or, A Stroll in the Country, with Song Lyrics Included
by Walter Agnew Moore II
14 May 2002, Amiens and points north, France

I've got two tangerines, a baguette cut in two, and a bottle of water in my side-bag. I've got on a t-shirt because it's hot, and a long-sleeved shirt because it never stays hot. Jeans. I've got my new Italian hiking boots with the bouncy step. I've got a roll of that pink European toilet paper in the bag as well, because this is not the first time I have ever gone on a hike.

I'm going to Poulainville. Poulainville is only 4 or 5 miles north of Amiens, but you can't get there from here. I know. This is the third time I have tried.

The first time, I was on my bike, and headed directly towards Poulainville. I ended up in a boggy field with no road, staring down at a whizzing four-lane highway cut down in a trench with no access and no way across.

The second time, I walked. I took the main route. Except it wasn't. It ever so slightly veered to the north-east and took me into a seeming Poulainville-less alternate universe.

I found out my mistake when I got home and did what I should have done first: check the map. This time I have the map with me, a super-detailed product of the Institut Geographique National, 3615 IGN, 2308 O, Amiens. 1 cm. = 250 m. Every building, barn, outhouse, pigsty, highway, driveway, railspur, lane, gravel pit, and potato field is rendered with loving care.

I'll find Poulainville this time.

Rimu said that if I wanted any more curry, I would have to make her go hiking. I like curry. I pop the portable out of my pocket as I swing down the hill towards St. Leu.

"Hey, Birthday Girl!"

"Walter!"

"Shake off that hangover—we're going on a hike."

"Ah, I can't—Hema is coming, and Veer and I are going to get her."

"Hema—she's in town today?"

"We're not sure, we're trying to find her right now, Veer's on the other phone..."

And indeed he is. I can hear him in the background getting directions from somebody.

"Sorry Walter—maybe we can do something tonight."

"Yeah OK."

The trick to finding the D11 road to Poulainville, according to map 2308 O, Amiens, is to cut through the communal gardens at Le Pigeonnier. Le Pigeonnier is an HLM, or public housing project. It is what passes for the bad side of town here.

Now, by "bad side of town", I don't mean the American euphemism that means "where we make the black people stay". Le Pigeonnier is pretty well integrated. You have all kinds of people here. No, maybe I wouldn't stroll around at 4 am here, still, this is a functioning neighborhood with regular stores and a hopeful normal feeling about it, quite unlike a public-housing project in, say, Houston, with a liquor store on every corner surrounded by broken glass and crazed winos.

I said it's the bad side of town because this is where a gang of kids burned a bus right at the start of the American bombing in Afghanistan. Some said the crowd that gathered chanted "Osama ben Laden" at the fire-fighters. I don't know.

Looks pretty calm right now. There are little Chinese kids riding their bikes in the lanes in the communal gardens.

I swing out onto the D11.

You can see the towns way off here. Picardy is not flat—it rolls. There are patches of woods. You can see for miles when you are at the top of a rise, and pick out the brown steeples of the village churches, each one in the middle of a clump of houses two or three miles from a similar clump.

The towns don't spread out into the fields, which right now are canary-yellow with rape-plant flowers, or light green with wheat. The wind never stops moving the plants, and insects are starting to buzz in the sun. The sky is always changing from blue to grey and back to blue again.

My side-bag is French Army issue, circa 1950. I like the old stuff for hiking and camping. Heavy thick canvas, brass buckles, leather straps. Let the gear-heads save a gram here and there with space-age fluorescent equipment. Give me the solid browns and greens. If it weighs a little more, well, I'll get strong.

I keep one of the two straps fastened—you never know when you may have to move fast, and one time spilling everything out is enough. I leave the other loose, and the brass tip dings like a bell on the buckle with every other step I take.

The rhythm takes me back to another march, and I start to hum an old song. Then I sing it. I look around, and there's no one for miles, just wind and fields. I belt it out at the top of my lungs.

