Dodo Eraser

I woke up before seven, which I rarely do, to the sound of pigeons cooing. Those greedy little fuckers are everywhere here. They have become so comfortable with people that they’ve lost any sense of propriety. In America the people are fat and the pigeons skinny; in the Riviera, it’s the other way around, and I’m not sure which is worse.

To be fair, pigeon coos are barely audible, the timid half-assed grumblings of a half-brained species— a putrid generic dove. But I don’t think that’s actually what woke me up. It was most likely the nerves. I probably should have started by telling you that I have decided to kill myself today. I don’t feel like giving an explanation. It’s all the normal stuff. Emptiness, dissatisfaction, malaise, so on and so forth. Not really like it matters anymore. I am tired, and I have had enough. I emptied what was left in my savings from my job delivering pizzas, burned my American road trip novella “manuscript”, bought fifty pressed fentanyl pills off the dark web and decided to spend my last days seeing one last new place. It’s not like I need to save for anything now. Plus, who wants to live in a world with pigeons? Those beady eyes. Chairman Mao tried to eliminate sparrows. If history hadn’t taught me any better, I’d try to eliminate pigeons. Anyway, I can’t say for sure why I’m writing this. I’ll have no control over who sees it or what they think about it once it’s out in the world and I’m gone from it.

It’s my second day in Nice. I figured I should make this quick. I landed last night and took an Uber straight to my Air BnB, a sterile studio on the top floor of an apartment building in Old Nice with white walls, two french windows, a cot and no hot water. I decided to give myself til sundown— which, as I write this from a bar along the Promenade des Anglais on the water, has long passed, the sun somewhere far below Cap d’Antibes to the west— to spend a day going around to Nice and seeing what I wanted to for the last time. There should have been liberation in my newfound understanding that nothing matters, though I didn’t feel it. As I write this, I just downed the entire bottle of pills. Combined with the alcohol I’ve consumed for good measure, I think I should write this quickly, for I probably have a good twenty minutes or so before it’s all over. I’m relaxed. This won’t hurt.

I started my day with thirty dollars, which comes out to about twenty-five Euro, everything I have left to my name. I found a boulangerie near my place, open before all the others, and sat on its shaded patio. This part of Nice is cool because it’s old and the streets are narrow and pedestrian-only, but they become chilly wind tunnels when the sun isn’t high, the sun that instead beams down the streets through small openings between the stucco buildings and above the foothills of the northbound Alps. You can only catch the sun in the perfect spot on these streets, and I never happen to find myself in the perfect spot. But anyway, there’s nowhere in Cleveland you can get a pan au chocolat and espresso this good, and that’s not even considering you’re minutes from both the sea and the mountains. I sat in the delectable silence and read some highlighted passages from Anna Karenina, my favorite book. For some reason I realized today for the first time how soapy it is and wanted to throw it away, burn it, rid myself of these trivial travails from society people in a bygone world. But it was still a good moment, I suppose. It was serene, save for the ridiculous pigeons impatiently waiting for flaky crumbs.

I walked through Cours Saleya, the old produce market, on the way to the beach and window shopped the cornucopia. I could afford none of it, but walked slowly down the street, inspecting ample olive spreads and wrapped wheels of soft goat cheese. With no money to purchase anything, I avoided eye contact with vendors working in the stalls. I stood and watched fish mongers throwing filleted fish guts to a group of excited, rapacious pigeons.

I went to the beach with plans to read more Tolstoy and start writing, but the wind was whipping and the beach was full of rocks, and I lost my interest in reading anyway. It seemed the jazz age novels lied to me. The beaches on the shores of Lake Erie are better. I guess the scenic quality is what sets this beach apart, but I’d just as well stay on the Great Lakes. I stripped my khakis off and waded down into the water but was pulled in by the crashing waves and loose rocks slapping against my legs. The force pulled my swim trunks halfway off and I was tumbling aimlessly and mostly naked for what felt like a half-minute. I was almost pulled in by the undertow and panicked. It’s funny, though I was hours away from swallowing the pharmacy and swimming to my own death— which was always the plan— my heart still skipped a beat. Nietzsche said suicide is the ultimate form of liberation. Not any other sort of death, but suicide specifically, because you have agency. This painful accident would’ve felt like getting robbed of my own choice.

