“Couldn’t your father help you out?”
“No. He remarried. His new wife already had kids. I’m surplus to requirements. I serve no purpose in his new life, I just cause him trouble . . .”
“Don’t you miss seeing him?”
“Not as much as my dog Attila-the-Fun. They stole Attila-the-Fun from me three months ago. You should have seen him, a handsome dog, so gentle, a real teddy bear. An American Staff built like a truck, a real beauty . . . and those bastards stole him from me. It’s not like he’d done anything . . . you see the way they treat humans, so it’s no surprise that they go round nicking dogs, especially from homeless people . . . sometimes they try to get them adopted. But Attila-the-Fun fucking freaked them out. We sleep in the park, you know, up in the Buttes-Chaumont.”
“You know Laurent?”
“Everyone knows Laurent. We’re not exactly friends, him and me. When he’s drunk he winds me up, he’s like a war veteran with his dignity and his moral decency and all that shit . . . let’s face it, we’re sleeping on the streets, let’s not compete for who gets a gold star . . . But we sleep in the same place, yeah, and we’re part of the same gang – we’re not part of the press-ganged poor, we’re happy not to be working. The rich hate us because we’re smarter than they are. And they know it. That’s why they want to kill us. When we’re starving and riddled with tumours and have to kill to eat, they’ll be able to point at us and say – See? At least we rich people are more refined.”
“Don’t you ever get sick of living on the streets?”
“No. I do miss Attila-the-Fun, though. He used to sleep next to me, he was my buddy, I loved the smell of him, dogs aren’t like people, they never wash but at the end of the day they smell like a cake factory. Anyway, one morning, he goes off for a walk and I’m not awake yet – this is why I don’t like booze, if I hadn’t been drinking the night before, I would have felt him getting up. Anyway, he was wandering around and the bastard fucking cops and some guys from the dog pound, they hunted him down. The park wardens knew him, all they ever said was to put him on a lead, that’s all . . . So obviously the dog, he panics, he bares his teeth – that’s all the excuse they need, a dangerous dog, have him put down. He was chipped and everything, but I didn’t have the paperwork to get him back and by the time I sorted it out they’d killed my Attila-the-Fun. He was all I had. Dangerous dog my fucking arse . . . If a bunch of strangers jump you and try to drag you from your master, of course you defend yourself, it’s normal. That’s what they call a dangerous dog. Bullshit. They treat dogs the same way they treat people: they pick you out, and those that try to defend themselves when they’re hunted get eliminated. You’re not supposed to defend yourself, you’re supposed to let them fuck you over. Nine years, nine years Attila-the-Fun and I were together. Can you imagine the void that leaves? I miss my dog. And I miss music.”
“What kind of music do you like?”
“I love Adele. I could listen to her James Bond song all the time.”
“I used to be a record dealer. A long time ago.”
“Yeah? Vinyl and old school photography – so you and me are both castaways from jobs that were shipwrecked.”
She would like to slip her hand under his arm, just to touch him, as though he were her best buddy.
XAVIER HAS JUST BEEN THRASHED FOR THE THIRD TIME STRAIGHT at Zynga Poker. Some pompous twat who hesitated to go all in when he had quads confused him and he went all in with two pair. Some days go pear-shaped. He shouldn’t spend so much time playing the game. It’s harming his work. The other players’ avatars are so horrendous they’re mesmerising – sports cars, side arms, some wanker in shorts on a yacht, guard dogs, hot babes trying to get picked up – like they’re really using their own picture – and photos of kids.
When he’s not frantically playing dumb games, he’s working on a biopic of Drieu la Rochelle. He sees Magimel in the title role. Or, if he needs to go younger, that little blond actor, Vincent Rottiers. He’s got amazing eyes. He’d make a decent Drieu. He knows it’s a good idea, it’s the perfect time. When he was young, he used to laugh at the idea of writer’s block, the whole fear of the blank page thing. Well, now, that’s him. He’s blocked, bunged up, like some middle-class mediocrity with constipation. He has to get his arse in gear before some card-carrying director comes to the same conclusion and gets in first. Now that it’s okay for people to be on the far right, it wouldn’t surprise him if lefty directors went round appropriating leadership figures that don’t belong to them. It’s all about subsidies – if there’s money for the taking, they’ll be queuing up with their hands out. He has to work fast. But he is freaked out just by the very thought that he’s come up with a good idea.
