I'm dressed in black. Black shoes by Guy D'Aurant, socks from a shop called Chic Chausseure, pants by Guillaume, a black tank top that I stole from older brother Frank, an ebon Montpellier sweater, and a coffinesque jacket, Yves de Saint-Lorimichelle, boxy and lined with velvet and black. There's cigarette ash on my knees and my fingers are stained a deep veiny purple from the five bottles of wine I broke on the balcony when I bent over to pick up my dropped lighter and knocked over the small table on which they rested, freshly disconced from the wooden straw-stuffed carton that I had purchased them in. My lighter swam in the middle of the puddle, and after my second cigarette and fifth coughing jag I stood up long enough to watch the wine mingle with the rain water five stories below. A dog was lapping at it. A German Shepherd. I used to have one.

His name was Ranger and he was the best goddamn dog a boy could ever own. Actually he used to bite my ankles and hide beneath the house when it rained. Then he came out, stinking like the bums I pass all day as I hop from metro stop to metro stop. The hole in my ass is throbbing from one of the most powerful but also most smooth shits of my entire life, a sort of insistent pulsing that distracts me for minutes at a time from my troubles as I walk with stiff legs and clenched fists through the Parc d'Auberge in sunny Paris France. I am struggling with the guilty pleasure of a really good shit, an ironic guilt because everybody does it and surely everybody likes it when it's firm and flows well and yet no one is allowed to say he likes it for fear of offending his associations, who's reactions ostensibly mark them as not even having an asshole, much less one that periodically shoots out tubes of shit. I am walking through the park. I am looking for a bowling alley, just wandering around Paris because I made a wrong turn off one metro stop and can't find another. I am looking for a bowling alley, walking through a park behind a woman wearing an incredibly short skirt, my mind focused totally to the will that it takes to manage a light breeze, while behind me stomps what I could only assume is a frat boy from the states, because he keeps burping. In Europe they don't burp, they belch.

I am walking behind a very beautiful woman on a cell phone who has her head tilted to one side and is making expansive gestures with her other hand, and in front of what I can only assume is a tall frat boy from the United States who burps repeatedly.

There no bowling alleys in the entire fucking nation of France.

There is one bowling alley in all of France, it is in Guillarde, a small village outside Lyons, and is manned by an actual pin boy who probably met more than one German in the first half of this century. It costs 10 francs per game.

There are four bowling alleys in France: one in

I am at Les Deux Maggots. Recent construction is evident in the chalk and dust on the sidewalk, and the way the awning shines with a kind of virgin newness that matches the old stones of the building in which it sits not at all. Nearby at the �cole d'�toile a gaggle of American and German students are gathered about a fountain, discussing the probable orgasmic pleasure that a pig must feel, due to it's ejaculate's volume being 100 times that of a human male's.

Definition of a frat boy: knows the difference between date rape and regular rape. Knows that the best thing in the world is to be loved by men, knows that to be loved by men is to be manly, knows that to be loved by man he must be manly, that to be manly he must attract women, knows that to prove they are attracted to him he must have sex with them, knows that the more women who want to have intercourse with him, the more times he has intercourse, knows that to be manly he must show women that sometimes they way to have intercourse, and knows most of all to never ever rape a woman who is not attracted to him. A frat boy would never ever rape a girl who was not sexually attracted to him. [a diminuization of fraternity, brotherhood in Greek, a people who in ancient times where not unknown for sodomizing small boys as part of a liberal arts apprenticeship.]

I am in sixth grade. It is recess, I am walking around the playground because I am wearing tight jeans, and if you play soccer in tight jeans you fall down a lot or get kicked in the nards. The testicles. Usually just one testicle is enough. I am walking in large circles, circling the playground. There is a corps of engineering hill, straight at the top and bottom, going up to the field behind the junior high, right next to our playground. For half of every lap, I can see the junior high, can see where I know I will be beat up every day by ninth graders, where I will flunk every class because they have math and history and English and science, all in different rooms. I have my hands in my pockets. It is cold. It is March.

