Club Parodee

Ahhh! La Belle France.



Club Parodee

by

Paul L. Ellars


Paris, October 1, 1925

“Bon jour, Sangfroid, will you breakfast with me?” asks the little man, lighting a Gauloise. He is speaking to a tall, dark, muscular, impeccably dressed Frenchman in an immaculate cream colored double-breasted suit with blazing turquoise silk tie, matching breast pocket hand kerchief and two-tone white and cream shoes.
“Non! Well, oui, d’accord. Bon jour, Patois, what do you say?” Sangfroid asks, lighting a Gauloise. “Garcon! A la recherché du Pain Perdu.” he yells over to the waiter, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
“Oui, monsieur, d’accord!” the waiter answers, lighting up a Gauloise.
“Ah, Sangfroid, I see you still mourn the passing of Marcel. You have had that same breakfast for three years now, your grief must be deep.” Patois says gingerly, blowing small smoke rings into the air above his head. He knows how easily it is to upset Sangfroid and speaking of Marcel is tricky business.
Sangfroid rests his large frame in the chair at the table with his back against the wall. His dark eyes dart around the room, watching who comes and goes at the club. He is in his late twenties, powerfully built, with black hair shining from too much pomade. He pulls thoughtfully at his pencil-thin mustache with his right hand and with his left fingers the deep, masculine cleft in his dark, swarthy Gallic chin as his eyes come to rest on Patois. He inhales deeply on his Gauloise. Sangfroid is a small-time gangster, petty thief, hit-man, pimp, crook, drug dealer, and pamphleteer. Lately he has been upset over the number of Americans that have been moving to Paris, particularly Montparnasse, his neighborhood, and Montmarte, where Torche La Flame, his girl and chanteuse at Club Parodee, lives.
“You know, Patois, these goddam Americains, they are everywhere; they are really making me very angry. I can’t go anywhere anymore without running into a crowd of them; La Rotonde, Café Le Dome, La Closerie, La Coupole, even the goddam Dingo Bar is lousy with these batars! I would puke if I thought I could do it without ruining my suit! And they think they are so clever, so artistic, so literate and sophisticated. Ha! I’ve read some of their crap; it’s very childish and repetitive; “A rose is a rose is a rose…” mon dieu, I could write tripe like that! What brains does it take to do that eh, mon ami?” Sangfroid was starting to work himself into a fever.
“Sangfroid don’t be so hot-blooded! You will upset your stomach and you’ve not even had your breakfast. Eat. We will talk more of this later, though if it will comfort you, I did hear that they found a dead Americain behind Le Select last night, on rue de Day. He had been shot six times, stabbed six times, and bludgeoned six times on the head.”
“A six crime obviously or, perhaps... it was a suicide?” offers Sangfroid.
“Well, the police, naturally, thought of that first, but there was no note.”
“Well, we do not want to disappoint them, do we Patois? I shall mail one to the police today; I shall write to them: ‘Adieu cruel world. I made this look harder than it really was. Messy, n’est pas?’” and he burst out laughing.
“You have the Gallic sense of humor, Sangfroid.” Patois says as he and Sangfroid both nod and make a moue.
“I have heard that in the last five years or so the number of Americains in Paris has increased from 6,000 to over 30,000.” Patois says, inhaling deeply on his Gauloise.
“Sacre fromage! I will move to Marseille if one more goddam Americain moves to Paris!” Sangfroid says puffing angrily on his Gauloise.
“But, Sangfroid, you must admit that the Americains do have a certain joie de vie we should admire, yes? They light up Paris.” argues Patois.
