Coq au Vin by Charlotte Carter Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    I divided the last of the coffee between our two cups. Boy! did I want a cigarette.
    â€œWell, like they say, nothing lasts forever,” he said. “You get over yourself, one way or another. I stopped running from fights. And the fellas stopped wanting to fight me around the time we all discovered sex. See, the girls liked me.”
    I grinned. “Yaaay, Andre! So you went from being the four-eyed sissy to the neighborhood pussy magnet.”
    â€œYou got it. For however brief a time, I was a hero.”
    â€œFierce at last!” I raised the fist to him.
    â€œNo, I told you, I’m not. But I’ll tell you who was. My mom. I don’t know how she did it, exactly, but she’s the one who—” He stopped there and didn’t talk again until he had drained his cup.
    When he spoke again, his voice had become thick. “A lot of things make me want to kill. And a lot of things I just don’t give a fuck about anymore. All I care about now is becoming excellent at my work and being legit over here. Getting my papers, steady gigs, an apartment, whatever. ’Cause I am not going back. By the way, that was a load of crap I gave you about being a legal resident and having a permit, just in case you didn’t already know.
    â€œAbout the only thing that makes me want to fight now is other people telling me who I am and what I ought to be doing and who I ought to be doing it with.”
    â€œYou mean you don’t like having your blackness challenged?”
    â€œMy blackness is not open to challenge. My father was black, so that means I’m black. Period. I guess what I mean is, my people deserve to be honored by me, and I’m serious about doing that—but I deserve some honor too, right? Who doesn’t?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “Who doesn’t? Are you all on your own now? No family?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow long have you been in Paris?”
    â€œFive months.”
    â€œMade any friends yet?”
    He shook his head. “Not really. Just some guys I met playing around town. The place I’m staying at belongs to one of my profs, but he isn’t there now. I’m subletting from him.”
    â€œWhat are you—”
    He cut me off. “Just a minute! Hold up! Question after question after question. We’re only talking about me. I want to know something about you and your stuff.”
    â€œYou will, you will,” I said. “Tell you what. Wait for me in the café downstairs while I get ready.”
    â€œReady for what?”
    â€œWe’re going to get seriously drunk.”
    â€œAre you joking?”
    â€œSeriously, intentionally drunk.”
    â€œIt’s only ten-thirty,” he said giddily. “In the morning.”
    â€œI know. But I’m about to tell you my life story, right? That’s not something you do sober, my brother. And you’ve got to show me your Paris before I show you mine.”
    He picked up his violin and practically danced over to the door.
    â€œIt’s good to be an international nigger, don’t you find, Nan?”
    â€œYes, mon frère . It is kind of da bomb.”
    Instead of waiting downstairs, he had run home to drop off his violin.
    By late afternoon, we’d been walking and talking and drinking for hours.
    I didn’t figure on another excursion to the Right Bank so soon. But that was okay. Andre and I were wending our way all over the 8th while his nonstop Negro-in-Paris history rap unreeled like a guided tour cassette. The kid was amazing.
    He had just given me the complete history of the concert hall called the Salle Pleyel, on the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, where every famous brown person who had ever set foot in Paris—from the players in the old la revue Negre to W.E.B. Du Bois to Herbie Hancock to Howlin Wolf—had drawn an audience.
    We stopped briefly for another drink, exchanged more life story tidbits, and pressed