Read Ellingsonian Page 3


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  It is spring 2014 now. There was elections, yesterday, here in Tours. The "Maire de Tours" made it to the second place. The other turn is next Sunday, March 30. He will run against the right wing candidate Serge Babary.

  Today I received an answer from the town hall's, about the letter I sent to him a couple weeks ago, to see if the privilege to let me rent a council flat could be granted to me. The answer is no. I mean, I am still on the waiting list but, there is no way that mister Germain is going to move a finger for me to have that. I am too demanding. I was on the priority list, and I refused an apartment in the quarter of "the fountains", too far away from everything except these verticals bars, that would have made me dependent on the tramway, and deprive me of the bars and of the terraces of the old quarter and his wife madam nightlife. Blue eyes blues.

  To have made Tours famous for ever is not enough. The worst is that I am right now believing that yes, being Jesus, there is certainly a long list of people needing much more than me that flat.

  Wait. Let me empty my bag. I am reflecting on my life. I feel this is the moment. We are Monday after all. Lucas is going to turn 18 in less than a month. I don't see him since 2001. I don't even know where he lives. Last time I went to the court for that, I noticed that his mother declares to live at Marina's farm. I guess they still are a good team these two. I am single since a good 16 years now, thanks in part to them amazing phone calls passing talents (that is my guess). I didn't managed to make love to a woman even just once in my entire 30's. To do not disgust God anymore I had to go to see prostitutes, recently, a few times. So far, I made almost a dollar selling a remix, and a few more selling 3 books. I have no car, of course, and I liked so every single woman on Tinder, and so all of them did not answered, that now the app, after just 3 days having it, is proposing me men to date. Now, that is cruel. Huhuhu. Thank God hashish replaces everything! I am back on jogging, you know, but no way I give up smoking joints! You. can. dream. Till I run 3 times 3 times around the "Mars fields" each week, I am good. A few push ups with that, and some tractions on the bar for my back, do the trick. Well... Never say never. certainly later.

  That Jean Germain... he didn't even answered to me once. People just hate us so much. The best is to smoke joints and let them work, for that kind of slaves they are. Pages like humanity didn't saw since John Apocalypse's, and none even a hello. Not even just once. Never a yes from a publisher or a gallery. Nada. Niet! Kaput! Go home Jesus, there is nothing to see, not even Miss-Tours.

  Oh, wow! I just realized. There is no Miss-Tours. Ever. I would have heard about her at least once! All these years... It's a shock now that I think about it. There is never a woman in this town. Amazing. Not a single female the Sky can brag about. Now that's sad. Sadder than my bank account. I mean, there is a most beautiful Tourangelle ever, but I never had the privilege to talk to her. I wish she'd know that friends is what you think you have when you have money, and I hope I will survive. I can't even say that it's her bad, or call her egocentric, I am writing a novel about me! I should call her capricious instead of Miss-World like it is in my plan since we are 16. She might slap me in the face, or fall in love. I must escape; fly to Los Ellingson's, or Tokyo.

  They surprised me, these two eagles. I felt that it wasn't a good idea to try to go to that lonely tree. The tree on the west. A road still made out of clay leaves the village. God prepares a Friend for the righteous' bad days says the Holy-Bible! He sent me two of them that day. These birds that just landed on the top of the little hill I was about to step on, leaving the trail, to go find that tree, blurry in my memory, because I was told that there was water and frogs nearby, and because I was alone, finding nothing else to do. Whatever! I just knew they were people. People talking to me: "Return to the village"

  I remember that part of the Spaniard countryside as a sea of dry fields of yellow earth. I was indeed going to get lost, and sink in dehydration. Just another around 40 Celsius degrees day maybe, but in the wrong place. The Angels used to reassure the first northern inhabitants by showing them, inside, in divinely time as they use to do, that them beautiful people, they were hot. And it had that ice floe look a like, humpy and blinding. Too big for freshman explorer me.

  The north part of the village was left to nature, but was much more gentle. It started just behind grandpa's house, and was the greatest playground ever to me; many years long. We just had to climb the hill, and the world was ours. They put a statue of Jesucristo up there now, overlooking the whole village in it's basin. Houston, la bodeguilla base here. The eagle has landed. It is titled "Corazón de Jesús", and it is 3 meters tall.

