Impresario

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Impresario
I can’t remember exactly when we met, but it was long enough ago to think of Jean-Pierre and me as kids at the time.  And now we are middle-aged gents, complimenting one another on how fit we have managed to remain after all these years—and only one of us is lying.  He’s an honest man and interesting, sure enough.  But I also think Jean-Pierre keeps coming back like a bad penny.  He just turns up, year after year.  No matter where I’m walking or what I’m doing, the odds are I’ll run into him after two or three weeks in Paris, though once I passed by him when I was just off the plane and thought it was a jet-lag mirage rather than Jean-Pierre and almost didn’t stop.  He tried to trip me, then said at the top of his lungs, “Ignoring me? Where’s my money?”  I can’t remember if I answered “Your sister is infected” or “That so-called dope was oregano,” but it served, everyone within ten metres of us running for cover and everything between Jean-Pierre and me being just as it was. But it’s hard to tell what it was and still is, except it’s always like this exchange.  A straight line—or a weird and crooked one—from him gets the game going, then it’s up to me to give it a good shove.  It was on the Pont St. Michel when we were young that it first happened.  We had just met a day or so before and were hanging out with the wannabe wise guys, les louches aspirants, who choked up the sidewalk most evenings.  A girl walked by, and one of the hangers-out asked how to say putain in English.  Without a pause, Jean-Pierre said whore, and that’s what the creeps started yelling at her.  Bad enough, but then they started chasing her and one of them was throwing some stones or some junk he’d picked up.  Jean-Pierre, looking alarmed, shouted à la rescousse at me, and we bolted down the street, gleaming in armor, lances at the ready.  Being the faster runner by a good three strides, I bumped one of the punks into the parapet of the bridge and kept going after the girl who had stopped, too frightened to move.  Jean-Pierre belted the second, and took his time joining us.  By the time he had sauntered up, the girl was busy thanking me and had taken my arm.  He beamed at the two of us, made an observation about a third wheel on a bicycle—or maybe a fifth leg on a horse—and waved us goodbye.  You see what I mean? There’s no telling if Jean-Pierre has always been an impresario of street theatre or a trouble-maker, but he likes to make things happen.  In this case, I learned from him a few days later, he had guessed the girl really was what the jerks on the bridge said she was and wondered, if after stirring the pot, whether a péripaticienne would thank a sterling young hero, like me, with a free sample or two.  Three, I told him, but he wouldn’t believe me—and anyway, no harm done. But harm and embarrassment did not mean much to him, at least mine didn’t: the show had to go up and then go on, and it’s a fair guess that I was not the only regular in his repertory company.  I didn’t, and still don’t, care about the others, but he has always had a way of getting to me with one or the other.  A couple of years after the Battle of Saint Michael’s Bridge, he and I were walking a few blocks from Les Halles.  A man stopped us and asked if we would like some women.  Jean-Pierre pointed at a grimy table at a café across the street and suggested we go there to talk it over.  I should have known better, but all three of us sat down and asked for coffee. Jean Pierre asked him how many women he had and what’s the price?  The pimp said as many as we would like and a hundred francs a head—or whatever part—per hour.  Too much, Jean-Pierre said, and besides—he pointed at me—il fait travailler les femmes and cheaper. This way of saying I too was a pimp didn’t go over well with me, but even worse with the real pimp who let me know that he didn’t need me horning in on his turf, that only Corsicans like himself could do the job properly, and maybe we should go somewhere quieter and talk it over.  He reached into his coat pocket.  I shoved the coffee cup, which had just arrived at the table onto his lap, put my right heel down on his right instep as I got up from the table, and beat the hell out of there as fast as I could, hoping Jean-Pierre would become the star of his own improv production.  When he caught up with me no more than ten minutes later—undamaged, sorry to say—he was laughing as usual, but congratulated me on still being able to run so fast.  This time, I put my right foot right into the center of his rear end. This had no historical effect on Jean-Pierre.  We met and other things happened, but one production was a minor work of art.  It must have been fifteen years ago at least that I was sitting on the crowded terrace of brasserie, when an aging tante who had been wandering among the tables, asked to share mine since, he explained, there was no other place to sit.  I gestured to the seat and went back to my newspaper.  After a few seconds, the old boy excused himself for interrupting me and explained that he had hesitated to speak to me because I looked so distinguished.  I assured him I was no such thing.  He told me he had recently arrived in Paris, was a really excellent cook, knew good wines…
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