GOB was winded from the horrendous ordeal that just transpired. He searched for a place to sit down for a few minutes. A simple resting place was in order, he reckoned. He needed to reorient himself and emerge from this mess somehow. He spotted a dimly lit bus-stop equipped with

billboard-emblazoned glass windows on three sides. For a second, he chuckled to himself as he thought of this bus-stop as portents of horrible things to come. He thought of a cage in a prison encasing his person for God knows how long. These thoughts withered away in a flash and thus he slowly ambled over to his temporary sojourn of peaceful rest. He sat down on the bench and examined the collection of adverts that graced the glass walls of this particular bus-stop. One advert promoted a pending party at the Bercy Sports Arena in which twenty, yes, that is right, twenty techno djs would spin electronic music from midnight until 3PM the following day. Another ad displayed a collection of hot and steamy American actors in an up and coming movie that surely was spawned by a plagiaristic yet dumbed-down read of a tale of classical epic proportion. He then looked to the sky, which, for the benefit of my reader's edification, meant he stared at a glass ceiling filled with the black markings of Gangster Graffiti.

He tracked through the years of his existence and wondered how God had chosen to deal him his personal hand of cards on Earth. He thought of his wife, his loving, true and faithful wife, and the beautiful child that they had brought into the world. He went through every year, from his relatively safe upbringing in an upper middle class community, to his happy-go-lucky years in a private party-oriented university, to his hard work at a few banks in Manhattan. He understood that God had decided that GOB III was not going to be genius, and he was at ease with this particular decision of his Maker, but he felt that he basically was good in the grand scheme of things, that he worked hard, and that he deserved to borrow on the credit card of immoral excess from time to time. He broke down and wailed like an infant in search of a mother's womb, but, unfortunately for our fair hero, there was no womb that he could discern either figuratively or symbolically. He was alone, and for a second he questioned his belief in God. For a some time that could not be quantified by our hero, he constructed a theory of the universe with no God, and part of his sloppy proof relied on a particular anecdote of his experience, for, he had just killed an innocent human being. How could he be, in a very short span of time, be instilled with enough rage, anger, or fear, to kill someone? He had no answer for this, and thus, he figured that there was no order in the universe, no safety switches pulled by alert angels, and that, ultimately, shit happens from time to time simply because there were no controls.

Negre then took a cigarette from GOB, lit it up, took a deep puff, and blew perfectly formed smoke rings towards the Graffiti laden glass ceiling of the bus stop. The rings wobbled and evaporated to the natural tune of universal entropy. He rubbed his forehead and spread his legs for a moment, and all of his mannerisms disturbed GOB tremendously. He felt as if he were peeing in a public urinal in the presence of a glib bystander. GOB wanted to brood alone, and the existence of Negre did not help. Nor did it help that Negre was rather large and menacing in countenance. Negre was the epitome of a swarthy gangster crafted from the womb of the underworld of economic and cultural disparity. Negre was obviously of North African origin, and, by the looks of him, appeared to have a certain "Nothing to Lose" ambience about him. He sighed, moaned, coughed, blew smoke rings, spread his legs, fidgeted- all after asking for a cigarette- and at the end of the day didn't seem to care at all about how he appeared to our whiter, more successful hero.

"Ah, merdre, je serche, I look for my sister. I look for my sister. She ees a leetle girl out here, I know she is here, with her friend…..My sister is….Hey, you American?"

"Er, yes, I am American, but, I live here…I live in Paris…." Replied GOB. GOB began to explain his situation further but, to no ado, for, Negre continued.

"My sister, she is always fuking around here at Etoile with her salope, that fuking beech friend….Amina, fuking Amina, always ….fuk, I am looking for my little sister….here name is Zhora. She is…" Negre then aped the universal motion of a pregnant mother. With this gesture, GOB's heart jumped. GOB knew immediately that Zhora was, was being the operative word, his victim. Zhora was dead!

Down the boulevard, near a distant foggy image of the Arc du Triomphe, there emerged the form of a young man strolling down the sidewalk with a certain gait that GOB recognized and dubbed "The Parisian Maladjusted Youth Strut". This strut he had seen many times before, and, to the extent that he could compare it with the New York Frankenstein Hip Hop Gait, this walk was a walk of disenchanted youth in the throes of a moderate male hormonal imbalance. In order to engage in the Parisian Maladjusted Youth Strut, it helped if the ambler had trainers, a gym suit, short cropped hair filled with styling gel, and a certain fidgety energy that afforded you the look of a young man operating on some unknown high and possibly nefarious strength. This particular young man possessed these traits. He bopped up and down, waving his arms theatrically in the process, and shot glances at, presumably, a play-crowd of invisible admirers. With each foot forward in his trek, he managed to look right and left at least once, and he also displayed a kinetic motion that had a non-zero vertical component. GOB thought he looked like a piston under the fire of a highly flammable combustion engine.