  There is indeed at least a couple miracles in the statues that, Amancio, the artist of the village made, and that the local authorities decided to display. It is even a sweet story. Back in the day, it was etiquette to, more or less, say hello to anyone you pass by, in or around the village. Buenos dias, buenas tardes! How many times we exchanged some of these few words?

  His little house was not even 100 yards away, glued to my grand ant Nicolassa. I hanged in front of it several times, attracted by the sculptures he had made, or was working on. I am not even sure he lived there in fact. Maybe it was just his workshop. It was for sure a mess. Another sea, but, made of pure white stones this time. A dreaming polar ice cap, missing it's fearless bears. I found his biography, for you, on Sotillo's site: Amancio Calvo Antón. He must have been so surprised when he was told who I am, brave man. He even used to look like God the Father, I mean, you know, in all white hair and beard full of dignity. Sad I never made a photo of him, alone, holding one's hands in the back, walking with for only company his flat cap, in one of these asphalt less street making the border, during these old day, between civilization and the almost wild, or sat against the wall with other men of his age in one of the few bars of this community.

  Sad I neither made a photo of Firmin, our shepherd neighbor. This one taught me a lot about joy. The man was a firework by himself. I used to never hear him leave at dawn, with his flock of easily a hundred sheep; and his sheepfold was just there, right in front of my bedroom's window! Velvet hoofs. No way I find him outside the village too. He of course used to venture way to far for kids. Parkour wasn't even yet invented and all; all this to say that he looked epic, Firmin, for the child I was. The most suntanned guy of the village! Around five, he would arrive by the north, with his wooly army, and his dogs. He would wear his flat cap, his mustache, a pair of espadrille, no socks, one of these trousers you can wear with the jacket of a suit too, and that's it. The rest was all bare torso, a dense stick, and a good dose of smiley good mood, whistling and shouting all over the place, like a leader in a dust storm. He knows by instinct that drunkenness is the most sacred thing.

  This expedition would provoke traffic jams. To get caught behind them while heading back home for the usual little sandwich of Nutella, was being obliged to slow down, and to walk at their pace, unable to overpass by any side, since the sheep would be so many, and the street so narrow, that the animals would scratch the walls on both sides. Joyous procession.

  Their arrival in the rectangle that our houses form in this corner of the village would stop everything else, till, one by one, the living waters he drove over the hills all day long, eating and even chanting might say the eventual poet, since animals talk too, had entered that other rectangle, so charmingly within the village, given to them to spend the night, protected, and saved. Then he'd disappear, only to be seen again, at the bar, between ten and eleven, quite drunk, but most of all, still bare torso, like an hombre in the night, jokes in option, y ganas de cantar!

  And yes, he wasn't afraid to start singing a few phrases. He would do it well, not too loud, not darkly, not mocking, just a good mood machine. I guess his goal was to make smile around, as he was himself smiling, happy. Making smile the batman counting as a three points.

  Shepherd is such a beautiful profession. I am so lucky that I saw it like it was being done, since ev
er, with just a dog and a crook, nose and smart biceps, sat under a tree during the hottest hours of the day, only surrounded by the radiating light of the sun, and the flowers, singing with the Sky, and all the buzzy insects waltzing like mad, like if they were trying, using force wings only, to don't get carried away at dismaying light speed by the love of God the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah.

  Telling you this reminds me of that farmer from the 18th century, that you can read about somewhere in Charles Baudelaire's anthology, who wanted a painter to paint him, and his wife, and sons, and his daughters, and his bull with a cow or two, and his rooster, and his chickens, chicks, pigs, rabbit, dogs, cats, etc etc, I am remixing that paragraph, don't ask for too much exactitude, all this in front of their farm, with all the details and village behind, and the tower of the church; the goal being that it had to sing the glory of God to the point you would hear the bells in the back. A fine gentleman farmer. That was Baudelaire's opinion. I share it!

  It was better before electricity says God. So imagine: plastic! Engines spoiled everything. Earth needs us to work. It is an emergency. Forget what I said 2000 years ago. And work. Your sofa is killing you softly. I am pretty that it, at least, never helped my other grandmother, Marina just like her daughter.

