Chapter 30:  Barcelona.  Valencia.  Going Home.   

Winnepeg-spelled-all-wrong reminded a certain atavistic glance of mine to never relax, and I strolled the very early streets of the Gòtic with the knowledge that the very first he does upon landing in a foreign country is run out and buy himself a knife. 

Old Miguel is the fading memory of a raspy whisper in that Sunday morning’s shower with the door left to sliver Open.  I up and done called Lulu - and You know some of all that by this now.

Barco skipped me along with them streets that don’t necessarily show up on a tourist map, towards the Metro and X, picking the sleep from my eye, urine from my sense of smell and brief sobriety.  This be awareness of Winnepeg and his baritone for me to arm myself against the back alleys that be of the warren called Gòtic leading me past a final good-bye for an outdoor rotisserie, along a healthy strip of sudden paranoia, into view of a series of arches that the West continues to imitate; that morning barely without night, stained graffiti universal enough to rip and steal my stuffed knapsack devoid of Canadian patch, saving grace.

That was my mind silly scared for no specific; and then there be that right of my peek over at the Plaça Reial, that centre fountain of our current generation of hippies flaked out and rising and scoring with the style of smoky breath I once inhaled as a simple walk around the block.

And this be the part where I winked below laundry left on the line and lit up a fabulous Fortuna bajo en nicotina, stepped the swoosh of my black sneakers named for a winged goddess of victory out onto sidewalk, crossed to middle La Rambla and moved up that wide median of kiosks waiting for full sunrise.  The sale of flowers or pet budgies to me and others early to rise.  The knapsack and me saying No to the occasional scruffy request for alms amongst the Rambla watching her arrive from separate hostel, into my arms.

“Are you ready?”  Right this way and good morning, I assured her hazel and scrunch of curly hair then and there just beyond the prosaic pleasantries that take up space and cease to explain a walk taken down a confusing series of steps to a subway, only to leave out things heading for a train south and home to Valencia with the more pronounced lisp.  And I could lie or omit basis for an argument along that way, perhaps even imply the odd lovely snog ventured into out of pure morning rise, our complete desperation for nostalgia.

“He’s only asking to rip your freakin’ train ticket, Hen.”  And she was not at all grumpy after our lengthy wait at the station.  I myself not anywhere near sour to that quick-speaking Spanish man, just merely humping me and my own sack up the choo-choo stairs and waving adiós to the last of beautiful Barco in our eyes.  Leaving the city we were, just then within more daylight and the further graffiti of concrete fjords passed along the splurge of beginnings down the East Coast of Spain.  Comfy seats and the barely Twenties that made themselves known beside us: she was cute, and if it really matters, he was rounding second with his hands.  Wonderful. 

“I need a nap now, Hen,” because she had been kept awake by a Dutch soccer team thrilled by a co-ed hostel just off the Rambla.  I encouraged her to have snooze with the full intention of letting her sleep straight through the entire three-hour trip: the left of her hand grazed an eyelid before closing and eventually missing the look ahead encountering the seaside Terragona offering up white of beach umbrellas despite the slow season on the calendar.  My best friend slow-folded herself within that view out the running window while I lifted and hit the smoking coach to ultimately become one with this vast universe of ours.  I was awake, dreaming of dragging on a Fortuna for the fullest sense of smell to help dissuade me from running the length of her neck, venturing the nape ever so quiet in light of the Twenties waving each other home in full spectacle of the sparse group travelling south in that iffy month of March replete with its forms of hangover and desperation in quantities enough to allow for regret. 

I sucked long and hard on the thought of being the favoured male friend that every girl accessorizes and calls on weeknights for advice; a Spanish ciggie apparently quite low in nicotine advised me to suppress the cute ex-girlfriend in the next cab over, merely huddled me in the corner and ignored the skunk stripe of the black-haired cougar lady having her way with the smoky coach full of me and just only her.  Snacks for sale.

The door slid and I stepped a return to the What before You now: she asleep with the supreme knowledge that I quite enjoy walking around in the nude; that while independent, I still am that father of mine she never did meet.  She asleep to the music of our mutual youth, and me with the reluctance for the dirty talk whilst in the sack. 

I observed the dreams behind her eyes amongst the Twenties humping up and down the Spanish East Coast.  Near sex, and my reluctance for the camera to prove it to the folks back home.