“Only Frenchmen can light up Paris, you imbecile!” Sangfroid quickly clips Patois on the jaw, knocking the Gauloise out of his mouth putting him into a deep sleep. Patois sits slumped over in his chair just as the waiter brings Sangfroid’s breakfast.
“Monsieur has very quick hands.” says the waiter making a moue and taking a deep drag on the Gauloise dangling arrogantly at the corner of his mouth. “You did not even knock the ash off your Gauloise; very impressive. More coffee, monsieur?”
Suddenly the air is pierced with the high-pitched shriek of a classically trained female voice.
“Sangfroid! You brute, what is the meaning of this? Are you an animal? Are you uncivilized? Are you a savage beast? Are you crazy? Can you not control your hot blood, Sangfroid? Zut Alors!”
It is Torche La Flame. The Gauloise between her lips is dancing madly up and down as she blasts Sangfroid, her arms gesturing wildly like an Italian at a hornet’s convention. Here is a fiery redhead that nature has drawn with a French curve…et Dieu crea la femme, oooh la lah! She has just arrived for morning rehearsal and saw Sangfroid knock Patois out.
“I will debate the brute part since you made it a statement, but as for the questions: there is no meaning; oui; somewhat, though I am working on it; non, not really; I don’t think so, but then that’s not for me to say, n’est pas? and finally; oui, most of the time I can.”
He leaps to his feet like a jaguar. Grabbing the Gauloise from his mouth with his left hand he flicks it away; he then wraps his powerful right arm around Torche like a gorilla, pulling her in close to him, squeezing her like a python in heat. She struggles. Sangfroid’s left arm comes around and, like a spider, he holds her immobile as he brings his face in close to hers, his lips puckering up like a chimpanzee.
“Stop it! Stop it, Sangfroid! You know I don’t like this in public! Oh, you beast!” Torche cries, trying to free herself. She manages to get loose enough to slap his face.
Sangfroid stops and looks menacingly at her.
“You would not have done that if I were Jean-Luc Claude Balls, would you, cheri?” he growls. Jean-Luc is Sangfroid’s competition for the heart of Torche La Flame. He is a petty thief, assassin, jewel thief and network marketer. Their rivalry goes back years. Each has had many opportunities to kill the other, but. . . c’est la vie, c’est la guerre, say no more.
Sangfroid, lighting up a Gauloise, returns to his breakfast.
“It’s just that, sometimes, you know, Sangfroid, you act like such an animal, and a reptile, and an arachnid, and a primate.” Torche says tenderly.
“You know, Torche,” he says making a moue and exhaling a long cloud of smoke, “I just might go see that new negress opening at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees tomorrow night. You know the one, Josephine Baker? I’m sure you have heard of her. They say she is pretty hot, for an Americain.” he says tauntingly, avoiding her eyes and concentrates on his breakfast.
“Pteww!” Torche spits and turning on her heel storms off to the stage. Sangfroid chuckles as he puts his Gauloise out in the remains of his breakfast.
“Garcon! Deaux coffees!” he yells at the waiter and then nudges Patois who is starting to come around.
“Come my friend, wake up! Here, let’s have a Gauloise. You should sleep at home and not in clubs; didn’t your mother teach you manners? Ha ha ha ha ha!” Sangfroid laughs derisively at his friend.
“You are such an ordinary little man, Patois.” Sangfroid chides, blowing a cloud of smoke affectionately into his friend’s face.
“I am as ordinary as the sheepskin lining in other men’s codpieces.” replies Patois philosophically.
“Ah, spoken like the true Parisian, mon ami!” Sangfroid says, nodding thoughtfully and makes a moue as he slowly exhales a large cloud of smoke that completely envelops his head.

