THE ONLY YEH YEH GIRL

The teenagers of the 1950s worshipped Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Buddy Holly as gods albeit dead gods instead of risen god like Him of the Old Religion. The new generation of baby boomers preferred the living and the stars of the 1960s were transported by TV and radio to my family house under the Blue Hills south of Boston. Bob Dylan’s BLOWING IN THE WIND toppled Elvis off his throne and the Beatles stole girls from Bobby Rydell with I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND. Young boys worshipped movie actresses as wingless angels, whose beauty blazed eternal on the silver screens.

In 1965 Julie Christie won our hearts in DARLING and my older brother chose fur-bikinied Raquel Welch as his muse after her debut in 1,000,000 BC. The seductive virtues of various starlets were debated by the boys in my high school outside 128 in Boston. I held my sand ie said nothing, because I was searching for a goddess to call my own.

One cold January night I lay in bed in a split-level ranch house on the South Shore Snow clotted against the window. My older brother slept soundly under the covers. I was wide awake. My fingers turned the dial on the transistor radio. A wire running to a tiny ear plug transporting me across the Eastern Seaboard and beyond. Static, then the antenna caught a signal from Quebec transmitting a wavering female singing ‘La maison ou j’ai grandi’.

I cursed myself for not having paid more attention in my grammar school French classes and looked over to my brother’s bed. Dead asleep. I turned up the volume and rode the magic radio waves to the last fading notes of the guitar. The Montreal DJ announced with breathless admiration, “C’etait une autre tube par Francoise Hardy.” I hadn’t understand a word, but realized that Francoise Hardy couldn’t be anything other than an angel. My angel. I remained glued to the station on the St. Lawrence River and the DJ rewarded my devotion with other tubes like LE PREMIER BONHEUR DU JOUR, QUI PEUT DIRE, and L’AMITIE, after which he said, “Bonne anniversaire, Francoise.”

Somehow my brain translated those words into ‘happy birthday, Francoise’.

I was a fifteen year-old high school student living on the South Shore. The DJ announced that Francoise Hardy had just turned twenty-three and lived in Paris. Three thousand miles due east across the Atlantic. The chances of our meeting were nil and she was a woman and I was only a boy.

“Turn off that Frog crap.” my older brother mumbled from his pillows.

“Okay.”

I shut the radio and went to sleep confused by conflicting images of Francoise Hardy. I envisioned her as a blonde. I fantasized about her as a redhead. I woke early to a dream of her as a brunette. Dawn was barely up. Snow buried our suburban neighborhood. I dressed for the cold and descended to the kitchen.

“You’re awfully quiet,” my father said at the stove, as he cooked pancakes for my younger sisters and brothers.

“I’m thinking about changing my language from German to French.” In my freshman year the brothers had offered four languages; French, Spanish, German, and Latin. Students only take one. Most either Spanish or French. I chose German and Latin. I had never been able to explain why to anyone. Not even myself.

“I thought you liked German.” My father had studied French at college.

“I do.” I spoke it with a Boston accent much to the chagrin of Bruder Karl. My best grade had been a D+ and I had no feeling for Marlene Dietrich.

“Any reason for the change?”

“Maybe I’ll have more use for French.”

“Like for when you’re ordering French Fries from Simco’s at the bridge.” My older brother joked, as he sat at the table. My younger brothers and sisters laughed along with my father. Simco’s on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan had the greasy fries in Boston.

“Tres droll.”

I didn’t mention my restless night to my car pool friends, as we drove to high school on 128. My daydreams of Francoise Hardy consumed the morning math and biology classes. I barely listened to Bruder Karl. He was a good old Bavarian. After leaving his class, I had a study hall and went the library to search through the record collection. Brother Jerome, the librarian, was in his office. A freshman sat on his lap. One of his favorites.

I wandered over to the record trays and flipped through the LPs without finding a single French record. A few music stores in downtown Boston sold foreign music and I planned on heading to Washington Street after school.

“I’m not going home today?” I told my car pool.

“Where you going?” My best friend, Chuckie Manzi, wanted to join me.

“To see the dentist.” It was a good deterrent. No teenager liked the sound of the drill.

“You’re on your own.”

My friends dropped me at the Forest Hills T station and I got off at Washington Street. None of the big department stores had any French 45s or LPs. On the way to the Park Street Station I chanced upon a record store on Boylston across from Commons. The bearded owner looked like a beatnik. I was dressed as a mod.

