Daniel Ferrante

Imagine this. It’s the first day I’m in Dijon. I’m at the city’s Arch, talking with three other assistants and one of the program administrators.

I hear someone singing, rather raspily and not very clearly, but obviously in French. I look up and this short Jamaican is walking towards us. He walks up to one of the assistants and asks, in French, “Can I kiss you?”

She’s repulsed, pushes him away and the five of us all walk off together for dinner, leaving our new “friend” to serenade the Darcy section of Dijon.

Over the next few weeks, I see him walking around town. During the day he is generally sober and upbeat, and he bounces around Darcy with a can on his head and a guitar on his back.

At night, he is drunk, walking around Darcy, singing and disturbing traffic - as he likes to walk down the center of the street and play in the traffic circle.

Last night I was coming back from The Café Polyglotte at Pub Kilkenny - as an aside, every Tuesday, Pub Kilkenny has a Polyglot night where people gather to practice different languages, very fun.

I was walking back to Darcy to catch the bus back to campus. I was with Sunshine and my English Rose. I hear the gravelly singing and see the Darcy Drunk coming towards us. He tries to talk to us, but we ignore him. Then he starts shouting at us, saying that we won’t talk to him because he’s black and we’re German (huh? all white blokes are German?).

He goes to touch Sunshine. Big mistake as Sunshine hates to be touched. I pull him back and stand between him and my two friends…

He sees two other girls at the stop and does the same thing. Again, I interecede.

It then dons on me, hey, this is Dijon, there’s a bus stop not 100 yards away from here. Let’s head that way. So, as I’m playing barrier against Michigan J Frog, I notice two things. One, his friend is crossing the street and coming towards us. Two, the girls, instead of heading towards the other bus stop, are simply closing themselves into the bus stop enclosure, leaving them no way out. What is this, a horror movie? I suddenly felt like Sallah trying to get Marcus Brodie to run from the Nazi agents. (Will anyone get this reference? Here’s a hint).

Darcy Drunk gets in my face, screaming at me. I take off my glasses, hand them to my English Rose (who couldn’t understand why I was taking off my glasses - “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s super a*hole!“).

He then let’s out a loud “Brrrrrrrraaaaaaaaap!”. Not like Barney burping, but like a reggae sort of musical call. His friend let’s one out (at this point, he’s harassing Sunshine - and I can only handle one guy at a time - unlike my porn days). I think, hey, I can saber rattle too.

I let one out as loud as I can. He looks shocked, staggers back into the street, then gets on his knees and starts talking to his shadow. This boy isn’t just drunk, he’s straight trippin’.

I walk over to the other girls, tell them there’s another bus stop just up the road, and we all walk there together.

The drunk follows us, but stops just where Darcy ends and Centre Ville begins. It’s like he’s magically bound to that area.

We made it home safely. And thankfully I never had to lay my pimp hand down on him.

Mental note, late at night, catch the Centre Ville stop, not Darcy.