His mother’s panic made him uncomfortable. Usually, the two of them just stick to superficial chatter, insincerity has always been the hallmark of his family. They have always been terrified of outbursts in his family, they know the damaging consequences of truth. They generally use words to ward off any subject that might be upsetting. Conversation entails discussing schedules, meeting places, sums of money, ages. Everything else is avoided. When his mother called to tell him she’d seen Vernon, she was distraught. Xavier promised to go and check out the park. She says she can’t sleep. She has already told him that the co-owners downstairs have voted to have the two benches outside the building removed because tramps were sleeping there. The owners said it was driving down property prices. She has good reason to complain: given the posh neighbourhood she lives in, a couple of tramps aren’t going to devalue anything. They should be thanked for agreeing to move into such a miserable area. She had a showdown with the other owners about the benches, they argued that it was the concierge who got lumbered with the dirty work, she wasn’t the one asking the tramps to move so as to mop up the piss, and it was the concierge who had to make sure they didn’t empty the contents of the rubbish bins all over the pavement. Xavier listens to her tell this story for the fourth time, not daring to tell his mother that, honestly, he thinks it’s a good idea to rip out the benches. The tramps aren’t the worst of it, hoodlums could have set up home there. He doesn’t like to think of his mother running into hoodlums every time she leaves the house. We all have our own shit to deal with, maman. But she’s obsessed with this affair – it drives her crazy to think they’re using the concierge as an excuse so they can deny the destitute a place to sleep. In politics, as in so many things, his mother is still living in the 1980s.
It makes him livid that she is suddenly so worried about Subutex. It’s always the same old story. You just have to let yourself go and his mother gets out her nurse’s outfit. Xavier is careful not to mention that her beloved Vernon robbed the apartment of a friend who was putting him up. Xavier has never much liked Sylvie, she’s a dumb, lefty, trust-fund bitch who’s never worked a day in her life, a jumped-up apparatchik, forever preaching to people on subjects about which she knows sod-all. But even so. It’s the principle of the thing. He’s always hated guys who don’t keep their word. If Xavier were to wind up on the streets some day, he is convinced he wouldn’t turn into a scumbag. You only become what you allow yourself to become.
That said, it’s convenient, having news of Subutex. The woman who was looking for him was very clear on that point: anyone who helped her track the guy down would be rewarded. No spring chicken, but classy enough that he didn’t just tell her to take a hike, I don’t know anything. She had said she was called the Hyena. The sort of nickname you get stuck with at twenty that becomes difficult to live with later. She had said she was working for a producer, she didn’t give any details, but she seemed serious. And at least she wasn’t a slut. Not the sort of skank who gets on her high horse talking about a woman’s dignity but walks around half naked and acts all surprised when all you can think about is fucking her. She was a lady. She had heard about the interviews Alex did. Xavier could not work out how she had traced him. Respect.
The Hyena had left her number so that
he could call if he had any information. He let it be known that he would love to work on a posthumous portrait of Alex and that, if he ran into Vernon he would talk to him about it. Actually, he would rather rip out his fingernails than work on a posthumous portrait of some piss-poor crooner for suburban housewives, but everyone’s got to eat.
Alex Bleach, Jesus Christ, like we haven’t heard enough of him. People asked Alex for his opinion about everything, whether it was climate change or Tina Turner’s menopause, they wanted his take. He had absolutely nothing to say. Or if he did, it was no more interesting than the next guy. He wasn’t risking his job when he said he was anti-racism, anti-nuclear, anti-rape, anti-road deaths, anti-cancer, anti-Alzheimer’s. He never rocked the boat, when asked all he ever said was “It’s not my job to do interviews”. Like his job was being a musician. Bullshit. But he was good-looking, and not the worst performer on stage. If Vernon hands over the interview tapes – and Xavier has a couple of persuasive arguments up his sleeve – there would be a concise portrait in there somewhere. Who knows, it might even put him back in the saddle. It would be tough to swallow, but given what an S.A.C.D.-accredited director makes when his film is show on T.V., he’d be prepared to swallow it and smile to boot.