“Can I help you?” Thousands of records according to genres were stacked against the wall.

“Do you have any Francoise Hardy?”

“How do you know about Francoise Hardy?” The older man seemed amused by my request.

“I heard her on a Canadian station.”

“Must have been a strong signal.” He went to the French section and pulled out a sealed LP.

“Francoise Hardy dropped out of the Sorbonne to record OH OH CHERI with Johnny Halliday. He’s the French Elvis. She became one of the biggest stars of Ye-Ye music and her hit TOUS LES GARCONS ET LES FILLES made the charts in the UK. I think it was 1964. This LP came out in 1962.”

He gave me the album. Up to this all I knew about the singer was that she was French. I held the cover in both hands. The name had a face. A cinnamon strands of hair streamed across feline eyes. An ivory hand held an umbrella with a detached interest. Francoise was a woman made for a rainy afternoon.

“Can I hear a little?”

“Sure.” The old man slipped the LP onto a Garrard 401 turntable and cued up LE TEMPS D’AMOUR.

A patter of drums opened the song. A twangy guitar and solid bass joined on the next bar. The singer wasted no time getting to the lyrics. They must have been about love. 2:27 passed in a second.

“What you think?”

“I’ll take it.” Her pose sold youthful innocence. I gave him $5. “Is this the only one you have?”

“Of that LP, yes, but I can get some of her other records, if you’d like.”

I nodded my answer and promised to return on the weekend.

“My name’s Osberg.” He handed me a business card. “Call to find out when to come in.”

“Thanks.” I left his shop and caught the T to Ashmont.

That evening after finishing dinner and my homework, I went down to the basement and put the LP on my father’s record player. My brother had a better one in our bedroom, but I wasn’t sharing Francoise Hardy with someone in love with a woman in a fake fur bikini, even if Frunk was my older brother. He had Raquel Welch to himself 100%. One play of her record and I became her biggest fan south of the frozen USA-Canada border.

Every night I listened to the Quebec stations in secrecy. Her songs soothed my soul lost in the empty suburbs south of Boston and I felt as long as she was out there, there was someplace other than here.

At school I hid my secret. THE only French we knew were the Canucks from Quebec. Good for playing hockey for the Boston Bruins. I didn’t want to risk their attacking Francoise. I bought several LPs from Mr. Osberg and as winter melted from New England, he introduced me to the other Ye-Ye girls; Frances Gall, Sylvie Vartan, and Jacqueline Ta’eb as well as the Sultans from Quebec and Serge Gainsbourg.

None of them were Francoise Hardy. I dreamed about flying to Paris. An airline ticket cost hundreds of dollars. I settled for listening to her music with my eyers closed.

In 1968 Francoise Hardy released COMMENT TE DIRE ADIEU written by Serge Gainsbourg. Mr. Osburg said that he was the wicked man in France and played his hit with Jane Birkin JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS.

Love dripped off the record. Mr. Osburg was right about this Gainsbourg man. He was as ugly as sin. I had to save Francoise and as soon as I arrived home, I asked my father, if we could vacation in France.

“They’re having riots there.” My father was very conservative. He tolerated the length of my hair, even if he thought I looked like a girl. “Students in the streets. Worse than the hippies. We’re going to the Cape.”

Our family rented three motel rooms in Harwichport. The pool overlooked the small harbor. The beach boasted the warmest water on Cape Cod and the sea registered 65 Fahrenheit by the 4th of July.

Every morning I read the Boston Globe. The newspaper covered the War in Vietnam with little mention of the Paris student unrest. I was certain that Francoise Hardy wasn’t the type of girl to get mixed up in trouble on the Left Bank. Not unless she fell into the hands of the evil Serge Gainsbourg and I plotted a trip to France. A rumor was whispered across Boston about a jet plane leaving Boston every morning for Paris. Its cargo of Maine lobsters was traded for eclairs, creme brulees, and pomme tartes. $100 round trip.

Two weeks before the start of school I emptied my bank account and took the T to Logan Airport early one morning. None of the terminals listed the ‘lobster’ flight and I spent the greater part of Saturday hunting for the mythic plane to Paris.

“Ha.” A Boston cop laughed upon hearing my query. “Once a week some kid comes up looking for that plane. There ain’t none. Some bullshit story someone invented for who knows why, but the weird thing is that all these kids want to meet the same girl. Francoise Hardy. You ever heard of her?”

