The narrator encounters an obnoxious American couple on the Paris Metro who loudly complain about the French and accuse the narrator of being unclean and trying to pick their pockets. The narrator resists confronting them directly and instead fantasizes about ways to embarrass the couple and turn them into the objects of ridicule. The narrator recalls a similar uncomfortable experience on the Chicago "L" train from childhood and wishes they could think of a clever retort like their sister, but ultimately decides to disembark at the next stop with their friend Hugh.
A PowerPoint Presentation about "HONESTY". Most contents are for slideshow purposes. Comment below if you want a downloadable copy of the PowerPoint presentation.
This is a powerpoint that I made up for one of my courses...it outlines different topics that counselors can break up to create group meeting topics or even workshops. Excellent for dating violence awareness week too.
From time to time on the Brand Autopsy blog, I share "money quotes" from business books I've recently read. This presentation shares "money quotes" from Toy Box Leadership (Ron Hunter & Michael Waddell). Learn more at www.ToyBoxLeadership.com
A PowerPoint Presentation about "HONESTY". Most contents are for slideshow purposes. Comment below if you want a downloadable copy of the PowerPoint presentation.
This is a powerpoint that I made up for one of my courses...it outlines different topics that counselors can break up to create group meeting topics or even workshops. Excellent for dating violence awareness week too.
From time to time on the Brand Autopsy blog, I share "money quotes" from business books I've recently read. This presentation shares "money quotes" from Toy Box Leadership (Ron Hunter & Michael Waddell). Learn more at www.ToyBoxLeadership.com
Just Walk on By by Brent Staples My firs.docxdonnajames55
Just Walk on By
by Brent Staples
My first victim was a woman—white, well dressed, probably in
her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street
in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean,
impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her,
there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so.
She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man—a broad
six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved
into the pockets of a bulky military jacket—seemed menacingly close.
After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon
running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.
That was more than a decade ago. I was 23 years old, a graduate
student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of
that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy
inheritance I’d come into—the ability to alter public space in ugly ways. It
was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or
worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not
defenseless wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife
to raw chicken—let alone hold it to a person’s throat—I was surprised,
embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an
accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable
from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the
surrounding ghetto. That first encounter, and those that followed signified
that a vast unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians—particularly
women—and me. And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous
is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation,
or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make
an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and
weapons meet—and they often do in urban America—there is always the
possibility of death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to
become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy
intersections in Chicago, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic
light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver—black, white,
male, or female—hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets
after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people who
crossed to the other side of the street rather than pass me. Then there were
the standard unpleasantries with police, doormen, bouncers, cab drivers,
and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals
before there is any nastiness.
I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an
avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover
minimizes tense one-on-one stre.
Fitzgerald. “Babylon Revisited” 1
Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald (b. 1896-d. 1940)
I
"And where's Mr. Campbell?" Charlie asked.
"Gone to Switzerland. Mr. Campbell's a pretty sick man, Mr. Wales."
"I'm sorry to hear that. And George Hardt?" Charlie inquired.
"Back in America, gone to work."
"And where is the Snow Bird?"
"He was in here last week. Anyway, his friend, Mr. Schaeffer, is in Paris."
Two familiar names from the long list of a year and a half ago. Charlie scribbled an
address in his notebook and tore out the page.
"If you see Mr. Schaeffer, give him this," he said. "It's my brother-in-law's address. I
haven't settled on a hotel yet."
He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the stillness in the Ritz
bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar any more--he felt polite in it, and
not as if he owned it. It had gone back into France. He felt the stillness from the moment he got
out of the taxi and saw the doorman, usually in a frenzy of activity at this hour, gossiping with a
chasseur1 by the servants' entrance.
