I had gone to Paris in pursuit of the woman I loved. We had quarreled. She got on an airplane and jetted off to France to stay with one of her beautiful model friends. I was desperate and deranged.
I first made a call to a friend of mine who worked for a U.S. Senator and begged him to help me get a passport on the quick. I was motivated and in short order I made to Paris.
And it was there one night while I was busy trying to woo back my girl back that she and I got on the wrong subway train. It was late and when we realized our mistake we jumped out at the next stop.
I don't remember what the neighborhood was called but it was clearly not one of the City of Light's popular tourist destinations.
The underground platform was dark and dirty. The stairway leading up to the street was poorly light and the street itself was darker and gloomier still.
It took a second or two for my eyes to adjust. But almost immediately I was aware of lots of movement. It was dark but there were plenty of people around--really more like phantoms darting in and out of shadows.
Obviously this was a place where people came to do illegal things--to buy illegal things--to ingest illegal things--to satisfy illegal appetites.
My gal and I started to walk--just a bit quicker than normal--not knowing what direction we were even headed in.
And then it happened. We rounded a dark corner and I ran right into a tiny man with very sharp features. He was alone and on foot and seemed even more nervous than us. After coming face to face--he and I--we shuffled past each other.
It took me a minute--who was that guy?--how do I know him? And then it dawned on me. I had seen most of his movies. I'd watched as he slit Jack Nicholson's nostril with a switch blade in Chinatown.
I had written stories about his murdered wife--about the Manson family--a couple of times I'd even interviewed his one time mother-in-law--Sharon Tate's mom--Doris Tate.
It was Roman Polanski on that dark Parisian street. I am a certain of it as I am of my own existence.
I turned around just in time to see him--like the other phantoms on that gloomy Paris night--disappear into a shadowy doorway.
In the end I got my girl. We came back to the U.S. and I promptly married her. It's still the best move I've ever made.
I don't know what jag Polanski was on that weird night more than 20 years or what he was trying to score on that dark Parisian street. But knowing something about Polanski's rather tortured life and after hearing about the brilliant yet twisted bastard getting busted on the old child sex charges today, I got to wonder if any of it ever made him happy.
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