“No.” These other boys’ feelings for Francoise Hardy could never rival my love.

“Me too. Must be some kind of film star. Like Brigitte Bardot.”

I fought back an explanation, not needing any more converts to the faith, and returned home in defeat. That summer America was deep mourning after the murder of RFK in LA. MRS. ROBINSON replaced Archie Bell and the Drells’ TIGHTEN UP as # 1, while Simon and Garfinkel sang about an older woman from the movie THE GRADUATE. Francoise Hardy was eight years older than me. I changed the words from Mrs. Robinson to Francoise Hardy. I never sang it in front of my girlfriend. Kyla was the same age as me.

COMMENT TE DIRE ADIEU was not a hit and the radio station in Quebec played less and less of her songs. Kyla and I went steady. I liked to think that Francoise would have approved of my selection, but I was stupid and left Kyla for no good reason in 1969. That year Francoise released Francoise Hardy en Anglais. Like the Catholic Mass in English her songs lost their magic in the translation.

My travels in the late-60s and 70s were confined to hitchhiking across America. None of the drivers played TOUS LES GARCONS ET LES FILLES, but I defended French music to hundreds of hippies, rednecks, and disco fanatics by saying, “You’ve never heard Francoise Hardy.”

In 1973 she appeared in the film SAVE THE TIGER. The American director failed to break the twenty-nine year-old singer to America. She remained a creature of France.

The Atlantic Ocean separated America from the Old World. My opportunity to cross the waters came in 1982, when I was hired to work as a doorman first to work at the Rex for the counter-culture magazine Actuel and then after a stay in Hamburg, the Bains-Douches, a popular Paris nightclub. At first I was unfamiliar with the French pop stars. Over the course of the next year I met Johnny Halliday, Yves Montand, Catherine Denevue, Yves St. Laurent, Coluche, countless Vogue models, arms dealers, and other lightbulbs of the night, but never Francoise Hardy and I asked the owner about her absence.

“She doesn’t go out at night. Her husband, Jacques Dutronc, is very jealous.”

“Of what?” Dutronc was a rock star for the French. Nobody in the USA knew his name, but ET MOI ET MOI ET MOI was a great song. I had it on tape. “Other men?”

My boss warned that her husband was capable of almost anything against any man seeking intimacy with his wife. “He is very much in love with her.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

My boss shrugged with mutual understanding, He was a Francoise Hardy fan too.

The nightlife was a small world in Paris and I didn’t mention Francoise’s name again. People had big mouths. Jacques Dutronc visited the club on several occasions. He was a star. I was no one. A thick cigar hung out of his mouth. I hated the smell. He never came with Francoise. The rumor was that she was terribly shy after having been the Ye-Ye Girl for so many years. I made her husband wait to get in more than once.

Jacques Dutronc complained to my boss, who laughed behind the singer’s back.

My job was to make French stars feel like getting into the Bains-Douches was a privilege. My friends were granted an easy entry, especially Suzi Wyss, the Swiss mistress of a Getty Oil heir. On my days off I smoked opium at her oriental pad in the 13th arrondisement. The Swiss courtesan was superb cook and traveled through many cliques. She called me poor poor Peter, but never turned her back on me. We were lovers. One night she invited me to a dinner, but said, “Don’t tell anyone, but Francoise Hardy will be coming.”

“I thought she didn’t go out.” This was a miracle.

“She doesn’t, but she loves my cooking and I am always discreet. So not a word.”

“Silence will be my vow” I wanted Francoise to myself. “Will her husband be there?”

“Not for dinner, but he might come for dessert. He has a thing for my Swiss chocolate torte.”

Suzi’s piece de resistance was a culinary delight and I prepared like a nameless suitor for this rendezvous with Francoise Hardy.

I bought a chalk white shirt from Agnes B and a gray suit from my tailor in the Sentier. No tie was better than pretending to be a business man and I purchased Cuban heels from the Marches Aux Puches flea market. They dated back to the time of her greatest success. I cut my hair short and didn’t bathe for two days to emulate French men, who avoided bathing in fear of losing their masculinity.

That evening I showed up on time with a bouquet of roses. Suzi loved flowers. We smoked hash. Opium was for after the dinner. The door bell rang at 9. Francoise arrived at the apartment with a young gay man. Yves knew me from les Bains. We opened a bottle of wine. She wasn’t a drinker, but was amused by my stories of New York nightclubs awash with beautiful women and crooked cops.

