by Walter Agnew Moore II
25 February 2002, Amiens, France

Saturday. Wake up slow. Shuffle about, coffee burbles in the stairwell. Strum the guitar a little. Sip coffee, shower. No hurry. Dress. Paint a little. More coffee.

"Walter!" shouts Duncan from under the window, and there he is, grinning, leaning out of his car.

"Veer's back at my place in the kitchen. Is that your rugby jersey, do you have a game today?" he says as we drive into town.

"Game tomorrow— but everything else is dirty. Anyway, it doesn't matter if this gets dirty today, because tomorrow, it'll be stiff with mud." And possibly blood as well, when I get crippled in my first rugby game ever.

I was going to quit rugby. I decided the other night. Quit. No more pain, smashed ribs, wrenched joints, spikes stomped on my shins. Just quit. Then I saw Fabrice's orange jacket across the bar, and I went and sat down with him and my other team-mates, Fabien, Jean-Luc, Guillaume (it's Guillaume's extra jersey I borrowed to play in)... We shared a drink, huscarls in the mead-hall, and they told me they needed me Sunday, we are short of players, we need everyone to stand by us Sunday.

"But I don't even know the rules yet!" I said.

Fabien hunched over his beer toward me. "Very simple, Walter. You see a mec with a different jersey from you, and he has the ball, knock him down. You see a mec with a different jersey from you, and a whistle, don't knock him down. We'll take care of the rest."

I asked for an explanation of the "dead ball" rules. Fabrice said "Just pick it up and run like crazy. The ref will whistle if he wants you to stop."

We drank another round, doing the crazy toast they do here where you all look in each others' eyes like you slipped poison in the drinks. "Santé!"

They need me. I can't quit now.

Duncan and I park the car and pick up Ruth and Nia in the center of town. We all hike around in the alternating sun and rain while the wind blasts us. The Tunisian place is closed— where are we going to find red lentils?

Kill time, wander the other markets. Smells of vegetables, fish, meat. Nia says, "Now that is the most impressive security guard I have ever seen." I look back at a scrawny five-foot-nothin guy by the door, badge on his shirt.

"Little guys are the worst."

No red lentils. We stand outside the Tunisian place. We try to call them on the cell phone. It starts to hail. Somebody mentions that Catriona is waiting for us across town outside the Cirque.

Outside? "For how long?"

"About an hour now."

Barreling through the hail towards the Cirque, a big 19th Century domed building created for concerts and spectacles. Sky is black. No one can remember which side of the building she lives on, and her phone is out of credit. It's pouring down.

"But she can still receive calls, right?" I say. "Right." I dial.

"Catriona?"

"Walter."

"We are behind the Cirque, which side are you—"

"Well I'm in front of the Cirque, staying dry behind the big columns."

"Sit tight."

Catriona installed in the middle of the back seat, we tear back into town for one last stab at the Tunisian place, maybe they were just closed for lunch. No luck, but we do see an actual Tunisian walking along, my associate Hassane, leaning forward with his shoulders hunched into his scarf. I roll down the window, icey air whistles in, I yell:

"Hassane! Yadik fi-zubi!"

He busts out laughing. One day he may wish he had taught me non-obscene Arabic, but today it is funny. We drive on.

On the south side of Amiens, you pass a big shopping center, then BOOM you are in beautiful green fields. Sun comes out. We head toward Dury. Duncan drives this way every morning. I tell him "That is where they have a monument to a battle in the 1870 war."

"1870 war?"

"Sorry. We call it the Franco-Prussian War. I forget what year..."

There is a curious thing about the road between the villages of Dury and St. Fuscien. I look at the landscape and say "Now everybody look at that— that is Texas. And over by those woods where the hill drops down? Alabama."

Catriona says, "Well I was just thinking it looks like the back way between Finglas and my Granddad's place in Dublin."

Nia says, "Really? I was just thinking it looked like back home in South Wales."

Duncan says, "If you made the hills just a little bigger, it's Devon."

