Read Online Guys Like Me by Dominique Fabre - Free Book Online

these days? His eyes are very bright, sometimes he’s like, here’s the answer, what was the question? He was fine. Everything was really fine. His mother always said you never know with him, but I didn’t find that. We finished the couscous, I thought it was very good, and we had quite a bit of time after that to do what both of us liked the most, we looked around the room without saying anything. It was pretty much always the same around here, guys on their own, regulars from Place Voltaire and the surrounding area. I really had to buy a scooter so that I could get to the places I liked more easily. We had a mint tea with pine nuts. We smoked, and I realized that a day like this, an evening like this too, like a whole lot of other evenings really, shouldn’t be forgotten. I was quite emotional about it. I asked him are you coming, shall we go? Ben didn’t ask for his change. It was almost a month since we’d last seen each other in the flesh, Anaïs was always telling him to invite me over for dinner, but most of the time he was snowed under with his research in the lab. The Kabyle man wasn’t there. Say hello to Slimane for me. No problem, see you soon!
    We rode along the Seine. It was the route I took every day when I was a teenager, on my moped, with Marco and Jean and a whole bunch of other guys I’d stopped seeing. After a while, I tapped him on the shoulder. Step on the gas! He didn’t seem to understand, but we did eighty on the section of the road running alongside the river over toward Tour Bellini. Finally he came out and drove nice and gently in the opposite direction, toward Pont de Levallois. I wanted to give my son a hug, but instead we just talked about the following week. We turned left, in the direction of Louise Michel, and I felt very happy and very old at the same time, that evening. I didn’t feel like going to bed, I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
    â€œAre you coming up?”
    â€œNo, I’m going home, I’m exhausted. So long, call me!”
    She hadn’t left any message on the answering machine. I didn’t turn on the computer. I was pleased that I didn’t, who could I say that to? The best thing would still have been not to have to say it at all, not to want to talk to another guy like me. I still had the music from the Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett in my head and the images from the movie by Nanni Moretti, that movie didn’t mean much to Benjamin. Barely a childhood memory.
    He’d taped a floppy disk onto a sheet of cardboard. I read a few passages, a complicated transfer contract, it made my mind go numb, it was very boring, I went to bed. I skimmed through the pages. It seemed OK to me. He hadn’t given me any invoice. Surely that was the most important thing? I’d had a good day. I tried to revisit Rome in my sleep, to go all the way to Ostia, but I wasn’t very successful. That was my first trip when I was eighteen, Marco and his girlfriend, the girl who would become my wife, and me. I decided I couldn’t wait any longer, I was going to buy myself a scooter. I’d wanted one for a long time. And besides, for a guy like me, who almost never goes on vacation, I could go for rides in my suburb, my whole life was in that area. I dreamed about someone behind me, I had her hair on my neck, she was holding me very tight. I even remembered her perfume. Who was it? I didn’t have many dreams like that these days. When I woke up it was after eight.

3
    I SAW M ARIE TWICE THE FOLLOWING WEEK. S HE OFTEN had things to do near the Opéra, so we ended up meeting in that area. We quickly got used to each other, I think. I had the impression she was making an effort. Sometimes she seemed to be looking for something in my eyes, a trace of what, I wondered? I didn’t know the name of it. Had I ever known it? Nobody could tell me. I liked those first dates, we kissed, we laughed like kids. She liked it too, the