If you say the name “Popeye,” you will immediately think duct tape. He loved the stuff. He covered his clothes with it; he covered his legs with it; he covered his little cart with it. You couldn’t ever tell what Popeye had with him. It was always a big duct tape blob.
Popeye had a serious drinking problem. Picture the Popeye cartoon character. Now mentally cover him with duct tape. Now make him stagger and fall down from too much bad wine or vodka or beer, or whatever he could get his hands on. That’s Popeye. He always wore the cap too, though of course it was…oh, you already know. Covered with duct tape.
I saw him once with an American tourist. Unfortunately the tourist was driving a car. Popeye had staggered and fallen down a few feet right in front of the slowly moving car. The driver hit the brakes. Popeye managed to stand up and make it to the side of the car. Now he had the passenger door open and was insisting the tourist drive him and his cart somewhere down the street. “I’ll ride shotgun,” he declared. Quite firmly, I might add.
Now you could tell it was Popeye coming from some distance. It was impossible for him to wash once he was covered with duct tape. That and no doubt some other concerns made the tourist most reluctant to put Popeye in his nice new rental car.
A few minutes later they drove by, Popeye all comfy in the front passenger seat.
One morning, Bernie and I did our usual stop for coffee and croissants at the corner. The waitress, Marie, told me, “Popeye was killed last night.” I was shocked and somewhat surprised by the sudden rush of grief. “What happened!”
“He was hit by a car down on Bl Clichy. They say he never saw the car coming. Walked right out in front of it.”
Now everytime I walk Bernie by that intersection, I notice someone regularly ties a bouquet of flowers to the sign in the meridian. One day someone added a can of spinach to the curb below it.
Popeye was part of a group of seven or eight homeless who gather daily in the Place du Tertre, lured by the daytime tourists with their easy handouts. At night, they sleep on the grassy area in front of the church near the top of the stairs. They are constants in Montmartre, a part of our community on the hill, as much our neighbors, as the shopkeepers and the folks who live on our street. Parisians call them Les Clouards. The Tramps.
Most of them are men, many of them nicknamed by locals. There’s Hummer, a young man who hums to himself nonstop, the only variation being sometimes the humming is louder than others. Hummer helps the old man who has no legs and lives in a wheelchair. When the old man sleeps, he pulls his scratchy green wool blanket up and over his bald head. It can be an alarming sight the first time you see him. He looks like a wrapped corpse, an art installation created by Christo.
There’s also a weather-worn woman in a wheelcair, although she seems to be physically quite mobile. She’s possibly in her late 40s, early 50s. I’ve always thought she found the wheelchair and kept it just to be sure she always has a comfortable place to sit. And of course, the wheelchair is handy to push with her belongings piled on top of the seat or tied in bags to the arms and back. Why not. If I were homeless, I would do the same and probably stay drunk as much as possible as well.
One of the group is a tall black outsider artist and sidewalk preacher. He is over six feet tall and has a dignified, intelligent way about him. He stands straight and proud. With his glasses and a goatee, he looks familiar, but I can’t place the resemblance. Trotsky?
When he first showed up in Montmartre a few weeks ago, the size of his artwork was small enough that he was able to tie it onto a bicycle to move it around. Now he has constructed an elaborate pushcart out of salvaged wood and tires. He ties the art onto the cart, but it’s still barely manageable. The art itself has grown to nearly six feet across and towers at least eight feet tall. It’s three-dimensional, and ripples and folds over on itself in undulaing waves.
It is made of torn out images from magazines, newspapers, trash of various kinds. The content is hard to deciper because the images and French text are so layered over each other. I’ve spotted images of Martin Luther King Jr. and even more of Jesus. It’s all glued together in some way and then covered with a shiny plastic wrap that gives it some protection from the rain. It started out in the shape of a Christian cross but has now evolved into a vague rectangle. It just keeps growing.
I am drawn to his art, the classic Outsider, Art Brut of it, and therefore to him. He stands in front of this enormous art he has created, holding a Bible towards passersby, and staring them down. I’ve cultivated a bit of a friendship with him. So when Bernie and I walk by, we all three exchange smiles and nods of hello.
But just as easily, his smile turns to a grimace. He pierces me with his steely stare, and shouts, “God knows you’re a sinner!”