He types “leave table” and quits the poker game. Marie-Ange finishes early, she’s the one who picks up the kid. She is spending a lot of time with her daughter at the moment. Marie-Ange is going through a rough patch. It reminds him of the movie “Quiet Chaos”. They don’t talk about it, but the truth is the dog’s death has been devastating for both of them. He knows this, but Marie-Ange is less in touch with her emotions, she doesn’t know how to express her feelings. He wishes it had brought them closer, but for the moment they are each dealing with their grief alone.
He would never have imagined that people could be so shaken up by the death of a dog. Marie-Ange won’t let him talk to their daughter about it. Xavier thinks that it’s important to talk to children about death. During the weeks of cortisone treatment, the dog was pissing all over the apartment. He would pull on a pair of blue rubber gloves, dip a red sponge in warm water and clean up after her. By the end, she could not even manage to stay standing while she relieved herself. She would flop on her belly into the puddle of urine and had to be wiped down with a face flannel. He’d say to her, you’re getting old, girl, you’re not much longer for this world, it’s over. There is no cure. Then she started to wheeze non-stop. He slept next to her, she snuggled against him, she was terrified. There was nothing he could do for her. One morning, he called the vet to have her put down, it was a beautiful day though they were still in the depths of winter. The little one left for school, he told her to give Colette a cuddle, then he made the phone call. He didn’t want to take her to the surgery. Marie-Ange thought it sounded too expensive but he was adamant. He refused to go. For more than a month, the dog had been unable to walk unaided, he had carried her around the apartment and for as long as she could still stand he would take her outside to do her business and get some fresh air. He never said anything, but she did weigh thirteen kilos and there were times when he was exhausted. He did push-ups every morning to strengthen his lumbar muscles. To carry her for as long as she needed, he got himself fit again. He would take her in his arms, that huggable little body, because he knew that it was over. It was terrible, knowing that she was dying, she trusted him and he could do nothing to make her better.
The vet took the body away in a black plastic bag. Xavier asked if he could have the ashes. He lied to Marie-Ange about how much it had cost. He didn’t give a damn. When he went to collect the ashes from the vet and saw the name “Colette” on the box, he realised that it was done. He put the box on a shelf, between the biography of Lemmy and a book about Mesrine. He still cannot get used to how quiet the house is when he comes home. He has never known the apartment to feel so empty.
When he opens the front door, it is freezing outside, a deathly cold. Okay, so Vernon got what was coming to him, but even so it would be weird to find out that someone he hung out with for years had died of cold, alone, at night on the streets. If he does find him, he’ll keep his promise to his mother: he’ll take him to a hotel. That way, she will know where he is, she will be able to look after him keep him warm feed him and all that shit.
He changes trains at République. On the platform, Xavier counts: three white guys, ten black guys, five Chinese, eight Arabs. Paris as usual. Only you’re not allowed to talk about it, otherwise the politically correct start screaming you’re a racist. Who’s going to protect the little old white woman who gets mugged coming back from doing her shopping at Tati, that’s what he wants to know. Don’t try telling him the Chinese would step in, as soon as they settle here, they wash their hands of anything French.
Another tramp begging at the foot of the stairs. A kid with a cat in his lap, the cat is obviously on drugs otherwise it would run away. It’s easier to drug a cat than it is to learn guitar, that’s for sure. Xavier thinks about the heft, the weight of his dog, this thing that he will never feel again. The most difficult thing to accept is the fact he will forget. One day, he will look at a dog and not think of Colette.
