves more PROBING wouldn’t you agree?”
“Absolutely. And while you’re on this little roll how 'bout ‘splaining what you meant when you said the hotel room story was too good to be true.”
“Okay, it’s like this, you see.” She pauses. “Now you need to track with me here.”
“I’ll do my best. You have my FULL attention,” my eyes dropping to a bulging prow.
“Holy crap! Does it ever take a friggin’ break?”
“Not often. Ignore him. Besides you started it.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Okay. I give up.”
We both laugh at our silliness.
“So enlighten me why the story won’t fly.”
“I was going to say, if you give her the story we spent the night together in a Parisian hotel, and it was totally innocent, like a brother and sister thing, but it wasn’t a brother and sister thing because you’re her boyfriend, and I’m the other woman you happened to be (she makes quote marks) 'accidentally' traveling with, and that’s the story she has for anyone else who asks, and she has to tell it with a straight face, who’s going to believe her? No one. No one’s going to believe a story like that because no one’s that gullible. Even if true, no one would believe her at the risk of appearing gullible. No one would believe she believes either, and if she can’t believe, then she can’t pass it along.”
“Whoa, heavy. Circuitous even. So the two-room story would put her in a believability Catch 22.”
“Exactly. This whole adventure already pushes credibility. Even I have a hard time believing we’re doing what we’re doing, and I’m doing it,” she says.
We both laughed.
“So, we should keep going?”
“I'm okay with that. After my little nap on the Eurostar, I’m feeling pretty good, actually,” she says.
“What about a sleeper car?” There, I said it. The cat's out of the bag. Now she knows what I've been thinking all along.
“Well . . . there's an idea; I suppose,” leaving the word hanging with more than a dram of suspicion. Then, her mouth cracks a pint-sized grin, and I return a little, 'Okay you caught me’ grin and shrug.
“Just an idea,” I say.
“Yeah, sure, Blue.”
“It could be like in the old movies. You know, me Cary Grant, you Gina Lollobrigida. We catch the midnight train out of Paris and ride the rails all night through the French countryside and over the Pyrenees into Spain, watching it all pass from our private compartment. Order room service. Drink Champagne. Making love to the clickety-clacking rolling along underneath. What could be better than making the most romantic story - the kind you’d only find in the movies - actually come true?”
“So, how long has this sleeping car idea been incubating with you, Cary?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I think it hatched back on the Eurostar when you were nodding off, and I was so overcome with guilt that I hadn't provided a bed so you could sleep.”
“Sleep, huh?”
“Yeah, that too,” I say.
“I'll bet.”
“Hey, I'm a guy.”
“I'm well aware. I had the evidence in the palm of my hand, remember?”
“Yes, and that will forever be a fondly, re-occurring memory with me in all my lonely nights to come.”
“Only the lonely?”
“Well, those are the ones when my visualizing acuity reaches its zenith.”
***
“You think we should get our tickets to Barcelona here since there's hardly anyone at the ticket counters? Who knows what it's like at Gare d' Austerlitz?” I say.
“Probably a good idea,” and we walk over to one of the few counters open this time of night.
Along the way, a large wall poster in French with what appears to be Uncle Sam catches my attention.
“What?”
“The poster,” I point. “Reminds me of an old Army recruiting poster with Uncle Sam pointing his finger at you with the words, 'Your Country Needs You'.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Thought Uncle Sam was out recruiting again for a minute there,” I say.
“It actually says, don't you (she points a finger at me) get caught in a lottery scam.”
“Hmm.”
We continue to the ticket counter where the agent takes our little map and traces a route south to Toulouse. Says she can sell us tickets to Toulouse-Matabiau but from there we'll have to catch another train to Portbou and from Portbou make a third connection to Barcelona. We’ll arrive around seven thirty tomorrow night. Why she can’t sell us tickets for passage to Portbou and beyond, I don’t get, but, whatever.
Her English is a little skippy, and whenever I’m stumped I glance at Monica to see if she gets it. Mostly, she does. But something about Portbou is important because the agent keeps repeating, “deux” Portbou. Finally, we figure she’s telling us there’re two Portbous - one on the French side of the border and another on the Spanish side, and we’re to be sure to continue on to the second Portbou, Portbou Espagne, and change trains for Barcelona there.
Initially we thought this had something to do with passport control, but no. It has to do with the gauge of railway track in Spain being incompatible with the gauge of track in France, so there’s no choice but to make a change in equipment, and that would be in Portbou Espagne.
I can sense Monica getting a little antsy when she leans over and says she's going to visit the WC and walks off.
Frankly, I'm a little fidgety myself with all this Portbou stuff interrupting my imaginings about sleeper cars, so I drop a Xanax to calm me ole self down before taking advantage of Monica's absence and inquiring about the sleepers.
