Jean Lebeau

              I was in the process of having a piss when I first encountered Jean Lebeau.  I was by my lonesome, depositing a bit of organic liquid waste into the toilet of my tiny London flat as I did approximately every two hours, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a naked bloke having a bath in my tub.  He wasn't entirely nude though.  Upon his head was a large upbrim purple velvet hat with a preposterously long pink feather poking out, and the bubbles in the bath hid his presumably uncovered nether region.  My initial reaction was to wonder how in the bloody hell he'd got himself there.

              And so I shouted, "Blimey!  How the bloody hell did you get there?!" pulling up my trousers to spare my dignity, or what bit of it I had left.

              "I flew.  Didn't you see me?" the strange black man bathing in my tub explained with a severely French accent.

              I disregarded his ridiculous answer, and my very next reaction was to question his motives.  "What are you doing here?!" I asked, shouting again so as to reiterate my shock and chagrin.  This point appeared to be lost on him.

              "Is it not obvious?  I am bathing, of course," he said, laughing.

              "I can see you're bathing, but just why are you doing it in my tub?"

              A confused look crinkled his brow for a moment, and then, as though he had just had a brilliant revelation, he said, "You would rather I bathe in the smaller tub!"

              In an instant, he was gone.  The water, the bubbles, and the floating yellow ducky – all gone, vanished before my eyes.  As if this weren't completely insane enough, they all reappeared with a loud pop at approximately 1/32nd of their original size and volume in the sink between the toilet and the tub.  The tiny dark Frenchman now held a miniature wooden-handled scrub brush and proceeded to wash his back with it, being extra careful not to dislodge his ostentatious plumed hat.

              With a voice like a tiny French chipmunk he said, "Is this better?"

              In my surprise I stumbled backwards and fell arse first into the open toilet which I'd not yet had the opportunity to flush.  I swore loudly then and asked of no one in particular what the hell was going on.

              With another pop, the man was standing, full-sized once more, in the entryway of the loo.  He was no longer nude, instead wearing a long purple coat over a pale green vest and looking quite like the Batman's Joker sans face paint.  In addition to the outrageous feathered hat atop his head, large fuzzy pink boots now adorned his feet and stretched nearly halfway up his calves.

              I picked myself out of the toilet and loudly inquired, "Who are you?!  And why are you in my home?!"

              He took the flamboyant hat off his bald head and held it to his chest.  "I am the enforcer of excitement, a proponent of parties, and the #1 fan of fun," he said with a dutiful bow, adding, "I am Jean Lebeau, and I am here, because here is where I am needed the most, Bernard."



              He knew my name.  I didn't bother asking how he knew it, because I knew it would lead to other questions to which I definitely did not want the answers.  Instead, I slammed the door in his face and quickly had a bath of my own.

              "Look, I dunno what you're after, but I'd appreciate it if you'd have at it quickly and nip off," I said with my head down, tying my robe as I exited the loo.  When I looked up I was grateful indeed to find that the mysterious Frenchman was nowhere in sight.  I let out a great sigh.  And then I jumped as I heard my mother's voice coming from the kitchen:

              "Bernard, why don't you come to visit me anymore, love?" she asked.

              My head swung to the direction of the kitchen counter, and from behind it I saw rising, a hand-puppet in the exact likeness of my mum.

              "Oh, now what's this?"  I said.

              From right next to my ear the voice of Jean Lebeau replied, "Shh, Bernard.  You musn't interrupt the show."

              I whipped my head to the side in surprise to see the Frenchman with his hands pressed together at his chin and a tear welling up in the corner of his eye.

              He glanced over at my bewildered face and pointed toward the countertop.  "Just watch," he said, shaking his head slightly.

              And so, clad in only my bathrobe, I helplessly watched the puppet show over my kitchen countertop, and I tried not to think about whose hands were playing the puppets if Jean Lebeau was standing beside me.

              "Mum!" a puppet-me shot up from behind the counter and said in an exaggeratedly whiny voice, "What are you doing here?!  I told you not to pop in unannounced!"

              "I'm just so worried about you, Bernard," said the mum-puppet with exceptionally lifelike features and an eerily accurate voice.  "You stay inside all day every day writing away about the problems of the world, but you never go out and see the world for yourself, dear!"

              "I don't need to go out to see the world, mum," said the puppet-me.  "I watch the news, and I write about it.  I know enough about what's going on out there to stay away from it entirely."

              The puppet of my mum shook her head and asked, "But what about everything you're missing?"

              "Like what?" my puppet asked.

              "Like me!!" said an excited new voice, and impossibly, a third puppet popped up from behind the counter.  It was a woman I did not recognize.