Samantha Notts runs up to me. "You're stupid."

I stop. "What?"

"You're stupid, Charles."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you just are." She runs away, into a crowd of girls dressed just like her: knee pants, Hall and Oats t-shirts, fingernail polish.

I'm so confused I don't get mad until I get off the bus. Then I walk home and I get mad. I get so mad, when Ranger nips my ankle as I walk into the backyard because the front door is locked which makes me madder, I spin and around and kick him square in the belly. He growls, then runs under the house. Later it rains. The last time until April.

I'm in eighth grade. I have a crush on Sarah Winchester. She is quiet, she is meek, she is shy, she has no boobs, she wears glasses, I am the only boy in the whole school who likes her. All the other boys like Demi Travis, Cynthia Abranor, and Josie Grantbride. Josie is half Indian, the one in India. She has a big nose, and very big eyes, and she is very very pretty. But not as pretty as Sarah.

I am sitting in the hall outside the lunchroom, because it's too hot to sit by the flagpole and lie to the other boys about my dad and Vietnam. We've been studying Vietnam in social studies. Everybody's dad went to Vietnam. Everybody's dad shot Russians. If you says gooks, you get a five day suspension. Then your dad tells the whole school he didn't go to Vietnam. Then you suck.

Samantha Notts walks up to me. She is wearing Levis and a t-shirt and a plaid shirt. She has boobs. She says Charles will you go to the October dance with me? I open my mouth to tell her that I'm going to ask Sarah, that she will shyly say yes, that we will go and I will kiss her on the cheek, and later she will let me kiss her on the mouth, that we will be high school sweethearts, that she will grow boobs and we'll get married and go to college and have kids and name them three-syllable first and two-syllable second names like Anthony William or Desiree Georgia and that when we are old and have to use a cane I will tell her how I chose her over Samantha Notts, the girl who called me stupid for no reason in sixth grade.

I open my mouth to say this, and the word yes comes out.

I don't talk to Samantha until the night of the dance.

She lets me touch her boobs, once, in the girls bathroom.

She also lets Ed, who's in ninth grade.

Ed's her boyfriend for the rest of the year.

I'm so mad when I get home, because the front door's locked, and Samantha had no reason to call me stupid, none, that when Ranger bites my ankle I spin around and kick him square in the head. He yipes away and hides under the house. It rains for the rest of March.

I'm in high school. Sarah moved to the other side of town and goes to Truman. Samantha moved to Grandfalls. I flunk math but in summer school get all A's and then take AP math the next year. I get into a fight with Rodney who's black so I am afraid to hit him back.

I get in a fight with Rodney who is black so when I hit him in the face with my hand I accidentally say nigger and he goes crazy, screaming and pinwheeling his arms until Mrs. Traubach the art teacher has to grab him and pull him away. She's black too. The next day, me and Rodney stare at each other in the lunch room.

I flunk math and then flunk it in summer school and the next year I get all A's and they put me in AP math but I only get C's. On the PSAT I score a 89%.

Sarah doesn't answer me when I finally get up the courage to ask her to prom. Samantha goes with Ed even though he dumped her when he got to high school. But now she's a junior so it's okay. Sarah shows up at the prom with David. He's a nerd. She still doesn't have boobs. I'm there stag.

I get into a fight with Rodney and since he's black I try to fight fair, no nards and no open hand slaps. I get him one in the jaw and he gets me one in the stomach and one in neck. Mr. Trabauch who's black too stops the fight, drags us into his classroom, and tell us to behave like civilized human beings. Rodney and I shake hands, the same hands that we'd used to show each other how cool we were. The next day we're best friends.

I get into a fight with Rodney, but one smack on my nose with his open hand and I start to cry, so he gives up and walks off. Mrs. Trabauch, who's black like Rodney, asks me why I'm crying. I tell her Ranger died. She doesn't believe me, but she leaves me alone.