“Never let it be a bore,” she up and mumbled a let go in that there snooze of hers.  And as I have said, the crowd was few as I sat one entire bum cheek away from her respite.  “You let yourself come home loaded,” with the further slur of voice that I had almost forgotten from the proceedings that might as well be spelled Divorce when one travels at high speed over rails.

Give me strength, I signed off to the ceiling above, moving right up to the beside her with the fact that it is way more fun to create Woodstocks than clean them up; I sat still for this moment that I breathe into You as the truth, up straight and ramrod nervous.  She of a light snore, and as always, unable to talk without my directly given quote to fill in the necessary spaces that don’t involve the simple act of lean and fall within deep sleep, of her hand coming up and rubbing the eyebrow back to calm.  At a certain point the upper length of her body slipped into my lap moving south towards Valencia, and with no one around to hear the mumble from her mouth reassuring me that there had been no infidelity, I just as soon enough played along to giving into slow temptation and stroked her highlighted auburn with the left and then right of my hands.  My only slightly dirty move visible to them Twenties getting their quick something-something on across the way.  I could go ahead and lie and imply that this wasn’t a stolen good-bye, or that I didn’t grab touch of her pulse points, perhaps even the back of one knee.  Maybe Oswald really acted alone and Ford Pintos perform quite fine when rear-ended, but this would all avoid the left of my hands rubbed beneath my nose just then, the smell of her skin inhaled on the sly.

Sorry for the image.  And I apologize for the rather weak dose of Sodium Pentothal racing a course through the veins speaking in Your eyes, drawing in Your ears, leaving it up to You to colour her voice and circumstance all proper and fair: But yes, the aroma of her is mine and mine alone.  Sorry.

She awoke with a yawn and stretch, I assumed from the smoking coach; me gone again, she unaware of my back and forth.  Cigarette-thought struggled a relax of the me in the aftermath of bundling up scents, forced me to puff with my right of hands to save the smell of her at very least until Valencia.  A Fortuna reassured me, along a coast, beneath a distant hilltop citadel, within a glossy magazine expressing the wonders of Spain in that Castilian of all their written languages.

She was awake with a rub of eye and scratch of either ear, I observed from the seat beside.  “Give me a butt,” she purred not so utterly romantic as I make it sound to be, leaving out the questions of where we were, what the time of that day.  Take one, I gave her.  Leave me, she did.  And You’ll know some of the rest just as soon as I decide how to rationalize the ending that was the two of us arriving back beneath the high arches sheltering Estación del Norte, downtown Valencia. 

With deepest regrets it began to occur to her to tell the story of how it was that we two people had rekindled the happiness that once was.

“Tell them we had a magnificent time, Hen.  Tell them we cuddled and made up.”  Not that she cared to talk about it, but the train had stopped and I had reached up for my knapsack as we the couple returned and stepped down and off.  We were to drop a foreign version of a quarter and phone Eduardo before catching the Metro; "Tell him that Barcelona was not at all snooty, the North was not stuck up like they said it would be.  Tell him.”  Sure, I agreed her.  I could handle her and this regional version of truth.  “Tell him we’re on our way with gifts and smiles.”  To the street, to the afternoon sun.  To that seasonal bull ring still closed, off to our right; to the series of steps taken down towards our second subway of that day.  To a token purchased in another language, to a slide and a seat taken beside the wonderful girl I had supposedly cuddled and made up with.  To the underground becoming once the more above, and the familiar overhead female voice rhyming off the Next stops towards the Torrent on them outskirts. 

Yes, an absolutely fantastic series of events did ensue once we figured out the proper station, thus wandered our way back around the pretty shrubs and palms that have specific Latin names despite the children hidden and staring at the tanned white people barely speaking to one another in that funny language they knew little of.  “Say something, Hen.”  You first, I gave her right then and there whilst waiting for my promised bubble car to make its way to our future happening right then and there.  The life predicted.

When she bent and waved to two boys, two girls, I took a shot and told my story before they grew up and experienced something similar of the sorts, before they maybe up and learned to understand the English that left my mouth on that quiet street corner.  “I ended up boring her to death, kiddies.  There were other things - I am a bit of a meanie, of course.”  Them children on the dawn of puberty, if it is relevant.  Them children with the black of hair, assuming that the visual is absolutely required to make sense of me motioning across some fifteen, twenty feet of air to act out the one by one plucking of an imaginary flower down to the last petal; I frowned and the four of them smiled at the bartender formerly known as Hun.  The grown-up girl to my right was made to take my hand only because this be my version of love hurting and stinking and being the reason behind the world really round enough so we don’t all fall off the edge.  She squeezed fingers, and then pushed my right of hands away from her left.

