3
When they finished the steep hike down Rue Ravignan they rounded the corner of Rue des Abbesses and walked toward the first café just behind the bus stop. It is actually a bakery as well as a café and is always very busy. What they failed to notice as they sauntered down the hill was the shadowy figure that stood near a large tree in the little park above them and watched their movements closely. They chatted on unknowingly in Russian until they got to the door of the boulangerie and went in. The figure then left the shadows of the park and walked cautiously down the hill.
Inside the little shop were the wonderful smells of freshly baked bread, pastry and quiches. A crowd of people stood by the display cases and waited for one of the several shop women to take their orders. Russell noticed that they had the quiche with three cheeses and that rich quiche with potatoes before motioning the three of them to go outside and sit facing the little square with its metro entrance and small merry-go-round. They sat at two tables pulled together and began to chat again. When the waitress finally came, Russell ordered tea with milk to go with the quiches for his two guests and a hot chocolate and a croissant for himself. No one paid any particular attention to the figure that darted from the door of the big, brown church to the metal handrails of the metro entrance before sitting in the next café down from them at the boulangerie.
The three friends enjoyed their breakfast and sat laughing and talking in the pale morning sun. People walked or sometimes hurried to the metro station’s stairs to travel under Paris in the relative comfort of the subway system. The merry-go-round sat shining brightly, chiming out cheery music but not moving as it was still a bit early for parents to bring their children out for a bit of fun. All in all, Paris was awake and moving but not quite yet ready to begin another busy day.
There was still much to do to get ready for the party tonight. There would be lots of deliveries and the young people from the drama department at the university would arrive in a couple of hours to learn the scene they were to put on in the brief theatrical presentation when the party started. The minimalistic setting for the light drama must be gotten together. All of these things had been on Russell’s mind since he woke up this morning. He may have been an over-educated brick layer but artistic thoughts danced in his head and a clear plan of the brief play was busily evolving into a rather impressionistic styled visual piece for his guests to enjoy tonight. He sat rubbing his nose thoughtfully as Iliyas, sitting opposite him, noticed that the pad of the ring finger on his right hand had suddenly become numb, which was rather annoying and strange, of course.
Russell Ragsdale needs an apartment in Montmartre and kindly asks neither for donations nor gifts but just that you will buy his Book of Aliases at some e-book retailer of your choice. Thanks. Now keep your eyes open for further installments of this story which should be appearing here soon.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Poetry Street Metro
2
He sat in his garret, the studio that had a great view of the white domes of Sacre Coeur. The shutters had been removed for the party and the stark white dome dominated his view. He did not see it as his view was confined to the pages he held in his hand. As he wrote poetry, there were columns and short lines that seemed to be marching down the page. He realized the paper he held was anachronistic and that there were electronic armies on the march as he sat reading. They were marching everywhere and always. But what and who would they conquer, if they even had that as a desire. There was no question that he was mad but he gave good parties.
His house guests came in the large room under the skylights and it was suddenly a much smaller space. He looked up from his work and smiled.
The older man Andre asked in Russian, “How are you doing? Is your work going well? Do you have more to do?”
He answered, “it is going well. I have enough done that I may finish for the day. Shall we go have Breakfast?”
Andre looked at his younger accomplice who was called Illyas, with a questioning look and the young man said, “Why not. You will have to order for us though because we don’t speak French.”
Russell replied in Russian slang, “No problem!”
They got their coats as the fall made the streets a little cool and Russell put on a scarf in the French fashion as if he had forgotten what it was like in Kazakhstan where a fall day could be quite chilly or just as easily pleasantly cool as are fall days in Paris. Andre, who was a diplomat, thought to himself that Russell might have an apartment in Paris but he dressed a little like a bum. Neither of the Kazakh guests wore their scarves for the walk down to the café.
Russell Ragsdale needs an apartment in Montmartre and kindly asks neither for donations nor gifts but just that you will buy his Book of Aliases at some e-book retailer of your choice. Thanks. Now keep your eyes open for further installments of this story which should be appearing here soon.
He sat in his garret, the studio that had a great view of the white domes of Sacre Coeur. The shutters had been removed for the party and the stark white dome dominated his view. He did not see it as his view was confined to the pages he held in his hand. As he wrote poetry, there were columns and short lines that seemed to be marching down the page. He realized the paper he held was anachronistic and that there were electronic armies on the march as he sat reading. They were marching everywhere and always. But what and who would they conquer, if they even had that as a desire. There was no question that he was mad but he gave good parties.
His house guests came in the large room under the skylights and it was suddenly a much smaller space. He looked up from his work and smiled.
The older man Andre asked in Russian, “How are you doing? Is your work going well? Do you have more to do?”
He answered, “it is going well. I have enough done that I may finish for the day. Shall we go have Breakfast?”
Andre looked at his younger accomplice who was called Illyas, with a questioning look and the young man said, “Why not. You will have to order for us though because we don’t speak French.”
Russell replied in Russian slang, “No problem!”
