Frenchman for the Night

 Week Fifty: Frenchman for the Night 

By the light of the moon

He’s a Frenchman for the night

By the light of the moon

It’ll be all right

--Jimmy Buffet, Frenchman for the Night, from Fruit Cakes

When our son, Jesse was in the eighth grade at a school where I worked, a colleague of mine that I’ll call Ted arranged a visit by a group of French eighth graders. The French students stayed for a week, which was filled with cultural experiences and many opportunities to use the English they all had been learning. Each of them was housed by an American host. Our family hosted Nicolas, a high school chaperone who had accompanied the two French teachers who brought the group.

To this very day we can safely say that we love Nicolas. We loved having him stay with us. We loved it when he returned a year later to spend an extended vacation with us (including a trip to Florida and the Bahamas). We especially loved seeing Nicolas (and his lady friend Valentine) when they joined us in Amsterdam, NL where we lived. Nicolas was and is one of the most extroverted, charming, friendly, self-assured men ever born.

On his first day in America all those years ago, Nicolas rode home with me and Jesse. As we passed the two huge, shiny, gold-colored egg-shaped structures at the waste management plant, Nicolas asked me to explain. It quickly became evident that my “mastery” of the French language would be of absolutely no use to anyone. How does one explain “waste management”?

The language lessons in both directions continued day after day. Nicolas would often conjugate verbs in his head trying to form sentences before speaking. At one point Nicolas asked me if it was correct to say “gonna going” or “going gonna”, you know like “I’m gonna go to the store.”

I was determined to use my tiny bit of acquired French language. I answered in French especially whenever the answer was “Je ne sais pas,” which was most of the time. To expand my tiny vocabulary I often asked “Comment dit-on” which means “How do you say?” You know, like “Comment dit-on ‘horse? (or any word you might not know the translation)’” It worked well until in a brief brain-fart I couldn’t remember the French phrase, so I asked Nicolas a serious question. “Nicolas, how do you say ‘how do you say?’” Being completely confused, Nicolas asked for clarification.

“Tell me,” he said.

“How do you say, ‘how do you say?’”

“How do you say what? Tell me.”

Our Abbott and Costello routine lasted until my laughter overwhelmed us both.

The coordinator, Ted, planned a field trip to Washington, D.C. for the French students. The day before Nicolas and I attended a minor league baseball game. He was clearly enamored by America’s pastime. I tried explaining the rules to him, but it wasn’t until we actually played baseball thanks to the neighborhood kids who joined us that he gained his appreciation for the game. (Valentine told me that Nicolas proudly displays the baseball glove I gave him on the fireplace mantle at his home!) We enjoyed the game that night and on the way home we had an essential language lesson.

Nicolas had asked about cursing, and I thought this was an opportune time to discuss the basics. I explained that for minor discomfort like stumping your toe, you might say, “Damn it to hell.”  (With his thick French accent that phrase became “dam-to-ell” which we use in our family to this day). We covered the second level including the rather versatile use of the s-word. (“Are you shitting me?” or “There’s a bunch of shit in the closet.” and “No shit! You cannot be serious!” as examples.) I pointed out that the f-word also had multiple applications. (Examples include “Fuck off, I lost my fucking car keys, and Who gives a fuck?”) I tried my best to remember George Carlin’s seven words that cannot be said on television. To end our lesson, I told him there was one word he must not say. This word is considered the worst of the worst. It is crude and strikingly inappropriate and must be reserved for the most extreme circumstances. I told him he was not to say this word in front of my wife.

He agreed to my restrictions and asked what it was. I told him. He promised.

The very next day after the trip to Washington, D.C. I waited for Nicolas in my office at school. Early in the evening, Nicolas came into the office and immediately sat down in the closest chair without saying anything to me.

“Hello,” I said. “Is everything OK,” I asked.

“Ted, he is a fucking boy, and a gay,” he responded.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, I know,” I said. “Did something happen?”

The story, which was revealed after the fact goes like this: when the group arrived in Washington that day, Nicolas did not stay with the group. As the main group toured the various tourist attractions, Nicolas was busy doing what his hormones dictated. When he was due back at the meeting place for the group, Nicolas showed up with two young women, one on each arm.

For reasons known only to Ted, he feigned a homosexual relationship with Nicolas and questioned why he would have these two girls. The attempt at humor failed miserably. The insult was unforgivable.

Nicolas slammed his body into the chair in my office. Still seething with anger he almost spit the words. I did smile at his near perfect application of the f-word. “He is a fucking boy and a gay! He is a count.”

“What is he?” I asked.

“A count!” he repeated. “Zis word you said I must never say!”

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=uTie4hzg-hw

The legend of The Count continued…

As fate would have it the very next day was a Saturday. On this day our school guidance counselor and a small group of teachers would take forty-some eighth graders to New York City for the weekend. As annual tradition would have it, the teacher chaperones met for breakfast before reporting to school and helping to make sure all the kids were safely onboard. At breakfast I told the teachers the same story you just read. We had a good laugh, and one might suppose that would have been the end of the story. It wasn’t.

The guidance counselor sat in the front of the bus while the breakfast club sat in the back. We hadn’t gone very far when the annual reading of the rules commenced. It was a mind-numbing list of infractions that also included threats of pain and suffering (for everyone no doubt). Never leave the group without a bathroom buddy. Never cross a street “against the light.” Do not leave your room after 11:00 p.m. No boys alone with a girl in any room. Like I said…mind-numbing.

As the list droned on and on, one of the teachers in the back decided to summarize the list to make it easy for everyone. He shouted, “In other words, Don’t Be a Count!”

The rest of us held our collective breath in shocked silence. Of course there was no way for any of the kids to know what it meant, but why tempt fate. No harm, no foul; right? At that point one of the kids repeated the manta, “Don’t be a count!” It became contagious catching on like a wildfire. The phrase was repeated dozens and dozens of times over the weekend. 

To this day I wonder how long it took some of them to figure out what they were referencing.