"I hear you calling
Calling my name
I hear you calling
Calling my name
Eyes of Battle
The Cavalry
I hear you calling
Calling my name
We fought at Bastogne
We fought at Mainz
I hear you calling
Calling my name"

That steeple ahead must be Poulainville. I check the map. No, that's Coisy, farther away. Poulainville is right over that valley to the left. I am almost there.

Map 2308 O says that this dirt road to the side hooks into what looks like the old road between Amiens and Poulainville. And it goes past that little patch of woods which are attracting me at the moment.

Say "Hi" to the husband and wife bicyclists, stand on the grass in the middle to let them pass me on each side in the dirt ruts. Duck into the woods to pee. There are charred logs in here from a campfire. I can smell a faint whiff of smoke. I keep my ears open for movement.

On the old road to Poulainville, there are rabbits everywhere. Big ones, baby ones. They scamper off the road into the brambles and hedges on each side.

Somewhere along through here I remember Stephane's party last night, all the dancing. I think that's why my right knee twinges. I eat a tangerine and toss the peel into the brambles, then I get out the portable and texto him:

"YEAUX—WHAT WAS THE FRENCH RAP WE WERE LISTENING TO LAST NIGHT? W"

This may surprise some of you, but really, I don't hate rap. I love the beat, the sampling, in fact, I love everything about American rap except the lyrics. My impression of it was warped early on by that song "Shit Mothafucka", you know that song? It goes like this:

"Shit Mothafucka
Say Damn Mothafucka
Fuck YOU Mothafucka
Yo Bitch Mothafucka
Shit shit"

You know that one? It's the one I always hear when I am driving my senile grandmother around and we stop at a light, and some chicken-necked ball-cap-wearing white boy in a pickup truck pulls up next to us blasting "Shit Mothafucka" at grenade-explosion levels. And then I have to explain to my grandmother why he is doing that, without voicing my true opinion that the child lacks a penis.

I don't know why I bother. Grammaw was a hootchie-mama flapper in her day. I am the one bored and irritated by "Shit Mothafucka", not her.

But this stuff we heard last night... it was smooth.

I get a buzz back. The message says:

"Hi walt! The song's called 1m73 62 kilos by scottie. And its almost as good as pigfuck's hit single 'cheeky bitch' !! C ya l8r! Stef."

Hmm... Stephane and I are largely responsible for the existence of the band PF. That "hit single" is a reference to his girlfriend Emily getting kicked out of a bar and then kicking out one of the windows. But it does help ventilate the place now—it used to be far too smoky.

Why am I walking up between the houses of Poulainville now? Because I have walked or biked in every one of the cardinal directions out of Amiens except north. I get the impression nobody ever *walks* into this town anymore.

Look over there on the right. Four or five people standing around a car, One of them is holding a fat black puppy out at arm's length and talking to it. The pup wiggles. The man puts it on the ground, and it flops over on its back. His friend rubs its belly with his toe. You see it thumping its tail?

ROWR a big black dog springs against the fence to my left. He was certainly surprised to see a pedestrian on this road. The woman digging down in the garden yells at him. We wave.

I walk past a bleak closed one-star hotel-bar next to the church and touch the church door. Then I sit on the bench and look at the map some more. Two or three things farther up the road pique my curiosity.

A tall young man on a skate-board scrapes around in the empty street. Another man sits by the bus stop. Three teen-age girls walk by side by side past the small memorial.

I actually know one person from this town. Really pretty short woman with blonde hair in a long braid. I remember how she cracked up at the Beat Farmers song "Happy Boy". I start thinking of the lyrics:

"I'ma walkin down the street on a sunny day
Hubba hubba hubba hubba bubba
Got a feelin in my bones things are goin my way
Hubba hubba hubba hubba bubba
Cuz I'm a happy boy (HAPPY BOY)
Happy boy (HAPPY BOY)
Ain't it great when things are goin your way-hay-hay?"

I am almost out of town, and I blurt out "HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA HUBBA BUBBA". An old woman in a doorway with grey hair in a long braid jumps back—we didn't see each other. "Pardon, pardon, excusez-moi..."

The sign says Coisy is only 1.5 kilometers that way.

I am in Beat Farmers mode still, singing "California Kid" in the empty fields, looking at the low hill of Coisy walking slowly towards me.