“It would make a good movie.”

“Only if you played the lead.” I envisioned us on the podium of the Academy Awards receiving Oscars.

“I’m too old to play that role.”

“You’re never too old to be a star.” I wanted to tell her I had loved her forever. Now was not thee time. Maybe never was the time. She was only thirty-nine. I was thirty. I told her the story of hearing her on the Montreal radio and the plane with the pastries. She laughed at my love from afar. She had had a lot of lovers like that in her life.

“Didn’t I tell he was sweet?” Suzi lit another joint.

“Sweet as your torte.”

I was falling in love again.

In fact I had never stopped loving Francoise. She spoke about her music and picked up a guitar from the corner. The Ye-Ye girl sang two new tunes. I was in paradise and was about to tell her about hearing her music on a little radio twenty years ago.

A knock on the door trashed my moment. The newcomer was Jacques Dutronc. Francoise’s face said that she loved him and no one else. Any man would have been a fool to not love her the same.

“I know you.” He pointed his cigar. “Bains-Douches. Doorman.”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“A writer too.” Suzi was on my side.

“Pouoff” Dutronc had witnessed thousands of writers attempt to seduce his wife. “Women only love directors and producers. They prefer chauffeurs before a writer.”

Francoise laughed at her husband’s joke. Suzi thought it funny too. I might have joined them, if the riposte hadn’t struck so deep. After Suzi’s famous Swiss Chocolate cake rejoined to the living room, where Jacques Dutronc picked up the guitar.

“Francoise and I recorded a song in 1978. BROULLIARD DANS LA RUE CORVISART.”

He put down his cigar and sang the song’s opening lines. Francoise accompanied him on the chorus. I applauded their duet as well as their shared love.The odds of my getting anywhere with Francoise were stacked higher than the records in Mr. Osburg’s music store. An hour later the famed couple left with the gay friend. Francoise didn’t even said good-bye. Jacques winked to me. I wouldn’t make him wait at the door any more.

“Poor Boy.” Suzi patted my cheek. “Everyone loves her.”

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

“And I know how to make you forget, if only for a few minutes.” Suzi handed me a pipe. Opium was a good doctor for an unrequited love. Suzzi was even better. A good friend in the slumber of her bed.

The three of us met several more times at Suzi’s apartment. The same routine as always, dinner, wine, and a joint or two. Jacques came late and they departed ensemble. Faithful forever. Suzi and I not faithful. Just lovers.

I imagined myself being him, but I didn’t like cigars and my French was even worse than my German. Francoise loved Jacques and that was good enough for me, because all men at one time in their lives need a goddess to teach them about love.

Even if they were another man’s woman.

To Hear Francoise Hardy's

please go to the following URL

Faster Than Light Beauty

I wish for a time machine to take me back to London.

1968.

Francoise Hardy on a motorbike.

I would have had a lot of competition and even though I would have only been sixteen, a good time would have been had by all.

Je l'adore.

In 1968 through eternity fast than speed itself.

To hear Francoise Hardy's version of the Kinks' WHO'LL BE THE NEXT IN LINE, please go to this URL;

SEASON OF THE WITCH / Julie Driscoll and Trinity

Young boys like older women.

In the 1960s old meant Brigitte Bardot, Peggy Lipton of the Mod Squad, and my favorite was Julie Driscoll who sang for Brian Auger and Trinity. She wore mod clothes. Her make-up was exotic. Her manner symbolized hip London. I dreamed about meeting her. I never came closer than buying their LP. I loved their version of Donovan's SEASON OF THE WITCH. Not enough to buy their CD, but I can watch the group play on Youtube and that is good enough for me.

I can relive the past only for short times.

3-4 minutes and then back to the modern world.

For a listen click on this URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpizS9h-1Xk&feature=related

ps in the end I loved Francoise Hardy more and her I met in Paris.

extremement belle.

published 2009

I Love France

During the 80s I was lucky enough to live in Paris. I worked as a doorman at Les Bains-Douches, la Balajo, and Nouvelle Eve. The French treated me right and I consider my many friends les bonnes amis.

I was lucky enough to make love to several French women.

I am still friends with them. Viv

a La France, especially Francoise Hardy, la plus belle chanteuse des 60s.

A bas l'ancien regime.

