Rekindling Love in Chalon-sur-Sane

The first time I saw Benoit, he was throwing rocks at the windows of the shop on the corner.

He’d picked up a pebble, thrown it. Then another. He seemed to be aiming for a particular window, but after five or six throws he’d only managed to crack one small pane. I went to the door and walked out onto the sidewalk in front of my shop. My wife was inside doing paperwork while I took a break in the backroom with a slice of pizza and a glass of wine.

“What are you doing?” I said. I could see him now, through the window: a young man, perhaps twenty years old. His hair was long and wild around his face, and he wasn’t wearing shoes or socks or even pants; just a gray T-shirt that was too big for him and hung off his shoulders. He looked up at me, startled. There was something wrong with his eyes—he blinked slowly, as if he couldn’t quite focus on me.

I watched him throw another rock at the window. It flew wide and hit the metal security grate on my shop’s door with a clang!

“Stop that!” I called out to him. “You’re going to break my window!”

He looked at me again, seeming to search for words that would make sense in English. He held up one finger—Wait one minute—and then returned to his pebbles. A few moments later he picked up another rock, but this time he turned away from me and threw it himself against the side of my shop. Thwack! Another dent appeared in my new storefront sign; my heart sank as I recognized that it had been installed only last week after some vandalism from an unruly teen down the street who’d apparently mistaken us for something more interesting than we were. Benoit half-turned toward me again, pointing at the sign with his hand still holding the rock like an arrow pointing out into space. Wait one minute! he seemed to be saying. Wait one minute! It’s not here! At least, that was how I interpreted it when he suddenly turned back toward my sign and started throwing rocks at it with renewed vigor. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! He broke two more windows before finally running out of rocks and panting heavily as he stared at what remained of my sign lying crumpled on the sidewalk in front of me.

I put a hand to my head as if physically bracing myself for what was coming next: confrontation with a madman who thought I should have been renting space from him instead of selling wine and olive oil imported from Italy, serving fresh mozzarella made by our local cheesemaker across town, giving people fresh bread straight out of our ovens in back every morning—that sort of nonsense. The kind of thing you get used to if you own your own business downtown but still makes you shake your head sometimes when you see it happening for real right in front of you—how absurd can people get?

But Benoit didn’t even seem to notice me standing there watching him panting on the sidewalk; he just stood staring at what remained of my sign until finally he picked up one of its pieces and started kicking at it as if trying to kick it into pieces smaller than they already were so he could carry them off somewhere else and use them again somehow elsewhere in town where they might be more useful or meaningful somehow than they were here in front of my store.

It was obvious that, without proper communication, the situation would continue to escalate. I noticed the frustration in Benoit's actions – perhaps he felt that these signs were taking up unnecessary space and making things harder for himself or others. But before jumping to conclusions, I decided to try talking with him rationally. Maybe we could come to an agreement, avoiding further damage to my shop and helping him find a solution that might satisfy his concerns. After all, as business owners, we needed to stick together and focus on generating revenue rather than dealing with senseless destruction.

Breathing deeply, I approached Benoit once again, hoping to reach out to him and engage in a meaningful dialogue. With a bit of luck and understanding, we might be able to resolve this issue and turn a potentially unpleasant encounter into something productive and mutually beneficial. That was the optimistic outcome I hoped for as I stepped out onto the sidewalk, facing a man who seemed overwhelmed by the world around him – a feeling many could relate to in these trying times.