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Flight to London, New-York.
Flight number LH231
Almost nothing happened this particular evening, yet
when I think of Paris, closing my eyes,
I always remember this night, this face,
as if it had become my gate to this city.
In my own country, in a normal society,
I would never have had the curiosity to interact with this kind of people.
I don't have anything against them, they're just from another galaxy.
But this night, I was a foreigner. This yields some privileges,
and there was the alcohol, the tiredness.
Moreover, he and his kind,
I now am aware of that, suffer more from separation than oppression.
So, for once...
I had arrived from Singapore, and was leaving the following day for Detroit.
I'm a farming machine salesman,
but let's not discuss that.
The stop in Paris was an interlude.
Six hours to lose, some time to see the Invalides.
Air France's car had stopped at a traffic light.
It was going to drive off again.
I saw this cafe, open quite late.
I needed cigarettes,
and had a vague desire for warmth, for company.
I did not start hitting on him ! He came and offered me a cigarette !
I've decided to stopped smoking Gauloises.
I'll start smoking Pall Mall, as a way to remember him.
His was trying to be understood by the saleswoman. She obviously made out not understanding him.
So I told her : "He wants some Pall Mall." So she goes : "Can't he speak properly ?"
No, you're not serious...
I did not rush on him, I just saw him as he entered.
He was standing out... You just had to be faster !
Anyway, he's neither a queen, nor a gig.
It's always the same thing with you... You're here saying :
"I would totally do this one", but no one ever make a move.
Hello ! Did I wake you up ?
Did I disappear ? No, it ended very well.
I assure you, it did. You don't like that, do you ?
It seemed to be a cafe like any other.
Not touristy at all.
During the day, I'm sure it's full of secretaries.
At the counter were only night wrecks.
He started by asking me for a cigarette. Weird guy.
Not young, but dressed up like a teenager anyway.
He might have been charming in his time, but he seemed worn-down, tensed.
He was trying to look childish, playful.
It must be quite hard to grow old, for people like them.
He acted anyway as if he was extremely seducing.
But he was too nervous, probably because of all these nights spend drinking.
I cannot stand french beer,
hence, when the waiter brought two beers, I asked for a ***-orange,
so he drank both beers.
He would do as if I was his guest.
Wanna play ?
I'm holding this for you, go !
- Indians were doing that.
- It's in the hole...
On the contrary, I was showing him the cafe.
Poor guy, he seemed to think we were going to eat him alive.
He didn't really get in what kind of place he was.
This is exactly why I like the Royal.
Because so many people go there by mistake.
The lights might be a little harsh, but I don't go to dark clubs to hid my wrinkles anymore.
Yes, I like cafe a lot, but not clubs.
Anyway, the Royal is the urinal of rue Saint-Anne.
It's full of trash, and it's in the trash that you can find diamonds.
I mean, raw diamonds, like him.
You were plastered. He could only be disgusted.
You always think they admire you, and find you funny. But you're just frightening them.
And you're so impudent...
No, not careless, I wouldn't give a damn.
Impudence.
Anyway, men like him don't care.
They're not shocked, just unaffected.
And I understand them.
When you're that hysterical, you're the only one to find it appealing.
Anyway, he's not even American. He's Russian.
Yes, Russian.
Of course we were speaking English, I don't speak russian at all, you know that.
All right, we did drink a lot. But he's extremely resilient.
I was pretty drunk.
Just between us :
He's a Soviet dissident, like Solzhenitsyn.
No, he didn't say it, he hinted at it.
Too dangerous, with you guys around...
And why couldn't a Soviet dissident have a love story with a decadent capitalist queen ?
I don't have anything modern romanticism. We understood each other right away.
Because we're both worn-down by life, by sorrow.
Oh ! Leather queens are like the rest of us !
Your Village People move was a complete failure.
There were taxi drivers, Arabs, and boys, prostitutes I think.
In a cafe giving right on the street !
I told him my surprise.
He answered me that I probably thought people like them should hide away.
Very quickly, I was drunk, because of alcohol, and because of his talking.
It wasn't unpleasant...
He had a weird way of talking, of stopping to cough,
as if it was a performance,
and as if he was not part of it,
as if he was not a sweet-talker,
which seemed to be their main activity.
I didn't really get who was sweet-talking whom around me,
neither did I get if it was for money, for a drink,
or just for sex.
But there were a lot of things happening.
And there were some that would enter and exit the restrooms,
where some kind of traffic was going on.
He seemed very proud of all this.
He behaved like this mad troupe owner.
Or maybe like and asylum director.
I mean, like one of the madmen who would think he's the director.
He was calmer than the others
but very much like them anyway.
He told me about everyone.
He was very upset at gay people integration.
And people in this cafe were pariah of their own society.
And he was their spoke-person.
He would discuss that with me, but I'm not part of this world.
I did understand something though.
Tolerance, integration, that sounds nice all right.
A way to tell them : give us your money but *** between yourself."