Passing through the corridor, he heard only a single, bored voice in the once-clamorous
women's room. When he turned into the bar he travelled the twenty feet of green carpet with
his eyes fixed straight ahead by old habit; and then, with his foot firmly on the rail, he turned
and surveyed the room, encountering only a single pair of eyes that fluttered up from a
newspaper in the corner. Charlie asked for the head barman, Paul, who in the latter days of the
bull market had come to work in his own custom-built car--disembarking, however, with due
nicety at the nearest corner. But Paul was at his country house today and Alix giving him
information.
"No, no more," Charlie said, "I'm going slow these days."
Alix congratulated him: "You were going pretty strong a couple of years ago."
"I'll stick to it all right," Charlie assured him. "I've stuck to it for over a year and a half
now."
"How do you find conditions in America?"
"I haven't been to America for months. I'm in business in Prague, representing a couple of
concerns there. They don't know about me down there."
Alix smiled.
"Remember the night of George Hardt's bachelor dinner here?" said Charlie. "By the
way, what's become of Claude Fessenden?"
Alix lowered his voice confidentially: "He's in Paris, but he doesn't come here any more.
Paul doesn't allow it. He ran up a bill of thirty thousand francs, charging all his drinks and his
lunches, and usually his dinner, for more than a year. And when Paul finally told him he had to
pay, he gave him a bad check."
Alix shook his head sadly.
"I don't understand it, such a dandy fellow. Now he's all bloated up--" He made a plump
apple of his hands.
Charlie watched a group of strident queens installing themselves in a corner.
1 bellhop
Fitzgerald. “Babylon Revisited” 2
"No ...
Fitzgerald. “Babylon Revisited” 1
Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald (b. 1896-d. 1940)
I
"And where's Mr. Campbell?" Charlie asked.
"Gone to Switzerland. Mr. Campbell's a pretty sick man, Mr. Wales."
"I'm sorry to hear that. And George Hardt?" Charlie inquired.
"Back in America, gone to work."
"And where is the Snow Bird?"
"He was in here last week. Anyway, his friend, Mr. Schaeffer, is in Paris."
Two familiar names from the long list of a year and a half ago. Charlie scribbled an
address in his notebook and tore out the page.
"If you see Mr. Schaeffer, give him this," he said. "It's my brother-in-law's address. I
haven't settled on a hotel yet."
He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the stillness in the Ritz
bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar any more--he felt polite in it, and
not as if he owned it. It had gone back into France. He felt the stillness from the moment he got
out of the taxi and saw the doorman, usually in a frenzy of activity at this hour, gossiping with a
chasseur1 by the servants' entrance.
Passing through the corridor, he heard only a single, bored voice in the once-clamorous
women's room. When he turned into the bar he travelled the twenty feet of green carpet with
his eyes fixed straight ahead by old habit; and then, with his foot firmly on the rail, he turned
and surveyed the room, encountering only a single pair of eyes that fluttered up from a
newspaper in the corner. Charlie asked for the head barman, Paul, who in the latter days of the
bull market had come to work in his own custom-built car--disembarking, however, with due
nicety at the nearest corner. But Paul was at his country house today and Alix giving him
information.
"No, no more," Charlie said, "I'm going slow these days."
Alix congratulated him: "You were going pretty strong a couple of years ago."
"I'll stick to it all right," Charlie assured him. "I've stuck to it for over a year and a half
now."
"How do you find conditions in America?"
"I haven't been to America for months. I'm in business in Prague, representing a couple of
concerns there. They don't know about me down there."
Alix smiled.
"Remember the night of George Hardt's bachelor dinner here?" said Charlie. "By the
way, what's become of Claude Fessenden?"
Alix lowered his voice confidentially: "He's in Paris, but he doesn't come here any more.
Paul doesn't allow it. He ran up a bill of thirty thousand francs, charging all his drinks and his
lunches, and usually his dinner, for more than a year. And when Paul finally told him he had to
pay, he gave him a bad check."
Alix shook his head sadly.
"I don't understand it, such a dandy fellow. Now he's all bloated up--" He made a plump
apple of his hands.
Charlie watched a group of strident queens installing themselves in a corner.
1 bellhop
Fitzgerald. “Babylon Revisited” 2
"No.
