Satori in Paris and Pic. Jack Kerouac

right down next to the priest, removed my hat already, and address him: “Bonjour, mon Père.”

      Now this is the real way to go to Brittany, gents.

       19.

      BUT THE POOR LITTLE PRIEST, DARK, SHALL WE SAY swart, or swartz, and very small and thin, his hands are trembling as if from ague and for all I know from Pascalian ache for the equation of the Absolute or maybe Pascal scared him and the other Jesuits with his bloody “Provincial Letters,” but in any case I look into his dark brown eyes, I see his weird little parroty understanding of everything and of me too, and I pound my collarbone with my finger and say:

      “I’m Catholic too.”

      He nods.

      “I wear the Sacred Queen and also St. Benedict.”

      He nods.

      He is such a little guy you could blow him away with one religious yell like “O Seigneur!” (Oh Lord!)

      But now I turn my attention to the civilian in the corner, who’s eyeing me with the exact eyes of an Irishman I know called Jack Fitzgerald and the same mad thirsty leer as tho he’s about to say “Alright, where’s the booze hidden in that raincoat of yours” but all he does say is, in French:

      “Take off your raincoat, put it up on the rack.”

      Excusing myself as I have to bump knees with the blond soldier, and the soldier grins sadly (’cause I rode in trains with Aussies across wartime England 1943) I shove the lump of coat up, smile at the ladies, who just wanta get home the hell with all the characters, and I say my name to the guy in the corner (like I said I would).

      “Ah, that’s Breton. You live in Rennes?”

      “No I live in Florida in America but I was born etc. etc.” the whole long story, which interests them, and then I ask the guy’s name.

      It’s the beautiful name of Jean-Marie Noblet.

      “Is that Breton?”

      “Mais out.” (But yes.)

      I think: “Noblet, Goulet, Havet, Champsecret, sure a lot of funny spellings in this country” as the train starts up and the priest settles down in a sigh and the ladies nod and Noblet eyes me like he would like to wink me a proposal that we get on with the drinking, a long trip ahead.

      So I say “Let’s you and I go buy some in the commissaire.”

      “If you wanta try, okay.”

      “What’s wrong?”

      “Come on, you’ll see.”

      And sure enough we have to rush weaving without bumping anybody through seven coaches of packed windowstanders and on through the roaring swaying vestibules and jump over pretty girls sitting on books on the floor and avoid collisions with mobs of sailors and old country gentlemen and all the lot, a homecoming holiday train like the Atlantic Coast Line going from New York to Richmond, Rocky Mount, Florence, Charleston, Savannah and Florida on the Fourth of July or Christmas and everybody bringing gifts like Greeks beware we not of—

      But me and old Jean-Marie find the liquor man and buy two bottles of rosé wine, sit on the floor awhile and chat with some guy, then catch the liquor man as he’s coming back the other way and almost empty, buy two more, become great friends, and rush back to our compartment feeling great, high, drunk, wild—And don’t you think we didnt swing infos back and forth in French, and not Parisian either, and him not speaking a word of English.