“Having it tough?”
Vernon wanted to say something but could not form a single word. Laurent proffered his beer:
“Take a swig, it’s good for you. You hypoglycaemic? You want a sugar cube? Not long on the streets, yeah? It’s pretty obvious just looking at you.”
“It’s just temporary.”
“Always is. Me, it’s been temporary for nineteen years. Name’s Laurent . . . yours?”
“Vernon.”
“What kind of name’s that? Where’s it from?”
The beer had perked him up, Vernon felt a little better, but not enough to feel chatty. Laurent had no problem holding a conversation all by himself. The tone in which he talked about his nineteen years on the streets left no room for doubt: it was a badge of pride. He had dozens of stories to tell. Fights, arrests, trips, squats that were bricked up . . . he began to recount in detail his various heroic feats. Vernon felt as though he’d known him all his life – rock concerts are teeming with guys telling their life stories in multiple episodes. Laurent was a loudmouth, who proclaimed to the assembled passengers on the platform that he had chosen to live free of the hassles and humiliations of being a wage-slave wanker.
He dredged two more beers from his pouch and launched into a frenzied diatribe – this encompassed management working hours expenses invoices banks codes employers landlords pressures degradations case files surveillance . . . everything that exemplified voluntary slavery. Vernon was cheered by his company. Laurent offered him a crash course in begging – “If you really need money, like to pay for a hostel, you stand, you don’t sit, you smile when you ask, and if you can think of a little joke, all the better, the people you’re talking to, their lives are fucking shit, never forget that, if you can make them smile they’ll put their hands in their pockets, they spend their lives crying so you’re a distraction – they love the notion of the poor fucking beggar who keeps his spirits up.” His garrulousness was refreshing, and he spent the day producing beers from his pouch though Vernon could not work out where they came from. That said, he got drunk pretty quickly. According to Laurent, Vernon had potential. “You’ve got amazing eyes, you’ll see, the handsome beggar always does well. You find a pitch, you show up every day, that’s important, yeah? You pick a spot and you get them used to you. I mean, with your eyes, you’ll get enough to pay a hostel, easy . . . Try and cadge a couple of books, yeah, put them next to you and pretend like you’re well into them. They love that shit. A fucking homeless guy that reads. Or you can do the crossword, they go for that too. You’ll get your bearings and you’ll be minted, I’m telling you, just keep your spirits up . . .”
Night had fallen, they had emerged from the Métro and Laurent had chaperoned him as far as the soup kitchen at Saint-Eustache where he managed to sort him out a blanket before leaving him, though not before telling him to drop by and see him in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. “You need anything, bro, just ask for me.”
Vernon had collapsed in a doorway of a boulangerie sheltered from the wind and had woken up – in the middle of the night this time – shackled to a brutal hangover and without the first idea where he could find water. He had headed up towards Pyrénées Métro station only to stop at Goncourt, dead on his feet. He had been having trouble breathing for a few days. He had sat down by the church, thinking that maybe he could pass for some suit out on the tiles waiting for someone in the cold. Then he had held out his hand. It had not been premeditated. He had simply made the gesture – once again feeling it was not quite real. Despite Laurent’s advice, begging while sitting down worked out better than he had anticipated – maybe, given that he still looked like a relatively normal guy, people could identify. In the first three hours, he managed to pocket twenty euros. Beginner’s luck. Shadowy figures slowed, fumbled in their pockets and dropped coins into his cupped hand. There were the tightwads who came on like good Samaritans and stumped up five cents, the spendthrifts who never gave less than two euros. There was no correlation between the apparent wealth of the passer-by and the size of the donation. This was when Vernon lost all interest in their faces. When he got up, he had pins and needles in his legs, he invested in a kebab and a beer and wandered around looking for a bench where he could eat in peace. As he walked, he came across a young man sleeping on the pavement guarded by three huge dogs, a mixed-race girl with frizzy hair sitting talking to herself in a telephone box among dozens of plastic bags. He passed an old man sitting on the pavement outside a building listening to his radio, surrounded by so many curious objects it was as though he had re-created his apartment on the street. He had never noticed there were so many people in his situation. When he reached Jourdain Métro station he sat down again, giving a wide berth to the other homeless people pitched outside the church and the Monoprix.
