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

It is 12:48 am, and the car is blazing away by the canal. Rolling flames billow out of its cracked windows. Smoke drifts down through this district of little bars as waiters stack plastic tables and chairs, getting ready to close.

Maybe it started by accident. I seriously doubt it. Burning cars here is such a common occurence that there is even a special verb for it: "cramer".

Crime reflects society's values. In the US, they'd steal your car, sell it, and make money. The entrepreneurial spirit. Burning the car, on the other hand, is the perfect French crime: It allows you to show the maximum amount of spite while making zero profit.

But wait, what's that? I see a group of French university students rushing to the rescue—it is too late to save the burning car, but they are making every effort to protect the two that are parked on each side of it—some of them have commandeered a mop-bucket from one of the bars and are filling it from a tap and sloshing it at the burning car. It's helping a little. Someone has found a hose and is trying to reach the flames with it. Several husky fellows have lifted the end of one of the as-yet unburning cars and are steadily heaving it a little farther from the heat. It is a show of initiative and daring.

Did I just see that? OF COURSE NOT. Where do you think you are, Kansas, or Uganda, or some other place where people look out for each other?

No, the group of 20 or so students mill about doing nothing. When I ask them why nobody did anything when the fire first started, they laugh at me. I have forgotten the number one rule of problem-solving in France:

Step One: Is the problem your fault?

if NO: Now there is no problem.

if YES: Deny guilt. Now there is no problem.

It is a beautiful self-contained reality, and you can use it for anything: an asteroid hurtling towards the earth, the Wehrmacht breaking through the defenses on the Meuse, a couple of extra cars catching on fire... if it is not your fault, the problem has been solved.

I look at these tall, wed-fed, over-educated students, The Leaders of Tomorrow. I know for a fact that they can hold long conversations spending hours in frenzied analysis of what Voltaire meant by a particular comma in one edition of his works, a comma not found in another edition published a year later, but not one of these geniuses could hustle up a damn mop-bucket when the car first started burning.

I find myself thinking unkind thoughts about the genetic consequences of killing off your aristocracy.

Ah, the Police have shown up, two cars, six guys. They will whip out a fire-extinguisher or something, at least keep the flames from spreading.

Well, I guess not. They start ambling around like stunned chimps, more or less watching the fire. It is immediately obvious to them that the fire is Not Their Fault. Problem solved.

They stand around. They don't even go talk to the students, y'know, maybe ask if they saw how it started. Get a description of a suspect. Maybe do a little police work. I almost choke on an urge to yell, "Why don't you DO anything" at them, because I know the one thing they WOULD do, swiftly and viciously, is put me face-down on the wet cobblestones if I did.

So I talk to them in the Wonderful World of My Imagination instead.

Me: "Howdy Chief. Hot night in the old town, whaddaya say?"

Cop: "Eet is not my fault."

Me: "Figured as much. So, hey, I guess you're gonna get out the old fire-extinguisher now?"

Cop: "Ze what?"

Me: "Fire-extinguisher. You must carry them, car-burning is more common than Perrier here, you guys even got a verb for it..."

Cop: "Ah, oui. But eet is inutile, ze car, she is already, 'ow you say, cramé. En tout cas, eet is not my fault. Ze pompiers, zey weel put eet out, so zere is no need to waste ze fire-extinguiSHAIR."

Me: "But what about the cars on each side? If that fire gets hot enough, it's gonna ruin those other peoples' cars too."

Cop: "Eet is not *my* fault eef zey choose to park foolishly next to a burning car."

Me: "Why, you gutless drone! You get paid off the taxes of the people whose cars you are watching burn! You're a disgrace! You—"

At this point the imaginary cops are throwing me down and tear-gassing me, so I retreat from the Wonderful World of My Imagination, back into the far-safer reality.

Yes, it looks like the paint on the adjacent cars is starting to crinkle. They will go up soon.

And here come the pompiers, the firemen, with a little firetruck. They ease up right behind the car, which is going really great by now. Several pompiers are walking behind the truck, more spill out. They are stocky guys with full-faced helmets, gloves, and yellow jumpsuits made out of some thick material.

They get right down to business. A couple of them get hoses going onto the car. The car starts rocking with small explosions. I am certain that the gas-tank is about to blow and set some of them on fire, suits or no suits.

I am watching the pompiers, and for the first time tonight, I am watching people I care about. They are close enough that they are in real danger.

The explosions start. kBOOOMPOOMPOOM! The flames mushroom out sideways and the buildings turn orange in the light.

Me, I would have been running away like a scalded dog. These pompiers don't even flinch. They rush in close enough to touch the car, up into the flames, and they *stay* there, fighting them out.

Damn, these boys are studs.

If you ever meet a pompier, do me a favor:

Buy him a beer.