EXPERIENCING BELGIUM
Thursday, March 22, 2007
 

Diary of a Mad Man in Sint Joost but not Ivan Illych Despite Having a Beard

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 17:08

Some days or nights go better than others in my new life in San Jose Villette Bru-town otherwise known as Sint Joost ten Node Brussel or Saint Josse ten Noode Bruxelle. Sometimes it is just tough not having the commodity luxuries I took for granted - like a computer - 24/7 hi speed internet - digital cable TV - a DVD player - good and dependable heat that I controlled. The company of biologically based home security of the K9 variety... It's the soaps from Qatar I miss from digital cable.

Sint Joost has some very San Francisco-esque hills and some extremely narrow sidewalks. It's actually a beautiful old quartier in Brussels - perhaps the best preserved due to his history of poverty and immigration. Anyhow it was this past Saturday morning and I rode my bicyclette over to where the cheap shops are for some groceries and laundry detergent. Loaded down with the shopping I carefully descended a hill with the brakes on going slow. About halfway down the hill is the intersection for my street and just a few meters before that suddenly my hand breaks snapped - I kid you not - it was like some fate - and then suddenly were two cars in the intersection and then we hit and I was thinking - oh dear I'm not on my bicycle and I'm not on the ground - yet... Then I landed on a nice gravely patch. Fortunately nothing was broken and the people who hit me are nice Muslim neighbors and they took me to the hospital and had me checked out and get this - waited on me in the waiting room! They were very nice and very concerned - but it was all like a rough game of rugby. Then they drove me home with the groceries that they picked up off the ground for me. Sometimes Brussels can be really charming and surprising and very human despite its post World War Two demolition and building spree.

Today I had an unusual Villette moment on the Metro - I was headed to the center to use the computer at my old place when on the way toward the Metro I ran into one of my bearded Muslim brothers who then proceeded to walk me to the Metro stop - once there he knew all the Moroccan men (labor) types who worked at the Metro so I got to shake hands with handsome Maroc men - it felt like a Fight Club moment where all the working class guys know each other - as in "don't fuck with us, we drive your cars, cook your food, wash your clothes, etc" I don't remember the author's line (that guy with the impossible to remember let alone spell exactly last name Chuck Palahniuk) but it was a good warning about how the ruling elite should not fuck with the labor masses...

Then on the Metro I was reading Terry Tempest Williams (a post Mormon recovery type) who is some outdoorsy type poet from New Agery retaildom I remember from being a Nickled and Dimed US laborer. Anyway I have a copy of this book a I bought on my last trip to Ohio three years ago from Half Price Books that I was just getting around to reading titled RED - Passion and Patience in the Desert - About the Colorado Plateau and those who are from or drawn there - as I have been drawn there for many years. Great book by the way especially to read in Urban 21st century Villette. Whilst reading the book I noticed a handsome young Hassidic guy in black and a beard get on the car and I resumed reading. There was some other fellow kinda short with nice blue grey eyes and a short beard who got on the car as well. Anyway when I got to my stop they got off too and both were near me at the door - I'm not sure why but the short guy asked me if I was American and I said yes - and then immediately he asked if I were Amish - I said no but that I come from that part of the states - and he said me to, where you from, not Cleveland? and he had this nice accent with almost east coast sounds in it that often times I can hear in Clevelanders voices - though he was too alert speaking to really sound Ohioan. So I said I'm from Columbus and then I said what a moment to meet someone from back home like this. Then we were in some urban hoard on a ridiculously narrow escalator and the short guy said they had to ketch a flight and I took a look in the eyes at the handsome and formidable and tall Hassidic guy and said Shalom and offered my hand to shake - while asking if it were ok and he smiled and said Shalom and we shook hands and parted ways. Then I kissed my hand the way some Arab guys do when they really like person they shook hands with (tho they do this in front of the person).

I wanted to say that I wish I were flying away with them because I am just sick of these grey skies and the cold air and the landscape of Bart and all that is behind me. I have always found Hassidic guys interesting - because they are pieces of another time in Europe that I like having around - like grand old belle epoch architecture with such dignity. I especially like their beards and gentle manners. The only time I ever have even the slightest interaction with them though is on the trains in Belgium. So maybe those two men on the Metro were real people and it was a nice coincidence or maybe they were "undercover" agents of some sort - If you ever saw the Brad Pitt Robert Redford Spy Hard movie (where sometimes on screen Robert Redford looks like he is envying Brad Pitts youthfulness and it isn't clear if this is the character or the actor) - then you might understand why I enjoy assuming such paranoid conspiratorial ways of thinking. You know like in the film Enemy of the State. It's moments like that couched between North African street life in the parts of Villette I inhabit - Getting on the Metro in my multi-cultural ghetto to then get off in another such neighborhood in a different part of town. At least in these quartiers the city feels like where I belong and more importantly where my ex doesn't. Maybe that explains why I have become such an Arabophile.

Last night my aging WWII veteran dad called and left a message on my voice mail. He sounds more like himself after this last round of annual winter hospitalization. This time of year he always seems to go through a big illness. Anyway when I called him back he wanted to say that he and my brothers wife wanted to pay for me to come over and I said that wouldn't be neccessary but when would they like me to come? They didn't care when but they both seemed worried that given my ex's current ways I should know I can depend on them. Which was nice to hear.

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