maybe Henry Miller fell down these stairs

I saw Michael Moore’s new movie before I came to Paris. Sicko is a documentary about the health care industry in the United States. It’s pretty eye opening. Not that we didn’t already know that things were out of control, but this film had a nice way of beating you over the head with the sad fact that getting sick in America can cost you your financial life.

Michael Moore likes to show extremes. We already know that Canada has a far superior health care system. Most of us point to it as an example of what we should strive for. But Moore goes beyond Canada and shows us France, where if you are working and have children somebody will come over to your house and do your laundry for you. Paying a copay? Wondering if a drug is covered or not? Forget about it. You have more important things to worry about. Like how you’re going to spend that 5 week summer holiday.

Having questionable health insurance myself, I was encouraged by Michael Moore’s movie. I didn’t need that traveler’s insurance. France would take care of me. Well today I almost put it to the test.

I’m in a restaurant. A place where Hemingway and Henry Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald would frequent at different times. I cozied myself into a booth, and even got out my moleskin notebook in case inspiration striked, and ordered up a French Onion soup and a large carafe of wine, enough for at least two glasses. I listen in to the conversation taking place at the table next to me, I mean, it is in English after all, and that is a rare thing by this point. I gather that some of them are Italian, and the woman next to me is Spanish. They have come together on some sort of trip, but I can’t tell who is with who and where exactly they are going. But it’s interesting listening. I’m so close to them that at times I feel like it’s rude not to introduce myself, or that maybe they’ll tell me to pull up a chair. Except I’m sort of already there.

In order to get into my table the hostess had to pull out the table. After I was done with my meal I waited awkwardly for the waiter or the hostess to come back and move the table for me so I could get out. The space was super tiny, and I thought I would disrupt anyone next to me if I moved the table and tried to get out myself. I couldn’t squeeze through the narrow gap between tables without the risk of sweeping my fellow diner’s meal right off the table with my backpack or umbrella, or even just my ass. The space was tiny.

The waiter comes and lets me out. I gather up my stuff and make my way toward the door. Except it’s not the door. It’s the stairs. But I don’t realize this. To me it just seems like I’m stepping into a dark revolving door that will take me outside, and it takes a few moments to fully comprehend that I’m falling head-first down the spriral staircase that leads to the basement where the bathrooms are.

It truly was in slow motion. And it really did feel like I was falling into the abyss. I know how people must feel if they fall into an empty elevator shaft. But at the same time your senses are awakened. Adrenaline kicks in. I felt every single step with my hands and reacted accordingly. Desperately trying to stop my body from catapulting all the way down the marble stairs.

I stop. My right arm reaches out and extends itself to a stair three or four steps away from me. The waiter stretches his arm out to me, and he goes for that right arm. But I know that if I let go of that, I will fall all the way down to the bottom. And who knows what I might find there.

So I reach up with my left arm, and the waiter pulls me up, apologizing profusely in French. Of course, this is what I’d like to believe. He could be saying “another stupid American falling down the stairs, I can’t believe you clumsy fucks” or “that’s what you get for coming into this restaurant and only ordering the French Onion soup, who do you think you are, Henry Miller?”

I get to the top of the stairs and the manager is there. Or at least a better dressed version of my waiter. Again, apologies in French and a whole lot of “are you all right’s?” which seem to translate well in any language. I was fine, I suppose. I scratched my knuckles a bit and hit my head, but I didn’t do any major harm. Mostly I just wanted to get the hell out of there. “Look at that stupid American. He drinks two glasses of wine and falls down the stairs.”

But hey, when the manager asked if I was all right and I said yes it wasn’t because I was worried about the hospital bill. No, for a split second I thought that a nice morphine drip in a French hospital with little French nurses and unlimited hospitality on the French dime might be exactly what this boy needed.

Then I went down the stairs, of my own volition this time. Green line. Metro stop. On my way to see Jim Morrison’s grave with a headache not unlike the numerous wine hangovers he surely endured.