Chapter 11b

Paris, France
March 22, 1989

The limousine crawled along in the dense afternoon traffic as it headed from Charles de Gaulle International Airport to the luxury hotel on Champ de Mars. The weather was overcast with occasional drizzles — typical continental spring conditions. Inside the limo were the members of Intemperance, Helen, and Sharon. The band had finished their last Great Britain date the night before and were now embarking upon a two-day off period while their equipment was being shipped across the English Channel.

"Isn't Paris beautiful?" asked Sharon as she goggled at the sights outside.

"Yes," agreed Helen, who was goggling just as hard. "I never thought I'd ever get to see it. Now I'm arriving by limousine." She turned to Jake. "Can we go see the Eiffel Tower today? It's in walking distance from our hotel."

"Sure," said Jake with a shrug. Unlike Coop, Charlie, and Matt, he was well-rested and not hungover. "I don't see why we can't go check it out. What about you and Sharon, Nerdly?"

"I can't wait," Sharon said excitedly, clapping her hands together in excitement. "And after that, maybe we could..."

"Uh... actually," Nerdly interrupted, "I thought maybe we could hold off on the Eiffel Tower for a bit."

"Hold off?" Sharon said. "It's less than half a mile from our hotel. Why would you want to hold off?"

"I'm a little tired from the traveling," he said.

"Tired?" Jake asked, raising his eyebrows a little. "It was a two hour flight, Nerdly."

"And you went to bed at nine o'clock last night," Sharon said with a pout.

"It's also raining and windy," Nerdly said. "I'd rather wait for better weather."

Nerdly was acting decidedly strange but Jake shrugged it off. "Okay," he said. "Is it okay if Helen and I go check it out without you then?"

"Of course," Nerdly said. "Be our guest."

"Sure," Sharon said, obviously a little dejected. "Be sure to get pictures."

"What about you, Matt?" Jake asked the guitar player, who was sipping from a rum and coke he'd made. "What are you doing after we get checked in? Wanna check out the tower with us?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm gonna crash out for a couple of hours and then go find me some Parisian bitch with hairy armpits to fuck."

"I'm just gonna crash out," Coop said. "I shoulda never had those last four pints of beer last night."

Jake looked at Charlie for a moment but didn't bother asking him. With his germ phobia he would never go near a structure that was visited by six million people every year.

"It looks like it's just you and me," Jake told Helen.

She smiled, taking his arm. "All alone on the Eiffel Tower. How romantic."

"Romantic," Matt spat with a roll of his eyes and a jerk-off motion. "You people make me wanna puke."

They finally arrived at their hotel just past three o'clock. The check-in procedure went smoothly and by half past the hour, Jake and Helen had unpacked all of their clothes and put everything away. They spent a few minutes admiring the view from their window — it overlooked Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower itself — and then headed out for their excursion to France's most famous landmark.

Even though it was a drizzly weekday in the off-season, they still had to wait in line for more than an hour to board one of the elevators — or lifts as they were called here — to go up to the first level. They were squeezed in with fifteen other people into a rickety, dank, and frightening booth that jerked and groaned its way upward for almost two hundred feet before disgorging them on the broadest of the three platforms.

They spent twenty or thirty minutes exploring the shops and the post office on the first level, before deciding to take the stairs up to the second level of the tower to avoid the line and the terrifying elevator. This turned out to be quite a climb; almost fifteen stories worth of steps, but both of them were in good shape and were hardly winded when they came out on the second level. They explored up here for a little bit as well, spending most of their time utilizing the coin operated telescopes that lined the railing.

"I can't believe I'm looking at a boat on the River Seine," Helen said as she put her eye to the viewfinder.

"Don't tell Matt or Coop about these things," Jake said. "They'll be up here all day trying to look into hotel windows."

Tourists were not allowed to take the stairs from the second level to the top of the tower so they had to wait in another line for one of the lifts. This took the better part of twenty minutes but finally they were crammed in with another fifteen people and the jerking and groaning began once again.

The top platform was small and crowded but the panoramic view of the city was nothing short of spectacular. They snapped pictures of each other with the various views of the city in the background and then had an elderly Japanese couple snap pictures of them together. Once the photography was done they found a spot overlooking the River Seine and just stood there with their arms around each other, looking out at the view.

To this point, Jake's bulky jacket and baseball cap had kept anyone from recognizing him — or at least anyone who cared to make mention of the recognition. It was when he leaned in to kiss Helen that this suddenly changed.

"Excuse me," a voice said in English with a heavy southern accent. "Ain't you Jake Kingsley?"

Jake looked up to see an overweight man in his early twenties. He had a thick, unkempt mustache and a NASCAR cap upon his head. A skinny brown-haired woman with bad teeth was holding his hand. He debated denying that he was Jake Kingsley but past experience had taught him that such a ruse rarely worked. Instead, he put a smile on his face and acknowledged that, yes indeed, he was Jake Kingsley.

"Well, hole-ee shit!" the man exclaimed. "My name's Frank Peterson, Jake. Me and my wife here is visiting from Jackson, Mississippi. Fancy meetin' you here in Paris."