Disappointed and frustrated, I walked up to the nearest theater, Cinema Jean Paul Belmondo, to take shelter and watch a film, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do. I decided to watch something by an English-speaking director since I wouldn’t understand an unsubtitled European film. I saw Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague was in theaters, a love letter to cinema and a reenactment of the making of Godard’s Breathless, which I thought was cool since it launched the career of the man whose name the theater bears. Turns out I picked the only major American film of the last two decades to be spoken completely in French. I guess I should’ve expected that. I left after Jean Seberg’s “New York Herald Tribune!” scene, figuring I wouldn’t understand the rest of the movie.

Down to fifteen Euro, I felt adrift. I contemplated going back to my room and getting the pills and just calling it quits then and there— why wait?— but decided I should at least try and find something to do. I ended up back at the boulangerie in which I started my day because I’m too nervous to explore, and too indecisive, for if I spent too much time deciding my next move, my final day would get away from me. I watched an old man two tables away with a guitar hanging off his back and 50s rockabilly music emanating from an unseen bluetooth speaker feeding the pigeons. The birds were swarming him instead of me and I felt a tinge of jealousy.

I sat in that boulangerie for the second time, just thinking about it all. My family, my decisions, the morning behind me and the final afternoon ahead of me. I wanted to be profound but it all came to me as a jumbled mess. “There should have been liberation in my newfound understanding that nothing matters, though I didn’t feel it.” Do you remember when I said that? It’s kind of perfect for how I feel now, how I felt today, how I’ve felt forever. The phrase has been bouncing around in my head ever since I thought of it this morning. I feel like there’s something there. I have long given up the idea of becoming a successful author, but what hurts the most is that I feel excruciatingly close. I have the technical gifts, I have seeds of ideas that seem meaningful, but when I try to put them on paper they fall flat. They just don’t connect. My bodies of work are never finished but if they were, they always seem to be less than the sum of their parts. That’s how I feel in all aspects of life. I can recognize qualities about myself that I like but they never come together. I am not holistic, I am a jumbled mess of good and bad and average that never connects with anything profound. I sat there outside in that cafe, chain-smoking Gitanes and drinking espresso, letting myself imagine one last time that people cared what I had to say, that I would be missed by people I never met, that the things I said meant something and made an impact beyond the membranes of my skull. Wouldn’t it be providentially cruel if something like this I wrote made an impact posthumously? But even that is too naive and idealistic, and I don’t even want to fully admit its true appeal to me. The mere shred of hope is embarrassing.

I spent seven of my last fifteen Euros on a pan bagnat at the boulangerie. I sat, watching the happy Frenchmen and tourists alike wandering the stalls of Cours Saleya, eating a ciabatta sandwich with tuna, anchovies, olives, tomato, lettuce, onion, boiled eggs, olive oil, salt and pepper. I always used to joke with my girlfriend— the only one I’ve ever had— that if I ever seriously contemplated suicide, I would eat a good sandwich first. If I still wanted to kill myself after that, I would allow myself to do so. I wondered if she ever thought about me. As I watched the people come and go, I thought it funny how Americans cosplay the French in sweaters and khakis while French people do the opposite, walking around in sneakers, blue jeans and NASCAR shirts. The grass is always greener.

I decided to buy a bottle of rosé at the epicerie near my spot and go back to my mostly empty room and plot my next move. While sitting in the monastic white room I saw on the clothesline out the window two pigeons land next to each other. They looked like a couple. They sat still for minutes while I watched them and it made me sad. I played Sade’s Diamond Life through the speakers on the TV until a neighbor, angry at the world and especially the mere existence of this Air BnB, knocked at my door and threatened in the most polite possible way that he was going to call the police if I didn’t turn the music down.

