RAY BRADBURY
We’ll Always Have Paris
With love to my lifetime friend,
Donald Harkins, who is buried in Paris
Contents
Introduction: Watching and Writing
Introduction: Watching and Writing
The stories in this collection were created by two people: The me who watches and the me who writes.
Both of these creatures inside myself have lived under one sign, which has hung over my typewriter for seventy years: Don’t think, do.
I haven’t thought about any of these stories; they are explosions or impulses. Sometimes they are big explosions of ideas that cannot be resisted, sometimes small impulses coaxed to grow.
My favorite here is ‘Massinello Pietro’ because it happened to me many years ago, when I was in my early twenties and lived in and out of a tenement in downtown L.A. Massinello Pietro became a friend of mine whom I tried to protect from the police and help when he was brought into court. The short story that was inspired by this friendship is, in many ways, basically true and I simply had to write it.
The other stories, one by one, came to me throughout my life – from a very young age through my middle and later years. Every one of them has been a passion. Every story here was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me. I watch: I get an idea, fall in love with it, and try not to think too much about it. I then write: I let the story pour forth onto the paper as soon as possible.
So here you are with the works of the two people living inside my skin. Some may surprise you. And that is good. Many of them surprised me when they came to me and asked to be born. I hope you enjoy them. Don’t think about them too much. Just try to love them as I love them.
Be my guest.
Ray Bradbury AUGUST 2008
He fed the canaries and the geese and the dogs and the cats. Then he cranked up the rusty phonograph and sang to the hissing ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’:
Life goes up, life goes down,
But please smile, do not sigh, do not frown!
Dancing, he heard the car stop before his little shop. He saw the man in the gray hat glance up and down the storefront and knew the man was reading the sign which in large, uneven blue letters declared THE MANGER. EVERYTHING FREE! LOVE AND CHARITY FOR ALL!
The man stepped halfway through the open door and stopped. ‘Mr Massinello Pietro?’
Pietro nodded vigorously, smiling. ‘Come in. Do you want to arrest me? Do you want to throw me in jail?’
The man read from his notes. ‘Better known as Alfred Flonn?’ He eyed the silver bells on Pietro’s shirtsleeves.
‘That’s me!’ Pietro’s eye flashed.
The man was uncomfortable. He looked around a room crammed full of rustling birdcages and packing crates. Geese rushed in through the back door, stared at him angrily, and rushed back out. Four parrots blinked lazily on their high perches. Two Indian lovebirds cooed softly. Three dachshunds capered around Pietro’s feet, waiting for him to put down just one hand to pet them. On one shoulder he carried a banana-beaked mynah bird, on the other a zebra finch.
‘Sit down!’ sang Pietro. ‘I was just having a little music; that’s the way to start the day!’ He cranked the portable phonograph swiftly and reset the needle.
‘I know, I know.’ The man laughed, trying to be tolerant. ‘My name’s Tiffany, from the D.A.’s office. We got a lot of complaints.’ He waved around the cluttered shop. ‘Public health. All these ducks, raccoons, white mice. Wrong zone, wrong neighborhood. You’ll have to clean it up.’
‘Six