CRUCIFICTION

While the bombs fell between the 20th and 21st of April 1944, people prayed at the feet of the Crucifixion at Sacre Coeur. Montmartre was spared. I can’t help but feel it was their
collective prayer that saved them rather than the stilled heart of a dead man, as full of grace as he might have been. There was no one then to pray for his salvation. He was betrayed. No one saw it coming.
I followed the Stations of the Cross, its brilliant mosaic transforming what must have been a messy business into a spectacle for the eyes. From the gleaming dome above, Le Seigneur, all cleaned up and risen from the tomb, bestows his blessing, substantiating triumph over death.
Once a year his betrayal is re-enacted. We all know what’s going to happen but we can’t do anything to reverse it. We can elevate it to sacrifice, feel better about the comparatively small betrayals we commit. We are all Judas. Only Jesus is the savior. His message was simple: Save yourself. But a game of telephone was in operation, and the road to dogma is paved with competing intentions.
Did he really die for our sins, or was he merely being consistent? Here, you can own another’s pain without having to really suffer it. You can be protected and forgiven. All human misery is swept under the shade of an ancient oak whose acorn happened to fall on good soil.
A martyr chooses death. Jesus’ Passion might have been an unfortunate political accident. Or else Judas helped to ensure He carried out his destiny. Most of us die for no reason. Insight might come early or not at all. We may live rich, complex lives that are woven into a larger, ongoing narrative. Or we may be easily forgotten. How many bibles have gone unwritten?

*
Asylum

At the entrance, security guards scan the crowd. A man directs people to the side aisles or the pews, depending on whether they’re coming to pray or coming to look. He repeatedly puts his finger to his lips—sshhhh! They have lots to see and say. Some are in awe. Some are making arrangements for later when they’ll go for moules frites. Scowling, he continues shushing, pointing to his head to remind them to remove their hats, shaking his finger at the one-eyed monsters to put their cameras away. He protects the Sacred Heart with the authority vested in him by the Holy Fathers who take his confession and hand him the Eucharist. The end is always near. You try to see it coming.
*

Passion

I thought the services would start at 5:30, so I was seated in the second row by 5:25. But this is Good Friday not a routine Vespers service. After an hour, a nun in a white robe and black wimple walks out to the front of the apse and sets up a microphone. She moves like an actress playing a nun. Men in lab coats come out and place the sacred objects and texts. A short, plump woman in a white lab coat appears with a rag and feather duster and tidies up. They have a brief conversation and walk back behind the apse. A handyman walks on, front left, with keys and a tape measure hanging out of his pocket. He looks around and walks off, leaving behind an odor of lubricating oil. Another half hour goes by. The pews are filling up.
A Black priest in a white robe comes out. There is anticipation, especially in the first two rows, where those who came earliest have been sitting longest. But then, behind the priest is the cleaning woman again. They file off to the right. Some people are talking, others are praying. Some of the ones praying tell the ones who are talking to be quiet. An irritable exchange erupts between the two women next to me, who have been chattering away, and the woman behind, who chastises them. A woman many rows back is talking loudly. People are trying to quiet her. She becomes increasingly belligerent and it slowly becomes apparent that she is not in her right mind. A few people smile indulgently. Two nuns come out and hand out the texts for the mass. Another ten minutes pass. The nuns come out and take their seats on the sides and the noise subsides a little. Another twenty minutes pass.
I read the whole four pages of the mass. My eyelids fall closed and I drift into a mild state of meditation. The woman next to me stands suddenly. I jump up from my seat, surprised at my own reflex and realize that, although I never thought it possible, I have been hypnotized. The procession has begun.
A cardinal and three priests are in front. One of the priests is old and feeble. All kneel down and prostrate themselves before the marble Crucifix. When they stand, the two on the outside pull the old one up by his elbows. He stumbles to his feet, a tuft of white hair sticking up from his head. The angelic voices of the nuns sing about the Royal Kingdom of Heaven. I sing along, following the printed text, in exalted French. The Passion is read by three priests. The cardinal speaks the words of Jesus in a deep, commanding voice. We all stand and the nuns sing, in crystalline harmony, the adoration of the Wooden Cross:

Voici le bois de la Croix
qui porte le Salut du monde,
Venez, Adorons!

Here is the wood of the Cross
that carries the Salvation of the world,
Come, let us adore it.