They got their coats as the fall made the streets a little cool and Russell put on a scarf in the French fashion as if he had forgotten what it was like in Kazakhstan where a fall day could be quite chilly or just as easily pleasantly cool as are fall days in Paris. Andre, who was a diplomat, thought to himself that Russell might have an apartment in Paris but he dressed a little like a bum. Neither of the Kazakh guests wore their scarves for the walk down to the café.
Russell Ragsdale needs an apartment in Montmartre and kindly asks neither for donations nor gifts but just that you will buy his Book of Aliases at some e-book retailer of your choice. Thanks. Now keep your eyes open for further installments of this story which should be appearing here soon.
Wednesday, March 06, 2013
Poetry Street Metro
1
Tommy Normal needed a toothbrush so he slipped into the market on the corner with the number “Huite” on it and bought one with nice firm bristles. His current toothbrush had lost the quality that he needed in a toothbrush since Tommy Normal needed one that could star him like the hero in a movie. He stayed across the street from the red café, the café of the two monsters and headed down towards the little Chinese food place where he was to meet the other Tommy, the one called Tommy Toilet. The two had been friends since they decided to be roommates during the great hippy invasion in Tucson, Arizona toward the end of the millennium. They would have a little snack before heading off to their respective workplaces. They had a party to discuss.
Tommy Toilet would go off to his porn shop on a side street of the main drag between the Moulin Rouge and Le Chat Noir. Tommy Normal would descend into the bowels of Paris at the Blanche Metro entrance and come back up for air at Plaisance. He liked the idea that he could go in at that broad boulevard filled with pickpockets and petty thieves and emerge at a smaller one filled with fewer of the same low characters. It was a type of purification that he enjoyed although he could never be persuaded to move nearer his office and leave the honesty of Montmartre for an illusion of being a gentile Parisian.
Russell Ragsdale lived up above the Rue des Trois Freres like some lunatic bum camping in somebody else’s studio. The rumor was out that he would be throwing a party tonight and, despite what you could see of his lifestyle, this party was definitely due to be a mad one. He was a poet and everybody knows there is no money in poetry, but somehow he was able to throw these crazy parties that were a bit too interesting and wild. They seemed to court the kind of decadence one might have expected to find a century earlier. Because of this, they seemed misplaced and out of sync with everything else. But if you looked at his lifestyle it was not hard to imagine why.
The magnificent view of Sacre Coeur afforded by the skylights of his studio had been covered over with metal shutters. He said it gave him some relief when he dreamed of Dali, which he did every night. The Dali he saw in dreams was blind like Oedipus and would paint the visions of his mind without being able to see what was on the canvas. Dali always said this finally made him the artist he had always wanted to be. Of course tonight those shutters would be open and the white dome would glisten in the moonlight. Tonight, he said, the blind would see.
Russell Ragsdale needs an apartment in Montmartre and kindly asks neither for donations nor gifts but just that you will buy his Book of Aliases at some e-book retailer of your choice. Thanks. Now keep your eyes open for further installments of this story which should be appearing here soon.
Tommy Normal needed a toothbrush so he slipped into the market on the corner with the number “Huite” on it and bought one with nice firm bristles. His current toothbrush had lost the quality that he needed in a toothbrush since Tommy Normal needed one that could star him like the hero in a movie. He stayed across the street from the red café, the café of the two monsters and headed down towards the little Chinese food place where he was to meet the other Tommy, the one called Tommy Toilet. The two had been friends since they decided to be roommates during the great hippy invasion in Tucson, Arizona toward the end of the millennium. They would have a little snack before heading off to their respective workplaces. They had a party to discuss.
Tommy Toilet would go off to his porn shop on a side street of the main drag between the Moulin Rouge and Le Chat Noir. Tommy Normal would descend into the bowels of Paris at the Blanche Metro entrance and come back up for air at Plaisance. He liked the idea that he could go in at that broad boulevard filled with pickpockets and petty thieves and emerge at a smaller one filled with fewer of the same low characters. It was a type of purification that he enjoyed although he could never be persuaded to move nearer his office and leave the honesty of Montmartre for an illusion of being a gentile Parisian.
Russell Ragsdale lived up above the Rue des Trois Freres like some lunatic bum camping in somebody else’s studio. The rumor was out that he would be throwing a party tonight and, despite what you could see of his lifestyle, this party was definitely due to be a mad one. He was a poet and everybody knows there is no money in poetry, but somehow he was able to throw these crazy parties that were a bit too interesting and wild. They seemed to court the kind of decadence one might have expected to find a century earlier. Because of this, they seemed misplaced and out of sync with everything else. But if you looked at his lifestyle it was not hard to imagine why.
The magnificent view of Sacre Coeur afforded by the skylights of his studio had been covered over with metal shutters. He said it gave him some relief when he dreamed of Dali, which he did every night. The Dali he saw in dreams was blind like Oedipus and would paint the visions of his mind without being able to see what was on the canvas. Dali always said this finally made him the artist he had always wanted to be. Of course tonight those shutters would be open and the white dome would glisten in the moonlight. Tonight, he said, the blind would see.
Russell Ragsdale needs an apartment in Montmartre and kindly asks neither for donations nor gifts but just that you will buy his Book of Aliases at some e-book retailer of your choice. Thanks. Now keep your eyes open for further installments of this story which should be appearing here soon.
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