7

Tea and Crumpet.

arlene and michael - lost in corbieres.

michael played football (aka soccer) profesionally for 15 years and then, after travelling all over and making a good deal of money retired. arlene has been teaching handicapped children - physically handicapped (she was quick to point out) - french. they have a house in london and they spend their summers, when they're not teaching, living in the south of france. like my friends up the road, they're a bit disgruntled about the british presence here as they like to escape themselves. too bad for globalization. they reminded me of we americans; a particular self-loathing that detests the idea that those like us might have discovered the same secret and in discovering it, will ruin it.

after proving i was a nice you man they decided to give me a lift that was well out of their way so that i could more easily get to the next town. arlene had a plan and michael followed it and i rode in the back. we didnt get to the next town in any amount of time that made me feel like it was worth their effort (or mine) since the next two hours were spent lost on dirt-road mountainsides pointing out chateaus and vineyards. yeh yeh. fine whatever, the ride was free and the countryside was beautiful. but then after not saying anything for some 10 or 12 seconds michael decided that i must be a racist sportsfan. he started asking me which sports i enjoyed and when all i could come up with was surfing there was a pause. he said "oh that's awfully dangerous." and i agreed so i wouldnt have to talk about sports anymore. another 10 or 12 seconds went by (silence counts more than language sometimes) and then he told a joke about a zebra that went to heaven and it couldnt decide if it was white on black or black on white and so st michael (or peter, i forget) told it to ask god. so it did. and god replied "you are what you are" and so the zebra knew that he was white since otherwise god would have said "you is what you is." i laughed like i was expected to and chalked it up to a form of payment for the ride.

we each do what we can to make the world a more habitable place.

unbridled mare - corbierres to quillan.

the horsegirl... women that work with horses are almost always beautiful. they have wild hair, wild eyes, they're proud, unafraid, and free. or sadly, occasionally; the opposite. but this one had spiritually osmosified. this woman had a sharp nose (she was born in brittany) a fast tongue (she was raised in paris) and a kind of ongoing dialogue style (she lived near carcassone) that brought me to the brink of asking her if she wanted a roll in the hay. but always one to be polite, (and more interested in hitching than fucking, i suppose) i reigned in my ambitions.

she had finished school two years ago and works for a woman that owns 31 horses. she had a long, uh, pony tail of brown hair that had been knocked loose through a day of incessant animated discussion. she was about 26 and was so confident that he body and face held no candle to the beauty of her confidence.

when i got in the car i told her i'd been waiting for about 30 minutes (which was true). she asked me where i was headed. i said Quillan. she said i could go with her to pick up some horse feed and she'd take me to Quillan, or, if i didnt want to go pick up the horsefeed, she'd let me out down the road and i could wait another 30 minutes. she said this idea in two seconds and it broke my french. naturally, i went to get the feed with her if for no other reason than her fastflutter logic got me a little wet between the legs.

i carried several bags to the car for her and she complemented me on my strength. if i had been trying to impress her it wouldn't have been embarrassing.. i was doing it in exchange for the ride. second, she should have kept her mouth shut in the first place because complimenting me made me feel like she thought i was showing off. but she worked with horses, so i ignored it.

Quillan -

11 years ago i had a fench girlfriend. i lived with her for several months in toulouse and one weekend she took me to her parent's house in Quillan. at the time i didnt understand how important this was. it was years later, long after i had left her and returned to the states, that it occured to me what had happened in Quillan. sensitivity takes years of practice. anyway, she and i passed afternoons on the towers of the collapsing castles that still, with their broken faces, monitor the valleys of the corbieres region. she showed me how to eat cheese and bread and wine and grapes in the sun of southern france. she was a beautiful french farmgirl and these sorts of women come with memories of hiding under her bed while her father knocked on the door to make sure i was in my proper bedroom. i have memories of kissing her in the rain, and of walking through the vineyards, and of her teaching me simple simple french words like "vous" and "tu" and "nous" and "aime."

when i arrived in the town i began asking people where her family lived (though i recognized well enough the cluster of houses i didnt recognize the house itself) . i finally found someone who said "that house right there" which i was standing next to but this surprised me a bit because i didnt remember a paved road there. the asphalt was new. i stared at my feet and wondered how many centuries the road had gone unpaved.

since it had been over a decade and since i had lost her address i stopped and left a note on the door of her family's house. i left the note ("hi, its me, i'm here, youre not. i'm still hitch-hiking around france, so i suppose i havent changed much, here's my address.") and walked nostalgically up the hill away from town, feeling like i had changed something somewhere.

as i write this, on a train, i imagine her parents to have returned from work, found the note, remembered me, called her, she became excited and is thinking of me tonight and writing back. or, more realistically, the note is now in her parent's garbage can since i left her in a rather unapologetic manner and or she probably doesnt think as fondly of me as i'd like and, anyway, she probably has several children by now.

i just hope none of them are mine.