Journies at home

By journiesathome

portraits - Félix

Félix Navarro was born in Spain on the 15th of January 1927, the same day as me, a few decades apart.
The 1930s weren't a good time to grow up in those parts and when he was twelve he crossed the Pyrenees into France, spent the coldest recorded February in a refugee camp on the beach at Argelès before being transferred to the work camp in Bram.
I'm a bit hazy about the interim but know, that somewhere along the line, he met, fell in love with and married a Mirapicienne with whom he had two sons.
Olivier went down to the Côte d'Azur where he paint-sprayed vintage cars without a mask which threw his head out of kilter.
Phillippe traveled around America collecting 1950s petrol pumps and cultivating his iconic beard.  
Phillippe is an ardent anti-vaxer.  I last saw him in the pharmacie waiting for his test results.  Mr Mumblyman handed him the paper and said sorry mate, self-isolate.  I told him he might as well buy some paracetamol was he was about it but he said he wouldn't need any.  And he didn't because two days later he was on oxygen and the day after resuscitation and the day after he was in a coma for several weeks.   
Félix's displacement activity is to go around the town bashing weeds out of the pavement cracks with his stick.  A couple of years ago he hung around the moulin cutting down saplings (si un arbre ne produit pas du fruit c'est de la mierde).  Nico sent him packing soon afterwards which made both Félix and I feel sad.
Olivier spends his time sitting on benches talking to the air.  Phillippe is out of danger but still in hospital, his beard shaved off and his solid body diminished.  Félix says he can't bring himself to visit him.

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