BRENT STAPLES My first victim was a woman-white- well dressed- probab.docxnoel23456789
BRENT STAPLES
My first victim was a woman-white, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man-a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket-seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.
That was more than a decade ago, I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into--the ability to alter public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken--let alone hold one to a person's throat--I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto. That first encounter, and those that followed, signified that a vast, unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians--particularly women--and me. And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet--and they often do in urban America--there is always the possibility of death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver--black, white, male, or female-- hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street rather than pass me. Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen, doormen, bouncers, cabdrivers, and others whose business it is to screen out troublesome individuals before there is any nastiness.
I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd cover minimizes tense one-on-one street encounters.
Black Men and Public Space--Brent Staples (b. 1951)
Robert McGinley Myers
*Remember to complete the dis.
Black Men and Public Space, by Brent Staples Brent Staple.docxhartrobert670
Black Men and Public Space, by Brent Staples
Brent Staples (b. 1951) earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago and went on to
become a journalist. The following essay originally appeared in Ms. Magazine in 1986, under the title,
“Just Walk on By.” Staples revised it slightly for publication in Harper’s a year later under the present
title.
My first victim was a white woman, well dressed, probably in her early twenties. I came
upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent
neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the
avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not
so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man – a broad six feet two
inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky
military jacket – seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up
her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross
street.
That was more than a decade ago. I was twenty-two years old, a graduate student newly
arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls
that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into – the ability to alter public
space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or
worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless
wayfarers. As a softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken – let alone hold
one to a person’s throat – I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight
made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny. It also made it clear that I was
indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the
surrounding ghetto. That first encounter, and those that followed, signified that a vast,
unnerving gulf lay between nighttime pedestrians – particularly women – and me. And soon
I gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to turn a
corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened, armed person in a foyer
somewhere, or make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and
weapons meet – and they often do in urban America – there is always the possibility of
death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar
with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car
stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver – black, white, male,
or female – hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew
accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street
rather than pass me. Then there were the standard unpleasantries with policemen ...
A&P by John Updike In walks these three girls in nothing but b.docxbartholomeocoombs
A&P
by John Updike
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before.
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) -- there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much -- and then the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glass jar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight.
She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the .
A&P by john updikeIn walks these three girls in nothing but ba.docxransayo
A&P
by john updike
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I knowit made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before.
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me alittle snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) -- there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much -- and then the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight.
She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit had.
A&P by john updikeIn walks these three girls in nothing but ba.docxannetnash8266
A&P
by john updike
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread. The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I knowit made her day to trip me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a mistake before.
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives me alittle snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. They didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) -- there was this one, with one of those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one, and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know, the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much -- and then the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She kind of led them, the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a little deliberate extra action into it. You never know for sure how girls' minds work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a glassjar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold yourself straight.
She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off her shoulders looped loose around the cool tops of her arms, and I guess as a result the suit had.
Pagesrevision of thetelevision. NoteUnder the Student.docxalfred4lewis58146
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Required Journal Entry 5: Public Space
Reread Brent Staples'essay "Black Men and Public Space" on pages 160-162. Explore the ways
you and individuals around you "alter public space." Include specific examples from your life. You
may wish to describe a situation in which your intentions were misunderstood or when someone
made false assumptions about you. Another option is to discuss times when you've had to change
your behavior to accommodate someone else's needs or expectations. {2 paragraphs, 5 sentences
for each)
Freewrite about the way errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation can alter the public space
between writer and reader in an essay. (1 paragraph, 5 sentences)
f-Check 1
l. Exercise 10.1, on page Edit the five make them concise.
Exercise 10,2, on page
or complex sentences.
210: the pairs of sente to single, compound,2.
3. Exercise 10.3, page 2!2: Add modifiers to create varied sentence in the five
sentences.