  Them too were both Spaniards. My grandfather Ramon was Andalous. From Ronda, not from Sevilla, but still, from where Spain is Spain, even for Spaniards. Her was Catalàna. From Barceloneta. Which is like being ever more from Barcelona than Barcelonites! But it's different, Catalans, like Orson Wells' friends the basques, are almost another country, yet being Spain. Some syllable in Basque are said, by linguists, to come from prehistory, and the Catalans too have their own regional language, both still widely known and used nowadays. He maybe saw her for the first time on the beach of Barceloneta, exactly where Don Quixote got finally defeated, by the knight of the white moon; no wonder I like to imaging it. But, contrarily to Don Quixote, "papi" didn't returned home then. Even if it's not there, he married the beach girl she was, modern Dulcinea, and who grew between these mythical sands and the church of Santa Maria do the sea. He was quite epic, papi. All I know about his youth is that, as he told me himself, his father, a wealthy property owner on horse and all, was too hard with him, to the point he ran away at age 15, to never come back. And he did that under a train. The fear of is life. Tucked into some metallic basket I guess, screaming freedom in a metallic tongue, spoiling your hands and clothes with that kind of black grease we don't see anymore, even spilling from cars parts now that they are no longer Ford T's, but much more clinically clean, and perfectly silent, Telsa's. Intense Rock & Roll. Danger.

  I do not know when or how they became one, but I know that she helped him escape prison, by throwing him bobbins of threads. Now that is romantic, and dangerous. Lucky guy. I guess that that is what he deserved, just like I deserved to hold on, both physically and mentally went my turn came to serve time, unjustly. It must be said that he became a dentist in jail. Just with the books he found in that library. That is a significant achievement. A trait of character. Autodidact dentist in a franquist prison of the 30's. More sporty than that, you die. He managed to weave a rope with the thin threads she would throw to his cell's window at her own risks, and jail breaked I don't know how. Usually, at that point of the story, the memory of how they crossed the border would take over. The fear of his life again. On that frozen lake they didn't even knew it was one with that Pyrenean courier, and other Republicans like them, fleeing Franco's and the civil war.

  France parked them of the beach. As soon as they arrived. I can't recall which one, but they are a page of French history, these thousands of Spanish Caballeros and Señoras, Señoritas and children of God, both toddler and elderly, cheating death for freedom; guarantee of a better life.

  They were forbidden to settle lower south than Orleans. That is were they lived first. That is also were Marina was born. And the more I had details the more amazing it gets. Both Catalans and Andalous have an accent, they even have their own language, but not Castile and León. Among the 17 autonomous communities of Spain, this particular region is the one known for speaking the purest form of Spanish, and the same thing happen here in Touraine, where they happen to have moved after a while in Orleans, and where I happen to have born, region smaller than a region, tribal kingdom I should say, but so old it had all the time to become modern, and who did it so well that he is now known to be the place where the purest, accent less, form of French is spoken. Amen. Sometimes, in this city existing since year 33, I have the impression that I was here since even there was time, and that the universe is weaving himself around me, like beautiful magical science. My Father's creation still amaze me every day.

  And we just switched age. There is permanently men in the International Space Station since year 2000. In Tours papi had his own shop now, where he would sell and repair televisions mainly, but also radios, and even the first video games consoles. I was offered the first Walkman. I had to put it on ASAP, and to follow Marina to the tobacconist just by, like just to show it of big time, lucky me, almost dazed my the music I wasn't used to have like that, loud directly in the hears, and Marina, teasing me, shaking me, laughing because I guess I answered too loudly like the noob I was who had to stop walking like a cowboy, since it was not a colt there on my belt, the newest craze by Sony. The little orange button would open the microphone, and you would hear yourself even louder than the music. Almost ecstatic. My first blotto.

  But no way I had the right to play with the console. Back in the day, during the 70's, resilience was not what is it today. To let me play video games after school, since it was where I had to go, would destroy him a TV. The gaming station would have, with the time, finish to let indelible marks on the screen. Papi was the scientific of the family. Period. I guess it is him who inspired me to become an intellectual. He was President. Very concerned by politics and horses. There always was a newspaper waiting for him. One's do not become a teeth extractor by boredom. Imagine, he was now an installed electronics engineer. The stakes were high. And he learned electronics they same way: on the heap! With just his eyes, like everybody. He's work shop was just upstairs, and I can testify, televisions were getting repaired.

