tennis, dancing, and painting. She had to know new people, not that she was afraid of that, but stopping her work was tough. So she decided to come back as a student to University.
But in fact, commuting was taking a lot of her time, and also doing the taxi driver to all kinds of activities children here must do to be normal, I suppose.
Last time we played ? It was in a big dancing room. It was weird. The concert took place in Los Angeles.
When we arrived, it smelt like old beer on a wet wooden floor, a floor cleaned in the morning, but in a place that should never be open to the daylight and fresh air.
There were only two guys drinking at the bar, a nauseous barman that looked like a junky and stared at us in a nasty way, while we were putting our material on the stage.
It was odd. We took beers to wait for people to come. We earnt no money with that concert, it was just for the glory, a friend of a friend gave us the adress, but the guy we knew named Kevin (as half of this generation, it must be Kevin Kostner effect that my daughters now don't even know) was not even here.
The place was empty, although it was nearly midnight. We decided to begin, sometimes the music appeals to people that comes from nowhere. Perhaps they were in the nearby Casino.
We were sweating under the spotlights. Red, green, yellow, then purple three seconds, and again the same lights. And there was no water.
A fat woman opened the big door, and slowly came to us, she looked gigantic in the empty and dark place.
She came in front of us, all in white. We were playing, and I was singing my prefered song :"Ne me quittes pas, où je deviendrais fou" inspired by Jacques Brel. She looked at me in the eyes, then listened to us during five minutes. It was in French, and I was quite sure she didn't understand anything except the melody. It was difficult for me as trying to focus and therefore avoid an eye contact. But as nobody stood in front of us, or as I closed my eyes but the salt of my sweat was burning my eyes, or as I couldn't avoid it, disgusted and at the same time amused, I looked at her. I thought she was so fat, she should eat all day and night, cream cheese, chips, bacon, burger, vanilla ice cream, sugar and meat. She had arms like hams, and skin was moving as a gelly when she walked.
When she decided to move and lean towards us, I could see her boops moving in her tee-shirt, obviously too small and stretch for her. I was fascinated, as she had a nice face, with long hair, big eyes, generous cheeks and gracious lips.
I walked on the stage. And decided to look at the back of the room in the dark.
She came back with a waiter in a cheap white blacktie. They had taken with them a square table that they put in front of the stage. We continued to sing and play, and we decided to come back to one of our best off, "Kill the frog".
I took off my black tee-shirt to get rid of the salty water on my face, but it was as wet as everything else, I gave up the idea.
While I was saying to myself I would definitely drink a diet coke with rhum in it, and a lot of ice, she came back with something that looked as a huge cake, looking as the ones you see in series like Friends : an outstanding cake, with a lot of sugar on it, something written like happy birtday, or be happy, or just married, and indecent cream on the top of it, like the cubcakes my wife was doing for birthday parties to make sure our daughters were not rejected by other girls.
I continued to sing, but my friend Bob came with his guitar in front of me, looked at me, looked at the empty room, the table in front of us with the white and blue cake, the fat woman in her mini skirt and gold sneakers, and began to laugh silently.
I closed my eyes, trying to focus on the song. My life was shaky at that moment. I guessed my wife was not happy, and may be one day I would discover she slept with an Indian trying to be brilliant in her courses, or her american coach for sport, that was encouraging her as she was his princess, I supposed he was gay but may be not.
I opened my eyes, and looked at the guy at the battery, he had just replaced our spanish player, which led us to change our name as a group, as it was initially subtly alluding to Barcelona. The guy was torturing the material, as if his life was in danger, like a crocodile just behind him ready to eat him, or a shark swiming in narrow circles around him. I don't think he took drugs, but he looked like it, red eyes, dark circles, nose always like allergic to pollen, and his beard wet as he was going out of a swimming pool - this ridiculous trend launched by the hipster and a few male celebrities make me think I should never forget to shave me every day or two untill I die.