The Wooden Cross, carved in olive wood, is carried from the back by a procession of robed men. When they reach the apse they hold it vertically so the priests and altar boys can each in turn come forward to kiss it. After each kiss, a priest wipes the spot clean with a handkerchief.
Then the nuns line up. They kiss the naked Jesus all over his stretched out body, under his ribs, his armpit, his thighs, his hands, his feet. They know how much he suffered for them, how much he loves them. And they love him back. The priest swabs each kiss with his handkerchief.
After this the pews empty into the aisles. The line is slow and as I come nearer my eyes are ineluctably drawn to the loincloth. I sense a nudge from the devil but head for the foot. The priest points to the blank surface of the cross, indicating where I must kiss it, shouting, “Le pied! Le pied!”—and I begin to think my eyes have betrayed me. Or the priest has read my mind. I am convinced he is able to see transgressions before they happen. I walk past his finger and put my lips to the exquisitely carved toe, the tendons strained in agonized submission.
The nuns sing:

O Croix, buisson ardent de la Revelation,
Vigne au Sang vermeil, Olivier de benediction,
O Croix, bois d’ombre et defraicheur ou murmure L’Esprit, nous t’adorons!

O Cross, burning bush of the Revelation,
Vineyard of ruby Blood, Olive Tree of benediction,
O Cross, dark and faded wood where the Spirit whispers, we adore you.

Words so holy even the metaphors are Capitalized.
*
Betrayal

Walking back from the church I notice signs hanging outside many apartment windows that read, Vendu. The word ‘vendu’ means ‘sold.’ It also means ‘traitor.’ This seems serendipitous. We find ourselves inhabiting a world where the structures we’ve trusted to protect us have betrayed us. Time and space have become commodities beyond our means—The weak may inherit the earth, but the traitors have the best real estate. So at least here, in Paris, you’re safe from traitors if you pay attention to the signs.

Easter, 2005

Tea Pee

The sun has finally come to Paris, though if you don't stand in the sun it feels like late March or September. I decided to go outside to work, write by hand, something I do when I can't bear another moment in front of this screen. So I went to the Jardins des Plantes to look at flowers and find a cheap place to eat a sandwich and write in my notebook. I arrived with an empty stomach and a full bladder with no bathroom in sight. I ordered a sandwich and asked where the toilets were and was told straight that way and then make a left and keep going. That seemed far so i decided to eat my sandwich first. It seemed kind of lame, though, considering there was a food concession next to a playground which was visited by children who were clearly no longer in diapers. Inconvenient is putting it mildly. So after my sandwich I trudged off following the directions. After a while it seemed too long a distance so I walked back the other way to the playground thinking I'd misunderstood, being not that proficient in aural French, which even though it may sound like it, is not a sexual technique. I asked someone in the playground, still incredulous that there wouldn't be a place for children to make doody and sissy, which is what we called it in Brooklyn where I grew up, though I do remember people holding their little kids over the gutter to pee rather than take them upstairs to do it in private. Anyway, the woman said there wasn't any in the playground, so I went back in the direction I came from and asked two old people sitting on a bench doing crossword puzzles. They pointed straight ahead and said it was just a little further next to the entrance to the zoo. I walked for what seemed like three city blocks, avoiding getting too caught up in looking at the flowers, and finally came to the PortaSan (however you spell it.) There was a red light which read: "Hors de service" meaning "Out of service." I was getting too pissed but couldn't even find a place to do that, and what's more, I hadn't even stopped to smell the roses. I went off in another direction looking for a gardener or someone who might know what's what, and found a guy digging around in the rose garden. He directed me back in the direction of the PortaSan and i told him it was out of order. He looked apologetic and told me to find the 'gardien' and ask him, perhaps he would know more...Walking further, avoiding the seductive alleys and walkways full of lush plantings, I found a bunch of beefy guys walking around in uniforms with gardening tools. Before they had a chance to send me off to the f'n PortoSan again, i explained that I'd already been there and wanted to know if there was an alternative. They said I should go into the nearby Museé de L'Homme, a complex of buildings spread over a dozen or so acres, another walk of about three blocks. So...I arrived in front of the first building and read the sign: "Fermé Mardi." Well, it just so happens it was Mardi and the museum was closed. I began considering peeing behind a bush or tree, figuring there must be some out of the way shady nook, it being a Botanical Garden and all. In the gardens of Brooklyn or the Bronx, for example, one could easily find such a place, certainly in Central Park, right? I began wishing that I had a companion with me to act as lookout--but that was not happening. French gardens are very formal with no hidden or overgrown areas, unless you go into the Labyrinth, which is populated with all kinds of people, lovers, parents and children and others you don't want to see with your pants down. But at this point I'm still trying to be optimistic. I walk around and around and...around. But, as I often try to ignore them, the facts inevitably win. I decide to ignore my need for the moment and go smell the roses. I am delighted when I discover among the rose beds an exquisitely naughty marble statue of Dionysus, with a sinister smile on his pointy-eared face looking down on the smaller, captive figure of Eros tied to his chest. Eros looks up over his shoulder at his captor with indignance, his defiant boy chest exposed to the viewer, straining wings spread. It is one of the most erotic sculptures I've ever seen. But as for the roses, most of them have been drowned by the excessive rain.
I decide that since I'm not far, more or less, from La Mosquée, which has an incredible hammam with a tea garden and restaurant, I'll go there for tea and use the bathroom. I walk about a half mile since I've come out from the exit furthest from the mosque.
After I use the bathroom I take a table inside one of my favorite rooms in the world, a Morrocan paradise where sparrows flit in and out of the open windows, landing on the brass tables foraging for crumbs of almond, rosewater and pistachio soaked in too much honey, though sparrows have no teeth and don't have to worry about cavities, and flit around so much they can probably eat 1000 times their weight. The voice of Oum Kalsoum and the sweet smell of tobacco being smoked in hookahs fills the room. So in the end, tout va bien--the simple pleasures of a pee and tea.

