Love Letters from the Gutter

The Pink Collection #2 - Café Bellecour

My Dearest Button,

I have passed and I have waited and I have even one day been moved along by the police, but all that I ever find under the 'lions left paw' is shadow. I think that will never change.

The police here are strange, and there's many different kinds. I don't understand much of that but I know that the one's who wear the black boots and carry guns mean business. I could tell that just by the way one of them snatched my passport from my hand as if it was a bad forgery and I was the only thing holding it together. To give an idea of the French police is to tell you this: they passed my passport around amongst themselves, pointing and laughing at my picture, always addressing me  as "Sir", wishing me a "Good day" and then telling me to "fuck off!" (in French of course). But maybe you know all this better than me?  These things may sound humorous, and maybe they would be if I had someone to laugh at them with, but I don't and I don't feel much like laughing anyway.

Button, it's now just gone 1 pm and I'm inside the cool of the Café Bellecour escaping the high sun. I'm not sure if you've ever visited this place, but if not you must... we must. It's like stepping back in time. The floor is tiled out white and heavy marble tables are set around in not much order. On the walls there are sketches and letters and line drawings on napkins, all from the local artists who have visited here over the years. At the far end of the bistro is a full length polished wooden bar, and up above that, past the rows of blue and turquoise Pernod bottles, are hung old street plaques, tins of rationed food, and signs telling people what not to do when they get drunk (especially to animals!) The smell of the place is another heaven entirely: dill, poached salmon and sweated shallots, drifting across the room at nose height and mingling with fresh filter coffee. It kinda allows you to suck in the years. The clientèle, well, they're still mostly artists, I think, sketching or writing away, all intent on capturing each others shit in their own medium! Oh, I'm sorry... I know such things annoy you, but some parts of me remain. I don't see art; I see through it. Uh oh, here she comes...

A young waitress with dark hair held in a French tail and with the most perfect slender frame has just given me a coffee and a smile. I'd pay for that. The waitresses here, at least in the traditional French bars, are all elegant and vulnerable looking things. When they leave they somehow make you want to follow. Though don't be fooled, they could snap most men in half just by holding out on a kiss. Sometimes they'll stand looking at you from over near the coffee machine while gently biting their lower lip. Some wear their pencils in their hair. It's not watery-piss tea and blowjobs under the table here, but intense and sensual longing, nipples and breasts, before waking in lonely sheets with nothing but the French air to cure you of your pain. When you're already lovesick, the last thing you need is to be served coffee by one of these temptresses... reminding you of every heartache you've ever had. Ok, so now you'll be shaking your head in knowing disappointment at "people changing", remarking that I've not changed at all and am doing it again: waiting for you while thinking of others. But that's not true. Sometimes my mind just wanders, and often I'm not here even when it looks like I am.

Ah, Button, I've got it! I will leave my letter here! Right here in the café... up on the wall like it's a part of the decor. If you do ever come I am hopeful that you'll see it as I know your eyes search out such things. It is Sunday the 19th of June and I am alone. If you find these words within the next few days leave me sign in the gutter of Rue Lafontaine.

With Love until I love no more,

The ever hopeful carrier of disaster that I am,

       Enola Gray. X