At Place d’Italie the square is all lit up for Noelle, with strings of lights cascading down the facade of the town hall, and covering the front of the Centre Commercial, where we are meeting for our into trip into the catacombs. Earlier I had met Killer at the Les Halles mall and followed him through the insane pre-Christmas hordes into the guts of the underground shopping center, to a multileveled sports emporium where we purchased rubber equestrian boots for me and Judy. I’ve got the boots on my feet now; they rise straight up my calves and feel stiff and hardy. Judy had warned me they were ugly but I think they possess a certain militaristic chic. I will rock them on rainy days when I’m back in San Francisco.
The last pair of jeans Killer wore into the catacombs never got clean, so at Wendy’s I’d surveyed my vacation wardrobe, wondering what to sacrifice. Of course I only brought cute clothes to Paris for the holidays! I settle on a pair of purple skinny jeans, having recently read in a fashion magazine that colored skinny jeans are passé. I can’t wear my fancy puffer coat into the catacombs, and the only sweater I have is a clever Marc by Marc Jacobs cardigan I bought especially for this trip, and that is not going underground. Judy had said the catacombs are actually quite warm, so I figure I’ll just pile on some long sleeve shirts, San Francisco-style. I packed a little ziplock baggie with my ID, in case we get arrested. Since 1955 it has been a crime to go into the catacombs, punishable with a fine of about a hundred and thirty Euros, more if you’re caught in the burial crypts, as messing with remains is a different, more serious offense. According to Judy, there are gangs of French Nazis who like to sabotage Jewish cemeteries; perhaps the law was beefed up to deal with them. I bring my cigarettes, doubtful that the enclosed space of the catacombs will prevent anyone from smoking. I bring my house key, some Euros. I bring a bottle of lube. When the idea of the catacomb trip first arose some nights ago, the plan quickly grew to include a sex and MDMA party. I haven’t done drugs or drank in over five years and don’t miss it, but this was the first instance when I felt like sobriety was maybe preventing me from experiencing something awesome. Ecstasy in the catacombs! It’s not ecstasy, Antoine corrected me. Ecstasy is MDMA that’s been stepped on, cut with baby powder or ajax or heroin or speed. Antoine’s MDMA is pure.
I dropped my tiny plastic bag into a bigger plastic bag where I’d packed a sandwich, plus some chips and chocolate to share. It’s hard to get my head around the catacombs, what to expect. I need boots because I’ll be up to my knees in water, but we’re going to have a picnic? Killer’s jeans were ruined forever, but Antoine insists the water is clean? It’s filled with mud, but we’re going to have a sex party? I don’t think I’ll feel pretty enough, I had said at the dinner party, imagining myself covered in scummy scum of questionable origins. Antoine smiled his shy smile and said something French. Everyone is pretty covered in mud.
When I meet up with the group I feel proud and capable in my rubber boots, lugging my plastic bag. I don’t speak French, and therefore butt up against how totally incapable I am every day, causing the tiniest triumphs to resonate. But the crew regard me uneasily. Do you not have a backpack? Everyone has backpacks. But no one told me to bring a backpack! I don’t even own a backpack! I Just Thought I’d Carry This, I swung my plastic bag in front of me. I’d thought I was such a genius, packing everything into a grocery sack instead of my leather purse. You are going to need your hands, Antoine says carefully. He’s been promising that on Monday he’ll speak English to me, and it’s Monday, so he’s trying. Oh, I said. Hmmmm. Others arrive, terribly late—Alice, Jade, Sasha, Kay, Alec. Alec has a baby face and a baby blue mohawk and is currently homeless after cops closed down the squat he’d been living in in Lyon. Kay is recently back in Paris after travels to Berlin and San Francisco, where he stayed with a professional dominatrix in Fairfax. He also is currently homeless. Sasha is a genius, wearing one of those camelback-thingies, a cloth flask of water strapped to his back. Recently evicted from the same Lyon squat that gave Alec the boot, he too is homeless. Jade I have only seen wearing extreme fetish gear, so it’s sort of great to see her in a pair of mom jeans and a backpack. Alice, a butch-dating-butch, appreciates how the journey into the catacombs is forcing everyone to drop their intensely gendered wardrobes. Tonight we are not butch, or femme, or trans, we are all just queer people, she said, surveying the fashion. Killer appears to be wearing something like a fleece pullover. Even Judy, who lives in microscopic dresses and skirts, wears jeans, a pink pair she’d stolen from H+M and hadn’t yet had an occasion to wear. Alice looks nervously at my fancy puffer coat, pretty femme with its ruffled sleeves and golden buttons. You won’t wear that down there? No! Well, what will you wear? Um, I Have A Long Sleeved Shirt On? Oh no, Alice shakes her head and looks around for support. You will be cold! I Was Told It Was Hot! No, Alice shakes her head somberly. Oh well. C’est La Vie, I say brightly, always thrilled to remember something French.
Antoine was stressed at everyone showing up late. After a certain hour, a gang of people in backpacks and water boots are only up to one thing, and are easily nabbed by the cops who patrol the area. He in particular looks like an obvious cataphile, with his two giant rubber boots looped through the sides of his bulging backpack. DJ Wet, who has visited the catacombs, told me the police play a cat and mouse game with the trespassers, soldering shut loose manholes that lead down into the depths, only to have them pried back open by explorers. Wet talked about climbing out of one covered in mud, to the shock of a bunch of cafe dwellers dining alfresco feet away. Earlier in the week, strolling the Jardin de Luxemborg, I’d noted the manholes dotting the parkscape with excitement, knowing they led to the catacombs. Sometimes the cops lop the ladders off so you can’t climb down. But we won’t be entering via manholes tonight.
