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

20 comments:

  1. I can smell the shallots and the coffee. Beautiful, but tragic. I must read it again!

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  2. A sense of longing that is almost palpable.
    I can smell that coffee from here, and can only reminisce about the feel of French linen sheets in the early morning =]

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  3. Grouchy, it will have a tragic tone in the early letters and will then edge across to beauty. X

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  4. Gurney, I've longed... I know that feeling well. I've also woken up alone in fresh hotel sheets, but that was mostly me just getting my money's worth and not booking out until the very final morning. It's a depressing thing to do, but I still do it! Haha. X

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  5. hi shane - these letters are really wonderful...i'm looking forward to more!

    xxx
    stacy

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  6. Hey Ya Stacy...

    Oh there's loads to come. The more I think about this piece the more I think i should have set it up on it's own address. It still works here as letters cannot be dropped everyday, there must be time given for a response, and during that time I can concentrate on other stories. So in that way it's perfect for Bubble Gum.... XXX

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  7. I don't see art; I see through it

    When you're young this seems like a good thing. Then you want to be more vulnerable to artifice/Art.Less cynical.

    I love all the Paris detail. Even though I've never seen any of those places, just the French words themselves make it atmospheric.

    It's reminding me of Bazz whatsisname's Moulin Rouge, which I really liked.

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  8. you are truly the finest writer of modern romances.

    the kingdom comes,
    dusty rose.

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  9. Hey Ya Joe... I'm really thinking of a name change before this goes any further; Maybe Enola Gray instead. I already feel it's getting away from who I first thought this character may become. It doesn't looke right to me signing them Enola Gay, as I don't think he would have written letters like that. Also Gray is maybe more the depressed tone that this starts out as.

    It's Lyon not Paris, and maybe one day you'll get to visit some of the places and I can buy you coffee and all butter croissants in the Café Bellecour. I will be adding pictures of these places a little later on, and so we'll all get to know what they look and feel like anyway.

    X

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  10. Doctor Rose, if anyone else would have said that I'd be on a plane to wherever they are... spit-polishing my knuckles on the way! But from you it's a compliment... X

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  11. Oh I knew it was Lyon! I sort of meant French detail, for which Paris is shorthand.

    Well I'm not sure where the main character is going but Enola Gray does sound better than Enola Gay - less connotations.

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  12. I agree with Joe - Enola Gay seems to be too contrived, although it made a useful pun at the end of Letter 1.

    Also the idea of a separate address for this - it could be good, and it could maintain continuity more easily, and it allows for a matrix of characters to be created around it more easily, a la Abigail Winthrop, and a more detailed world to be created. It wouldn't detract from the other standalone writings either

    The thing about this site that excites and interests me is the idea of variety; that there will be a range of stories, covering all sorts of genres, although there's nothing to say that the stories all have to be one offs - continuity in places would surely be a good thing.

    So I guess there's an argument both ways. I'd probably set up a sister site, but then you have the risk of neglecting this, which has massive potential and which, as I said, I'm really interested in...

    Joe - I'm not seeing it as Moulin Rouge, but as every Cafe Rouge I've ended up in for lunch...

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  13. I've never been in a Cafe Rouge, but I think I can imagine.

    With Moulin Rouge I'm thinking about the over the top starving writer's Romantic Adoration - 'Santeeeeeeeen!' The tragic death.

    For some reason I'm also thinking she's a spy or has multiple identities...

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  14. Hiya Joe, yes it is less connotations although the name Enola Gay was never used for the 'gay' reason but purely because of someone being named after the planes which dropped 'THE' bomb and caused so much devastation. I'm very interested in the influence our names have upon our lives (and I believe they have a great influence, especially the people we relate to with the same name, or the history of our name). So it was purely for that and wondering "how would someone turn out growing up with a name which was not only the carrier of the biggest tragedy ever, but which also would have had them preoccupied and thinking about the word 'gay' from day one?" But now that is not the character who is writing these letters and so he will turn GRAY.

    For some reason I'm also thinking she's a spy or has multiple identities...

    Jesus, you guys know more than me!!! X

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  15. Hey John, yep GRAY it'll be. It still keeps the association with the aeroplane but loses the misleading and cringeworthy 'gay' thing. So we now have a Mr Gray, and I already feel much better writing from that hand.

    I will not set up a sister site... it's too much fucking around for everyone and I think it'll work here just fine. Once we get a few months in most people will use the site via the sidebar anyway, going straigt to trhe stories which interest them. In that way Love Letter Gutter will almost have it's own space as it'll be alone in the Romance section.

    X

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  16. yeah, it's not the sappy kind of romance but, the true kind. something entirely different.
    also, thanks for putting a link to my blog on your sidebar. i've been changing it around a lot to be more devoted to my main concept. i hope to be changing my header today to something more exciting i'll keep you posted if i do in case you want to put the more aesthetic one up.

    the kingdom comes,
    dr. dusty dee.

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  17. Isn't Enola a female name? I've never known a plane named for dude.

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  18. Enola is an unusual name but yes, the plane was named after the pilot's mother. Although there's nothing to say tat t can't be a unisex name, like Alex or Leslie...

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  19. I love blogging. You all express your feelings the right way, because they are your feeling, focus on your blog it is great.

    Letters

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  20. Shane I have just commented here.. and it has disappeared.. I am having that kind of day tho... I just want to say how fabulous these are I am loving them.. the whole French buzz... the waitress... I wear a chopstick in my hair I now long to be a french waitress, to be that desirable..adored.. that is my new mission.. I am not and never will be a weak cuppa and a blow job under the table..kinda gal.
    These letters are brilliant love as always Ruth x

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If you're here to write something malicious I thank you in advance for wasting your precious time on me. X