Once you get over that first hump, the rest is a breeze, everything moves effortlessly and disturbingly fast: he is through the looking glass. Already, the lives of working people seem remote. They are in a desperate hurry to be somewhere, ashamed of their fear that they might end up like him if they don’t slog their guts out. Laurent is right, their lives are shit. Some grunt as they pass by. Vernon ignores them. He is dazed. He has begun to feel a strange satisfaction at having fallen so low. Instinctively, he knows he must be wary of this tendency. This revelling in his own misery. In the meantime, what preoccupies him most is the cold and he is only too happy not to be able to focus on his racing thoughts.
The hardest thing is recognising people. It is something he recently experienced. Until he met Madame Fardin, Xavier’s mother, none of this felt entirely real. When she came and talked to him, he thought he could pretend he was just sunning himself on a bench. Instead, he broke her heart. Because what is happening to him is patently obvious. When he was a child, Madame Fardin was like Mamie Nova, the little woman on the yoghurt pots – always in the kitchen making something, but a widowed version of Mamie Nova, unhappy and inconsolable. When you stepped into the house, it smelled of death. Grown-up tears had drained the atmosphere. Madame Fardin was so desolate as a young woman that twenty years later she barely seemed to have changed. He had forgotten that he used to go round to have dinner with Xavier’s mother when they were twenty. She made Vernon feel important and he sometimes wondered whether she wanted to seduce him. No-one talked about cougars back then, but “The Graduate” had made its mark on young impressionable minds. He was at the age when boys still believe that if he fucks her properly a man can restore a woman’s passion for life. In the lobby of their building in Colombes, Vernon used to stop to look at his reflection in a mirror before getting into the lift. Check his hair, his teeth, stand up straight, adjust his jacket collar. And he would always find an excuse to leave Xavier’s bedroom to look for something in the kitchen, share a joke with Madame Fardin as he passed. Make her laugh. She was very fond of him. She was happy to meet one of her son’s friends. He had just begun working at Revolver, and Madame Fardin congratulated him on his seriousness and resourcefulness. Not many adults had ever paid him a compliment and he liked to fish for hers, trailing in her wake. He had been tempted to go with her, when they met a few hours ago. But he could not bear to disappoint her. She’d had enough shit to put up with in her life.
Vernon decides to take a break from begging. He stretches his legs in front of the C.G.T. offices on the avenue Secrétan. In the smokers’ area, he spots a pile of cigarette butts and hunkers down to pick out the longest stubs. Immediately, a figure approaches and, rather than sending him packing, gives him three cigarettes from his pack. Vernon smiles, thanks the guy and gives him a wink. Vernon is a novice. He could have sworn that the guy who just helped him out looked like a wanker.
It will come. Laurent has warned him that in a month he’ll see things differently. You can get used to anything. He is surprised that what bothers him most today is not having a toothbrush. He left his at Patrice’s place. He is embarrassed by his own mouth. His situation reminds him of being in prison. Without
the visiting room and the right to a lawyer. In the thick fog that has slowed his thoughts these past few days, he feels, more and more, as though he is in someone else’s skin. Only Marcia continues to obsess him. She is at once a happiness that is in his blood, radiant and reverberant, and a blade planted in the middle of his chest.
That first night, he had barely noticed Marcia. The girls were stunning, a smorgasbord of prime poontang so listless and bemused it felt as though you could have any one of them just by favouring them with a look. Marcia had been part of this job lot. Though she did not particularly stand out when she began to dance, by dawn, he was admiring the elegant thrust of her hips, her way of flaunting herself while remaining discreet. He was not excited when she stared into his eyes – he had been through the wringer that night. He felt amazing, his head buried between the speakers like some foolish kid, that night was a bubble of gentle sweetness that distracted him from his gaping wounds.