La Belle Francoise Hardy 1944-2024

Francoise Hardy remains an icon of beauty.

The brunette had tons of hits in the 1960s.

Francoise was the ultimate Yeh-Yeh Girl.

Sadly Francoise Hardy passed this past week.

But Mlle. Hardy remains a beauty.

And Forever.

"When I write, it is always the melody that comes first, and it just happens to be the case that the most beautiful tunes are sad, and the lyrics follow the mood of the melody." Francoise Hardy

ps if you want to speak French comme une francais, sing along with Francoise.

A Life Worth Living - Francoise Hardy

“If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn't be worth living.” Friedrich Engels

Francoise Hardy Eternity-1944-2024-Eternity

"I never get bored. There isn't enough time in the day for me." FH

IN ABSENCE OF AMNESIA - Chapter 3 by Peter Nolan Smith

That night I stopped at a disco on Rue Montmartre, intending to wait out Brigitte's early morning departure. Philippe's previous girlfriend danced with a natural wantonness to WARM LEATHERETTE. Her partner was a famous French singer. My eyes x-ed him from the club.

Honey-hued skin covered the teenager's long lean limbs. Lisa had possessed the same boyish body. Candia noticed my staring and I turned to the bar. The cold beer in my hand was empty and I would have left, if Candia hadn't accosted me.

"Your friend Che says you're good in bed."

"She was exaggerating." Lying was more like it.

"She didn't seem the type to joke about sex." A finger toyed with a froth of golden hair. "And I saw the way you looked at me."

"My cousin says you can tell how someone fucks by the way they dance." I was trying to scare the half-Puerto Rican/Jewish teenager from any entanglement with someone almost twice her age, but Candia simply smiled and said, "Long and hard."

"Shouldn't you be home?"

"Girls like me aren't expect to be Cinderella." A kiss led to my hotel, where she stripped off my clothes with teenage hunger. She emerged the victor. On sweat-damp sheets Candia said, "You weren't half-bad."

"Not the best?" My flesh was scrapped raw.

"My ex was huge." She stroked me to a painful hardness and lay on her stomach with her ass in the air. "I like it from behind. It makes you seem bigger."

I attributed the marathon to her half-Puerto Rican/half Jewish blood. As she got dressed, I thought that was it, instead she said, "You have no one and I have no one. Everyone else does. Winter is coming on. I don't like sleeping in a cold bed. You want to live with me?"

"What about love?" Staking my heart on a teenager's whim was a risky proposal. My other choice was more of the same of the months before last night. I played the long odds.

"I think you know the difference." She kissed my cheek once and went to the door. "Most men do by your age. So what will it be? Me or a long cold winter?"

"Warm in bed sounds good."

Candia went home to inform her mother, while I crossed the river to Brigitte's apartment. She considered my moving as a betrayal of her dog's love. As a friend she should have wished me good luck, stead she said,

"What does a man want from a woman? To be his bride? The mother of his children? What can that little bitch know about love?"

"About as much as anyone." No formula predicted the paths of the heart.

"You think sex will help you forget that girl from Buffalo?" Brigitte's jealousy was more deep-rooted. "Fucking is not the answer."

"Neither is sleeping alone." I packed my bags in five minutes. Angus whined his good-bye and Brigitte asked for the keys. One word would have saved my long train ride to the 15th arrondisement, except the door shut and I heard the TV telling the news. I walked out of the building and caught a taxi on the bridge.

The driver knew the address. Candia's atelier at the artist refuge La Ruche was located across from Paris' Lost and Found Bureau. Her airy 1930s artist loft contrasted with the quartier's dreary buildings. My house-warming gifts were a stereo tape deck and an unspoken vow of fidelity. Candia slept in my arms surrounded by Mickey Mouse dolls. My French improved in bed, although the honeymoon period had a short shelf-life.

I stole books about love and sex. The millions of words failed to answer any question about love. Candia sensed my malaise and suggested a psychiatrist, who prescribed pills. The downers offered more emptiness and I threw them into the gutter.

We ate boudin with her mother on Sundays and dined at cous-cous restaurants on Monday. We vacationed twice in Normandy. Our reflection in the store windows mirrored those of content couples as long as I didn't look in our eyes.