              The three puppets began hugging each other, and I could hear a loud sobbing from behind the counter.  Just then, Lebeau's head, with its massive plumed purple hat, popped above the counter's edge, tears pouring from his eyes like a flowing tap.

              I glanced quickly to my side to see that the man was no longer standing there, and when I looked back to the kitchen, Lebeau was sitting atop the counter facing me with his legs crossed and dabbing the wet in his eyes with a kerchief.  The puppets were nowhere to be seen.

              "Oh Bernard, I'm so terribly sorry," he said.

              I was flabbergasted and bewildered, bamboozled and perplexed, and I said, "Sorry for what?  Look, could you just go, please?"

              To my abject horror he pulled from behind his back a large flaming torch and, with a wide smile, said, "For this!"
                  He proceeded to set my flat on fire.



                  As I sat on the sidewalk across from my burning apartment, having narrowly escaped with my life, I wondered what I had done to deserve the insanity that it had become for the past 30 minutes or so.  Unfortunately, I had very little time with which to ponder this, because the psychotic dark Frenchman was not far behind.

                  "Behold the beautiful blaze, Bernard!" he said as he twirled in circles across the street, his coat tails flaring behind him.

                  "Beautiful?!"  I yelled.  "That was my home, Lebeau!  You've just destroyed my home!"  I was close to tears.

                  Lebeau crouched down in front of me and tilted his head curiously to the side.  "Your home, Bernard?" he said.  "This is your home!" He stretched his arms wide as he stood up once more and inhaled deeply through his nose.  "Smell the scents of the city, my friend!" he continued, twirling in a circle.  "Behold the brilliant beauty of the bright blue sky!"

                  After a short pause he said, "But we certainly should not be here when They arrive."

                  "When who arrives?"  I asked, standing up and retying my robe to prevent the chill London air from... Well, to keep myself warm and decent.

                  "No, not the Who," Lebeau said, laughing.  "Imagine, running from the Who.  Nicest group of people you'll ever meet, the Who.  No we're running from the They.  They followed me into your world, and I'm quite sure They want to kill you."

                  "Kill me?  Why on Earth would They want to kill me?"

                  "Precisely!" Lebeau said.  "You realize their reasoning rears from realms beyond your Earth, indeed!"

                  "What?  You're far too literal, you know that?"

                  "You're far too figurative."

                  "Yes, well I much prefer the safety of my figurativeness to the danger of your literalness."

                  "Well I would much rather have a literal adventure than figurative safety!"

                  At that moment I heard the strangest noise.  It was as though a cat had meowed into a loudhailer at the same moment that a dog was struck by a screeching automobile.

                  "That's our cue to literally run," said Lebeau with a broad grin, grabbing my hand and pulling me down the sidewalk.

                  Our destination turned out to be a small coffeehouse just around the corner from what used to be my flat.  I was aware of its existence but I'd never actually been to Bean There, Done That.  My first reaction was to note that it was busy and loud and smoky and dreary and uncomfortably warm despite the chill outside.  Still, there was something about the establishment that seemed almost inviting.

                  "We should be safe here for a short time," said Lebeau, panting from our little jog.  "They do not like coffeehouses."

                  "Of course They don't like coffeehouses," I said.

                  "Who doesn't like coffeehouses?" asked a feminine voice from my right.

                  Turning, I said facetiously in my best matter-of-fact voice, "Oh no, I'm sure the Who absolutely love them.  It's the They who cannot stand them.  It's important to keep your otherworldly beings apart from your rock bands, you know."

                  And then I saw the speaker.  It was a woman I would not have recognized except that I had seen her likeness just moments before in the form of a puppet above my kitchen countertop.  Her bright green eyes absolutely sparkled at the mention of otherworldly beings.

                  "It's you," I whispered, squinting my eyes in confusion at the personification of the puppet I'd seen earlier.

                  "It's me!" she replied, and then holding out her hand she finished, "Lily Fargrove.  Nice to meet you!"

                  "Oh right," I said, shaking her hand.  "Bernard," and then remembering, I indicated the tall black Frenchman to my left, and with defeated slumped shoulders I said, "This is Jean Lebeau.  He's here to ruin my life, and to aid him in that quest he's brought some creatures with him from another world to kill me."

                  Lebeau chuckled and said, "Bernard can be quite dramatic it seems."

                  Lily pressed her hands together in front of her chest, elbows out to the side, smiling widely.  "Oh how exciting!" she said, adding in a formal tone with a curtsey to my left, "It's wonderful to meet you Mr. Lebeau."  She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to a table at the far corner of the room.
                 
                  When we'd taken our seats she asked, "So, did you recognize me from a show?"