He looked tense. Or engaged in what we were doing, I don't know for sure. Suddenly he smiled, showing with his head the fat woman.
She had cut eight pieces with a huge knife, a bowie looking as coming from Shining with the crasy Jack Nicholson.
She was looking at the cake and then put her fingers on the knife to slowly take the white sugar mixture on it and swallow it.
I forgot to sing, and she looked at me, her finger in her mouth for a few seconds. She listened to the music and wincked at me, or it was my head that invented that sign.
My children were not happy either. They were thinking their american friends were boring, obsessed by their own success later.
Every week one of my girls jumped on my feet and asked when we would come back in France. They had messages on Facebook from friends always saying they would come for vacation, and never appearing.
And I must say that my investors were a "désastre", new american ones not even taking the time to meet me, and just asking the figures each month, and the french ones, totally lost in the Silicon Valley's microcosm.
May be I was wrong. May be my life was nearly to become a disaster, my wife leaving me with our daugthers and my start up neither increasing its customer bases, the challenge my american VC (venture capitalist) gave to me, nor breaking even, for sure the goal for my french business partners.
I forget to mention my father had bad results of blood analysis, my sister said to me that perhaps it was serious, perhaps not, they would know later, but she already threatened me with her harsh voice that it would be impossible with her job to take care of my mother if my father would be sick. And as children, it was both our responsability to take care of them. Far away is not easy to make it happen, she said. Food for thoughts. What else ?
Let's go home, it's late, and I'm starving. My stomach makes noise like I'm annoying myself or getting myself sick, as driving my car too fast in the mountains.
Let's sing louder for our last moment on stage. I would love a cigarett. I smell the smoke, someone must smoke outside and it enters with the airconditioning.
I hate this lights. I become crasy or there is now two fat women.
I looked at my friends while singing the last song, carefully looking at them, one new friend and an old friend, sharing doubts and passions. It's strange to share moment like that. Suddenly, it becomes obvious that I will never forget that moment.
Why ? As nothing is happening, it's a good question, perhaps that fat woman and her outrageous cake in front of me, reminds me life is a big joke or something like that.
At least, we shouldn't take it too seriously, don't you think ?
Let's go home I said. The music stopped. In the silence, one could hear suddenly a radio playing in the near room " Californication". We didn't even laugh.
Biarritz May 2015
I could have killed him
His arms hurt. He was in the hospital. It was new to him, last time he came it was when his wife was pregnant, never for him. A big building, never seen before. He didn't like the atmosphere, like an ants home, busy and noisy.
- "What did you do to your arm and hand ?" said the nurse, she was curious, but like looking for a medical information for a file, no more than that.
As she smiled at him, he was thinking she was wearing a red lipstick and she shouldn't as her complexion was not perfect, and she had thin lips surrounded by fat cheeks, but what the fuck finally, his son was alive and nothing else mattered, he gave her a smile, a genenous on
e, full teeth out.
- "I had lost my child.
-?" She looked curious for real now.
As he was relax, he had taken his day for medical exams and the radio, he decided to tell her the story. He had lived it, but never talked about it. It was still a trauma for him, and he wanted to expel anger and fear, and to come back to the life before, if possible.
-"It's a long story, I will do it short.
- I've got time. Normally when we see that in Normandy, it's men that feel like super heroes as they drank to much, and they decided to fight with a wall." And she smiled again, raising her shoulders, showing it was not very important, like apologizing for what she said.
For the first time in his life, he was interested by someone he didn't know and he would most probably never see again, like feeling human, and touched by her empathy.
-"I live in Paris with my wife and my children. They're ten years old, eight, and four. Two girls and one boy, Quentin. The story is about him. We had rent a big house for the big week-end of May, with plenty of family around, uncles and ants, nephews, and friends." He whispered, like remembering the shock.
She looked at him, while preparing papers for the doctor. His arms hurt but it didn't matter. He continued, suprised by his look in the big mirror, dark circles under the eyes, and thiner than