William Wharton - Scumbler

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; they chalk up. Tompkins and Donna watch. Sweik and I play Ping-Pong in back behind a string net. He has a strong forehand, some good spins but an ordinary serve and nothing on the backhand. I keep playing to his bad side and picking up on his serve. I’ve got a sneaky drop serve but no backhand either. We come out even: good games, good fun. Sweik and I are both players, not sportsmen; we laugh too much. And God, I tire out fast; can you imagine, tiring out from Ping-Pong!

DEATH IS A CUP OF COFFEE, OR A DAWN,

OR ORGASM, ALL THE GOOD THAT COMES IN

LIFE, AND THE BAD. THAT’S LIFE, THAT’S

DEATH.

It’s getting late, time for this old man to go home. I drift downhill beside the Jardin des Plantes, past the morgue and Jussieu, the science part of the Sorbonne. It’s where the Halles aux Vins used to be; I think that represents progress. I cut over the bridge across the back of I’lle Saint-Louis and up Henri-IV to the Bastille again. The motorcycles are gone and it’s quiet.

I cruise down Rue Charenton, avoiding the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. I can’t take all the crappy furniture in the windows. It’s a long street pretending things that aren’t and never should be. Poor people walk up and down that street Sundays when the stores are closed; they stare into the windows practically genuflecting.

At the end of Charenton, I see a man lying in the street. He’s under a streetlight with his head propped on the curb. There’s thick blood. I stop. Nobody’s around; it’s quiet. The gutter is full of blood. I yell but nobody opens any windows. I get down; his hands and face are cold, white; there’s no breathing. I jump on my bike and speed up to the Marché Aligre where there’s a police station.