Scumbler. William Wharton

      4

      Riding Easy

      Today, still sunny, cold. I paint more on the Rue Princesse ébéniste painting. There’s good light in the morning but it starts falling off by noon. I get some glazing in, some scumbling on the walls and over the door. My American comes while I’m working. His last name is Sweik, better name, more a cat name. We have lunch at the same place, then go up to his room for a nip of Grand Marnier.

      This is some room; falling-down, peeling-faced hotel: Hôtel Isis. There are long, dark halls, no lights. The steps used to have rugs but they’re all torn up; catch your feet in rug strings; smell of dust when you trip. Burlap bags are tacked on the walls and ceiling to catch falling plaster; these are hanging, sagging bulges full of broken plaster.

      Sweik’s room’s on the second floor. And this is a great room: light; looks out on the street. His fireplace is blocked, plastered up. There’s a double bed on one side, sink in the corner, collapsible bidet under the sink. The green wallpaper has twisting, crawling flowers with stains running down; there’s a big beam across the center of the room, small light hanging from the beam. Terrific place, something to paint. I can definitely leave the planet through this room, free-fly in my mind.

      The sun comes out again. I sit in the window, back to sun; sip Grand Marnier from a miniature bottle; tingling taste of oranges on a cold day in the sunshine. There are sounds of people walking below. I look out his window into Madame Boyer’s café-charbon across the street. Sun comes deep into Sweik’s room. I’ll paint it from the window looking in, inside, enclosed, with air at my back; then from the door looking out the window, a rabbit view from his burrow into free light.

      His old-time motorcycle saddlebags, helmets are hanging by the door. They’re brown leather and well oiled. Sweik says he keeps his clothes in those saddlebags. There’s nothing of his spread around the room; all very neat, cat; says he only has enough stuff to fill those bags, nothing extra. Heavenly beans, so different from the way I live: my guts, my life spread all over the landscape.

      The walls are covered with drawings, charts of French political history, some Goya bullfight prints. Sweik says he likes bullfights. I can’t make it myself, nerves won’t stand it; wind up feeling sorry for everybody, despising them at the same time; rips me up.

      Sweik says it’ll be OK for me to paint his room. He’ll leave the key under his doormat, he’s gone most of the day. I make arrangements for tomorrow. I’m hot, bubbling to get into this; drink, suck this room into me; make it real, my real, stop it from changing. We also agree to get together with some friends of Sweik’s that night; go to the Bastille and look at motorcycles. Probably Kate won’t want to come but she won’t mind my going. Kate and I have a lot in common but our pleasures are different.

      SIMULTANEOUS ALTERING;

      ON THE ALTAR FOR WHAT?

      We meet at Sweik’s place around nine o’clock. Most of the motorcycles in Paris cruise to the Bastille on Friday nights; everybody checking everybody else out. Motorcycle cops are sitting around waiting for trouble. There are some old bikes; and even more crazy people. It’s the ultimate macho machine orgy.

      I meet rare individuals at Sweik’s. One’s named Lubar, Brooklyn Jew married to and separated from a French lawyer; he runs English classes for the French at IBM. Sweik works with him. Another, Tompkins, is a physicist-poet; brings a woman friend named Donna along. He’s here on a grant from Berkeley, supposed to be working at the Sorbonne in solid-state physics but spends all his time writing poetry. Duncan, a tall, thin man, has a Triumph 500 and doesn’t say much. Lubar has a BMW 750. Tompkins is riding on the back of Lubar’s bike. Donna on Duncan’s.

      Sweik gets his machine from up on the Place and we tune it in front of his hotel on the Rue Guisarde. This makes an awful racket with the close walls. A man throws water out his third-story window; can’t blame him. I turn off my bike. Lubar pees on the side of the wall; yells up in street French, no Brooklyn accent. The man throws out a pail of hot water this time. Lubar is drenched; laughing, he starts a jig in the street singing a song about a fucking machine – in English, thank God. More people come out, laugh at Lubar, who’s putting on a show.

      Finally, we roar off, down to the river and over onto the Right Bank and along the quais. We’re not going fast, only riding easy on a coolish springlike night. Sweik and I bring up the rear; my tired 160 sounds like an organ grinder and I’m the monkey.

      THE SWELLING OF DECAY, A SPONGY

      POROUSNESS, FESTERING AS A BLIGHT;

      BLISTERING INCANDESCENCE OUT OF SIGHT.

      We hang around the Bastille an hour or so; there are some handsome machines. There’s a new Kawasaki, and more cross bikes every time. Some leather-covered character offers Sweik ten thousand francs for the Ariel. Sweik only smiles, says no, politely. We swing around the Bastille column a few times with the mob. Then head down Roquette to the Rue de Lappe.

      We park and work our way into the Belajo, an old-time French dance hall. There are coveys of Algerians and black guys; some tired-looking middle-aged women; a fair sprinkling of whores, both sexes. We find a table under a balcony; the orchestra is up on the balcony.

      Donna stops by the women’s room to pee; bike riding joggles kidneys some when you aren’t used to it. Lubar moves an Algerian or Tunisian guy’s coat to make a place for Donna when she comes back. This Arab gets all excited, slams his coat back on the seat. Lubar jumps up and throws the coat onto the floor.

      Here we go, we’re off again. The bouncers begin drifting close. Lubar pushes up the sleeve of his jacket and shakes his fist in the Arab’s face. I’m slipping under the table, easing my helmet onto this old bald head. I’m ready to crawl out of there on my hands and knees.

      Donna comes back, sits in the chair and smiles. The Arab smiles, backs off, apologizes to Donna as if Lubar doesn’t exist. Everybody settles down; bouncers drift away. Another little dumb male scenario has been worked out. It’s worse than watching belly dancers or bunnies at a Playboy club.

      We order beers, start scanning the scene. There are more men than women, about two to one. Most are simple working stiffs, Arabs, other Africans, Spanish, Portuguese; mostly they don’t dance. They’re here in Paris with no women; they come hoping for a contact. Lonesome men, cut off from women, are dangerous.

      The music starts again; everybody’s hustling. Lubar’s still looking for a fight. He keeps going up, tapping men on the shoulder, cutting in – that kind of dumbness. A little guy like him, failed athlete, is never finished. He’s liable to wind up growing a short-handled blade between his shoulder blades.

      I dance with one woman, almost my age, wearing a wig; stiff-backed type, likes to dip and twirl but keeps pushing me away with her skinny, sinewy arms. There’s a big, oldtime crystal ball going around over the dance floor. It throws lights on the walls and floors in different colors. If you concentrate on the lights, you feel as if you’re turning upside down.

      The next one I get pushes her sagging belly into mine. Her breath would burn if you struck a match; blend of booze, garlic and sewer gas. I stagger back to our table.

      We stick through two beers. Lubar drags over a pale girl, wearing a tiny miniskirt, with incredibly thin legs; she starts quoting the price structure and we decide to skip the whole deal, too sad. We go out, charge up our bikes again and head for Contrescarpe.

      There we check in at Cinq Billards. This is a little café with four good tables. Lubar, Duncan are sharks;