by Walter Agnew Moore II
20 May 2002, Amiens, France

It is a bank holiday here, so everything is closed, including the cafe where I was going to buy the international phone card so I can change my flight date back to the States. I just found work here for the month of June, so having a return flight on the 23rd of May is somewhat inconvenient.

A bank holiday also means that there is no point in going up to the Campus to grade exams. I won't be able to get into the empty locked buildings.

I head down the hill towards the middle of town. I have nothing to do until 6.

I know the couple in the parked Winnebago-travel-trailer thing are going to ask me for directions before they do. I slow down and make eye contact. The woman on the passenger side calls me "monsieur" with a German accent.

"Monsieur, monsieur, pardon—la cathédrale est où?"

"The cathedral?"

"Ja, la cathédrale—"

That's so simple, and so hard. The cathedral is huge. You can see it from miles out of town in any direction. You just can't see it from right here. And there is no way they are going to find a parking spot for this tank in the middle of town—I am not sure they could even get it in one of the underground parking garages.

We hash it out in a mix of bad German-French and bad English-French. Bluecher and Wellington live again. They thank me in English. I am 5 minutes away when it occurs to me I could have told them how to get there in German. It's not Goethe: "straight, then right, then left."

None of my favorite sandwich-shops are open. I stroll down the pedestrian Rue de Trois Cailloux, and I spot the Drunk American Girl with a baguette. This is unusual, the last few times I saw her, it was night-time or early morning, and she was clutching a bottle of wine. Usually her second or third bottle.

The last time I saw the Drunk American Girl, she was blotto, in the street outside the Steack Easy, yelling at me to invite her in. I didn't.

"hey walter... what's up..."

"Hey, how's it going, how 'bout this holiday? Town's shut down."

"yeah, it is, i need some GROCERIES, i found this bread, but everything's closed..."

"There's Mcdonalds."

"ugh..."

"There's Quick."

"DAMN... quick...i ate that stuff too many times comin home hammered..."

"That's right, you live down there, by Steack Easy."

"yeah...hey, see ya..."

McDonalds. I usually avoid fast food, trying to make it to age 45. But here I am with my Menu Filet-O-Feesh and my Deluxe PotaTOES and my Coca. This is the Frenchest restaurant in town. It is next to two movie theaters, and you see every type of person in here.

The restroom door opens and a little red-headed boy with a round face and round glasses steps out. He holds his arm straight behind him keeping the door open, and he smiles at nothing in particular. He stands there for about 20 seconds without changing pose or expression.

The women who comes out past him in the wheelchair is only about 25 or so. She has curly brown hair but the same face, glasses, and smile.

They stay there getting organized. The little boy has a yellow back-pack and a toy, some sort of orange plastic binoculars. The woman is trying to adjust the straps of his pack for him, and he is struggling this way and that. I am afraid he will tip her over side-ways.

She never stops smiling.

He stands with his pack on his back, the binoculars to his eyes, staring at something up by the ceiling. She starts wheeling towards the front entrance. He stands there, then yells "Maman!". He scrambles past her and opens the front door by mashing his little shoulder into it, then he turns and holds it open for her.

I finish my meal and leave a minute later.

I see them far down the street. They have stopped, and his pack is off, on the ground next to her. He is hunkered down, studying his toy. She is pulling a small green sweater out of the pack. I can see her straightening out the little arms of the sweater, turning it around over his head.