  I remember the electronics world of the 70's as a beautiful thing. It was almost voodoo to manage to repair one. I am surprised I never caught him dancing around a Telefunken with his soldering iron in the hand, when I had to climb the stairs, sent by mami to tell him that there was a customer in the shop, and that she needed him yesterday. You could glitch a watch just by pushing one of it's few buttons in the wrong order, or too rapidly. Sad he never taught me. It was a treasure island, upstairs, his professional man cave. Or mysterious even. Yes, mysterious and complicated, that is a better description. The window was small, and the roof was low. The street of Bretonneau, like the rest of the old Tours, was not bombed during world war 2, these constructions can be very old, and eclectically shaped, with a tendency for relatively small rooms.

  This one was packed with broken tv's, open, on repair, or waiting for a new part to be delivered, taking holidays, or talking to each other when nobody is around of course, you saw the Disney. Some were stacked on top of each other. Some were like abandoned, or here since so long that you are the one who, after a while, fells accepted in the family. Except I wasn't really welcomed. Papi would not like to have me around. He was the nervous kind. Always on a hurry. Even impatient a bit, but I guess he didn't wanted to raise a fifth child, that is all. That was the rule in the family. Nothing was expected from me, or hoped, except from staying silent and obedient, but, in the other hand, freedom was offered to me. Soccer was the only thing I was forced to participate into.

  The Cap Canaveral he was the Captain of was forbidden to me in his absence. It is true that there was nothing to touch for me there. Soldering irons, oscillators, his spyglass lamp, more machines with a little screen displaying waves, and so many buttons you don't know what they are for. Vacuum tubes ev
erywhere of course. Small ones. Bigger ones. Some working. Wood boxes overflowing with a million little things. Dust. Pens. Old horse betting newspapers. Math's in a corner. Predictions to be or not. A broken watch or two. A working one on the wall, advertising at the same time for a modern brand. Locks of once useful cables. Owners books. A place in which, whatever how small it is, you can rapidly get lost, and find yourself with a phone call to pass, even if you can only do a few steps in it, in even less directions. Maybe that is what he was afraid to look like in front of me, papi, since he leaned electronics, like that, in someone else's shop, after he sold encyclopedias door to door. I understand that. I am the same, in lazier. It is like I am the President of the internet, I mean I look like it, but I am still level 1 when it's time to tweak some HTML. All I can do is to spot numbers, and change margins sizes or color codes.

  I stopped smoking like that! That is what he told me a few times. Once the doctor told me that, Mister Alfonso, if you do not stop now you will die, I never smoked again, I didn't even had cold turkey! He convinced me that there is no such things as nicotine addiction. I can say it work with me too. I am a heavy smoker since 20 years now, and I need nothing to stop smoking. It is just you don't want to stop smoking if you don't stop. You just change your routine. Get yourself busy doing something different. He rest is an invention. Illusions in a tray. Tough grandpa!

  Even too much sometimes. He was so dang atheist. Almost all his life! It is simple, in my knowledge, till the last time I saw him. He was walking down the street of the tanners, on his way back from L'Adresse, the bar/brasserie he used to go during his late days to drink a coffee, and play Keno. One of the last time I talked to him, he told me without saying it, how close from a miracle he went. A literal brush pass. He guessed the numbers of the next drawing that would appear on the Keno's corner TV. But really. My guess is that he Sky was making fun of him, for once, a little bit, because an Angel made him miss the big prize. He stood up to hurry validate his ticket, since if you don't know, Keno is a every 2 minutes lotto, but precisely this time, in the most comical way, the barmaid was too busy doing something else, and too used to him to care about what grandpa says. He was going to give me nothing again. Words of Mary.

  Life is sad only for those who do nothing. That day I saw him for the last time, he was having such an epiphany. Really magical. It is the strangest thing in Tours. They have seen Miracles, but nowhere you will see an opinion. None a graffiti. No revolt at all. Except of course for the swastika I found just in front the back door of Lucas' building when he lived in the yard of the birds. There are too disciplined. I was amazed in Paris, when somewhere in the 12th district, I found a "Jews for Jesus" half shop, half premises. An actual religious opinion, like that, in big letters. Never seen that in Towers.

  God was visibly talking to him in major scales. Papi was looking like a lighthouse. It was spectacular. We saw each other from far, but I kept on walking without going to him. I understood that God was giving to him HIS opinion about me, and a waking call about HIMSELF and his future also. Knowing my God and Father as I know HIM, I knew that it wasn't for throw him in hell after. I knew on that instant that whatever in how many years we would see each other, we would see us again. I have been a really polite child, teenager, and man. It was too beautiful to add a word.