Billie Read Free Page B

It wasn’t the teachers or the sweet Mademoiselle Gisèle who prepared us for communion or the students’ parents who were always shocked by the weight of our backpacks or those sophisticated girlfriends of mine who listened to public radio and read books and all that. No, it was him (and I was pointing to him in the darkness). It was Franck Muller.
    Yes, him there . . . that weakling Franck Mumu, who was six months younger than me and six inches shorter, who lost his balance every time you tapped him on the shoulder and who was always acting like a pain in the ass at the bus stop. He was the one who saved me.
    Him alone.
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    Honestly, I’m not angry at anyone and even now, you see, I’m telling you all this and it’s okay, I’m doing well these days. That was a long time ago. Such a long time ago that it isn’t really even me, in fact . . .
    Fine, I admit, I always feel a bit anxious when I have to fill out paperwork. Family name, place of birth, and all that. Right away my stomach drops, but it’s okay, it passes. It passes quickly.
    The only thing is that I never want to see them again. Never, never, never . . . I never want to go back there, never. Not for anyone’s marriage, not for anyone’s funeral, not for anything. Also, whenever I pass a car with a license plate from my region, I immediately look elsewhere to regain my composure.
    At one point—and as I don’t think I’ll have time to tell you about it in detail tonight I’ll just give you a summary—during one period of my life when I kept screwing up, when my childhood came back to haunt me too often, and when I got into the habit of hitting the bottle, as they say, to hide from the world, I listened to Franck and hit the reset button.
    I completely wiped out my hard drive in order to restart in safe mode.
    It was a long process and I think I succeeded, but all I ask for in return is to never see them again.
    Never.
    Not even when they’re dead, incinerated, not even as a scrap of cloth in a grave.
    And even there, you see, I’m going to be honest for once; if you were to say to me: “Okay, I’ll send you two stretchers, a ham sandwich, and a case of San Pellegrino, but in exchange, you give a little wave to your stepmother or to any of those jerks,” well, I would say no.
    No.
    I would say no and I would find some other way to get us out of here.
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    So, there you have it, we went to the same junior high in a small town with less than three thousand inhabitants in what they call a rural region. But “rural” is too nice a way to put it. You’d expect to see hills and streams. The area where I’m from doesn’t have much of that. It was, is, an area of France that hasn’t been irrigated for a long time and is rotting as a result.
    Yes, rotting . . . dying . . . A land where folks drink too much, smoke too much, put too much faith in the lottery, and pass down their poverty to their family and pets.
    A world in which everyone commits suicide in the same way: by slowly burning out and dragging the weakest down with them.
    When you hear about disaffected young people setting cars on fire, it’s always in working-class suburbs, but in the countryside, my dear, life is not easy, you know!
    For us to burn cars, some would have to pass by!
    When you live in the countryside and are not like others, it’s even worse.
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    Of course, there will always be people passing through, whether politicians, association types, organic foodies, or whatever sweet liars who will tell you I’m exaggerating, but I know them, these people . . . Yes, I know them . . . They’re like the ones from social services: at the end of the day, they only see what we want to show them . . .
    And I understand them.
    I understand them because I’ve become like them, too.
    Whenever I’m going to or coming back