The Drive-by Pedicure

This is a sad story. I don’t mean the year 2000 definition of “sad” like something you’d say to your friend who leaves his house wearing tube socks. “Oh, dude, that’s just sad.” I mean a truly sad story.

Most of you are already well-aware of the level of respect you can find in Marseille from my other tales or from your personal experience here. I have now experienced, on a scale of 1 – 10, Level Minus One (-1). Because the Marseille Respect Scale (MRS) does in fact reach into the negatives.

The other morning, I was walking in a neighborhood called Cours Julien. This area is as dirty as Rue des Héros, however, it is much bigger. It contains many little streets which serve as open sewage canals as well. They are semi-pedestrian zones, because the pedestrian concept is incomprehensible in Marseille. All pedestrian zones in Marseille accept several arbitrarily parked cars so that all pedestrians literally have to climb over them or scrape their bodies against a wall to get passed.

All semi-pedestrian zones also include scooters whizzing buy, loud motorcycles, dogs without leashes, a couple “gypsies” in long dirty skirts holding half-naked babies begging for money and unconscious people talking on their phones (but the latter is normal everywhere in 2012).

The only difference between Marseille and third world cities is the lack of goats and cows roaming around. But, maybe I’ll distribute a few and see how that works out.

Getting back to Cours Julien, it is also home to the homeless who sit in large groups drinking all day and peeing in the streets. It is home to loads of “Bio” (organic) restaurants, unique clothing boutiques, and used book stores. It has lots of cafés as well and draws crowds at all hours.

And just a side note, in Marseille most people who eat organic food are unemployed or actors and they in general smell and think capitalism needs to die. I know I’m generalizing and stepping over the line, but this is my time to express myself, so, too bad.

Getting back to my story, I had just finished teaching a yoga class and was feeling very calm and peaceful while walking down the semi-pedestrian street that had huge mounds of orange dog shit every couple of steps. But, I was fine with it. Acceptance is the key to life anyway, isn’t it?

I was crossing a tiny road and heard a scooter to my left. I turned my head to see how close it was, it was not very close. I had plenty of time to cross the path that was no more than three feet wide. I crossed it in less than one second and heard the scooter speeding up.

All of a sudden, he swerved to hit me and sped away. He ran over my toes. It didn’t hurt but my adrenaline was pumping and I kept my head down and kept walking, a natural instinct I have adopted here as people like to provoke each other. A woman on her cell phone who was a couple steps ahead of me turned around alarmed, “Did that scooter just hit you on purpose?” she asked.

I looked up at her and slowly answered, “Yeah. He did.” I don’t know why, but I felt like a total loser. I felt like someone who gets picked on in high school for no reason. I felt embarrassed someone had seen that happen to me.

She turned back around and cried into her phone “People here are sick! Some guy just ran over a woman on purpose!”

After she said those words, it dawned on me the cruelty and heartlessness of such an act. I suddenly filled with sadness. My toes hurt a little but I was too nervous to look down. What if they were broken or worse, not even there anymore? I slowly looked down. A thick black greasy line marked all my prettily painted red toes. I wasn’t bleeding. It didn’t hurt. I was okay. That dude was a fucking asshole. Why did he swerve to hit me like that? I wasn’t in his way. I didn’t understand. He just felt like being a dick. That made me sad. I silently made it to the metro and went home.

As I walked through my neighborhood almost back at our house, I tried to call my husband, but he didn’t answer his phone. As soon as I heard him on voice mail, I felt like crying. I started to leave my message, “Hi. It’s me. Something bad just happened to me. I’m okay. I’m fine. But, a motorcycle…ran…over…me (sob sob sob) and and I’m okay, but I’m just (sob sob sob) really sad (sob sob sob)…” And I hung up and tried to stop crying.

I don’t know if the crying was just energy being released after the motorcycle adrenaline rush. I was fine, why was I crying? I felt ridiculous. Was I wallowing in self-pity or was it all justified? Minutes later, I got home and Jeeves arrived to work on our translating project.

“Jeeves,” I said while preparing him one of my infamous Nespresso lattes with a little bit of cream and some whole milk. “I was kind of aggressed today.”

I told him my story and he replied, “You know, Sunny. When you go to the zoo, you walk by the cages and look at the animals…and you say, “Oh, look at the animals” You don’t try to understand the animals. You don’t try to change the animals. That is how I see Marseille. Why would you try and change the animals? You can’t. It’s just impossible. Don’t try to understand them. Because they are just animals.”

Jeeves was right and I was glad he said that to me. At least it made me feel better. Later that evening, I told my husband about my accident. “Was the guy trying to steal your purse?” he asked bewildered.

“No”, I replied.

“So, he just ran over you like that?”

“Yep,” I answered.

My husband shook his head. “I don’t understand people. He could’ve hurt you.”

“I know,” I said, “but he would not have cared. He tried to hit me and ran over my foot. Then he just kept on going. He’s just an angry person. It’s sad that our city is full of people like this. It’s hard knowing that we live in a city like this.”

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

“Look,” I proffered my lovely black marked toes.

He shook his head again while dragging his fingers across my foot. “Are they black because they’re bruised?”

“No, that’s from the tires.” I replied. And then I thought, “In another city, this would be an act of violence, some kind of aggression. In Marseille, it is nothing more than a drive-by pedicure…”