"I rode into town on a crippled horse
Fired from a cattle-drive
Up north
The ropes of the gallows
Were swayin in the breeze
All the wanted posters had
Pictures of me"

I am almost at the edge of town.

"Got my Colt .45
Right by my side
I'm the California Kid
Hope you're quite prepared to die"

That's when I see the machine-gun nest.

They would have seen me 15 minutes ago, whoever they were. I can only guess whether it was the French or the Germans who built this little cinder-block bunker here on this back way into a tiny village. There is no doubt about what it was—you can reach inside the concrete firing slits and touch a rusty steel machine gun mount that is suspended from the roof by a single bolt. It still rotates smoothly—the gunner could have moved it by sitting on the mount and pushing the ground with his feet.

There are steel plates attached to the mount that protect the gunner's sides.

If this thing had even one bush in front of it at the time, it would have been invisible. There must be other ones hidden nearby, to protect each others' flanks.

I can't figure out how they got in and out. Then the second time around it I see a hole at ground level. I missed it because of all the weeds in front of it. I push them aside and look in.

DAMN. Stinging nettles. My hand burns where I touched them. I jerk back, and get out my water and pour it over my right arm. It doesn't help, this stuff is not like poison ivy, no oil to wash off.

It's not too bad, but my desire to crawl into the bunker is gone. I walk up into town and touch the church door.

My next stop will be Bertangles, a mile or two across the main highway. More specifically, the Chateau of Bertangles, with its long tree-lined driveway. That's what it shows on map 2308 O.

On the way out of Coisy, I look into a roadside chapel. There is a painted statue of Mary. It reminds me of a lost day.

On the way to the chateau drive, I hear a farmworker driving a machine, singing his lungs out. A woman is picking salad greens by the side of the road. She gets in her car and drives away before I get near. A sign says the intersection is 150 meters away. That doesn't look right to me, so I count my paces and then do the conversion.

Turns out it's more like 120. I guess they add in the distance you would be when you see the sign.

The old entrance to the chateau drive is grown over and has a gate across it. I test my no-oil hypothesis about stinging nettle and wade through them. A car going by on the main road behind me beeps at me.

My driveway is still looking pretty good. The trees still tower on each side and lean into the middle, dark trunks and light green leaves. If you listen you can hear horses on the gravel.

There are a lot of cars parked at the end of the drive, with more pulling up in front of my chateau at the end. I step off to the side of the drive and walk on the path that parallels it. I step through the trees and see a field that has been planted with a regular pattern of birches. This is new. There is something funny about the light, the tree trunks look like they are floating.

I walk back to the gate and walk past families who don't seem to see me. There is a poster by the gate for the 93rd Exposition of the Friends of the Arts of the Somme. I go in.

On the vast lawn is a little boy prancing about with a toy sword. His mother, on the bench, tells him to go run to the flag. The yellow flag on a stick flaps at the other corner of the lawn. He runs, his boots are too big, he laughs and staggers, he keeps running.

I sit on the stone steps by the front door and eat my bread and drink my water. A small boy and girl keep walking up and down the steps next to me, very close, staring at me.

Inside, the man sells me a catalog for three Euros. I enter a raffle drawing. Am I Dutch? No, monsieur.

The art runs the range. It's worth looking at. I am one of the few not wearing a suit. I pay close attention to the woodwork on the doors, the ceilings. I look into that mirror.

I stand by a back window and stare out at the long grassy space that stretches away between the trees.

When I leave, I let myself out the side gate. It opens. The lady sitting by the side door smoking the cigarette nods to me. I go walking through the outbuildings, towards the chapel.

The two small boys kicking a soccer ball in front of the chapel break the spell. I breath fresh air, and I look at the duck pond, the cafe, the farmer selling salad greens on the honor system.

I take the old road to Amiens south out of Bertangles, le chemin d'Amiens. It soon turns to dirt. Rain hits my face then passes. Those woods to the right, I estimate them to be 400 meters away.

Map 2308 O says they are about 375 from where I stand. I step out south with a long pace.

"I hear the choppers coming
They're hovering overhead
They've come to take the wounded
They've come to take the dead—Cavalry........
Recon........"