As Negre was sitting to GOB's left, and the young man was cruising down the boulevard on GOB's right, GOB jumped a foot in the air in terror when Negre suddenly whistled and then shouted out to the young man, "Bedrine!!!!!Bedrine!!!!!!!Bedrine, come here! Come here!!!! Bedrine!"

Bedrine stopped for a second and scratched his head, then he made a few motions that seemed to GOB to be reminiscent of a Los Angeles gang hand signal. Then Bedrine held out his hands in a mock show of affection, as if he were ready to hug his dear Negre, after which, GOB heard a chortle from his new acquaintance. Bedrine then broke out of his Parisian Strut and into a fast jog, in which he periodically jumped the hoods of cars and spat at store windows, all to the chorus of the chortles of the swarthy Negre, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying Bedrine's antics.

GOB, of course, was not enjoying this. GOB wanted to be alone, but now he had to deal with his feelings about just committing murder in the face of his victim's brother, as well as his victim's brother's young, potent, and (possibly destructive) teenage friend.

The swarthy hostess found an empty round table for the three men. It was situated to the left of the makeshift stage, next to fire exit. The men sat down and Bedrine quickly produced two hundred Euro bills in exchange for a bottle of Jack Daniels. He then lit up a cigarette and continued singing. The bottle arrived quickly and they began to chase down several shots. GOB didn't realize how inebriated he was becoming until he stared at the ceiling to find a swirling mix of plasterboard particles gyrating back and forth above him. He knew this was time to stop, but he continued. They drank the entire bottle in about one hour, after which, GOB and Negre joined a small crowd of reveling dancers. GOB tried his best to mime the anatomically difficult North African dance that was expressed so easily by all of the other patrons around him. He laughed and shouted out, but, inside, he felt like he had fallen into a dark abyss. This went on for several minutes and was only broken by a certain commotion coming from the entrance of the nightclub. Several patrons, in the state of shock, were searching through the smoky mist of the cavernous environs for someone. Then, GOB distinctly heard a few voices call out for Negre. He then heard a cry that sounded like the last wailing sound of a human's last breath. A woman fell to her knees and flitted about like an animal undergoing a hunter's slaughter. A few men approached Negre and beckoned him to come with them to another room. Negre stopped dancing and looked confused. GOB knew what was going on. GOB's heart jumped and another precious moment of sobriety flowed through him. The men left with Negre into the darkness in search of, ostensibly, a private place for a tete-a-tete. GOB waited a few minutes, after which he heard a painful sounding cry from Negre. Nevertheless, the singer continued with his song about another endearing topic. Bedrine scrambled over to Negre. At this point, GOB knew that Negre knew about Zhora. GOB reckoned the Negre may at this point also know that an American middle-aged male was the last, as it were, to see Zhora alive. Thus, GOB, in a primal move of self-preservation, bolted out of the exit door near their table.

GOB ran up another spiral staircase, onward and upward towards the goal of the dingy streets that were replete with all of the low-lifes that he despised. He emerged, unscathed from being in the den of his victim's friends, and he ran beyond his normal physical capacity towards his trusty 93 Benz. Nervously, he figeted with the key to open the door. The keys slipped into the slimy gutter, which, for my reader's knowledge, was populated with a few condom wrappers and coke cans. He finally was able to enter the car. He started it up and sped off into the night. His next steps are unclear. He did in fact go to a few bars, in the heat and panic of his situation, and he downed several shots of various strains of hard liquor. And then, the rest is nothing but blackness.

This, my friends, is how we find GOB III, son of a mechanic, grandson of a mechanic, in his car with a bloodied nose, somewhere near Avenue Foch.

GOB cleaned the blood of his nose and noticed a certain change of temperature take place. A new day was at birth. GOB looked again at the sky, and then he looked down the road. He noticed that the road looked almost identical to the road he was on when he met Negre. Just hours before, the City of Light was the ideal, idyllic city to live in. Now, he saw nothing but despair and ugliness everywhere. This particular street, like that on which he met Negre, seemed teeming with virtual micro-organisms that cause evil, death, and despair. Of course, the actual thought process was very simple in his mind, but, it was there.

And then, out of know where, he saw Negre again.