Duncan has a real house with real pine trees around it. The wind is thumping outside shaking the trees, still a little rain, but the clouds are flying overhead so fast that there is a lot of sun as well.

"The devil's beating his wife," I say.

"What's that?" says Duncan.

"An old expression that I heard my dad say back when I was little. It means it's raining while the sun is shining. Do you have a saying like that in England?"

"Not that I know of..."

"Most people in the States have never heard it either. But I know a Mexican girl who would say something similar in Spanish."

"They have a lot of expressions involving the devil in Spain," he says.

"I wonder if all of Europe said something like that once, or how it is that my family came to say it..?"

We all get big ceramic mugs of hot tea. I help Duncan haul some wood from the basement, loose bark all over my shirt, and soon we have a fire going. The girls all sit on the sofa with their shoes off, socked feet stretched out in front of them. I sit cross-legged right by the fire.

Veer says, "You truly are the Son of Agni, you put me to shame."

I smile. "I just like fire."

We play a little music on the guitar and on the mandolin.

"Aw hell," I remember, "I was supposed to go on a bike ride with Jes today." Phone doesn't pick up a signal out here. It's not riding weather anyway.

The food is ready. Duncan pulls out a big solid wooden table, and he and Veer load it up with large bowls of Curry Chicken, Curry Fish, Rice with little spicy things in it, Potatoes about to fall apart, they have been baking so long, and Yogurt with Sliced Cucumbers in it. We gorge. There is a huge tall pitcher of home-made Ginger Beer, cold with ice cubes in it. I do the pouring.

Back to the fire, stuffed. Bob Dylan and Captain Beefheart. Eddy and Keith show up at the door with about 30 little bottles of Kronenbourg beer. Tatiana dropped them off. Ed gets set up with some chow, but Keith is out of luck, having just got his tongue pierced.

Eddy looks out the back window. The wind is going again. "Ah, I wouldn't trust those trees..."

We lurk around the fire as it gets dark and cold outside. Periodically, we open the front door and grab a couple of bottles of the beer from the carton chilling on the front stoop. Them what gots em smokes em.

"This is a perfect day."

It is "Dress in Black" night tonight at My Goodness Irish Pub where Eddy and Keith work, in honor of the Black Brew, Guinness Stout. We have to get them back there to tend bar, but we are sluggish getting underway.

Nia asks, "Walter, are you going to change into black?" pointing at the red jersey with white collar, and my blue jeans.

"I am in black."

"OK..."

Duncan scares up a raggedy black tie from somewhere and knots it loosely so he will have a symbolic speck of black on him. We drive into town. At the pub, one of the girls detours off to home because her wanna-be boyfriend is inside. The rest of us go in.

David the bouncer shakes my hand and looks at my red jersey. "David, it's black!"

"OK, Waltair, it looks black to me..."

What a crowd. The English girls are there in the pit-like middle, and Jes is stunning, dressed up in black like she's out at the opera instead of on a pub-crawl. And there's Emily in a black Guinness cap, snuggled up with Stephane, the French guy with an eerily perfect London accent. Little Emma sits on a stool next to another girl that I haven't met yet. Duncan and I make our way over to them, all the way doing the greetings, the handshakes with the guys and the kissy-kissy on the cheeks with the girls, that are actually a pretty nice French custom.

Jes says she and the others will come see us play tomorrow. "Do you think they would let me suit up and play as well?"

"Sure Jes. If they let me play, they'll take you too."

Thierry the owner comes by, greets us all. "Waltaire, salut, 'ow are you... ze shirt..."

"It's black, Thierry."

"Ah, I see..."

I steal Emily's stool and when she gets back, she wants it back, but my back hurts and I don't want to move. "You can sit on my knee," I say, and she hops right up.

Jes turns around: "What—Emily, are you putting your hand on Walter's *crotch*?"

"Ah, I'm just getting settled, there, that's good."

And so Pirate Walter is sitting in the middle of the bar bouncing a girl on his right knee while carrying on a semi-serious conversation with another girl to his left. And of course that is when he sees everyone he knows in the town of Amiens. Arrrr, matey.

