There are few things more quintessentially Paris than the madness to catch the dernier metro before 1:00 a.m., when the subway closes for the night.  In this European metropolis – with a metro area population just short of 11 million – residents and visitors alike are constrained by the limitations of a rapid transit system that shuts down for five hours every night, a good hour before the majority of bars close and well before most night crawlers are ready to head home.  If there were a computer image of the tunnels – like the security televisions that monitor building basements – at 12:45 every night the radar would show a frenzy of movement in the underground city.  Hundreds of points would blip on the screen, each one representing another commuter the clock has caught by surprise, running as fast as his legs will carry him in an attempt to make it to the platform before the last train.

On this particular Friday evening, I met a friend at the Place St-Michel at 9:00 p.m., the sun still deceptively bright in the western summer sky.  After a glass of wine by the Seine, and a walk through the winding cobblestoned slopes of the Latin Quarter, stopping to buy a Nutella crˆpe from a North African man on the street, it was midnight by the time we remembered to check our watches.  When we made our way down the rue Mouffetard, it was already twenty past, and we were far from the commuter rail station I needed to go to in order to catch the RER to the suburbs.  Louis and I walked in the direction of Denfert- Rochereau, increasing our pace to a jog at 12:35.  Upon arriving at the RER platform through a maze of tunnels and escalators, we were greeted by a series of flashing lights on our side of the tracks, signaling the end of service.  Discouraged but not yet defeated, we bolted to the platform for the regular metro, with the goal of getting to Les Halles before 1 am, and transferring for the RER there.  "Do you think we'll make it?" Louis asked me.  "Oui," I nodded, pursing my lips into the expression that meant, "of course."  I didn't believe it.  It was already 12:50, and we still had six stops before Les Halles.

Nonetheless, we sprinted to the RER platform upon arriving at Les Halles, but when we reached it, the station clock read 1:05.  The metro controleurs, in their olive green jackets and matching pants, waved passengers away – service had been terminated for ten minutes already.

Louis and I, still running, followed a teenager dressed in the tank top, baggy pants, and Nike sneakers popular in the northern suburbs, and asked him how he was going to get home.  After the metro closes, a solidarity is created among all the stranded – regardless of age, race, or social background.  The tough-looking banlieusard nodded to the transfer point for the number 11 train, and the three of us ran together to the gate.  When I fell behind, the teenager called to my friend, "Your woman is tired, you ought to slow down.  Where are you headed?"  Noisy-le-Grand, we told him, indicating the name of my suburb.  The teenager laughed.  "Demain," he said, as he continued running.  Tomorrow.

He was right.  There was no longer any hope of catching a train at this hour, so Louis and I exited the station and considered our options.  I could take a cab home, but that would cost over a hundred dollars.  That seemed ludicrous to someone from a city where the subway runs 24 hours, and, despite service changes and detours, will, eventually, get you home at – any hour.  We could spend a "nuit blanche"  – a white night – in Paris, roaming the streets and strolling along the banks of the Seine, keeping ourselves awake with cups of coffee from 24-hour cafes.  But Louis was exhausted, and the friend's apartment where he was staying was only fifteen minutes away by foot.  Making him stay out because I had missed my train seemed unfair.  I could call my friends in the suburbs – they were up packing for their trip to Greece, their plane was taking off at 4 a.m.  But they would be stressed in last-minute frenzy, and it would be embarrassing to call – like a teenage daughter – to have them come into the city to bail me out.

Then Louis had another idea: the Noctambus.  A system of night buses spokes out from the city center every hour to various points in the city and outlying suburbs.  I doubted there would be a bus all the way to Noisy, but we checked the map on the bus shelter, anyway.  Luck!  The terminus of the G Noctambus was Noisy-le-Grand.

When we arrived at Chatelet, we found ourselves in the middle of a square filled with exhausted-looking commuters – many of them drunk and some sweating from the humidity – who also had missed their last train.  They crammed in line to wait for their respective buses.  As we turned the corner to find the correct stop for my bus, we saw the G pulling away from the curb.  A mass of fifteen people ran to catch it, waving our arms to signal to the driver to wait.  He sped away, despite having seen us, and the crowd was left standing breathless and dejected on the sidewalk.  Even here – in this city not yet caught up in the rat-race tempo of the capitalist world, where the two-hour lunch is in danger of extinction but not yet vanished – people are still slaves to the clock.  Even in the liberty of a Friday night, the sight of a departing bus and the fear of having to wait another hour makes grown men run like chickens.

When, finally, the next G came, I said goodbye to Louis with a kiss on each cheek, and stepped up into the bus, as people pushed and elbowed to be the first to enter.  Unfortunately, this was the wrong G – going to the Mairie de Montreuil instead of Noisy.  I would have to wait for the next bus, the driver told me, so I stepped off and staked a spot by the bench.  Louis had already disappeared, and I found myself surrounded by older men.  There was only one other woman in the crowd, and she stood tucked in the arms of her boyfriend.  I scanned the crowd for someone to talk to, so I wouldn't appear alone and vulnerable.  I noticed a thin twenty-something with black-framed glasses who balanced on Rollerblades near me.  I asked him a question, and we started a conversation.  When our bus came, we sat down beside one another, and I was glad to have company.

The other passengers are mostly older men, exhausted looking.  The majority are Arab or black.  A few talk on their cell phones or yell across the aisles to one another.  Some of the passengers light joints as soon as the bus pulls away from the curb, and the air fills with a musty haze.  One man falls asleep on the stranger beside him, who merely looks down at him with compassion, lending his shoulder to the sleeping man until he arrives at his stop.

I speak with Edouard, the Rollerblader, for the duration of the ride, until he exits.  I think about the solidarity of the tardies who have missed the last train, and how acquaintances are often made during the adventure of finding a way home.  Two hours after first arriving at the Noctambus stand and missing the G, my bus pulls into the terminal at Noisy-le-Grand.  When I finally lay my head on my pillow, I am so glad to be home that I don't even mind the odor of smoke stuck in my hair.  I tell myself that next time, I will remember to head for the metro well before I risk missing my train.  Still, I know that it will only be a matter of weeks before time creeps up on my evening, and I find myself running, like a fool, down the windy corridors of some metro station, like hundreds of others caught by surprise, desperately hoping to catch the dernier metro before the trains stop running for the night.

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