When we went out, it was almost day already.
Early morning.
He offered me cigarettes every five minutes.
Of course I wasn't resh-looking, but he likes for who I am, darling.
Not like a Paris souvenir.
I don't have anything to hide to him. We went down the avenue de l'Opéra.
Beer is the best fuel, I can walk for miles on it.
Plus, I didn't bore him.
You don't get it.
But I look for the pleasure of an encounter.
You know...
Some of us can't be mustache queen, with fist *** and *** everywhere.
Do you want me to tell you ?
He likes the tragic in me.
I'm an end of civilisation.
I should have been born at the end of the 19th century.
He had a lot of culture, a real patchwork,
with weird contradictions.
He showed me a greek statue, a chariot driver,
in some shop, told me he was in love with it.
I told him about New-York, about the Village.
He told me he didn't like it.
Because it was made for them,
they were on their own.
He told me he would rather get mugged
than creating defense leagues, or calling the police.
He was hurt by the actual evolution of things.
I was surprised. I would have guessed the opposite.
He felt that people like him,
and hooligans, or Arabs,
were very closely connected,
and if they started posing as victims,
these ties would break, this pariah society would end.
For Manhattans standards, he was old-fashioned.
As if he had read to many 1900 books.
The gay people I know today are all ***, champagne and disco.
But it did move me, it was slightly naive, very continental,
this idea of being in the end an outlaw.
We searched trash cans at 5 am.
He found a one franc coin. It brings good luck.
We were so drunk, we peed in the middle of the street.
He has such a ***...
It's not a ***, it's a trunk.
He kept changing subjects.
Trying to provoke me.
He was being cynical.
Then all of a sudden, romantic or started to reel off a proud-to-be-a-pariah morality.
He told me about Marrakech.
But to say he hated this tanned homosexual atmosphere,
and that he only liked Marrakech under the rain.
He was very proud of his leftist character, a sex anarchist.
I wasn't convinced.
I didn't mind listening to him, as he didn't ask anything from me.
I didn't realize how cruel it was to let him tie himself up in knots.
Le jardin extraordinaire, by Charles Trenet is playing
I showed him the Tuileries, just to see his reaction.
At these hour, there is a lot of *** action there. He was so embarrassed !
A real sight, the last lingering queens, like bats taken by surprise by the rising sun.
I like doing this very habitual trip, but by day. Everything is different.
We we're not the usual couple, looking for a place to ***.
It really changes the landscape.
At the Tuileries, queens are like insects during love display.
When one appears, all of sudden you see hundreds. I'm more like a praying mantis myself.
I always want to eat males up.
He took me in an enclosed place in this public garden.
He wanted to go over every railings we saw.
In this place, they were storing chairs and gardeners' tools.
I couldn't but understand what he wanted from me.
Since the start, he had been both persistent and shy.
It felt like he never kidded himself.
He was rather desperate,
expecting to fail even before the start.
If I had gone with what he wanted,
it would have been out of kindness or pity.
I don't make love out of pity.
I may have been wrong. He didn't insist in the least.
But if I hadn't been sure that he wouldn't dare to insist,
I would never have followed him.
I showed him everything, the time it took to win him over.
He took me to the river.
He pretended to play a game of cat and mouse.
But the mouse was in charge.
He was trying to make me laugh, but I knew how to get rid of him.
And he knew it.
I was angry at him for not coming out. I knew he wanted it.
I almost threw him in the water. The perfect crime.
He doesn't even have any friend in Paris.
He seemed to be afraid of people,
trying to bring be in dark corners, in a tunnel.
He loved underground passages, as well as railings, mold, rust, rats.
All the parasites.
Because he saw himself as a sewer being.
I'm a being of the light, of the day.
So he couldn't catch me.
I took him under the Pont Royal.
I love Seine's disgusting waters, the tissues lying around.
Moreover, this tunnel was as dark as a ***'s *** in the depth of a mine.
Retiens la nuit, by Charles Aznavour starts playing.
Of course, I spend the rest of the night with him.
We went tho his hotel, l'Intercontinental. Place Vendôme, very chic.
Of course, I could get in. He told me about his life.
I told you, ***, he's a very important man.
He works at the UN or something. He's not anybody.
He earns a lot of money too, but what I like is his charm and gentleness.
It makes a change from the usual jerks. We finished getting drunk in his room, with champagne.
You'd like to know, you ***. You'd like that, wouldn't you ?
Well, I won't tell you. I'm discreet.
I need to end this, he's getting impatient, we're going to Bagatelle for breakfast.
He wants us to see the park, as lovers.
When I took the cab to go to the Invalides, I was ashamed.
The sun had set.
Paris was like a postal card again.
In a couple of hours, I'd see my wife and children.
He only left me this cold ashes smell.
An this tiredness from having walked for nothing, having talked for nothing,
the voice empty from confidences and feelings.
Now, whenever I return to Paris,
I avoid this avenue at night.
... earings. With some [?]