Bernard opened a dance club near Opera. Le Reve's plush decor harkened back to the 50s. The young rich loved the mix of soul and classic French hits stitched together by Bernard's world hits. We hired a young black bouncer to handle the voyous. Jacques had run with several gangs from the outer suburbs. A two-year stint in prison had not soured his smile. The young girls from the good neighborhoods thought the muscular Martiniquean handsome and came in droves to try their luck.

These beauties in turn attracted men who brought them drinks. A glass of champagne cost $20 and Le Reve coined money.

A week after the opening an older man entered with two dowdy women in fluffy coats. His nose was splayed across his upper lip like a wet sox. An argument ensued with the cashier about the cover charge.

"Give one reason you don't have to pay and you can come in for free." I could tell he had been someone once. "All you have to say is you're friends with Moses and you're in."

"We never pay," the ex-fighter rasped in a punished voice. "Not to un putain Amerlot."

"Fucking American." The insult was rewarded with an immediate response. "Jacques, escort these frogs out of the club."

Puzzlement mired on Jacques' face and the fiftyish blonde woman glared with disbelief. She looked very familiar and I ran out to say they could come in, except they had already reached the boulevard.

"So can you explain why you threw out Brigitte Bardot?" Bernard asked at the door.

"Brigitte Bardot?" The boxer's companion re-assembled into the legendary sex symbol of AND GOD CREATED WOMEN as would anyone who was Brigitte Bardot.

The story of her rejection hit the morning papers and I expected the Paris Police to begin deportation proceedings, instead the passage of time had rendered the animal lover's beauty passe to today's youth and our business doubled with their appreciation of my indiscretion, though Bernard suggested that I be more tact in the future.

"We will be old one day too."

At home the story between Candia and me was fraying at the edges, for the happiness of a relationship can be measured by the distance between a man and woman in bed and my arrivals near dawn earned Candia's back. Our lovemaking diminished to a monastic stalemate and her silence indicted every man as a potential threat.

We needed time apart and Candia spent the summer modeling in Japan. I called Tokyo every night. Her rare pick-ups mimicked Lisa's vanishing act in Europe and my imagination painted of a pantheon of Japanese men eating sushi off her body. Sherri came to perform a series of lesbian films in Versailles. This time she was alone. Che had run off with a man.

"Why are we unlucky in love?" I asked at La Coupole Brasserie.

"We are lucky in love. It's relationships we suck at," Sherri eyed a fresh-faced Sorbonne student, then her lids drifted across her irises. She was treating her pain with drugs. "At least long relationships."

"Any time I've been faithful to a woman, it's ended badly." Most of my romances had ended like a 747 cartwheeling into an Iowa cornfield.

"Any time you have been unfaithful you've achieved the same result." Her remedy for a broken heart was an orgy of women topped by heroin.

"Meaning?" My remedy was more wine.

"Meaning you shouldn't worry so much about love." Sherri autographed a waiter's bill. She had fans everywhere. "You can't do anything about the things you can't do anything about."

"So nothingness is easier to achieve than somethingness." I envisoned sitting in bed alone with the clock ticking out the seconds at the speed of a 45 spinning at 16 RPMs.

"No, some things you can't change, because they're beyond your power."

"So I should do nothing."

"Something will happen when you least expect it."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then I'll push your wheelchair down the stairs when you're 80."

"That a promise?" Earlier would be better.

"We're family. Remember?" At least Sherri had Boo although parrots usually outlive their owners.

"Cousin and cousin."

"Forever."

Sherri huffed some Persian Brown and nodded into the brasserie banquet.

I ordered another bottle of Sancerre. I leaned against Sherri after the second. I don't receall how I got back to Impasse Dantzig. I slipped into bed and thought about my life.

At thirty-two I should have had a wife, a car, and kids plus a dog and bills.

I probably should have drunk another bottle of wine.

I reached over for Candia. The bed was empty. She was still in Japan. I dressed quietly and went to the phone booth in front of the Bureau Des Choses Trouves et Perdus. I dropped several 10-Francs cons and the slot and came home. My father answered and asked, "When are you going to settle down?"

"You mean move to Boston and live like everyone else?"

"It worked for your mother and me."

"I'll give some thought."

"You're only thirty-two. Don't throw the rest of your life away."

"I won't." I didn't have the heart to tell him that living with a teenager in Paris was as settled as I could manage in 1984. He was a 9-to-5 guy and loved my mother at first sight.

Candia returned in late August. We didn't have much time left. The phone rang at odd hours. If I answered, the caller hung up.

