a straight line exists between me and The Good Thing

That night I had a sandwich - chevre, tomatoes and olives - and spent far too much time uploading pictures on to the internet. It was a moment of weakness, when I forgot that this loneliness of mine had been quite good to me, quite pleasantly productive. It probably had something to do with calling Lucy, that real and familiar voice sounding impossibly close through telephone wires, that made me hunger for familiar contact. At a rate of 3 euros per hour I pissed away twenty minutes staring at my g-mail screen waiting for one of the grey dots to turn green. Finally I got so absolutely sick with myself that I just whipped out my camcorder and marched back out to join the throng of festival-goers.

I've been putting so much focus and energy into my writing that I found it difficult to get excited at first about filming, and I would record only little snippets - seven seconds here, fifteen seconds there. Soon enough I found joy again in framing reality and moving that frame at my will to encompass what I wished. It all came much easier when I thought about Larry and how absolutely thrilled and enthusiastic he'd be about this opportunity to film such colorful, brilliant life and capture it in permanence.

I was looking for the perfect thing to film and found it in a trio of charismatic french men, all in their forties I'd say, singing silly French songs. They were dressed like sailors in black and white striped shirts with red handkerchiefs strung around their necks. One of them played a small drumset strapped to his chest, the second a lively accordion, and the third a bass made out of nothing more than a string fastened to a mop - he was the frontman of the outfit. I was too wrapped up in capturing their antics and facial expressions to pay close attention to the song they were singing, but I'm pretty sure it was about a fish vendor and judging by the grinning crowd's reactions, it was hilarious.

Further down the Place d'Horloge there was a pair of street performers that would stand stock-still until someone gave them money. This is usual fare all around the world but this particular pair sent peals of laughter through the crowd. One was a man dressed as a devil complete with a pitchfork, and the other a woman dressed as a winged angel. Each had a tin of money in front of them and depending on who received money, the other would sport a look of incredulity while the one who got the coins would celebrate. The angel's disappointment act was so hilarious and the devil's celebrations so over-the-top that the crowd much preferred to fill the tin of evil than the tin of God.

Sending a great opportunty I walked up to the devil with my camcorder trained on him and tossed a 20-centime piece into his tin. He cheered and did a little dance and both he and the angel put on a show just for my camera. I got a great close-up of the angel's sad, shocked face. Now that I think about it I should have walked right back up and thrown another coin into the angel's tin. Perhaps tonight.

It was late now, and feeling a bit more satisfied with myself I headed back to the hostel and didn't dare read Henry Miller because I was far too sad about the prospect of finishing it.

---

i have found the line and its direction is known to me

Sometime in the middle of the night I awoke when something fell on to my bed, tumbling down from the upper bunk. I was half-asleep, delirious, and after jabbing at it with my fingers and seeing it light up I realized it was a cellular phone. I put it on the floor beside my bed without thinking and fell back asleep immediately.

I awoke this morning when my bunkmate climbed down from his bed and I lay there yawning, thinking what a strange dream I had about a cell phone. I was convinced I'd dreamt it, especially since there was nothing on the floor near my bed. Just as I'm thinking this the french kid whose phone it was leans down to me and says, "'Ey, tu as vu mon portable?" I respond with "Mais, j'ai pensé que c'est un reve." But I thought it was a dream.

Rubbing my eyes I sat up and explained how it had fallen on me and I'd put it on the floor, still mostly asleep. All of this in French, and all the while Mr. Portable as we'll call him is giving me a very suspicious eye. To appease him I proceed to empty my bags as proof that I don't have it. This satisfies him but he's still rife with anger at the situation. Just then old man Jacques walks in from taking a shower and Mr. Portable spins around towards him and says, in French, "So! You stole my phone?" Jacques looks confused as hell in that cross-eyed manner of his and I jump to his defense out of a sense of pity. "He didn't steal it!" I say and Mr. Portable looks at me and says, "You, then?!" I deny stealing it and stand to stretch my legs.

That's when I look out on the balcony we share with two other rooms and realize my towel's been stolen from where it was hanging out to dry. Seeing me gt angry at this fresh turn of events is enough to finally convince Mr. Portable that I'm not the thief. Figuring there was nothing I could do, I packed my stuff up and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast.

I join the line and pick up a bottle of water and a chocolate croissant, taking a seat a couple of chairs down from an old man doing crossword puzzles at a picnic table. Just after that a young french man sits down opposite me to have a cup of coffee and a cigarette and asks me for the time. I tell him and he asks me if I'm English.

So far only a couple of people have guessed that I'm American. The previous night I struck up a conversation about the festival with the proprietor of this web cafe and deep into it he asked me if I was from Spain. Spain! When I told him I was American he was quite surprised and said my accent sounded like that of a native European.

So here I am at the cafeteria and this kid, whose name I never got to know but who I'll call Henry, thinks I'm English and is surprised to hear I'm from New York. He speaks okay English but I insist we speak as much as possible in French. We end up talking up a storm, a fierce storm, all about travel and literature and writing. This is by far the longest and most interesting conversation that I've had with another human being since parting from GIacomo. It felt great.

Henri asked me what I studied in school and he too studied literature. He asked me which French authors I like - Voltaire, Moliere, Sartre, Camus - and I asked him which American writers he liked. He responded by asking me if I knew - who else? - Henry Miller. I literally threw my hands up in the air in joy, ripped open my backpack and slapped Tropic of Cancer down on the table.

"Ah, you've almost finished it!"
"Oui, je suis triste." Yes, I'm sad.

Finally, someone to discuss this masterpiece with! We weaved in and out of French and English then, talking about Miller's observations of America and Paris and Henry told me that the Paris Miller wrote about simply does not exist anymore - the war destroyed it. Everything, everywhere, is so much cleaner now than it once was. Things were once raw.

We talked about life. We talked about writing.

Why are you travelling? he asked me.

"Je veux devenir un écrivan." I want to become a writer.
"Mais, tu es un écrivan, ou tu n'es pas un écrivan. Alors, écris-tu? Es-tu un écrivan?" But, you are a writer or you aren't a writer. Do you write? Are you a writer?

Yes, I told him. You're right, and I do, and I am.

"Bon," he replied, and then went off to find his girlfriend, both of us saying we hoped to meet each other again and how pleasant it was to meet each other at all.

Then I went into town, sat at a café, and read the final chapter of Tropic of Cancer, and when I finally shut the book, I let out a most pleasurable sigh and couldn't look at anything but the sky for a long, long time.