In Which Bruce Invites Me to Live with Him
How did Bruce know that I desperately needed a place? Maybe it was that unmistakable shelter-hungry look in my eyes, the tense, keen glare of the apartment-hunter espying potential quarry.
I needed to find a place and fast. To begin with, there was no chance for me to stay more than a month on rue Tolbiac. The landlady’s sister was due back soon from Beijing and so I would soon have to leave, which was fine by me. The room was gorgeous and the Asian neighborhood on the south side of Paris, with its Tang Frères grocery stores and innumerable Chinese and Vietnamese restos, was right up my alley, but the place was impossibly far from the métro. None of the other apartments I had seen since my arrival filled the bill.
— Oh, so you have a room in your place you wanna rent out? I say casually, to mask my desperation.
— Well, he says, I still have expenses to pay from my marriage. Well, I mean, from my divorce. (Beat.) I’m divorced.
— Me, too, I say. Twice.
— Ah, then we are brothers in misery, eh? he says. Worst mistake of my life, that salope!
I didn’t expected such a sneer of hatred from so gentle-seeming a hulk of a man. But just as suddenly his angry expression fades, and with a gesture he tosses away the thought of her. The conversation switches back to English.
— Yes, yes. I rent the room to save some money. I think you will like it. You come and see, eh?
— Yes, definitely, I say. Jesus, yeah, I need to come see it.
— So come Friday. There is a football match. If you want, we drink some beers and watch it.
— Sounds perfect.
— Alors mon ami, I got to leave now. Tomorrow, I want to make a little sport, then maybe I play football the afternoon. My car won’t start too. I have to take it to a friend to see what is the problem. So yes, a little football then I see about the car.
— Uh, great… Okay, I say, not quite sure why he is telling me all of this. Well, yeah. Give me your number and we’ll meet up next weekend.
We enact the ancient ritual of cell phone number exchange and end up chatting for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Then, saluting me with a smile and a nod, Bruce turns and disappears amid the crowd of unfamiliar faces. A few minutes later, having finished my wine, I tuck a couple of beers in my coat and head for the métro.