I love Paris in the summertime
Less people if you can avoid the tourists and the lack of traffic after le Grand Depart seemed to clear the sky of pollution.
Of course the city empties out even more after the Grand Depart.
Back on a warm morning OF the July 14, 1985 I had driven my friend's Vespa 150cc motor scooter west past the Arc de Triumphe to Porte Dauphine into the Bois de Boulonge, once the royal hunting grounds. The park is twice the size of New York's Central Park. I took off the Bell helmet. The wind fragrant with nature blew through my hair. Les Brazilian putes were setting up their tents for le traffic des dejeuner or the lunch trade. Most were trans and I rolled past without a sideward glance. These girls brooked no gruff.
A bois is more a woods than a forest, but the green was a welcome change from the close street of le Marais, the old Jewish quartier, where I resided in a small room in a small hotel. Pulling over to a bank of the Lac Inferior to lay in the shade of an oak tree, I open my bag and spread out the pears and cheeses purchased from the shops of the Rue du Rivoli. After a few bites and a sip of a strong Cote de Rhine, I lay back and gazed meaninglessly at the cloudless sky. All the gray of Paris ceased to exist today and I felt one with the park.
A Citroen pulled onto the grass fifty feet beyond me. A family was inside. All their bags were packed on top of the sedan. An older man in his forties got out and pulled a well-coiffed poodle from the car. His children were crying. He picked up a stick from the ground and threw it into the woods. The dog chased the stick. The man jumped in the Citroen and the family drove away headed for the Alps, le Sud de France, or further afield in France. The big poodle came back and searched for the car.
It was gone.
The poodle looked at me.
I already had a dog waiting for me in the Marais. Angus. A loyal Scottie.
The poodle was on his own.
Later that night I related this tale to my fellow doorman at les Bains-Douches and Grand Jacques shrugged saying that the poodle had been abandoned by the family for the summer vacation.
"C'est le tradition."
Throughout August on my travels to the Bois I spotted the poodle running with other dogs. A shaggy pack. They seemed happy to be tramps. Free at last.
A month later I drove through the same section of the park and spotted a Citroen slowly cruising the woods. The same one, which had deserted Fifi the previous month. It braked at the same spot as July 14. It was August 15. The day after le Grand Retour from le Grand Depart.
The tanned driver got out and called for his dog.
"Fifi, Fifi."
I shook my head thinking him cruel, but Fifi bounded from the underbrush.
His hair was matted like a Rasta and his body was considerably thinner from a diet of squirrels and trash.
The man greeted his dog with a smile, as if this rendezvous had been planned from the start adn that they had experienced this reunion more than once before.
"Oh, Fifi, time for you to see the beauty salon."
The owner opened the door to Citroen. Fifi jumped inside withiut a snarl and they drove off in the direction of Neuilly-Sur-Seine, proving once more Josh Fielding's old adage, "A dog is the only animal that loves you more than it loves itself."
Even if their owners are Parisienne.
ps Angus was just as happy to see me that day.
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