final countdown

I don't want to be like that -- expecting. I can't help it. I don't want to write emails to friends. I don't want to go see a movie. Books I read are stale.

I just can't think about anything else.

The month is ending soon. A reply should come anytime now. This week. A positive email means my life will get a lot easier than it is now. A negative one means I'll get plenty of bullets to bite.

Let's face it: I'm scared.

The other day, I got a big brown enveloppe from David. Inside, the box of a Quick new burger. The carton box flattened. Inside, written on the carton itself a letter from David.

His way of thanking me for writing for him a letter in English to the Destruction Tour organizers so that he could get a backstage pass to take pictures for the rock magazine that hired him.

j'ai fait un reve

Je suis avec M., une de mes ex. C’est la première fois qu’on se parle en 2 ans. Tous les mauvais sentiments ont disparus et nous sommes de nouveau amis. Notre complicité réapparait presque immédiatement. Elle est désormais amoureuse d’un auteur. Je l’accompagne chez lui. Il est plus âgé qu’elle. Il a eu une vie mouvementée. C’est un homme jeune qui nous ouvre la porte de l’appartement et nous introduit dans un grand salon presque vide de meubles. Ceux qui restent sont recouvert de draps. Les murs sont nus. Rien n’indique que l’endroit ait été habité récemment. Une vieille femme se tient dans le salon, et immédiatement, je ressens une tension très forte entre elle et ma copine. Elles se détestent comme seules deux femmes en sont capables. La vieille femme crache son venin, à peine voilé par des sous-entendus, sur la respectabilité de M.

M. ne répond pas. Je sais à quoi elle pense, parce que je me pose les mêmes questions. Où est son vieil auteur d’amant? Elle n’ose pas demander franchement. Elle essaye de le savoir de manière détournée mais on lui répond toujours à côté. Elle dit: “Je croyais qu’il voulait toujours vivre ici.” On lui répond: « Apparemment, non. C’est de votre faute. »

Est-il mort? Je me demande. Est-ce pour ça que la vieille la déteste autant? Je regarde M. qui tient le cadeau qu’elle voulait offrir à son amant serré de ses deux bras contre sa poitrine. Le cadeau, c’est un vieux livre à la reliure de cuir. Un de ces livres qu’on ne trouve plus qu’aux puces parfois ou dans d’obscures librairies d’occasions et qui pique les yeux et le nez quand on le feuillette pour la première fois. C’est pourtant un bon livre. Je le sais parce qu’elle m’en a parlé en chemin. Elle a emballé le livre ouvert, avec un papier blanc, fin, et on discerne les lettres du passage que son amant aurait dû lire en l’ouvrant.

Ce passage qui ne fait que quelques paragraphes, c’est une réflexion magnifique sur la vie, les hommes, les femmes. Elle me l’a fait lire en chemin.

Elle sert encore le paquet blanc contre sa poitrine lorsque le jeune home (qui doit être une sorte d’assistant de la famille) revient avec un grand sac en plastique à l’intérieur duquel se trouve un paquet avec le nom de ma copine écrit au marqueur noir. L’assistant dit: “On a retrouvé ceci. On suppose qu’il comptait vous l’offrir pour…” La vieille femme le coupe d’une réflexion cinglante qui vise ma copine. Mais M. n’en a cure. Ses yeux ne quittent pas le cadeau qui ressemble à un coussin. Elle le sort du sac sans rien dire, et malgré l’emballage, je suis alors convaincu qu’il s’agit bien d’un coussin, et elle le sert très fort dans ses bras, comme si c’était le vieil écrivain.

Plus tard, on se sépare sur le trottoir. On parle de lieux dont je n’avais entendu les sons depuis longtemps et qui sont censés être à New York mais qui se trouve en fait à Grenoble. Je le sais, puisque je suis réveillé à présent. Elle me redonne les références du livre qu’elle voulait offrir pour que je puisse le lire plus tard.

J’ai oublié.

Things don't look good...

no, they don't. you try to do everything according to the rules and it still doesn't seem to want to work out. my visa expires at the end of the month and i don't know whether it'll get renewed or not.

they try to sell us that free world thing, that global village thing, but really, i don't buy it. not for everybody.

it would be so much easier to just be illegal. i don't want it, though. but i understand why so many people do.

i haven't have a good night sleep in weeks, maybe months. i can't remember. in early april, i woke up in the middle of the night after a nightmare, and sitting up on the bed i was suddenly convinced that i had missed the immigration deadline. i couldn't think straight i suppose and mixed up the order of the months on the calendar and for some reason i was convinced that may came before april. it took me about 20 minutes to realize my mistake. but those 20 minutes it really wasn't much fun.

there's nothing else i can really think about because a lot of things depend on that. what the point of buying an american computer if i have to return to europe in a couple of months? what the point of looking for a new place? etc.

you apply for jobs you're more than qualified to do but they don't want to hire you because they don't want to sponsor you for a visa. it doesn't matter that you are willing to take care of everything and pay all the legal bills.

i don't know...

...

People on TV, they have great lives. Even when they seem down and their situation desperate, problems and challenges are always overcome, eventually. Sometimes, they just vanish. And if they die it doesn't matter because they have "found peace" and they are ready to leave anyway.

I'm talking about sitcoms and movies.

Tonight I went to watch UNLEASHED with Sara on 2nd Avenue and 12th street.

New York is green and beautiful. And again the question arise: What are you willing to pay to keep it? What are you willing to give up?

Amanda

She arrives as the brunch is about to end. The old, fat guy with her must be her father.