                  "I'm sorry?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

                  "Oh never mind," she continued, undaunted.  "I do so love performance art."

                  "What?" I asked, her statements in no way lessening my confusion.

                  "So what is it that you do when you aren't fleeing for your life from aliens in your bathrobe, Bernard?" Lily asked, paying no heed to my utter confusion.

                  I shifted in my seat, suddenly quite conscious that I was, indeed, still clad only in my bathrobe.  Flustered, I said, "I-I'm a writer."

                  "Oh, how exciting!  I'm an actress, but you already know that.  It must be so wonderful to be a writer though. Creating new worlds, inventing strange characters, pouring your imagination into words!"

                  For the first time in my life, I felt a slight twinge of embarrassment for my occupation.  "Yes well --"

                  But before I could explain that the kind of writing I did was nothing even close to the wondrous activity she made it out to be, I heard another horrifying sound from outside.  It was an infant's cry magnified a thousand times and mixed with the loudest lorry horn I'd ever heard.

                  Jean Lebeau stood up and pulled a full-sized alarm clock complete with brass bells on top from inside his purple coat.  With his customary grin he said, "They are right on schedule."

                  I stood up and said to Lily, "We have to go."

              A confused look crinkled her brow and she replied, "Go?  Go where?"

              "Yes… Well… I'm not sure exactly, but that noise apparently means the They are approaching."

                  Lily stood up and took my hand.  "There's a back entrance we can use!"
           
                  We were off through the kitchen and out an emergency exit door.

                  The door exited into an alleyway, and before I knew what was happening, we were all huddled behind a large bin.

                  Lebeau clapped his hands and said, "Isn't this exhilarating, Bernard?  Can you honestly say that you would rather be watching the news and writing stodgy stiff stories about the world in which you choose not to participate?"

                  Looking down at my hand clutching Lily's and then up at her excited face, I was surprised myself to realize that, in fact, I would not rather be doing that at all.  But the strange noise was getting louder by the second.

                  "They're getting closer," I said.

                  Lily stood up, a determined look on her porcelain face, "I'll handle this."

                  She walked round the side of the bin.

                  Remaining ducked down behind it, I crept to the edge to watch her.

                  She held her arms out wide, and in a booming voice she said, "Greetings They!  I am Princess Lily, and I speak for all of humankind!"

                It was a magnificent performance.  By the end of her speech, she had me believing that she was royalty.  And as she spoke, the strange alien sounds began to diminish.

                  "It's working!" I yelled.

                  "They are retreating!" said Lebeau.  "We must hurry, Bernard!  I must close the portal that granted them access to your world."

                  "Where is it?" I asked, but he was already running down the alleyway, his fuzzy pink boots plunk plunking on the asphalt.  "Lebeau, Wait!" I yelled after him.

                  "Where's he going?" asked Lily, coming to stand by my side with a worried look etched in her delicate features.

                  "To close the portal," I said, dumbfounded.  Collecting myself, I took her hand and we gave chase to the crazy Frenchman, my bathrobe flapping in the wind, and me doing my best to remain decent!

                  To my astonishment, Lebeau led us back to my once-blazing residence. Only it was no longer blazing, and, indeed there was no evidence to suggest that it ever had been.  We climbed the steps and entered the flat.  Everything was as it had been before the Frenchman had arrived.

                  "I don't understand," I whispered, brow furrowed.  I looked to Lebeau, standing near the door to the loo.  He winked.

                  "I'll have to go through and ensure the portal closes on the other side," he said with a smile.  He said everything with a smile.

                  "You're leaving?" I asked.

                  Without another word he ducked into the loo, and I rushed to follow.  By the time I reached it he was gone, and a lone yellow ducky sat in the empty bathtub.

                  "It's over," I said, a strange mixture of uncertain feelings stirring inside me as I sank onto the sofa in my living room.  "Just like that."

                  "Wasn't it exciting?" Lily said, plopping down beside me.

                  I considered the events of the morning, and after a short time I realized that it was.  It was strange and frightening and confusing, but ultimately, yes, it was exciting.  I smiled.

                  "Yes," I said, "It truly was."  And then something occurred to me and I added, "Could you excuse me for a moment?"

                  "Certainly," Lily replied, making herself comfortable on my sofa.  What a remarkable woman, I thought, so carefree and happy.  The mere existence of such an attitude was a refreshing blow to my hitherto unwavering cynicism.

                  I walked to the kitchen and picked up the telephone receiver.  I dialed the number, and I waited.  When the voice on the other end acknowledged, I answered.

                  "Hello Mum,"  I said.  "Look, I was wondering.  Do you have any plans for dinner this evening?"