It was only the following morning, in the cold light of day, that he had been struck by Marcia’s beauty. She had been cradling a cup of tea in her hands, her face turned towards the light, eyes closed, sitting facing the picture window. The neat line of her chin, the flawless curve of her lips, that face like a queen in exile. In an instant, she became all the women he had never had. In the rock business, he had hung out with models, debauched debutantes, porn stars and masochistic intellectuals . . . the granddaughters of Patti Smith and Madonna. But the others – the daughters of J-Lo and Beyoncé, the young Rihannas and Shakiras – they had no use for rock music. They played in a different playground. Vernon could not imagine what a girl like her might see in a guy like him. But in the apartment, Vernon always knew exactly where Marcia was, he would wander into the room she was in by chance, careful to appear casual, and it seemed to him she always needed to pop into the kitchen to boil the kettle when he was there, to look for her scarf in the living room when he happened to be there. They circled each other, they did not say a word, joined by a taut, invis-ible cord. Gaëlle, aware of their little game, managed to slip into the conversation – “No, Marcia wasn’t born a girl, I thought you would have guessed”, and Vernon took the blow. He was so unsettled he did not know what he thought. He had never watched transsexual porn. Not that it bothered him – it did not relate to him.
On the cover of a coffee-table book, Marcia was using her Gold Card to cut a series of impeccable, neat, precisely spaced lines. Vernon asked her how she managed to create such symmetrical lines and she explained that when she first arrived in France, in the south, she had played a lot of pétanque and that had given her an eye for precision. Vernon watched her, wondering whether she had studied every gesture of femininity so she could mimic it to perfection. The way she threw back her head after she snorted her line, the way she ran her fingers through her hair, the way she crossed her legs in mid-sentence, everything about her was bewitching. She was talking to him about cocaine while taking cocaine.
“With every line, you have to remember you are inhaling o narcotráfico, the bloodiest form of capitalism you can imagine, you are snorting the corpses of the farmers who grow it and have to be kept in poverty so they do not raise their prices, you are snorting the cartels and the police, the private militias, the atrocities committed by the Kaibiles and the prostitution that goes with it . . . men who cut people’s heads off with a chainsaw. Cocaine dollars is what bailed out the banks, the whole system is set up to launder drug money. You know where cocaine was invented? Austria. Don’t tell me you can’t see where I’m going with this. Coke is the only drug that is not spiritual. That and its little cousin crack. Even M.D.M.A. brings you closer to God. Coke is the only drug that winds you up and leaves you more stupid than you were when you started.”
At no point did Marcia make a single gesture, give a single look that made you think – there, that’s something a real woman would not do. Quite the opposite, she was the embodiment of femininity at its most arousing. She headed back to bed and did not reappear until evening. Vernon noticed her in the hall, getting ready to go out, she was exquisitely elegant. He was the first to be surprised by what he felt – a twinge of jealousy, sharp as a sucker punch – who had she made herself so beautiful for? This searing flash brought him face to face with the obvious: he wanted her. He didn’t give a shit about being the guy he had always been – a guy who only sleeps with real girls. In fact, the expression “real girls” suddenly seemed ridiculous: who was more deserving of the epithet than this unlikely creature?
That night, he stayed up late talking to Kiko. They talked about music, Vernon was taking his new role as D.J. de salon very seriously, getting girls to dance was a vocation that might interest him, and one he might prove to have flair for. After all, choosing the perfect track to play next had been the principal occupation of his life.
When Marcia came downstairs to dinner the following day, she was wearing an incredible white silk dressing gown, or perhaps it was a kimono – she had looked at Vernon and, running her hand over his head said “What is with that haircut?” Everything in him that was broken, aching or vulnerable faded away.
They sought each other out. They would manage to pore over the computer at the same time so that their shoulders touched, to run into each other in the hall so they had to brush past each other, to listen to a song together using the only pair of headphones so that their knees were pressed together. And the more they touched, the less Vernon questioned things. They had downed a bottle of J.D. between them when they first kissed. Marcia was simultaneously demure and depraved. Her hips were narrow, her slender thighs powerfully muscular, she could keep her balance in any position. Were it not for the booze, Vernon would probably have thought to wonder whether he was turning queer given that he was sleeping with a girl equipped with a prick. But he was too entranced by Marcia’s arse – never had he encountered anything so perfectly erotic. And he felt so comfortable between Marcia’s breasts, on Marcia’s belly, against Marcia’s arse, between Marcia’s lips – that the most distinctive thing about her body immediately became the most adorable thing about her body. Vernon could not remember desiring other women before her. A curtain had parted, everything that had come before Marcia had been a childish game, a rehearsal. Inconsequential.
