when the right back shocks died above san remo
i haven’t stopped, i said: fuck it, we are going to france,
they have many renault services, it will be
easier there. but after 50 kilometers within
france, no signs of renault anywhere.
after i finally spotted one, the mechanic was not interested
if i could continue with the broken car down the road.
leave the car and wait ten days. if you are in a hurry
go to renault minut, they are faster than us.
i found renault minut out of third try, but their computer
was broken, so again nothing came of the repair.
i continued click-clacking through the congested streets of the resort town
cagnes-sur-mer and then saw a big, screaming billboard:
SPEEDY 20 % off on shocks. they’ve replaced all four of them,
because the ‘last one went because of the diagonally damaged front one,
and they always need to be replaced in pairs’. meanwhile,
i’ve sipped terrible coffee on the shore, while one woman began to
choke on her own puke. when the bar called for an ambulance,
she got up, wiped herself with her fist and said: it’s nothing! i am used to it.
the greasy sea at the riviera pecked at the pebbles streaked by tar.
the planes furiously dove into the flat coastline at the outskirts of nice.
over the blues of the horizon there was rainbow spilling, broken-hearted line of emptiness.
i pressed the accelerator and firmly ploughed the road to west.
07/31/2003
09/13/2003
Translated by: Boris Gregorić