Illustration by Laura Pérez
Was it just me or was there something in the air on Friday? For some of us, it was the last weekday off before heading back into the full swing of things as today truly kicks off 2013. While I'm sad to see my two weeks of leisurely hanging around my apartment, without a trace of make-up and bundled up in over-sized sweaters, reading and organizing, I'm looking forward to moving and shaking again. And believe it or not, I missed my little French babelings.
So back to last Friday. Friday mornings are my favorite mornings of the week, besides the fact that it's Friday; a nod to childhood when this magical day meant pizza and sleepovers, I teach an early morning adult English class to editors of a French publication at their offices. It really is the one day I get to flex my English linguistic skills, and take a nice break from my usual "lessons" of drawing circles and counting to ten over watered down grenadine cocktails and raspberry jelly cookies.
On my late morning commute back home, as usual the train was quiet. With over 14 stops to go, I nestled in a seat with a copy of Elle and indulged in some quiet reading time. The train was moving along nicely with no random stops in the tunnel, no loud or boisterous French teenagers, and no accordion music. All was still until the man across from me - a well-dressed man in his late 40s - addressed the little girl who was beside me, sitting next to her mother. Boarding the train, I didn't get the impression that they were all together, but I wasn't exactly focused on them as I was entranced in an article about the lovely Lea Seydoux. Before I offered him my seat so the family could all sit together, it quickly occurred to me that they were in fact not together. Not at all. How did I know this? Well when he started calling the girl whom I thought was his daughter a stupid little bitch, and said that he was going come over and punch her in the face, it quickly came into sight that he was another metro lunatic - just in a cuter outfit. The man continued rambling before he stood up and got closer to her, mumbling profanities at this innocent little girl. The mother whispered to her daughter to just ignore him, and the two of them kept their eyes glued to the floor not to provoke him.
All I have to say is thank God I wasn't with my mom and her big mouth, otherwise we'd be dead. Seriously.
Eventually the man got bored with the mother-daughter duo and found interest in a woman in her mid-50s sitting by the train's doors who was quietly reading the metro newspaper. He walked up to her, hovered over her seat rambling insults before he started whacking her newspaper with the back of his hand. Not at all impressed, she laid the newspaper on her lap, and coolly looked up at him without any fear and told him to cut it out (in the informal - for those of you who appreciate those little details as I do). The man obliged and began scanning the train cars looking for his next victim to approach. Please not me. Please not me. I repeated over and over to myself. I'm not equipped for these situations (but really who is?). I'm just not as calm and brave as the French and can't just quietly tell them to stop it and continue reading. My heart was racing the several times our eyes had met, and was positive that I was next up. Fortunately, I was wrong because the next thing we saw was him antagonizing a gentleman who was reading a book. The maniac was whispering in his ear and flicking the back of his neck, desperate for a response. Without a drop of emotion, the young man told him to "dégage", shooed him away with his hands, and continued reading his autobiography of François Hollande. The nonchalance was really quite remarkable. Me not being someone who is exactly celebrated for staying calm in hostile situations, I marveled at the calmness of these passengers who were being threatened.
The lunatic finally got off at Chemin Vert and just as the doors were closing and he was securely on the platform with no longer an opportunity to re-board, the entire train applauded in relief that he was gone. Much to my entertainment, he had heard the train's jubilation of his departure and with his fist, he pounded on the window calling up all spoiled Parisian scum.
The madness didn't stop there. Of course it didn't. That evening as I was setting up our Friday night cocktail hour tradition, I heard violent screaming out on the street. Séb and I both ran to the window to see what the ruckus was. We saw a man with salt and pepper hair and a younger girl, blonde and in about her late twenties in a heated argument in front of the building across the street. The girl ran into the building with the man following behind her.
Because of the angle we were at, being two floors up, we could see through the small top windows of double front doors of this typical Parisian building. Though the windows, we saw the girl attacking the man with her umbrella. All we could see was violently thrashing about through the small window, and heard her screaming. The door opened and the man exited, approaching what we learned was his car parked right outside the building. Following his exit, several other people arrived taking iPhone pictures, while the girl followed the man, continuing to beat him with her umbrella.
"What should we do?!" I asked in a panic, looking through our junk drawer for the postcards that we get every week in our mailbox with all a list of all of the emergency numbers. Just as I found my phone and realized the number to call the police in France is 17, I turned around to see Séb with our three foot Christmas tree in his hand, ready to launch it out the window.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I cried out in shock.
"We have to stop him!" he said as he moved my desk over in order to open the window.
"Let's not call the police, let's just throw a Christmas tree at him? What is this logic?!" I said while wrangling the innocent tree out of his mad man hands.
Before we could make the right decision and call the police not attack him and his car with a pine tree, the man sped off into the night. The girl then joined the iPhone photographers, lit up a cigarette and began giggling before walking off with her friends...as if nothing at all strange just occurred. Good thing we didn't heave the Christmas tree out the window. Last Friday was one of the stranger days that I've had in Paris, and was just another reminder that there are sick people out there and to be aware of my surroundings. Here's to starting 2013 on the right note!