Chapter Deaux – La Fin

Later that night at Club Parodee, Sangfroid is sitting alone at his small table in the shadows off to the side of the stage where Torche La Flame is singing:
“Por que moi? Por que moi! Non! Oui? Non! et Non!! Por que moi!? Pooorrrrr quuuueeeee mmmoooooooiiiiiiii!?!?”
She finishes her song and, lighting a Gauloise, makes a moue and accepts the crowd’s applause. She saunters over to Sangfroid’s table, sauntering as only a true Parisian boulevardier can saunter.
“Bon nuit, Sangfroid. I like this crowd. This is a good crowd. I like this good crowd. This is a good, likeable crowd. A crowd that is good and likeable. I like it. It is good.”
“Dammit! You biche! You’ve been reading Hemingway! Sacre Coeur de Fromage! What have I told you about these goddam Americains!” Sangfroid inhales half of his Gauloise in one drag and, looking up to the ceiling or heaven, whichever gets in his way first, exhales a large, mushroom shaped cloud.
“For your information, mon cheri,” he continues, “most of these “good and likeable” people are Dadaist! So what do you think now, eh? Eh? I say, eh?” Sangfroid is indignant. The Gauloise is quivering between his lips like a playing card vibrating against the spokes of a bicyclette as it speeds out of control down rue Fatale.
“They are anti-art, cheri! And you, spouting bourgeois, nouveau-pauvre, artistic, faux intellegentsia bullmerde! Ha! What a pathetic little pedantic creature you are, mon cheri. Well, it’s what you get, I suppose, for going to Universite du Pedant. Dear old P.U., and that is what I think of your fauxniness – P.U.!”
The Gauloise in Torche’s mouth hangs limp with shame. It dangles just off-center of her full ruby red lips; lips that have brought much pleasure to Sangfroid, to Sangfroid and many, many, many, many other men, as well as quite a few women, plus some teenage boys and girls. The smoke from her dangling Gauloise curls up into her eyes making them water; they shine like two sparkling diamonds on a sea of blancmange. With shame and embarrassment so unusual in a chanteuse at Club Parodee, Torche looks around the room at the crowd. Dadaist. Of course! How could she have been so wrong? They had been around so long that she forgot that they had started as an anti-art, anti-mainstream anti movement. Dadaist are now considered an art movement, not anti-art. Oh, mon dieu, she thought, I’m so confused; so ashamed. How could I not get it right? I’ve read Sartre, young Sartre, but Sartre nevertheless. Did I not understand? Do I not understand? Sartre must be to blame. Oh sure, I made the choice of my own free will and went from anti-art to art; or was it the other way? It was of my own free will; but the Dadaist are to blame, too, becoming so ambiguous, blurring lines…no it’s Sartre who’s to blame… no, no it’s the Dadaist, no… no… it’s… no. . . . The room starts to spin, the smoke from her Gauloise is choking her and she cannot breathe.
“Fresh air, I need to get some fresh air.” It was Torche’s last free will anti-thought before her world spins out of control like a French politician at a summit meeting. She collapses on Sangfroid’s table, spilling his newly refilled glass of absinthe into his lap. Sangfroid leaps to his feet like a gazelle in springtime, the Gauloise arcing away from his mouth and across the room like the trapeze artiste at Le Raunchy Ranine, as he curses her, “You Corinthian cow! You Bulgarian bovine! You Saracen swine! You Abyssinian…”
“SANGFROID!” It is Jean-Luc Claude Balls. He has just that moment come in through the front door and hears Sangfroid screaming curses at the woman he loves. Jean-Luc looks down at her lying there on the floor at Sangfroid’s feet, the Gauloise slowly dropping millimeter by millimeter until it falls out of her mouth and joins the hundreds of others of its brethren there on the dirty drink splattered floor in a sad post-mortem pastiche of liberte, egalite and fraternite.
“Well, mon ami,” Jean-Luc says in a cold, menacing voice, lighting a Gauloise and eyeing the spreading green stain on Sangfroid’s crotch, “it looks like you will be taking a trip to the free clinic – one way or the other!”
Sangfroid, turning, calmly eyes Jean-Luc, and putting a Gauloise in his mouth, makes a moue, then reaches into his jacket pocket as if for his lighter, instead whips out his .32 caliber Colt’s model 1903 semi-automatic pistol, a gift from his father, Chaudfroid, the night he took him to the brothel, Le Turgide Fontainespew, for Sangfroid’s twelfth birthday. Standing by the stage he quickly snaps off a shot at Jean-Luc who, near the front door thirty meters away, is only grazed on his left thigh by the bullet. Diving behind the nearest table he taunts Sangfroid.
