Philippe Djian - Betty Blue

I tried to convince myself that it was a case of temporary constipation. To shake things up a little, I started doing some electrical work in the afternoons. I replaced wires, installed junction boxes, put in switches with dimmers for atmosphere-all the way up at night, then down to just a glimmer to fuck in. But even with all the puttering I felt my soul dragging. I had to stop regularly to down a beer. Only when evening came on did I start to feel better-almost normal. Sometimes I was downright joyful, the alcohol helped me through. I’d go up to Betty and bend over the typewriter:

“Hey, Betty, no use wearing yourself out-I got nothing left inside, my balls are gone…”

I thought this was funny as hell. I gave the top of the machine a good punch.

“Let’s go,” Betty said. “Out. Go sit down, and stop screwing around. You’re talking like a jerk.”

I sank down in an armchair and watched the flies fly. When it was warm I’d leave the terrace door open and toss my empty beer cans outside. The message I heard inside was always the same: where? when? how?-but I was having trouble finding a buyer for my troubled soul. I wasn’t even asking for much, just two or three pages would do the trick, just something to get me started. I was sure that all I had to do was start. I had to laugh, it was all so stupid. Betty shook her head and smiled.

After that, I would start making dinner and my worries would go out the window. I’d do a little shopping with Bongo. The fresh air woke me up. And if I started going a bit off the deep end again while cracking an egg or grilling a leek, it didn’t really matter-I would just look forward to sitting down to eat with the two girls, and try to be as lively as they were. I’d look at them talking, sending sparks back and forth in the living room. Usually I would get into sauces-the girls said I was a genius with sauces-they always cleaned their plates. People also said I was a genius as a plumber. And as a fly fucker-how did I stack up there? After all those years of peace, I was perfectly within my rights to wonder what was happening to me. It was like trying to restart an old locomotive, overgrown with weeds. It was terrifying.

The day Betty finished typing my book, my stomach was in knots. My legs hurt. I was standing on a chair, tinkering with a lamp, when she told me. It was like taking zoo volts in your hand. I climbed down slowly, holding onto the back of the chair for dear life. I acted moderately impressed.

“Well, it took you long enough… Listen, I got to split. Got to buy some fuses.”

I wasn’t listening to what she said-I didn’t hear anything anymore. I just walked calmly to my jacket. I was like the actor onstage who gets shot in the guts but won’t go down. I slipped my jacket on and went down the stairs, not breathing until I hit the door.

Out on the street, I started walking. A little breeze came up with nightfall, but soon I found myself covered with sweat. I slowed down. I noticed that Bongo was following me. He ran ahead of me, then waited for me to catch up. I don’t know why he did that. There seemed to be a smell of blind confidence in the air, and it was getting on my nerves-the smell of emptiness, too.

I went into a bar and ordered a tequila, because it works fast and I needed a jolt. It’s hard to accept that the good times are gone-I’ve always thought so. I asked for another tequila and then I started feeling better. There was this guy next to me, totally blasted, staring at me with his glass in both hands. I saw him attempt to open his mouth and I egged him on.

“Come on, that’s it… What kind of bullshit are you going to hand me?” I asked him.

Once I had extricated myself from the bar I felt much better. Everybody was crazy and life was woven from absurdity. Luckily there were always a few good moments-everybody knows what I’m talking about-and if only for that it’s worth living. The rest is meaningless. In the end nothing changes anything. I was convinced of the ephemeral nature of all things. I had half a bottle of tequila in my belly and was seeing palm trees in the street, swept away in the wind.

There was a surprise waiting for me back at the house. A half-bald blond guy, about forty-five, with a pot belly. He was sitting in my favorite chair, with Lisa on his lap.

Now Lisa was a normal girl with a pussy and tits, and occasion ally she used them. Sometimes she would stay out all night and just show up the next morning to change and go to work. I would run into her in the kitchen. You can tell at a glance a girl who’s been fucking all night. I was happy for her-I hoped she’d gotten the most out of it. I shared these little moments with her without saying a word; it brightened up my day. I knew then that I was a privileged character, that life had sprinkled a handful of gold dust in my eyes, that I could handle anything. We made a great little trio. I knew I could fix every sewer in town as long as I could stop at five o’clock, take a shower, and meet the two of them there-one handing me a glass and the other one an olive.

As a general rule, Lisa didn’t discuss the men she met, or those she fucked. She would just say it wasn’t worth going into and laughingly change the subject. Naturally she never brought a guy back to the house. Believe me, she would say, the one I let walk through that door has got to have something the others don’t.

So I was floored when I walked in and saw this guy sitting there in his shirtsleeves with his tie loosened, raising his glass to me to say hello. I realized I was standing in front of the rare bird. Lisa introduced us with bright eyes, and the guy jumped up to grab my hand. His cheeks were red; he reminded me of a bald headed, blue-eyed baby.

“By the way,” Betty asked, “did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yeah, but it took me a while.”

Lisa put a drink in my hand. The guy looked at me and smiled. I smiled back. In a flash, I had the situation well in hand. His name was Edward but people called him Eddie. He’d come to open a pizzeria in town, he bought a new car every two months and laughed a lot. He sweated lightly. He seemed happy to be there. An hour later, it was like he’d known us for twenty years. He put his hand on my arm while the girls were talking in the breakfast nook.

“So tell me, man… they say that you write…” he said.

“You might say that,” I said.

He gave me a wrought-iron wink.

“Make money at it…?”

“It depends. It’s not steady.”

“Anyway,” he said. “Sounds pretty good. You write your little story, you take it easy, you go to the bank…”

“You got it.”

“What area you write in?” he asked.

“Gothic novels,” I said.

How does a girl’s brain work? I asked myself all evening long surely I was missing something. This Eddie guy-I couldn’t figure out what she saw in him, besides that he drank like a fish, talked like a fool, and laughed all the time. I’d given up counting the things in life that surprise you, though. I like to keep my eyes open-you never know when you’re going to learn a thing or two. Take Eddie-it turned out that my first impression was wrong. Eddie’s an angel.

By the time we got to the baba au rhum, he had talked me to death, but all things considered it wasn’t so bad. Being loud and dumb once in a while-provided you have a good cigar-is not the end of the world. Eddie had brought champagne. He popped the cork and looked at me, then poured me a big glass.

“Hey, I want you all to know how happy I am that we get along so good together- no really, I swear… girls, your glasses…”

The next morning, Sunday, he showed up with a big suitcase while we were eating breakfast. He gave me a wink.

“I brought a few things with me… I like to feel at home…”