He hasn’t gone two hundred metres from the Métro before he spots Vernon in the distance. He is outside the supermarket sitting next to some hideously ugly, XXXL-size bag lady. All the same, it’s a vicious right hook to the solar plexus. He makes the most of the fact that Subutex hasn’t seen him to slip into the McDo opposite. He joins the queue; at the counter, some teenager about three metres tall is ordering dozens of burgers, in the adjoining room he can hear the screeching of kids celebrating a birthday. Xavier orders a beer and a KitKat McFlurry, then posts himself next to the window. He hadn’t expected to be so disturbed at seeing Vernon. In fact, he hadn’t expected to see him.
His brain randomly regurgitates images of him and Vernon when they were teenagers, it’s always pointless images that resurface at times like this, the colour of a carpet with a Stooges album lying on it, Vernon’s ankle-boots sticking out from under the shop counter, the hassle of getting home after the last Métro and the two of them, tripping on acid, walking all the way back to the suburbs, the relief, when they got to Zurich, of seeing H.R. on stage with Bad Brains doing his dangerous back-flip. Other memories get caught up in the net – seeing his brother in the street, unconscious, at a bus stop, drooling over himself, head lolling on his chest surrounded by passers-by. His father pretending to read the newspaper in the evening, and never turning the page because he was waiting for Nicolas to come home. His mother lifting the clock up to her ear to check that it was working, or picking up the telephone to make sure the line was free. His fucking brother who only cared about himself, his dope, his dope – all warmth consumed by his vice. Xavier said nothing. Catching Nicolas with his hand in a drawer, stealing their dead grandparents’ wedding rings to buy a fix. He had wished his brother dead a dozen times. And when it finally happened what little remained of the family stability crumbled into squalor. His mother never set foot inside a church again. While his brother was alive, she prayed constantly, utterly consumed by fervour and by hope. Xavier still believes. He takes his daughter to mass on Sundays, faith is the most precious thing his father left him. Everything else was reduced to ash. Like the body of his dog. Frankly, he doesn’t need to see a shrink to work out why it freaks him out to see his old friend in this state. He wishes he could save him. He wishes he would drop dead. He wishes none of this were happening.
The creature Vernon is hanging with outside the supermarket is an indeterminate female, she waylays passing strangers with ape-like gestures. She is filthy and degenerate. Xavier wishes she would wander off, but they look like they’re shacked up together. Next to her, Vernon looks frail, his back is hunched to ward off the cold, his face is grey, the beard makes him look haggard. He deserves all the shit that’s coming to him, like all the fuckwits of his kind, but that does not make the slightest difference to the heartache the spect
acle arouses. Xavier has always loathed pity, that sickening emotion, he would rather kill a man than pity him. But these protestations are at odds with his gut.
*
Xavier hesitates for a long time. Behind him, a wide range of people come and go carrying trays that smell of fried grease that is not exclusive to McDonalds, a nauseating smell that simultaneously makes you want to throw up and makes your mouth water. He could go home, spare himself this shit, let his mother take the R.E.R., let her come and comb the neighbourhood herself, given her fondness for tragedy, she’d be thrilled to see Vernon like this, she could fall to her knees and play out that primitive scene so crucial to his family, the scene where the mother helps her grownup child get back on his feet. She can wallow in her pity until hell freezes over as long as she leaves her son out of it. Xavier wants nothing to do with this emotional blackmail, he doesn’t want his stomach gnawed away by grief because someone else could not be arsed to save himself. The notion of trying to get back the Alex tapes seems absurd. That poor fucker Vernon probably had his rucksack stolen ages ago. It is his mother Xavier is worrying about. He cannot do this to her. She has him in a bind. He gave her his word. He walks out of McDo’s, crosses the streets and stands in front of Vernon. Seeing him approach the female flashes him a hideous smile, “Oh, monsieur, you wouldn’t have a spare cigarette?” Vernon lays a hand on her arm to shut her up. Without a word, the two men stare each other down. There is fear in Vernon’s eyes, but hatred too. This is not the welcome Xavier was expecting. Then the man sitting on the pavement speaks, in the tone you might use if you casually bumped into someone in a bar:
Vernon Subutex One Page 28