“Ha! You shoot like my mother. . .or is it my sister? Anyway, you shoot like a female member of my family, batar!” Jean-Luc knew his taunt hit its mark when he hears Sangfroid trumpet like a rogue elephant in musth. First making a moue, he then smiles at his petty victory. After lighting a Gauloise to replace the one lost while making his dive, he grabs a dazed midget that is standing by a potted fern and, holding the midget in front of him for a shield, races from potted fern to potted fern towards the stage. When they are only five meters apart Jean-Luc throws the dead, bullet riddled body of the midget at Sangfroid. The dead midget bounces off his powerful, muscular physique like an uncooked champignon. Sangfroid puts a fresh clip in his Colt and a fresh Gauloise in his mouth. His eyes narrow as he looks at Jean-Luc who, in the meantime, has drawn his own gun, a .32 caliber Colt’s model 1903 semi-automatic pistol, a gift from his father, Jean-Luc Sauvaged Balls, the night he took him to the brothel, Le Turgide Fontainespew, for Jean-Luc’s (that would be Jean-Luc fil’s) twelfth birthday.
“NOW I HAVE YOU, CHIEN OF A BATAR!” they yell simultaneously.
“Sacre Fromage!” “Baton de Poisson!” “Avec Fromage!” they yell back and forth, calmly and stoically facing each other, guns blazing away. The room fills with smoke from the guns and the Gauloises Jean-Luc and Sangfroid smoke with fierce determination. Each bullet finds its mark. Jean-Luc’s Gauloise is the first to fall, to join its brethren there on the dirty drink splattered floor in a sad post-mortem pastiche of liberte, egalite and fraternite. Jean-Luc, making a moue, slumps to his knees and looks one last time at Sangfroid. Sangfroid stands there wavering, the Gauloise dangling weakly from the corner of his mouth. His immaculate cream-colored suit and blazing turquoise silk tie and two-tone white and cream shoes are now splattered with blood from the growing red splotches where Jean-Luc’s bullets found their mark. Deep inside his Gallic soul he knew that, because of the red spots all over his suit and the large green absinthe stain on his crotch, he was going to die looking like a flocked Christmas tree.
“Joyeaux Noel, batar!” Jean-Luc croaks and falls forward face down in the Gauloise butts.
“Joyeaux Noel, mon ami, I forgive you, and I forgive you, too, Torche. I did not mean what I said about your fauxniness. You are the one true thing in life, Torche, in my life, the one true and good thing. You are good. And you have been as true as anyone could expect from a chanteuse here at Club Parodee. I forgive you. Your goodness is true, and you have been true to your goodness. Oh, mon dieu, now I am starting to sound like Hemingway! Sacre fromage! Forgive me, Honore, forgive me, Guy de. Marcel, I am coming! I am coming, Marcel!” Sangfroid collapses on Torche La Flame, dying, his last Gauloise burns a little remembrance of him on her left cheek. She will carry that with her until she too dies years later in a shootout at a boulangerie, fingering the scar she calls ‘mon sangfroidette’ as she takes her last breath.
The patrons of Club Parodee start nervously to come out from behind the bar and potted ferns and furniture after the shooting and the shootists die away. A general murmur sweeps the room; here and there people are lighting Gauloises. There is a commotion by the front door; a dark woman with an entourage is entering Club Parodee. As each person recognizes her they let out an audible gasp; the maitre d’ approaches.
“Mademoiselle Baker! What an honor! Please, entrée, to what do we owe this pleasure?” he asks, bowing deeply.
“Why, I’ve come to see the show, of course. You do have a singer called Torche La Flame here, don’t you?”
“Oh, oui, oui, that is her over there, on the floor, under the Christmas tree. She’ll be going on in twenty minutes, at 9 o’clock.”
“Excellent, then champagne for everyone, I am buying!”
A cheer goes up. The furniture is put back in order and a special table for Mademoiselle Josephine and her entourage is set up in front of the stage. Jean-Luc and the midget are dragged off behind the stage and Sangfroid is lifted off Torche La Flame and put next to them in the empty dressing room, the maitre d’ taking care to pocket both pistols. Torche is lifted under her arms by two men and dragged to her dressing room, her heels scraping across the wooden floor until one of her shoes comes off.
“Trouble, monsieur maitre d’?” Mademoiselle Josephine asks.
“Oh, no, no, Mademoiselle Baker, it is nothing, really, just the usual; just another night here at Club Parodee!”