I decided to take the train out to Éze, an old medieval village between Nice and Monaco with good views. I opted out of Monaco, for they would have smelled my credit score and nonexistent life savings before I even hit the steps of Monte Carlo. It was a fifteen-minute walk to the train, a two Euro train ride and the train came within five minutes of my arrival at the station. For non-coastal Americans like myself, this is cause for rapturous joy; it was maybe the best part of my day. The train was mostly empty. The weather was nice enough today, but it’s clear that winter is the down time. Even many restaurants are closed for the season. The coastal train starts in Marseille and ends up in Ventimiglia on the other side of the Italian border. For a moment I considered going across the border but settled for my original plan.

I liked Éze. I made the mistake, in my sweater and khakis, instead of the fifteen-minute two-Euro bus ride up the hill to the village from the station, to opt for the Nietzsche Trail, an hour-long scenic walk up to the destination. It’s apparently where the famous German philosopher would walk every day, just over a mile each way straight up and down. The signs severely undersold the strenuousness of the walk and I ended up drenched in sweat and gasping for air halfway up the hill, my sweat-drenched khakis clinging to my hairy legs and me almost forgetting the spectacular view of the hills sliding down into the aptly-named Cotê de Azur below. I spent most of this time thinking of Nietszche’s thoughts on suicide and wondered why— if he considered taking your own life by your own hands the ultimate act of freedom— he let himself wither painfully away from syphilis. At least according to a plaque I read. I don’t know. I’ve never read anything he’s written. I guess I never will.

I met a woman on my walk. Well, it was more like a woman walking while I sat on a rock, sweating, nearly forgetting where I was, desperate for water. She walked around the corner and saw me gasping for air. Very romantic. She was beautiful, and clearly in better shape than me, walking without breaking a visible sweat. She wore slim black jeans and army trainers with a tight white t-shirt beneath a beige peacoat and a face full of unblemished makeup. How she was handling the trail so well, I will never know. Her brown eyes matched her curly long hair, blown out by the seaside salt and humidity. I couldn’t make eye contact. It’s always been a problem for me, especially if there’s shame and women involved. “Tu vas bien?” she asked as she approached. I looked up and forced a smile. “Oui, bien,” I murmured. My cheeks felt hot. She said something else in French I couldn’t understand, to which I reflexively replied, “Parlez-vouz anglais?” Of course she did, she said, unlike Americans she could actually speak another language. She smiled and said she was “wondering” if I needed water. I said yes. She rolled her R’s like a Spaniard when she said “wondering” and I was intrigued. I wanted to say more, to ask about her, but I was too nervous and let the opportunity pass by. I didn’t even get her name. Considering nothing matters, I felt sort of ridiculous. Old habits die hard.

I finally got to the ancient village and sat on a bench atop the medieval stone and looked out: beneath the castle was un jardin exotique, filled with aloe vera and several species of cacti, uniquely grown there because of the microclimate whose hillside warmth gets dry sun rays and is insulated from the harsh winds of the sea. Below the gardens on one side was the vast Mediterranean and on the other a viaduct of the Grand Corniche, Napoleon’s Riviera highway built upon an old Roman trading road. I recognized the stretch from Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, a movie with two of my favorite lead actors of all time that should have been better than it was (Cary Grant and Grace Kelly didn’t have enough charisma.)

But I spent most of the time atop that majestic town thinking about the woman who rolled her R’s and wore a peacoat and gave me water.