10.4, on page 213: Edit the five sentences to eliminate problems with pa
(Continued)
Lesson 3
ffiU"t Men and Public Space
Brent Staples
Any woman who has lived in a cily knows the fear Brent Staples
qpeab ;r" but not many of us realize how that reaction afects the
innocent. Staples's essayuasf* published inEarper's in 1986. He's
still whistling.
My first victim was a woman-u7hi1s, well-dressed, probably in
her early twenties- I came upon her late one evening on a deserted
street in Hyde Park, a relativelyaffluent neighborhood in an other-
wise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the
avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflarnmatory
distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her,
the youngish black rnur--a broad 6 feet 2 inches with a beard and
billowing hair, botl hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky mil-
itary jacket-seerned menacingly close. After a few more quick
glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest.
Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.
That was more than a decade ago. I was 22 years old, a grad-
uate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in
the echo of that terrified woman's footfalls that I first began to
know the unwieldy inheritance I'd come into-the ability to alter
public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the
quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insom-
nia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a
softy who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken-let
alone hold one to a person's ftroat-I was surprised, embar-
rassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight made me.
1 A&P by John Updike- 1962 In walks these three .docxoswald1horne84988
1
A&P
by John Updike- 1962
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I'm in the third check-out
slot, with my back to the door, so I don't see them until they're over by the bread.
The one that caught my eye first was the one in the plaid green two-piece. She
was a chunky kid, with a good tan and a sweet broad soft-looking can with those
two crescents of white just under it, where the sun never seems to hit, at the top
of the backs of her legs. I stood there with my hand on a box of HiHo crackers
trying to remember if I rang it up or not. I ring it up again and the customer starts
giving me hell. She's one of these cash-register-watchers, a witch about fifty with
rouge on her cheekbones and no eyebrows, and I know it made her day to trip
me up. She'd been watching cash registers forty years and probably never seen a
mistake before.
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and her goodies into a bag -- she gives
me a little snort in passing, if she'd been born at the right time they would have
burned her over in Salem -- by the time I get her on her way the girls had circled
around the bread and were coming back, without a pushcart, back my way along
the counters, in the aisle between the check-outs and the Special bins. They
didn't even have shoes on. There was this chunky one, with the two-piece -- it
was bright green and the seams on the bra were still sharp and her belly was still
pretty pale so I guessed she just got it (the suit) -- there was this one, with one of
those chubby berry-faces, the lips all bunched together under her nose, this one,
and a tall one, with black hair that hadn't quite frizzed right, and one of these
sunburns right across under the eyes, and a chin that was too long -- you know,
the kind of girl other girls think is very "striking" and "attractive" but never quite
makes it, as they very well know, which is why they like her so much -- and then
the third one, that wasn't quite so tall. She was the queen. She kind of led them,
the other two peeking around and making their shoulders round. She didn't look
around, not this queen, she just walked straight on slowly, on these long white
prima donna legs. She came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn't walk
in her bare feet that much, putting down her heels and then letting the weight
move along to her toes as if she was testing the floor with every step, putting a
little deliberate extra action into it. You never know for sure how girls' minds
work (do you really think it's a mind in there or just a little buzz like a bee in a
glass jar?) but you got the idea she had talked the other two into coming in here
with her, and now she was showing them how to do it, walk slow and hold
yourself straight.
She had on a kind of dirty-pink - - beige maybe, I don't know -- bathing suit with
a little nubble all over it and, what got me, the straps were down. They were off
her.
1. “It was July, and Hugh and I were taking the Paris Metro from our neighborhood to a store where
we hoped to buy a good deal of burlap. During the summer months, a great number of American
vacationers can be found riding the Metro, and their voices tend to carry. It's something I hadn't
noticed until leaving home, but we are a loud people. On the first of our two trains, I listened to a
quartet of college-age Texans who sat beneath a sign instructing passengers to surrender their
seats and stand, should the foyer of the train become too crowded. The foyer of the train quickly
became too crowded. And, while the others stood to make more room, the young Texans remained
seated and raised their voices in order to continue their debate, the topic being which is the better
city, Houston or Paris? It was a hot afternoon, and the subject of air conditioning came into play.