By the time I get to the rusted rail-road line I am getting tired. There is a dry snail shell on the track with a ring of orange around it. The biggest rabbit, I have seen so far is sitting frozen on the track watching me. I imagine being really hungry with a rifle.

Yes, he'd give me time to aim. Then I walk towards him, and he disappears. My left foot touches the road 20 times to the spot where he was sitting. Only about 35 meters.

I would have been eating that rabbit. All of a sudden I remember that was my name when I was a little boy, Peter Rabbit. I had a toy rabbit and my grandparents started calling me that. Soon, I got more rabbit toys because it was my nickname. And then when I was 4 or 5, I would constantly crawl out through the hedge behind our house, where my mother assumed I was safely penned in and playing, and I would go wander the neighborhood chatting up the neighbors.

How would you cook a rabbit? I guess the simplest thing would be to remove everything that didn't look like meat, then stew it up with some carrots and stuff. I have cleaned fish, it must be the same general idea.

I see my first poppies by the closed factory. So red against the green grass that they hurt my eyes. I pick one and put it in my wallet next to that goofy picture of Lulu and Celia.

An hour later, I walk into the front door of My Goodness Irish Pub. There is a poster for the 93rd Exposition of the Friends of the Arts of the Somme at the Chateau of Bertangles right by the door. I never noticed it before.

Soren is sitting cross-legged on a stool at the bar. I sit next to her and we start laughing, telling stories. I mention Bertangles and the art.

"My grandmother had a chateau—" she says.

"A what?"

"A chateau. When she was young. And a little caleche to go riding in with her horse. We had to sell it, it was too expensive to keep up. It is sad, the last time I saw it, the roof was falling into ruin."

"When the roof goes, it all goes."

"Yes." She sips her orange juice, then nods.

"My grandmother used to ride around in a buggy too when she was young, it was a different world. She'd wander the woods, just her and a dog, her mom said—"

She looks at me, and I look at her and we both start laughing. I always thought she had powerful eyes. She looks at me. I stop laughing and see her for the first time—
From over my shoulder: "WALTER! Le Pirate! What did you DO today?"

I give Celia her hug as she comes around in front of me. "I walked up to Poulainville and—"

"Poulainville? There is NOTHING out there!"

"I don't agree, I—"

"Nothing!" She smiles with half-closed eyes. She is laughing at me.

"But I saw—"

"NOTHING! There's NOTHING out there!" And Celia laughs.

————————
That night Rimu and Veer and Hema and I sit in another pub, and I listen to them exchange stories about Kenya.

Veer can imitate half the accents of different ethnic groups there, and Hema does a pretty good job with the rest. Rimu leans into the corner, unbelieving.

Hema went to an Arabic school there. "They taught me a prayer to chase away demons." Her favorite god is Ganesh. "He makes me happy. I see him, and I smile."

Veer says, "You know Ganesh, Walter? The Elephant God that Apu worships in the Simpsons?"

We amuse ourselves by writing everyone's name in two different Indian scripts, as well as Arabic, and Tolkien's Elvish.

"You learned to write *Elvish*?"

"It was more interesting than Geometry."

They discuss Gods and religions I haven't heard of. Then I perk up at the mention of Ganesh and milk.

"Wait wait wait," I say, "Veer, what's that about Ganesh and milk?"

"Well, Walter, a couple of year's back it was going around that the idols of Ganesh were drinking milk. You could hold the milk up to the statue, and it would drink it."

Hema says "I am not sure..."

Veer continues: "I didn't believe it either. I tried it with the statue of Ganesh at our house. You could see the milk going up inside it. The statue was hollow in back, but the milk didn't come out on that side. I couldn't believe it, but I saw it with my own eyes."

"You could see it."

"You saw it..?"

"With my own eyes."

———————————-

The song lyrics quoted in this story:

"Happy Boy" and "California Kid" are copyright The Beat Farmers.

"I hear you calling" and "Cavalry..." were learned at the Fort Knox Home For Boys.

"Shit Mothafucka" does not actually exist as a rap song. It just seems like it does.