I spent two of my last six Euros on the bus ride back down to the train station because I was gassed. To my nervous surprise, the woman happened to be on the bus, and more than that, sat next to me. I kept trying to steal glances while she looked away but every time she looked toward me I looked out the window like a buffoon. She did not experience the same shyness; she smiled at me. I could feel it even when I looked away.. I noticed her crooked teeth and crooked nose and I liked it. She smelled like lavender and cigarettes. The bus ride down was full of bends and switchbacks, so we kept bumping into each other. The only word we said to each other was “sorry”. After the first couple bends, the “sorrys” became implied. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt the warmth of another body against mine. My sick and delusional mind tried to convince me that with each successive turn, she leaned into me more than she needed to, but that’s probably because I watched too many movies. I tried to stay composed and continue looking out the window. We passed an olive grove and it was stunningly beautiful. I’d always wanted to see an olive tree. The small gray leaves are alright but the gnarled trunks look ancient, something from a lost world, with bark that holds secrets we could never conceive.

We sat next to each other on the train, too. She put her hand out and finally introduced herself. “Genevieve,” she said. “That’s my name, in case you were wondering.” The rolled R’s again. I asked her if she was from Nice. She said no, she’s from Toulouse, currently at “university” in Bordeaux and visiting her aunt in Nice. She’s been coming here since childhood. We talked for a while, small talk, excruciating niceties. She asked where I’m from, knowing it was America. I told her I was here on vacation which I suppose is technically true. Then she asked what I was doing tonight. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, which got me an invite to her dinner party at seven-thirty. Jenny— that’s what she said to call her, though I prefer the Frenchness of the full name— said she and her friends like to have a “token American” at their get-togethers. I don’t know if she was joking or not. She got off the train at Villefranche-sur-Mer to meet a friend and handed me a slip of paper. I watched her move her hips beneath her peacoat as she got off the train and looked at the slip of paper. It said 8 Rue de Rivoli, Apartment 4. There are lots of Italian names in Provence. Her life would be no different whether or not I went to this dinner party.

As we pulled out of the station, I noticed the beaches in Villefranche were sandy. Much better than the beaches in Nice. I thought maybe I should have gotten off. Plus, I could have walked with Genevieve.

I got back to the Nice Riquier station and noticed the sun was beginning to get frighteningly low in the sky. It was nearly five. I walked back to my room to get my pills. The late afternoon and early evening windows in southern Europe are eerie. The lunch places are mostly closed and the dinner joints are yet to open. It’s like a ghost town. Residents are still working and tourists are sleeping off their lunchtime cocktails. I walked through the romantic empty streets of the old town and felt a pit in my stomach. I could hear the clicks of my heels on the cavernous alleyways bouncing off the stucco. Everything feels abandoned. I hope this isn’t how eternity feels. When I got back to my place and grabbed my pills, I took my suitcase with me back down to the street and emptied its contents along the empty stalls of Cours Saleya. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I have nice clothes. Someone could use them.

I found a rare bar open through the dead afternoon window,  Les Distilleries Idéales. They claim to be the oldest bar in Nice, though I’m not sure that is verifiable. It’s old, dark and L-shaped. Despite the recent smoking ban the place still smells like stale tobacco and I was the only person in there, save an old Russian couple in the corner booth. I sat at a bistro table and drank a glass of Ricard on the rocks. It tasted like black licorice. I don’t like black licorice. I admit that I didn’t have enough money left to pay for this. It cost five Euros and I only had four. I left the four coins remaining on the table and dashed out into the dusk. It got darker earlier than I thought; I suppose it’s nearly winter, and it gets dark earlier this time of year, which I hate, because shorter days mean longer nights. I ran through the alleys, sucking wind, in case someone from the bar tried to track me down. I kept imagining a car driving downhill full speed with cut brakes down a dead-end street.

Except it wasn’t a dead-end street. The streets kept going and going and I didn’t slow down. Somewhere along the way I jacked a bottle of red wine from a small epicerie, which proved exceedingly easy. When you don’t care, you assume an air of knowledge, which makes it easier to get away with things. I suppose I took the bottle of wine as a gift to bring to Jenny’s, because as providence would have it I somehow ended up standing right in front of 8 Rue de Rivoli, on the other side of Nice’s commercial district. As I walked up, rain began to fall and the wind began to whip, sending the palms that lined the street into a frantic dance. I felt bad because I missed the sunset and would die in a storm. I looked up at the building, a classic Belle Époque-era Mediterranean style yellow apartment building bathed in the 19th century grandeur of French door-style windows and Juliet balconies. I couldn’t tell which apartment was number four but on the second floor the unit on the right had its lights on. I backed across the street to get a better look and take a deep breath before going in. I kept reaching into my pocket to feel for my pills and make sure they weren’t getting waterlogged.