Houston had it, Paris did not. Houston also had ice cubes, tacos, plenty of free parking, and
something called a Sonic burger. Things were not looking good for Paris, which lost valuable points
every time the train stopped to accept more passengers. The crowds packed in, surrounding the
seated Texans and reducing them to four disembodied voices. From the far corner of the car, one of
them shouted that they were tired and dirty and ready to catch the next plane home. The voice was
weary and hopeless, and I identified completely. It was the same way I'd felt on my last visit to
Houston. Hugh and I disembarked to the strains of "Texas, Our Texas," and boarded our second
train, where an American couple in their late 40s stood hugging the floor-to-ceiling support pole.
There's no sign saying so, but such poles are not considered private. They're put there for
everyone's use. You don't treat it like a fireman's pole. Rather, you grasp it with one hand and
stand back at a respectable distance. It's not all that difficult to figure out, even if you come from a
town without any public transportation.
The train left the station and, needing something to hold onto, I wedged my hand between the
American couple and grabbed the pole at waist level. The man then turned to the women saying,
"PU, can you smell that? That is pure French, baby." He removed one of his hands from the pole and
waved it back and forth in front of his face. "Yes, indeed," he said, "this little froggie is ripe." It took
a moment to realize he was talking about me. The woman wrinkled her nose. "Golly, Pete," she
said, "do they all smell this bad?" "It's pretty typical," the man said. "I'm willing to bet that our little
friend here hasn't had a bath in a good two weeks. I mean, Jesus Christ, someone should hang a
deodorizer around this guy's neck." The woman laughed, saying, "You crack me up, Martin. I swear,
you do." It's a common mistake for vacationing Americans to assume that everyone around them is
French and, therefore, speaks no English whatsoever. An experienced traveler could've told by
looking at my shoes that I wasn't French. And, even if I were French, it's not as if English is some
mysterious tribal dialect spoken only by anthropologists and a small population of cannibals.
Because they had used the tiresome word froggie and complained about my odor, I was now
licensed to hate this couple as much as I wanted. This made me happy, as I'd wanted to hate them
from the moment I'd entered the subway car. Unleashed by their insults, I was now free to criticize
Martin's clothing-- the pleated denim shorts, the baseball cap, the t-shirt advertising a San Diego
pizza restaurant. Glasses hung from his neck on a fluorescent cable, and the couple's bright, new,
his-and-hers sneakers suggested that they might be headed somewhere dressy for dinner. Comfort
has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you've come to mow its lawns.
People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than
another American. France isn't even my country, but there I was, deciding that these people
needed to be sent back home, preferably in chains. In disliking them, I was forced to recognize my
own pretension, and that made me hate them even more. The train took a curve and, when I moved
my hand further up the pole, the man turned to the woman, saying, "Carol. Hey, Carol, watch out.
That guy's going after your wallet." "What?" "Your wallet," Martin said, "that joker's trying to steal
your wallet. Move your pocketbook to the front where he can't get at it." She froze. And he
repeated himself, barking, "The front! Move your pocketbook around to the front! Do it now! The
guy's a pickpocket!"
The woman named Carol grabbed for the strap on her shoulder and moved her pocketbook so that
it now rested upon her stomach. "Wow," she said. "I sure didn't see that coming." "Well, you've
never been to Paris before, but let that be a lesson to you." Martin glared at me. His eyes narrowed
to slits. "This city is full of stinkpots like our little friend here. Let your guard down and they'll take
2. you for everything you've got." Now I was a stinkpot and a thief. It occurred to me to say
something, but I thought it might be better to wait and see what he came up with next. Besides, if I
said something at this point, he probably would have apologized and I wasn't interested in that. His
embarrassment would have pleased me, but once he recovered, there would be that awkward
period that sometimes culminates in a handshake. I didn't want to touch these people's hands or
see things from their point of view. I just wanted to continue hating them, and so I kept my mouth
shut and stared off into space. The train stopped at the next station. Passengers got off. And Carol
and Martin moved to occupy two folding seats located beside the door. I thought they might ease
onto another topic, but Martin was on a roll now, and there was no stopping him. "It was some
[BLEEP] head like him that stole my wallet on my last trip to Paris," he said, nodding his head in
my direction. "He got me on the subway, came up from behind, and I never felt a thing. Cash, credit
cards, driver's license, poof, all of it gone, just like that." I pictured a scoreboard reading Marty,
zero; stinkpots, one.