There's that big dopey-looking French guy who could be my twin, we always nod, I see him all over town. He walks by, slurring at me: "You were in the pizza place yesterday, now you're here... You followin' me?"

"Oui monsieur, CIA business!" and we shake hands.

Other people come and go. I see students in the back of the bar, the accountant from campus who cuts my check. Jes wanders off, but hey, here come Peter and Guillaume, my rugby team-mates. They kind of approach carefully, edging towards me.

"Arrr mateys, what's up? As you can see, I am getting in a rugby state of mind! Oh, this is Emily."

"Salut Waltair, salut Emilie. But there is no game tomorrow."

"No game?"

"No. It is cancelled. The pitch is soaked, covered with water."

(Well hot-damn. whew.)

"Aw, guys, that's too bad. I had my jersey on and everything..."

Guillaume says, "Yes, I know that red jersey!"

"Sorry, mate, it's not red, it's black."

We chat. I tip Emily off my knee after a minute— Stephane's cool, but I doubt he's got no feelings about his girlie-girl sitting on other guy's knees. I encounter Jes in the hall. The speaker is blasting Sawdoctors or Strokes or somesuch by our heads.

"So Walter, I am so looking forward to coming out and cheering you ON tomorrow!"

"Not playing tomorrow. Got cancelled."

"WHAT? Don't say that!"

"It's true. Cancelled."

"Walter, are you SERIOUS? Don't play with me like this!"

(wow, she is really into rugby, strangely so.)

"Yes, really, cancelled. I just found out a few minutes ago."

"Walter, if you are joking I don't think it's the least bit funny, and I wish you'd stop it. You don't joke about things like cancer."

"Cancer?"

"Isn't that what you just said?"

"I said 'cancelled'— you thought..."

"Oh GOD that scared me—" and she laughs, almost spills her beer. I knock on the wooden top of a nearby barrel.

OK, I am drunk. Time to get out the door. Veer and Annabelle walk up, they are both bundled up in that "I am an agent of ze Resistance" look we do here. Veer says "Walter, Annabelle knows another club, and we are going and I thought you might like to come too."

"Sure. Jus lemme finish this Guinness I jus bought."

Annabelle laughs, "Drink eet fast, Wal-taire, zey close een sirty minutes!"

Guinness was not meant to be chugged, and perhaps that explains my sulleness as we dodge all over the empty town in Annabelle's Ford Fiesta. We stop outside Veer's place to let him get something, and she and I sit in the idling car.

"So you got your St. Christopher medallion on the dash I see."

"Yes, eet's my Mo-thair, she puts eet there."

"Ah yes, Mother, I have heard of her."

"My Fa-thair, he go to ze south of France to work, so my Mo-thair, she thinks she has to be extra, how you say, strict? But she ees OK. Here, I show you, I show you her picture?"

Always a good piece of info, boys. "Sure!"

Pictures of a nice-enough lady goofing around at a Christmas party. Family friends standing around smiling with drinks in their hands, decorations on the mantel-piece. In one picture, a little girl, about two, mop of blond hair, checkered blue and white dress, exploding with laughter, head thrown back, having the time of her life, while in the background Annabelle and her mom are leaning forward trying to get the child's attention.

"So this is your kid?"

"NO!! She ees, how you say, ze girl, ze daughter of my bro-thair..?"

"Your niece?"

"Yes."

"Nice kid."

Veer hops in and the planned club turns out to be closed, and the back-up plan club is closed, and by now My Goodness Irish Pub is closed, and we don't want to go back there anyway tonight. Somebody says "How about the Amazone?" and I snarl:

"Only way I'm goin' back in the Amazone is with a couple grenades and a tommy-gun."

"You don't like eet?"

"Hate it. Bad things always happen there. Yannick got beat up there. Eddy got jumped there."

Veer says, "Oh, and they got Keith too the other night. And I understand they attacked you once as well?"

(Sort of. Attacked me verbally. I was the one started the little scrap. Still...)