Sarah finally says yes after I ask her five times to the homecoming. We have a wonderful time. She's my girlfriend but goes to the east coast for college. I choose State at Grandfalls.

Samantha gets knocked up by Ed in senior year.

Ed gets into a fight with Rodney, who's black, and when Ed uses the N- word Rodney just stops. He looks at Ed. Ed looks like he's about to cry, he's so scared. Rodney just walks away.

I'm in high school. Math is harder than I thought but Sarah helps me sometimes and I help her with English, since she hates to diagram sentences. We make a trade: I'll type her essays and diagram her sentences if she'll correct my arithmetic on story problems and let me copy her trigonometry. In social studies we learn that a marriage is like a contract, so I tell her it's like we're married. She laughs. I ask her to prom. She says its five months away. I say so what. She says yes. Her father gets transferred to the east coast a month before prom. But she lets me kiss her before she goes.

I'm in junior high. There's a new kid: Rodney. He's black. I ask him what's his last name. He ask me why. I don't tell him because I heard that all black people have presidents for last names. I tell him because the teacher said he was from Minnesota and I knew a guy from Minnesota named Washington. It's a lie. He's says it Dupree. He says its French. Him and me become buddies.

I'm in sixth grade. Samantha Notts walks up to me and says, Charles, you're stupid. I say Samantha, you're ugly. And I know how to read. My dad said that once to the TV when Johnny Carson made fun of our state.

So what, you're stupid, Samantha says.

When I get home, the front door is locked so I go around back. Its raining the kind of rain where you don't bother to take an umbrella but then you wish you had. When Ranger nips me on my ankle, I spin around and try to kick him, but I miss and fall down. He runs under the house.

Ways to make a frat boy not want to have sex with you: defecate, tell him you have a yeast infection, ask to lick his balls then stick a finger in his asshole, bite down very very hard on your own lips and spit blood in his face, screaming. Puking on him probably won't work.

These are the different kinds of anti yeast infection cremes you can buy at Lucky: Monistat, Miconazole, Mycelex, Femsat, Gynelotrimin, Vagistat.

It is the 14th of July. Everywhere in the world except France it is Bastille Day. Here it is just the national holiday. It's not Independence Day, or France Day, or even the 14th of July. It is the national holiday. I am walking behind an incredibly smelly frat boy who is wearing a state ballcap backwards, staggering because he probably heard that in France you can drink when you're 14 so since he's 21 he's 50% more drunk than usual. Behind me is a woman; I can detect her, in between large lungfulls of frat-boy I can smell her perfume. I can hear her high heels. She is, I am certain, the only woman in all of Europe who shaves her armpits. She is beautiful. She is wearing an incredibly short skirt, and she is talking on a cell phone. She was probably asked here by one of her sorority sisters, who either didn't show up or left with some drunken asshole. She doesn't notice me at all. She doesn't even know I exist. Her legs keep opening up, revealing lace panties. Then her knees remember where she is even though she doesn't, so animated is her talking on the phone, and they close again. But I know. I stand up to get more beer. I can't believe I'd rather drink beer than look at her legs.

The phone rings constantly. They are my brother's credit cards. We have the same mother, she has only one maiden name. It's Morrissey.

My brother walks into the bowling alley. He's dressed all in black. He says where the fuck have you been. I say right here. I try to bowl but I can feel him out of the corner of my eye, and I gutter. What do you want Derek I say to him. I'm tough.

He says what are you doing.

I say not too bad. Got three strikes in a row.

He calls me asshole.

I call him stupid.

He says why did you call me that.

I say cause you just are.

He says fuck you and starts to leave.

I ask him if he'll pay for my bowling; I ran out of money five games ago.

He says fuck you again and leaves.

But when I get done the games have been paid for.

