HOMAGE
Yes, I played poker in Paris for thirty years. Yes, poker paid the bills. I guess by definition that made me a pro. Maybe so, but I was a lousy one. No matter what others thought, I did not identify myself as a professional. Unlike other pros, I limited my playing to six sessions a week. In spite of all sorts of games in San Tropez, Cannes, Courchevel and Alpe d'Huez, I only played once during summer vacation, and never during winter or spring vacations. While I loved the game and made a good living at it, my first love was always Paris. Don't ask me why? The city seduced me totally. Ten years before I discovered the French played poker, my sole desire was to establish residence in the City of Light. Finally, in July 1969, one hundred and twenty months after first setting foot in the capital, I was invited to a game. Never did I suspect it would last as long as it did.
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September is the most exciting month in Paris. Revitalized by the return of vacationers, the city is en fete. The grocer restocks his shelves. Bakeries reopen. Lines form in front of school supply shops and department stores. Everywhere Parisians settle into a routine interrupted by a month in the mountains or at the seashore.
Even poker underwent an annual recommencement. Reassured that the games would continue, every September I would drive my motorcycle to a different landmark in order to pay homage to the city I now called home.
At five AM. a mist rises along the banks of the Seine. The Place de la Concorde is deserted. Along the Rue Royale and behind the Madeleine all motion has ceased. The trees along the Boulevard Malesherbes are still dressed in summertime green. The iron gates of the Parc Monceau remain locked for the night. On the narrow Rue Lewis, the street market is strangely empty. Shops are tightly sealed. Noise is absent.
The interior boulevards are equally silent. The railroad tracks beneath the Rue de Rome remain dark. At this time of day the back streets of Paris are as tranquil as a provincial village. On tin rooftops pigeons coo softly. The first light of day filters in from the east. In a half-hour the Metro will open. Cafes catering to early commuters are already partially lit. By six o'clock automobile engines will shatter the serenity. The spell that exists between the onset of morning twilight and the first rays of dawn shall be dispersed by the energy of a city coming to life.
This morning I shall go to the top of Montmartre. I will wend my way along the Rue Lepic. There is a song about this street, Montan's young voice extolling the serpentine route that connects the former suburb to the modern city. At the top of the street I will leave my motorcycle and climb to the Butte on foot. Only a few minutes of magic remain. A century ago, this was the home of poets and painters who brought about a resuscitation of beauty previously reserved to ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence. I remember their names from the time I was a boy. Was it their voices that lured me to Paris?
I climb on trembling legs. This is my pilgrimage. I shall honor the ghosts who called me to this city of unparalleled beauty. I hear them as I near the summit. Figures in spectral light move through the morning haze. Beneath me the immense metropolis reposes in silence. The air I breathe now is the air they breathed then. The city I gaze on is the city they knew. Neither houses nor parks nor cobblestones have changed an iota. I can feel my heart beating. My flesh is simultaneously cold and on fire. I know the ghosts are near. For one frozen instant everything is the same as it was one hundred years ago.
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