"It's very nice to meet you," Jake said, shaking hands with the man and nearly getting his fingers broken in the process.

"I tried to catch your show the last time you was in Jackson," Peterson told him. "But it was all sold out and them scalpers was asking for like three hundred bucks for a ticket. What you doin' here, Jake? You on tour? I heard you was doin' a tour in Europe."

"Yes," Jake said. "We've been on tour for the last few months. We're doing three shows here in Paris this week and then heading on to Marseille and then Zurich. Helen and I were just doing a little sightseeing."

"Well god-damn," Peterson told him, not acknowledging Jake's mention of Helen in any way. "I don't suppose you have any extra tickets to any of them Paris shows, do you? Me and Jessie is gonna be here another five days and we'd love to se y'all in concert."

"Unfortunately, no," Jake said apologetically. "They don't let us give out tickets. It's one of those contract things."

"Well that's too damn bad," Peterson said sadly. "Do you think that maybe you could give us your autograph though?"

"You bet," Jake said. "You got a pen and something to write on?"

He signed his standard autograph statement for both of them. Peterson then asked if he could get a picture taken with Jake. Helen, as she usually did in such circumstances, volunteered to snap the picture so Peterson and his wife could be in the shot together. In all, it was a fairly standard encounter with a fan. Unfortunately, while Jake was interacting with Peterson on the crowded platform, several other people had taken note of the conversation. Within seconds, word that Jake Kingsley (Yes, that Jake Kingsley) was standing up on top of the Eiffel Tower with them spread like wildfire. People began pushing toward him from all directions, asking for autographs, asking for concert tickets, asking to have their picture taken with him. It wasn't long before a few of the Intemperance-haters — there were always a few in any crowd — started to make their views known.

"What are you doing with him, hon?" asked one woman in her twenties of Helen. "Why would you be with a man who beats you?"

"He worships the devil!" yelled another man — this one in his mid-thirties. "I'd hate to be you come Judgment Day, sinner!"

This, of course, led to the inevitable exchange of words between the fans and the haters. The words quickly became heated and it only seemed a matter of moments before the physical violence began. And they were standing atop a tower more than a thousand feet in the air.

Jake tried to get them out of there at that point but the line to go down on the lift was just as long as the line to go up. So for twenty minutes they were crowded and pushed, taunted and yelled at, and forced to watch as two fistfights broke out on their behalf. And still people kept coming up and wanting to take pictures with him or have him sign an autograph. Even when they did get into the elevator, fifteen other people came in with them. Three of the fifteen were Intemperance-haters who continued to badmouth Jake's satanic ways and tell Helen what a dumb, hopeless slut she was for being with a man who beat her. Two were fans who carried on the tradition of getting in the faces of the haters. The rest were simple tourists who were getting much more than they bargained for when they bought their tickets to the Eiffel Tower.

Finally they made it back to street level and they practically ran away from the base of the tower, weaving and turning through the crowds until they were once more anonymous.

"Well," Jake said lightly once they were free. "That was fun, wasn't it?"

"Loads," Helen said sourly. "Let's do it again sometime."

Helen's irritation at having her trip to the Eiffel Tower disrupted by a melee of Intemperance fans and Intemperance haters lasted only until they arrived at their dinner destination that night. Jake used his celebrity status and the assistance of the hotel's concierge to secure them a 7:30 reservation at the Grand Vefour Restaurant, which was reputed to be the finest eatery in Paris. Located under the Palais Royal, the dining room was done up in opulent eighteenth century European décor. Large, gold chandeliers provided lighting to walls decorated with polished brass and large mirrors. The tables were of mahogany and covered with spotless white linens.

"This is definitely not Denny's," Helen said as they were led to their table near the center of the room by an actual snooty French maitre d.

"Nope," Jake confirmed. "This is at least up there with Black Angus."

Jake had tried to call Nerdly and Sharon to see if they wanted to come along for the experience, but they had neither answered their room phone nor responded to knocks on the door that connected Jake and Helen's suite with theirs. Figuring they must be engaged in the kind of activity that one did not like to be interrupted during, he had stopped knocking and now Jake and Helen were alone. They didn't mind. Grand Vefour was somewhat of a romantic restaurant anyway.

In all, dinner took the better part of two hours. The food was nothing short of spectacular, the service among the best Jake had ever experienced. They were served a six course meal heavy on fish and cream sauces and drank two bottles of Bordeaux chardonnay. With the dessert portion of the meal they each had a snifter of Napoleon Cognac (which Helen was starting to really develop a taste for). The bill for the meal was in Francs, of course, but if converted to American dollars it would have been $336.17. Jake paid it gladly and left a twenty-five percent tip.

They had planned to walk the district for a bit when they were done but the rain had started again and stifled that plan. Instead, they hailed a taxi and rode back to their hotel. Jake ordered two more bottles of expensive French chardonnay from room service and, while waiting for it to arrive, took off his suit and put on one of the hotel's robes. Once the wine was delivered he and Helen took off their robes and climbed into the hot tub in the middle of their suite. They sat there for almost an hour, drinking and talking, occasionally caressing each other or kissing.