And from the very beginning, she warned him. “Kiko mustn’t find out. He’s very jealous.” They had their orgy of sex in a tiny little room under the eaves of the hotel opposite, which Marcia seemed to know well. Back in the apartment, Gaëlle looked at him differently. Half-sardonic, half-suspicious. Vernon was in love. He was transformed into a little pack of marshmallows. He had forgotten how life without Marcia had been possible. And he realised, though he was almost fifty, that he had never been in love before. Loving Marcia was something so obvious he surrendered himself to it recklessly. Even as his life spiralled into a disaster area, he felt more privileged than he had ever been.
One morning, Kiko burst into Marcia’s bedroom unannounced. Vernon had come to bring her a cup of coffee and had slipped between the sheets. At the time, Kiko simply said Subutex I’d never have believed it of you in a tone of surprise that said you’re nothing but a fucking peasant and it said and Marcia what the fuck are you doing with this guy can’t you see you’re demeaning yourself. He had walked out without saying another word. He was off his head – for four nights he had been sleeping too little and drinking too much. After he left, Marcia had panicked. For five days they had been utterly love-struck you and me it’s magnetic the effect we have on each other a single life won’t be long enough to satisfy this desire all the time every moment being with you talking to you making love to you. He felt her emerge from that state. Like a door closing. She had kissed him, saying “See you tonight” and Vernon had not wanted to understand what was happening.
*
Gaëlle already knew by the time Vernon found her in the kitchen. She had seemed upset on his behalf, it looked serious. He had said “Why is Kiko taking it so hard? It’s not like she’s his girlf
riend. He never told me not to go there”, and Gaëlle said “Sometimes he can be a pain in the arse”. In a tone that said but when you’re loaded like he is don’t expect me to hold it against him. All that matters is that I don’t get caught up in the fallout. Broadly speaking, it was the truth, she did feel upset for him, but since she was the one who had introduced him, she felt responsible – she wanted him to pack his bags straight away. She wanted them to keep in touch, she took the forty euros she had in her jacket and her jeans pocket. She wanted to know whether he had anyone in mind or if he wanted her to hook him up with somewhere to crash. Vernon had said: “I’ll have to talk to Marcia.” Then he had joked “I didn’t realise I’d be nominated so quickly” and Gaëlle was grateful to him for taking it gracefully.
But he was stunned to discover he had been evicted. He felt so at home in the apartment. He was a long way from the stage where you get sick of seeing drugs around every night. After all, drugs had been an essential part of the best years of his life. Besides, he’d slipped easily into his role as resident D.J. He had said, “I’ll have to talk to Marcia” and when he saw Gaëlle’s expression he felt the ground fall away beneath his feet.
He had opened a beer, rolled a spliff and stood in front of the computer. He scanned through his list of Facebook friends with a new eye – he needed to find someone who could put them up, him and Marcia. Things were getting complicated. In that moment, he had chosen not to believe that Marcia would dump him. Gaëlle was wrong. She didn’t get it, what they had. She hadn’t been there, these past four days.
In the early afternoon, Kiko had burst into the kitchen, seething. He had slammed Vernon against the wall. “Get the fuck out of my crib, I don’t want to set eyes on you again.” Then, he had shoved him hard and given him a kick in the arse to send him on his way. The apartment felt deserted although Gaëlle was there, with one of her girlfriends. While Vernon was packing up his few belongings, Kiko was constantly behind him, throwing a bitch-fit, head-butting doors, knocking over tables, trying to kick a wardrobe to smithereens. “Move it you fucking lowlife skank I shoulda never let you in the thought of you even touching her is disgusting get the fuck outta here you make me sick.”
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