In Paris, it was the coldest January in decades. The icy streets were deserted; tourists were sparse, even in the Louvre.The exception was the gaggles of Japanese women, taking voracious advantage of the fact that their mid-winter holiday coincided with the French big winter sale week.

My then-wife and I were on vacation, recently reunited after a year-and-a-half separation. We were careful with each other, trying to work things out, and Paris seemed just the thing. It was her first time in Paris, and in Europe. I had been here for work several times, so I acted as tour guide. We hit the Louvre (three afternoons), the Rodin Museum, the Picasso Museum, Sacre Cour, Notre Dame.... The sights.

I was quite a drinker then. Not a drinker like the sadder cases I saw at the the Manhattan happy hours I frequented. Not a drinker like the then-wife, who, after only a couple of cocktails, was likely lapse into glossolalia and  throw things (heavy and/or sharp) in my direction. Not even a drinker like Tang Dynasty poet Wang Ji (590-644). But I did like to drink, often and much. And so, after dinner and and some time warming up  back at the hotel, I said I'd take a walk. Then-wife was an early-to-bedder, and being for the moment on the (figurative) wagon, she stayed in bed to read The Lord of the Rings, vol. 3.

Our hotel was in Pigalle, just off the Rue Clichy, five minutes from the Moulin Rouge.  For those who don't know, this was, and is, Paris' most notorious red light district. The mayor had recently cracked down on prohibited forms of prostitution, so the army of streetwalkers I had seen on previous trips was gone. But, from the improbable couples I saw strolling the pavement, the oldest profession was alive and well.

As I was going out, the hotel manager, a good-looking, middle-aged woman, invited me to have a drink with her at the hotel bar. With the weather, she explained, business was slow. She agreed that, yes, there had been changes in Pigalle. She wasn't sure what that meant for business:  if the number of tourists who were scared away by the hookers was greater or smaller than the number who used to come to gawk at them.  I thanked her for the drink. Not at all, she said, it was all good business.

I stepped out into the frigid air, heading for an Irish pub on the corner of Rue Clichy. Inside was warm & snug, a contrast to the seedy street action. I took a seat on a barstool and ordered a Guinness from the improbably cheerful Irishman behind the bar. I chatted for a few minutes with a  hooker from Senegal, but she moved off when I said I wasn't looking for more. Before long, her place was taken by a couple of French fellows--late 30s, fluent English. One was quite short, the other medium height; in appearance, common garden frogs. They asked what I was doing here, where I was from, the usual stuff. As I finished my pint, one of them bought the next round, and we kept talking. They were in business together: import/export. Had I been to Asia? Yes, I had. We talked  about Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong. Another round of beers came, courtesy of the other guy.The conversation went on to life in Paris: it was getting harder, inflation, the euro.... It was time for another round, and I started to order. The one nearer me stopped me with a hand on my arm. No, we should move to another place. They knew a very good bar, very close. I could buy my round there.

Obligation, right? What could I do? Well, I could have said I was comfortable where I was, that it was too cold out, and ordered another round there. But I was curious, I was in Paris. They seemed amiable and harmless. Why not.

We went down the block and around a corner, maybe a five-minute minute walk. The doorway was narrow and dark. No windows. Beside it, a young woman, shivering in a parka, boots and miniskirt, smiled at us as we passed in.

The place was instantly familiar, the kind I'd seen in Bangkok, Athens, New York, , and yes, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. (Port towns all.) The kind of bar where the selling of cheap booze is incidental to the hustling of colored water at extravagant prices-- "lady drinks". ("Buy me a drink, sailor?") Why so much experience with grotty sailor bars? That's another story.

As we walked in, the line of girls at the bar swivelled on their stools at the sound of the door, then swivelled back as they recognized my companions. We we apparently not to be hustled. A buxom young woman with short, dark hair, bikini top and hot pants walked us to a plush booth in the back and took our order.

"You see, no one bothers us," the short man said. He wanted to put me at ease. My face must have shown more than I thought.  Our drinks came, we sipped. I excused myself to go to the toilet. 

(I may mention in passing that I have a peanut-sized bladder. I always ask for the aisle seat.)

When I got back to the booth, my friends, and their beers, were gone. I quicky emptied mine,  wrapped my scarf around my neck, put on my coat, and  walked to the bar to pay. Three drinks. The bartender presented my bill: 110 euros.

"No," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"No," I said.

The manager rushed over, as if that were were his cue.  "Yes, Yes! You bought drinks for that girl and that girl, and that girl," he said, pointing.

"No," I said.

Faster than I would have though possible, my back was pinned to the bar, a man gripping each of my arms. The manager (owner?) stood in front of me. He was about forty, in a suit, jowly but not fat. Like a trim bulldog, or a young Ernest Borgnine.

He said, "Now you will give me your credit card."

I said nothing. I had been tipsy. I was cold sober now.

"What language do you speak? Your credit card! Now!"

It's said, "Be silent, and pass for a philosopher." I kept my most philosphical, silent face on as the guy barked his demand at me in a succession of languages, a couple of which I couldn't even identify. I remember French, German, Italian, Spanish, and a couple that were vaguely Slavic, but everything east of Vienna counds more or less the same to me. He was screaming, really boiling over, by the time he finally got back to English.

Then  suddenly he was quiet and businesslike again. "If you don't give me your credit card," he said calmly, "Every guy in this place is going to fuck you." I don't know whether he meant that literally or figuratively, but either way it didn't sound good. I let myself slump a little against the bar. Resigned. Beaten. The guys holding me felt it, and they relaxed the smallest bit.

I stomped the foot of the one on the right with my boot heel, at the same instant elbowing him in the side. That arm free, I head-butted the bulldog, hit him with an uppercut, and he went down. I'm not quite sure how I got the left arm free, but there it was, and I ran for the door, and freedom.

I slammed through it. I was in the toilet (both figuratively and literally). I turned, and all three guys were across the room, blocking the door, the real door, the one that led to the frozen street.

I charged. I yelled. I've never run harder or faster in my life. And, to my everlasting astonishment, they scattered. I catapulted out, sliding onto the icy pavement. I kept running till I reached the corner. A couple of minutes, and I was back on the Rue Clichy, and then back at my hotel in a couple more.

I had a drink downstairs as my heart slowly stopped banging against my chest. The manager joined me again and listed to the story. She was sympathetic. It happened all the time, she said. It was the neighborhood. Very bad for business.