I have never drunk wine before, never smoked cigarettes, never smoked marijuana. Rodney's older brother gave him a joint when he turned 17. We took it to the creek and watched it float away.

Never, man. He said he'd never be a stereotype.

I said me too.

I join Omega Delta Alpha.

Rodney's older brother won't sell him a dime bag, so we steal two joints from his sock drawer. One for me, one for him.

I rush Beta Kappa Lambda. They let me join.

The wine makes me very very drunk, and I puke. At the last second, I decide to puke over the balcony, but instead, I puke all over my self. Mostly the puke smells like wine.

My initiation at Gamma Omicron involves a lot of nonsense with strobe lights.

Rodney's older brother sells us a dime bag for half price. He thinks all of Rodney's white friends are rich. We aren't very good at rolling. We drop more into the creek than into the papers. We have enough left for two joints. Mine tastes like dirt and makes me puke. A lot. Don't tell anyone: I kind of like puking a little bit.

The girl was speaking French into the phone the whole time. She was speaking real French, not fake French. I ask her if she wants a beer. I can tell this is real French because she holds up a hand to me and squints into the phone over the party music. Then she says what to me and its in English, perfect English. I say do you want a beer and she says yes and talks on the phone some more. So I sit next to her. I giver her my beer. She drinks it. Than she hangs up the phone and gives me a big kiss. Thanks for the beer, she says. She has short hair, like Sarah's was.

The girl is speaking very softly into the phone, and she is crying. We are the only ones in the room. She keeps gulping down beer between talking and crying. She has, like, fifteen bottles around her. They are all ice cold, with little tendrils or fingers of steam oozing around them. Her eyes are very bright. Whenever she gulps, she has to put her head back, and her knees come apart and I can see up her skirt. She isn't wearing underwear. She has no panties on.

Rodney says, hey man, lets go bowling, and I say what? and he says, they sell anybody beer there, even if they're kids like us. But you have to bowl. I beat him, 97 to 83.

Rodney's older bother catches us with our hands in his sock drawer. He thinks we're kids. He thinks were looking for porn. He tells us about their dad's.

The girl just drops the phone and sort of cries silently and I sort of sit next to her and she sort of puts her head on my chest and I sort of remember that she isn't wearing panties. She is drunk but I have never drank anything in my life, not even at my initiation, so the wine all over the balcony table is making me sick and I puke when I smoke the first cigarette. but I'm in France now and that's what French people do so even though it feels like I've had my throat scraped with a boot heel I smoke another and another.

The German Shepherd is peeing on a rain spout. It is raining very hard for France.

I say what's wrong and she says my boyfriend dumped me and I say why but I already know: I can see her panties sticking out of her purse.

The stewardess says would you like a drink sir? It reminds me that I am on a plane to France.

Extradition.

I used to go bowling with my church youth group. We would meet in the fellowship hall, everyone dressed very neatly for Sunday school even if it was Wednesday night. The boys in slacks and short sleeved button-up shirts with their hair slicked back, the girls in dresses below their knees or if they were too old to wear dresses then pants and a sweater. Barrettes. We would get on the bus and sing church songs like "I Am a C" and "Jesus is My Pen-Pal" and even though I lived sort of close to the bowling alley and it took hours to drive to church we would get there in about three seconds. Then we lined up like good little Baptists and politely told the old lady our shoe size, then politely went to our lanes, eight kids per two lanes, except for the older kids there might be only six since they were sometimes boys and girls. Then we talked about incredible hulk, spiderman, captain america, batman, and evil kneival, who I was for Halloween the year before, and usually I got a 70 although once I got a 92 and all the other kids at my lanes kept calling me pro bowler. Then when we got done if we were the only ones there pastor Brennon would lead us in a prayer: dear Lord, thank you for providing us with this entertainment, and please continue to protect us from the evil out on the streets. We owe you so much oh Lord and we dedicate our lives to serving your righteousness now and forevermore. In Jesus name we pray. Everybody said amen very seriously.