The ticket agent nods a “oui” and goes on to rattle off something about a compartiment privé to which I respond no because I could care less if there's a toilet in the compartment, and that’s where I unwittingly commit fuck up Part A. Part and parcel to fuck up Part A is fuck up Part B where I assume the agent sold us tickets for a sleeper, but fail to verify.
The mere fact that I’m assuming should send up red flags, but for me, red flags don’t always turn up red enough. Besides, the Xanax hadn’t kicked in for me to sufficiently, pause and ponder.
Monica’s returning from her trip to the water closet and I beam her a big smile and pat my coat pocket signaling that I’ve successfully
acquired our scripts of passage.
“I take it; you got a sleeper?”
“Half a sleeper.”
“Half a sleeper? So, where are you going to sleep?” she asks.
“Ooh, that's good. Spit shined the claws while you were in there, huh?”
“Shined and sharpened.”
“No, half a sleeper was all they had left. The other half was already taken by a lesbian couple, so we'll have company.”
“So this is how you're working out a ménage à trois?”
“Quatre.”
“Trois, because again, I ask: where are you sleeping?”
“Ouch again. Sharpened AND honed I'd say. Uh oh.”
“What?”
“I think I'm getting turned on thinking about it.”
“Get out of here Blue,” she says slapping at me.
We laugh and with bags in tow we step out of, the Gare du Nord and into the crisp, charged night air of the City of Lights, and we’re both swept up in a wave of renewed energy.
“Oh, my God, it's beautiful,” she says.
“It's like we popped out of the rabbit hole and found ourselves in the heart of the most exciting city on the planet.”
The last thing I want to do now is catch a midnight train out of Paris. I want to be in Paris. I want to stay in Paris. Why would anyone want to be anywhere else?
“Come on let’s find a hotel and call up a late night dinner,” I offer despite knowing the two-room story will never fly.
“The two-room story will never fly.”
“Right now, I could care less. We'll put wings on it tomorrow.”
“I don't think so. We’ve already got a bed on rails waiting for us, remember?”
“Does this mean I'm back in?”
“Only if the girls don't show.”
“There were never really any girls.”
“I know,” she says shaking her red mop-top, muttering I’m a goofball.
We flag down the first cab and tell the driver, “to the Gare De Austerlitz, James!”
One of the bennies with buying first-class tickets on the Eurostar was a voucher for one free taxi ride to anywhere in central Paris, which Monica retrieves from her purse and promptly redeems with the cabbie.
He’s an early-to-mid-twenty-something and speaks English and is so excited he’s got two Americans in his cab he can’t stop talking. He's either cranked up on something or simply thrilled he’s found someone to practice his English on. His mouth and his little car run flat-out the whole time.
When we come into the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe he barely slows down, changing lanes - on a roundabout without lanes - like an Italian. The guy’s not even breaking a sweat and he's slaying what is probably the world's craziest intersection. Granted, it's nearly midnight and traffic is thin, but still, I can only admire the kid.
When he drops us off at the Gare d’Austerlitz train station, there's only one thing missing.
The station.
seven
23:44 Hours, Sunday, 31 August.
Depart Gare d’Austerlitz Station, Paris.
Standing at the entrance of a rail yard the size of three or four football fields and not a station in sight. The place is swarming with what looks like immigrants boarding already packed boxcars for a midnight run across the border. These aren't businessmen in suits. They're all dressed like workers, factory workers, or farm workers; I don't know, but workers.
The moon hangs full as a tick in the night sky illuminating everything nearly as bright as day, but in monochrome. It's surreal, like an old black-and-white movie from the 1930s or '40's. Like we've been transported back in time. Strange, but also familiar, because, growing up, I'd seen all those old black-and-white movies.
Hardly anyone's talking, just background white noise, mumbling and murmurings. And it's mostly men, maybe all men. I'm not seeing any women, just lines and lines of men shuffling forward, up to other men in uniforms, train conductors, who punch their tickets with little hand punches holstered to their belts. They'd then walk another thirty yards or so, up to one of the train cars attached to one of several locomotives waiting in the yard like panting dragons, exhaling white billows of smoke. Air brakes groaning to hold the iron beasts steady at the gate. They look tired, like they'd barely survived the war.
Coming up to our man in uniform I hand over our tickets and ask, “Which train?” Without looking up, he raises a finger pointing one out. We make our way toward it. It's old. They're all old. These’re not sleek Eurostar bullets. They're not even Amtrak’s. And they sure aren't the Orient Express. They're the old locomotives with the faces and protruding brows of aged buses or RVs, and the cars, they're pulling look like something dating back before the war - one of the big ones. I’m reminded of the North Jersey Coast commuter I used to take into Manhattan. Some of those cars dated back to 1909.
