Urban Perfume

PART THREE

Urban Perfume…

The 19th Arrondissement of Paris had an urban perfume of smoggy scooter exhausts, fried oil poured out into the gutter, piss from a drunkard, and blooming night lavender of a hooker that stumbled by. Heightened at 3 AM — lingered into the morning, and started up again in the night.

A dog barked in an alleyway.

“Ta gueule, le chien!” A woman shouted from a window. Just trying to sleep and that fucking dog was killing her. Damn mutt!

The 19th Arrondissement was consumed by people just trying to get by — Chinese restaurant owners waking to prep the kitchen before dawn, Marcel the painter who never amounted more than his large penis to which he uploaded pictures to on google maps, Louis who hung about the tobacco shop in his puffer jacket thinking about rent, and Nadia — a foreigner who spoke poor french and preferred being under the radar.

Dyed her hair black. Red stood out. So that was better.

It had been two years since she arrived in Paris. She was twenty-eight. Now walking home from the strip club.

3 AM…

An elderly homeless man shivered his sleeping bag near the bus stop.

“Voilà, monsieur Gérard,” Nadia handed him a crusty loaf filled with ham and cheese.

“Merci… Merci beaucoup…” he shivered, took the loaf, nibbled on it.

“Tu fais les livraisons… ou tu fais des strip-teases privés aussi, mademoiselle?” He grinned. (You do deliveries… or private strip teases too, miss?)

“Je suis boulangère,” she sighed. (I’m a baker.)

“Les boulangères portent pas des talons,” he said, pointing. (Bakers don’t wear heels.)

Nadia turned and left Gérard to nibble away in the cold. Even in his weakest state, his penis was still in charge. God…