"What you've got to understand is that these creeps are practiced professionals," he said. "I mean,
they've really got it down to an art, if you can call that an art form." "I wouldn't call it an art form,"
Carol said. "Art is beautiful, but taking people's wallets, that stinks, in my opinion." "You've got that
right," Martin said. "The thing is that these jokers usually work in pairs." He squinted toward the
opposite end of the car. "Odds are that he's probably got a partner somewhere on this subway car."
"You think so?" "I know so," he said. "They usually time it so that one of them clips your wallet just
as the train pulls into the station. The other guy's job is to run interference and trip you up once
you catch wind of what's going on. Then the train stops, the doors open, and they disappear into
the crowd. If stinky there had gotten his way, he'd probably be halfway to Timbuktu by now. I
mean, make no mistake, these guys are fast." I'm not the sort of person normally mistaken for
being fast and well-coordinated, and, because of this, I found Martin's assumption to be oddly
flattering. "It just gets my goat," he said. "I mean, where's the polizioni when you need one?"
Polizioni? Where did he think he was? I tried to imagine Martin's conversation with a French
policeman, and pictured him waving his arms shouting, "That man tried to pick-a my friend's
pocketoni!" I wanted very much to hear such a conversation, and so I decided I would take the
wallet from Hugh's back pocket as we left the train. Martin would watch me steal from a supposed
stranger and would most likely intercede. He'd put me in a headlock or yell for help. And, when a
crowd gathered, I'd say, "What's the problem? Is it against the law to borrow money from my own
boyfriend?" If the police came, he would explain the situation in his perfect French while I'd toss in
a few of my most polished phrases. "That guy's crazy," I'd say, pointing at Martin. "I think he's
drunk. Look at how his face is swollen." I was practicing these lines to myself when Hugh came up
from behind and tapped me on the shoulder, signaling that the next stop was ours. "There you go,"
Martin said. "That's him. That's the partner. Didn't I tell you he was around here somewhere? They
always work in pairs. It's the oldest trick in the book." Hugh had been reading the paper and had
no idea what had been going on. It was too late now to pretend to pick his pocket, and I was stuck
without a decent backup plan. As we pulled into the station, I recalled an afternoon 10 years
earlier. I'd been riding the Chicago El with my sister, Amy, who was getting off two or three stops
ahead of me. The doors opened. And, as she stepped out of the crowded car, she turned around to
yell, "So long, David. Good luck beating that rape charge." Everyone on board had turned to stare at
me. Some seemed curious, some seemed frightened, but the overwhelming majority appeared to
hate me with a ferocity I had never before encountered. "That's my sister," I said."She likes to joke
around." I laughed and smiled, but it did no good. Every gesture made me appear more guilty. And I
wound up getting off at the next stop rather than continue riding alongside people who thought of
me as a rapist. I wanted to say something that good to Martin, but I can't think as fast as Amy. In
the end, this man would go home warning his friends to watch out for pickpockets in Paris. He'd be
the same old Martin, but, at least for the next few seconds, I still had the opportunity to be
somebody different, someone quick and dangerous. The new and dangerous me noticed how
Martin tightened his fists when the train pulled to a stop. Carol held her pocketbook close against
her chest and sucked in her breath as Hugh and I stepped out of the car, no longer finicky little
boyfriends on their overseas experiment, but rogues, accomplices, halfway to Timbuktu.