The closer we get, the worse it looks. When I spot a couple of sleeper cars, my heart sinks even farther. None resembled the Sleeping Car To Trieste.
Through the large windows, harsh fluorescent lighting illuminates cars jammed with open, fold-down bunks stacked one upon the other with sweaty looking guys in wife beaters climbing into them. They look like rolling army barracks. I look around for crates of chickens and other livestock but see none.
We’re riding France’s SNCF trains (Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français or “National Corporation of French Railways”).
“They don't look like lesbians in there,” Monica says.
“I don't know. My old man had a bar when I was growing up, and Sunday was gay day. Some pretty rough butches showed up back then. Regulars. All tatted out, scars, some missing limbs. You couldn't tell them from the sailors half the time.”
“Well, I can tell you right now I'm not bunking up with those guys.”
“Me neither,” I say nearly losing it under the mounting anxiety that any remaining chance for Monica to make a further contribution to this trip is slipping away. It's coming on midnight and at this point we don't have a lot of choice except to board, but it's not going to be one of those sleepers, so we walk a little further up the line until we reach the regular passenger cars.
“I'm really sorry. Is this better?”
“Yes,” she says.
With one hand on the handrail and my bag in the other, I pull myself up the few steps onto the car's platform before turning around and reaching down for Monica's bag. She hands it up. When I turn back and proffer my hand to her, she takes it with a smile, though I know it's only masking her disappointment.
“I'm sorry. This isn't at all what I had in mind.”
“It's okay. I'd rather be here snuggling up with you than fighting off the lesbians all night,” she says.
“I'm glad to see your sense of humor’s still intact.”
“It has to be. We're on an adventure, remember?”
“Yes. We are. I'd only hoped it would've been a little more comfortable,” I say.
“But that's how it is with adventures. You never know what’s going to happen or what to expect. That’s what makes an adventure, what makes it fun, the not knowing. Hey, whatever happens, happens.”
“Yeah, you're right. I guess I wanted to make it a little easier on you.”
“No, you wanted to make it easier for you. You want nookie. That's why we're here in the first place. You want to get laid. It's just not going to be as easy as you'd like it to be. There are obstacles . . .”
“Obstacles?”
“Of course you silly man. You should know there’re always obstacles to getting what you want. Doesn't necessarily mean I'm the obstacle here. I'm a willing participant. I wouldn't be here otherwise.”
“Excellent point,” I say with a little too much enthusiasm. Hot damn, my mind sings. It's gonna be a hot time tonight, a hot time tonight; I know. (To the tune of Heartache Tonight)
She gives me a little punch in the arm.
“Don't think it's gonna be easy, mister,” she says.
I raise my hands in mock surrender. “Never.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Swear.”
“Okay, find us a nice seat like the one on the plane,” she says.
“Better start at the rear then.”
“We're starting to think too much alike.”
“We are?”
“Okay, go Romeo,” she says giving me a little squeeze on the butt.
God, I love this woman.
I slide the door open and step through holding it. Of the dozen or so people already seated or taking one, no one takes notice of us. A few are slumped against windows; with their eyes closed. A couple more are nodding off with their heads hanging, including one solitary fellow seated at the rear of the car.
“How about behind the guy seated back there?”
“Yeah, that looks good,” she says.
I grab both bags and begin crab-walking down the aisle.
“You don't have to do that, you know.”
“I know.”
Coming to the rear of the car, and the fellow nodding off, I now see he's actually hovering over an open textbook and scribbling away in a notebook. I can't see his face because it's hidden behind a thick curtain of black hair, but I do notice earphone wires coming out of the hovering mass and snaking across to the CD player resting on the aisle seat beside him. I turn to Monica with a smile and nod at the CD player then heave both bags onto the overhead rack. He doesn’t budge. Neither sight nor sound is going to penetrate that curtain.
“I don't expect any of our antics are going to bother this guy.”
“He's his own office cubicle.”
“That's good. For us,” I say, offering her the window seat.
“Slide over cowboy we've got seven hours to kill before Toulouse.”
And I thought the dwarf was already dead. So I wait, and I wait and with every stop the train makes, I'm expecting it to be the kid's stop too, but it never is. Before long, Monica’s dozing off. Shit. This is not looking very promising.
With every clickety of the train’s clack my hopes diminish a little more and then there’s the other obstacle - the conductor standing guard directly behind us at the rear door like a Doberman. He disappears only when the train stops and new passengers board - not so much at this time of the night, morning rather. He'll step into the rear cars, draw the little hand punch from his holster, and punch their ticket. When he's done he returns to the same spot, not five feet behind us, propping up the car's rear door.