You know, in books, when they say stuff like, "She had the face of an angel"-- and you think that it doesn't mean anything and really even cheap writers should know better than use that cliche? Well, sometimes a girl with beautiful long, curly red hair and blue eyes sits on table 7 with an old, fat guy that must be her father, and the only thing you can say to make people see how beautiful she was is to say that she had the face of an angel, because the first time you set your eyes on her that is what crossed your mind.

She must be 20, maybe. Less than 23, anyway. She had a camomille tea. The old man had an Earl Grey. She wears a pink dress. She is not skinny (I mean it as a good thing.) She wears flat sole shoes, which is a kind of disappointment because you can tell she would look great with any kind of high-heel shoes, but at least she's not wearing flip-flops.

Later, when she leaves, I see her past the door, her hair glowing, catching the sun. She wears black high-heels shoes and I was right. Then I go to her table to clean it. There is glasses and mugs and some papers on the table. I carry as much as I can to the kitchen and the trash.

Later, I hear the runner talk about a girl. A customer. He seems to be talking about the redhead girl so I ask him what happened. He says he founds a note on the table for us.

On the note, it says that her name is Amanda. That she'll be in the City all summer and that she is looking for a job as a hostess. She says she has some experience. She says she also has experience in other fields. I should have kept the note. I cannot reproduce here the feeling it conveyed. There was something in the way she left it on the table for us to find (it was bearing the date of that day, and it was clearly not a draft for something else.) Also, you couldn't help but read in between the lines.

It says that she also left her resume with picture, but it must be the paper I trashed because we couldn't find it. I'm the kind of waiter that respects his customers' privacy. I don't eavesdrop on conversations, I don't read the stuff people leaves on tables. Even so, you already hear more than you want to, just walking past tables with a salade norvegienne in one hand and a plate of eggs benedicte in the other.

The contrast between what she wrote and what she looked like was uncanny.

Where I'm working there is no hostess. It's not that kind of place. I couldn't help but learn her email address. I was confused after reading the note. I didn't know what I would want to do or not to do later. But now, I know I am not going to write to her.

Au feu (bis)

Another fire alert down the block as I'm writing this. At least I suppose it's a fire alert. Four fire trucks are blocking the street, illuminating it with their flashing lights.

(later:)Or maybe a gas leak... which would explain the loud pneumatic drill at four in the morning...

Au feu les pompiers...

At around noon today there was police cars and fire trucks in the street again. Our building is at a corner, and from the building diagonally opposed to ours there was a thick grey smoke coming out the window. People in the streets. Then the cops and firemen arrived. Some of the firemen entered the building, others went on the roof using their big ladder, while one seemed to have a hell of a time breaking all the windows.

I jumped on my camera and then thought it might show a certain lack of deontology of mine but then I saw two local thugs taking pictures from their cell phones while one of them was posing, pointing at the smoking building like a tourist in front of a pyramid, so I thought what the hell and took a couple of pictures at each new stage (except when the firemen starting to throw personal belongings and clothes and furniture out the windows because it would just have felt downright dirty.)

A couple days ago, at around 1 a.m. I saw flashing lights from the streets as I was working on my translation so I looked outside and saw a couple of police cars, doors still open in the middle of the street down on our block. One of them was a black, unmarked Impala. Then more police cars came in very fast and stopping short. Policemen rushing out as soon as the car stopped. And then a group of 5 or 6 policemen came around the corner of my building, running. There was a comic aspect to it. Like in the Blues Brothers when more and more cops are after them and once they enter the building in Chicago you have all the cops (street, horse, boat) and the National guard arriving.

I still don't know what happened that night, a few doors from mine. But, really, you don't want to attract the attention of that many cops. Can't be good for you.

I'm not a big cop fan. Never have. (Even though I think I like NY cops better than French cops.) But firemen, yeah. Now that's different.

When I'm grown up I want to be a firemen and ride the big red truck.

Tatie Danielle

Tatie Danielle exists. To see her, you had to be at [for obvious reasons I cannot disclose here the restaurant's name] Sunday in early afternoon. Tatie Danielle wears expensive clothes and rings and she is with another old woman. A wanna be Tatie Danielle, but too submissive.

Tatie Danielle wants everything right away. Tatie Danielle wants to eat something that is not on the menu. Tatie Danielle wants some tea. But it's only when you bring her her cup that she tells you that she wanted Earl Grey (a pause here: Obviously, I'm not a big tea drinker. It's just hot fucking water with plants. What's the fucking difference?!). When I brought her her off-the-menu meal, she complains after one bites that it's not cooked the way she likes it. She must have mistook me for her servant at home. I go back to the kitchen, talk to the Mexican cooks who always know how to make you feel even more stupid than you already are just by standing there, saying nothing and looking at you.

Tatie Danielle and her submissive friend they left two Platinum American Express card on the check for me to pick up, hoping that those two should be enough to pay their incredible bill of $16.25. I picked up the cards, pause to look at them trying to telepathically express my doubts: "You sure you want to do that? Can't one of you old bile bag foot the bill for the other? Don't you have some fucking cash to start with?"

But they would have none of it. So I swiped both cards found an extra pen to go with the 2 receipts and brought everything to the table. After they left, I see that they have left a $2 tip. But, incompetent to the last details, one of them didn't leave me her signed receipt. They gave me the two receipts from the same credit card.

Oh, and they disdainfully ignored me when I said goodbye to them and wished them a good weekend. For Onasis's sake, one doesn't mingle with the little help.