I just say, "That place is built over an American Indian graveyard. Don't ask me how they got to France, but the symptoms fit. Nothing good ever happens there."

Annabelle knows a place. The Bonaparte. I actually ran into its owner once in another place, and he took a shine to me and said if I was single, the Bonaparte was the place to be. He even wrote me out a signed invitation on a cardboard beer-coaster so I wouldn't have to pay cover.

Well, they aren't charging cover at 3:30 am anyway. The leather-jacketed doorman waves us in.

Smoke. My God, cigarette smoke like we're in 1960's France. Or make that 1950's France, to judge from the clientele. But it's rockin', in its own way. Regular French Folks are packed on the little dance floor at the front. We climb up stairs to try to find a booth.

And there he is, the Big Goofy French Guy that I saw earlier, sitting in front of us, bouncing a 45-year-old woman with rabbit-teeth on his knee who is wearing a 12-year-old's plaid school dress. I am reeling from this sight as he says "You are! You are followin' me, pizza place my goodness now here..."

"CIA never rests, friend. Nothin' personal, just a job."

We worm into a booth. Waitress never gets around to us. Just as well. I go to the gents and wait in line between a drunk bank clerk and a drunk pipe-fitter. Bank Clerk says to me:

"Anglais?"

"Americain."

"Ahh, bof, the same!"

I go when it's my turn while Pipe-Fitter hops from one foot to the other. I come out of the stall, and say "Sorry man, it's broken now. Nobody else can use it all night."

"Lemme in there— I gotta go SOMEWHERE!"

When I come out, I am standing over Veer and Annabelle preparing to sit, when the music changes from cheesy techno to something different, and I can't believe what it is— sure, there's still the piped-in beat, but over it is sailing one of the most beautiful Cajun fiddle tunes I have heard for a while. I am not talking about that dumb fake "Cotton-Eye Joe" dance-track that came out a few years back, no, this is pure, this is real, where did they GET this?

"Annabelle— come on."

"Quoi?"

"Dance—I gotta dance to this song. Come dance."

"OK," and she starts peeling off scarves and jackets and sweaters until she is down to her jeans dress, and there really isn't much Annabelle left.

We descend the stairs to the dance floor. "Annabelle, you see those people doing that goofy square-dance thing?"

"Oui."

"That's not how we do it. This is. Lean back on my hand. Hold on tight to the other. And this is a Cajun two-step."

She's done similar dances before. Lots of moves are interchangeable with salsa, swing, other stuff. I don't think she knew the Sweet-Heart turn, but if you don't let go of the girl's hands, and she wants to spin, she'll spin the right way. Annabelle does.

The music ends. We collapse back up in the booth. I am gagging from smoke deep down in my lungs. Then I feel a hand caressing the back of my neck. Annabelle is too far away, and I don't think Veer is getting frisky on me— I whip around, and a bleach-blonde grammaw in the next booth is cackling.

Time to go. We see the Owner of the Bonaparte at the front entrance, haggard, hair messed up. I shake his hand. "Bonsoir monsieur—remember you invited me?—well I came, and thanks! Great time!" then I run to catch up with the other two.

"Hey. Had to play the game back there, be the diplomat."

"Ze hypocrite."

"This town's too damn small to go tellin' the truth."

——————————————

So, about the time I was watching a girl drive away in a Ford Fiesta after waving and shouting and blasting her horn to wake up all my neighbors, back in town, next to Amazone, my friends Stephane and Emily somehow attracted the attention of a psycho who hit really hard and really fast and who busted Stephane's head up very bad. Emily jumped between them only to get slugged herself. Then the psycho tried to steal her phone from her while she was calling for an ambulance. Only after her repeated screams got other people to show up did the psycho leave. Dripping blood, Emily and Stephane walked to a better area to wait for the ambulance. Cops drove up. Stephane and Emily shouted at them. The cops drove away. Eventually the two of them got to the hospital.

They can bull-doze the Amazone, and it won't be a day too soon for me.