Velib Schmelib

I'm trying to keep it together but disintegration is always at my heels. For a moment I considered re-titling this "The Daily Flog," but I spend so much time battling my tendency to complain that i decided against it. Anyway, I googled it and it's already taken. I will forge ahead with "the path of least resistance" if it kills me.
I decided to try to go against another natural preference of working at night when it's dark outside and I can control the light inside, and most people are home doing god-knows-what and I don't really want to know about it. I tried it and after a week of working in the daytime began to feel as if a gray muck was settling over my soul. Daylight is best for outside activity and I was slipping into a werewolf mentality. To remedy this I decided to go for an afternoon swim at the public pool and ride there on one of the new free for the 1st 1/2 hour bikes that the mayor of Paris had installed in mid-July, a system called VELIB. I used one once coming home late from a friend's and it was super convenient.
I packed my gear and went to the conveniently located bike station across the street from my apartment. There were no bikes. Ok, there's another one not too far, even though it's in the wrong direction. I get there and the computer screen tells me i can't get a one-day pass with my bank card. Ok, there's another one, this time closer to where I'm headed, but not so close to the pool to make me want to walk. I get there and there's one lonely bike left whose red light I foolishly ignore. I go through the registration process. It registers my bank card and charges me the one euro fee plus 150 euro deposit. I couldn't get the bike to release from the parking station, but ok, I should have paid attention to the red light, should have known better. Now that i've been charged, though, I'm determined to get on a bike, damn it. There's another station further along, almost all the way to where i'm going. It's out of order. I end up walking to the pool--I can always get on a bike to come home. There's a man outside the pool who tells me it's closed due to "technical difficulties." This is not the first time this has happened and i sometimes wonder if it's just a sneaky way for the staff to get a day to themselves. I know there's a bike station, not that close, in the opposite direction of home, but hey--i paid my one euro.
So i trudge over there and finally get a bike assigned to me by the computer--Number 6. I straddle Number 6, lower the seat and slowly find my balance with my heavy bag on my shoulder since if i put it in the basket i'm afraid the badly balanced bike will start wavering into traffic. I stay on the sidewalk just to be sure I make it home without being creamed by the Alain Delon wannabes on motos. I seem to be going over speed bumps, but i'm on the sidewalk and can't figure out why there'd be speed bumps on the sidewalk. I look down and it all looks like normal pavement so i get off the bike and give a look. My rear tire is flat. The question now is--where do i dump this thing? First i try the station that was out of order, thinking maybe I can drop off a bike even if i can't take one. Nope. I go back to the one that wouldn't take my bank card, but YES! it takes my bike. I apply a well-made chestnut cream crepe to my frustrated intentions and walk home.
In total, I spent an hour and a half within a half mile radius that I could have spent at the Louvre, or walking through the Luxembourg Gardens but let's look at it this way--there was a three point payoff: Even though I didn't get to swim, I got a major workout walking from station to station and then pedalling uphill on a one ton bike with a flat rear tire. The crepe was really good. I think i'm making progress with my attitude problem.

If you've landed here, you are on top of the Eiffel Tower, and maybe you'd rather be in Brooklyn. If so, I recommend you take one of the rides in ASTROLAND before they tear it down as this will be its last season before the raptors come and change Coney Island into another shiny corporate feedbag (the CYCLONE and the WONDER WHEEL will stay, as they are owned by New York City and have landmark status.) But they will never tear down the Eiffel Tower because it would be like tearing down the Chrysler Building which would be like tearing down the Eiffel Tower.
I was here, on the top of the E.T., for the third and hopefully last time for awhile, because my dear sister and brother-in-law were visiting and I would basically do anything to make them happy, especially on their first trip to Paris--even stand in line in the cold rain for two hours to get to the top and look around at the magnificence of this city for about 20 minutes, take pictures, and then, thankfully, go get a beer.
I am leaving my Montmartre paradise for New York Shitty in seven weeks and will be glad to see my son, sisters and ooooold friends again. The Parisians are good at complaining and there's lots to complain about everywhere, but I must admit I miss New York style kvetching. I'm sure the charm will wear off quickly, but Murray's Bagels and Hudson River here I come. Seven more weeks....I hope I find someone to stay here that loves plants. Writing is a solitary activity and sometimes the only living thing i touch for days at a time are my flowers and fragrant green friends on the balcony.Stay tuned....