Suspicions bred accusations bound by resentment and we would have probably broken up, except Middle East terrorists bombed Paris to gain freedom for three imprisoned comrades.

A Sunday night explosion on Rue Faux barely scratched its target and no one had been injured, however the rest of the street got off less fortunate than the Israeli bank. The blast shattered every window on the block, charred a dozen cars, and shoved our nightclub's ornate entrance onto the dance floor.

"On a la chance." Bernard gingerly ran his finger over the blistered woodwork.

"Yes, we were damn lucky." If Le Reve had been open, the casualty list would have topped a hundred. The possibility of a thirty-two year-old American heading the 'dead' list didn't deter a police inspector from interrogating un estranger as the primary suspect.

"Merely a formality."

"Do I need a lawyer?" I asked the policeman and he shook his head with a laugh. "Not unless you are guilty."

Bernard agreed with this assessment and advised to do nothing until charged or arrested. As a French citizen he was familiar with the Napoleonic legal aberration of guilty until proven innocent. His nonchalance demeanor evaporated with the contractor's estimate that the repairs would take at least a month.

"This is impossible." He ranted against the sloth of French workers. A few glasses of cognac redirected his rancor to the real culprits. "C'est le guerre."

And the war killed and maimed innocent people throughout the French capitol in revenge for the victims of a murderous foreign war. Thesocialist government played tough guy. Having escaped one bombing I imagined lightning wouldn't strike twice and resumed my normal walks around the city.

Two days later I had a coffee at the Cafe Tartine in St. Paul. I visited the Eglise St. Gervais and lit a few candles for peace. I might ahve been an atheist, but childhood habits died hard. I walked across the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville, enjoying the spring sun on my skin.

A powerful detonation knocked me off my feet. The ringing in my ears was replaced by the cries and I ran to the post office to extract the wounded from the debris. At home I washed off the dust and decided to not give the terrorists a third shot and bunkered for the siege's duration at Candia's apartment.

Two days later the modeling agency cancelled her bookings. The seventeen year-old was more bored than scared by this enforced confinement. Her phone conversations were conducted in whispers.

"We should go to America." Only one hope existed for us.

"You think I can work in New York?" Candia's career was in a state of stagnation, since the better-paying commercials and editorial work in France were reserved for girls with Caucasian roots.

"They love girls like you there." A mulatto stood a slightly better chance in America, plus a friend was the photo editor for Details and another comrade shot photos for Elle.

"New York has to be safer than Paris."

"Fantastique. I want to visit Disneyworld." She squealed with teenage delight.

"Yes, we can go see Mickey." I didn't explain Orlando was over 1200 miles from New York and reaped the benefits of that deceit in bed.

In the morning I opened the atelier windows. A soft breeze carried the traces of Africa. I listened for anything else and heard no explosions. At noon Radio Nova announced Mitterand's government had freed the Lebanese prisoners. Hearing the news, Candia hugged a Mickey Mouse doll.

"What about Disneyworld?"

"We can go after the summer." I had a business to run.

"You promise we see Mickey." Her feet stamped on the floor.

"I have to check on the nightclub." I dressed quickly. Dishes flying at my head completed her rage.

"You can sleep at the club tonight, if you love that place so much."

Her suggestion was an order to be disobeyed. Flowers and a nice dinner would earn a reprieve, but she wouldn't forget my promise to visit Disneyworld until passing through the turnstiles of the Magic Kingdom. Women have an unforgiving memory and I had learned to regard that a blessing as much as a curse.

Motorcycle Mamas

Biker chicks are cool.

Faster Than Light Beauty

I wish for a time machine to take me back to London.

1968.

Francoise Hardy on a motorbike.

I would have had a lot of competition and even though I would have only been 16, a good time would have been had by all.

Je l'adore.

In 1968 through eternity fast than speed itself.

To hear Francoise Hardy's version of the Kinks' WHO'LL BE THE NEXT IN LINE, please go to this URL;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S31Fe6BrFy8

I Love France

During the 80s I was lucky enough to live in Paris. I worked as a doorman at Les Bains-Douches, la Balajo, and Nouvelle Eve. The French treated me right and my many friends of then are les bones amis of now.

I was also lucky enough to make love to several French women.

I am still friends with them.

Viva La France, especially Francoise Hardy, la plus belle chanteuse des 60s.

A bas l'ancien regime.