You Changed My Life by Abdel Sellou Page B

of sugar. If necessary, they hit for me. They give me the merchandise that they aren’t capable of offloading anyway. They barely expect a thank-you and they don’t get a cut. I feel bad for them. I think they’re really nice.

12
    Once, twice, twenty times I get taken in. It’s always the same dance. Handcuffs and a more or less lengthy custody. Today I receive the honor for peeing on a statue of some Marshal Foch on his faithful steed, like Lucky Luke on Jolly Jumper.
    â€œDegradation of public property. In the cell! See you tomorrow.”
    â€œMy parents are going to be worried!”
    â€œOn the contrary, we’ll let them know. For tonight, at least, they’ll know you’re safe and sound.”
    I get my sandwich delivered right to my new place of residence. I give twenty clams to a cop who looks at me sideways—he’s afraid of bad guys. He’s going to do my shopping at the corner store. When I don’t like his face, I rip him a new one.
    â€œHey, moron, I told you ketchup-mustard, no mayo! You can’t even take an order! This department’s seriously screwed with people like you!”
    A drunk is sleeping off his wine in one corner of the cell,
and an old man is whining in the other. A voice comes from one of the neighboring offices.
    â€œCan it, Sellou!”
    â€œUh, Officer, sir, your white guy didn’t give me my change.”
    So the voice, now bored, says:
    â€œRookie, give him his money back . . .”
    The other mumbles that he wasn’t planning to keep it. I enjoy my meal.
    I always operate in the same neighborhood, so I always run into the same officers (more like the same officers run into me!). Over time, we get to know each other; we’re almost close. Sometimes they warn me.
    â€œSellou, watch out, the clock’s ticking . . . you know after your next birthday, we can put you away for good.”
    I crack up. Not because I don’t believe them: I do believe them, because they said so. But for one thing, I can’t be afraid of something I don’t know, and for another, I have every reason to think that prison isn’t so bad. And you get out fast. I see it with the Mendy, those groups of Senegalese who like to have their fun with girls. They go down regularly for gang rape. They get six months, tops, come out a bit thicker around the waist, a fresh new haircut, then they get straight back to business, treat themselves to new, young meat. Only once, one of them got three years because he put the girl’s eye out with a crowbar. What he did was really bad, but regardless, we know we’ll see him again soon. So prison really doesn’t scare me. If it were all that bad, the ones who’d already been there at least once would do anything not to go back. Frankly, I can enjoy my sandwich in peace; I don’t see any reason to shake in my boots. Tomorrow I get out, warmer weather’s on the way, the girls will
be wearing summer dresses, I’ll be back on the prowl, nights out with the guys, sleepless nights between Orsay and Pontoise, Pontoise and Versailles, Versailles and Dourdan-la-Fôret. I’ve got a nice little stash in my bank account. Almost twelve thousand francs. I have a place to crash in Marseille, another in Lyon, and another close to La Rochelle. I’m going to have a nice vacation. After that, we’ll see. I’m not thinking any further ahead.

13
    I didn’t do my eighteenth birthday justice. It slipped my mind. I was busy with other stuff, probably. But you can be sure the cops had circled the date on their calendar because when it arrived they didn’t waste too much time in getting ahold of me. They came at me all at once, when I was least expecting it, even though I had no reason to run that day. I was just about to leave for vacation at the beach! My turn to look like a happy idiot: I didn’t know that the tourist complaints that had been piling up for months could