I didn’t go in. I wanted to, but I also didn’t want to. Maybe I was scared of what awaited me up there. What if it was full of French-speaking assholes laughing at my expense? What if there was nobody but Jenny, and she wanted an excuse to see me? I’d come up there drenched in rain, half-drunk with no money and even less to say to her. I could only think of talking about the weather. For all I knew, that light wasn’t even coming from her apartment. She could have forgotten all about me just as well. I shied away, unscrewed the cheap bottle of wine, and drank all of it myself as I walked back to Old Nice for the final time. By the time I began to regret my decision I was already back in the old neighborhood and too drunk to show my face to a woman. Plus, it was well past sundown and at this point I realized I was simply procrastinating.

That’s how I ended up here, at an overpriced and touristy tapas bar with a second level for views of the water. I’m sitting along the ledge and it’s cold and wet but the rain’s moved on. The plan is to finish this letter, wait until the drugs begin to take effect, leave the letter for the bartender, walk across the promenade to the beach, strip naked and swim out to sea until I can no longer move. It’s sort of pathetic that my last drink will be at a place this vapid. I am drinking an aperol spritz, completely incongruous with the season. I cannot afford it, though I suppose it doesn’t matter since I already drank and dashed once today; besides, it’s almost over anyway. I didn’t expect this, but I’m sort of nervous.

As I write this now, two pigeons landed again in front of me on the balcony. I think it’s the same two pigeons I saw earlier on the clothesline. I’m starting to like them, I think. Why do we love doves and hate pigeons? I like to imagine they took shelter from the storm and just flew back out into the world together. I imagine myself taking shelter from the rain inside Genevieve’s apartment, her scrubbing my hair dry with a wet towel, drying out my clothes, the rain subsiding and then we go out ourselves, dancing at the Hotel Negresco. In my head, I’m doing dances I’ll never learn across tiled floors of ballrooms I’ll never see. We could be just like the pigeons, unafraid and in love. I suddenly realize the joys of life I willfully ignored, even some things I lived through today. I ate a life-affirming sandwich and neglected to realize it. What if the olive tree is the last new tree I’ll ever see? There are so many more awful bars to drink at, so many bad movies to walk out of. Think of all the birds I could learn to love. I don’t think I want to die. I don’t want this anymore.

I just walked to the bathroom and stuck my hand down my throat and purged all that I could from my body. It’s been nearly a half hour I’m hoping that’s enough. If there’s a God I should apologize I don’t want to die I really don’t, I want to see Jenny. I want to borrow money from someone to pay the places I’ve stolen from and buy a plane ticket back home to Cleveland. I’ll work it off and pay whoever helps me back with interest. I want to see my mom and dad and people I don’t want this to be it.

I hope this is enough. I hope that I’m OK. I don’t feel too bad. Why does everyone hate pigeons? Why do I hate me?

Too cold for swims. Might be frostbite. Don’t speak French. My hands not moving. Faulkner. Grief over nothing. I want to see Jenny. Genveive. Hand tired, body tired. Mind tired. Need a nap. Just a short one, then I’ll fix everything. Buy new clothes, find my suitcase. Write a book. I’m just tired. But I vomited enough, so I’ll be fine. After that will begin the start of the rest of my

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Jameson Draper is a writer from Detroit, Michigan. He currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland. His work has appeared in Hobart, Passion of the Weiss and the Detroit Free Press. He loves his gray cat, a crisp negroni and a baseball game on a summer night. He is endlessly frightened, and is wondering if he could maybe have a bite of your shawarma.