In front of the children, I had left out the part about sex.

In front of those children, she told me to go on and get it all out before they realized that I was not joking: “Tell them about the times of good.”  I said that good news doesn’t sell so well, and that kids are experts at spotting a liar; my tone would give me away.  “Hen!  Tell them!”  You first, I sneered her.  Two boys, two girls grinned and threw phonetically memorized bits of Hollywood at us.  We were backpacking movie stars for the brief pause before she tried to tell them some good, attempted some of their language she had learned along the way.

“You performed nothing but calling them beautiful, X; what about the sometime good times aside from me being loco?”

“I don’t know the words for us in Spanish, Hen.”  And I could lie and proffer that she told an untruth in front of God and children.  Fair enough, from me to her in English, aside from we no longer matinee idols to them, suddenly only barely a little exotic on their day off from school and carrying books to and from.

Our human ability to stare into only one eye at a time: X and me not talking so much after that.

To a vague feeling of the way home; to that sheer white building advertising Witnesses of Jehovah in decipherable Spanish.  To a park and rusty basketball hoops, a field and a dirt rampart I once leaned against whilst people searched the Fallas night for me: a very nice man forced to swear at me in English.

To a buzzer and that camera measuring us in the face, sending our image as a couple upstairs; to our entry and step inside that very tiny elevator.  To Eduardo and those big brown eyes behind Coke bottles.  We hugged and I left out the lie about X and me having made up and spooned, decided against sharing the nasty of sex we performed in a hostel.  Everything was merely beautiful; every related vista and every second up until he had to leave and go pick up his Francesca was beauty spoken fast with the use of hand gestures for cathedral spires, facials for the buskers that followed us north, tummy rubs for patio sangria sipped and spilled down the front of a couple together but separate. 

Dos besos, for we’d see him soon.  Time enough involving falling into bed, a nap for me; she making with the voiding of her bladder, the subsequent stirring of her loins.  “Hen.  Hen,” she whispered and repeated to the version of the truth feigning sleep before her.  “Wanna fool around?”  And suppose I said no, or made with the snoring.  Suppose that I had forgotten everything that had happened in Barco.

She was sober and still wanted to have sex.

I opened my eyes and rolled over to her standing up, fully clothed in the doorway of straight looks.  Uncomplicated.  And suppose I ignored my charged bodily parts, rolled back over and didn’t pull myself out of my assigned bed and crawl over into hers, undo my pants and wait for the inevitable movements that be spelled many different ways.  At a certain point I didn’t at all lick the salt from the tip of her exposed left shoulder, refrained from biting a specific ear lobe of hers. 

As she only just barely made it out of the way of a kiss aimed at those damn puffy lips of hers.

And just suppose I never really did have relations with her then and there, in Torrent, or in Barco: merely just left the want to the past did we, and didn’t even care to bother getting down to ridding our bodies of the various of vibrations that one encounters when happening to travel the abroad.

“Remember,” … but I was in no need of her pushed reminder to pull out.

Near that end she very nearly responded to my continuing move towards her lips really happening then and there in Torrent; and suppose for me, just for brief, her eyes didn’t remain tightly closed and concentrated upon the end of intimacy and an aeroplane to catch away from that wondrous All the next day as I pulled myself off, grabbed a towel from the floor and continued on with the rest of life.  Fantastic.  She asked for said towel, wiped as she strolled off to the washroom.

And so this the part of invention dialogue spoken down a hallway, voices raised to be heard above the running of water, squirt of bidet, flush of everyday toilet that drowned out her turning On of a TV as my right of feet went into pant leg; background noise switching Spanish news updates for various of actor performance.  “I’ll be on the terrace, out by that there sun and them plants for awhile,” I gave the red of her face, the brief glimpse up of her hazel within a smile when the door began to fiddle, open up and present the couple known as Francesca y Eduardo.

Them two girls did the lunging hugging of bodies, and myself reached for the tossed down remote, clicking Off in one of the languages of the Frances about to give me a wraparound with the full left and right length of her arms.  “Tell me tell me Tell me.”  And just maybe I happened to decide to leave out the part about people making up and or cuddling, concentrated on taking in her hot whisper to me.  Yes.

But suppose I did go and break down, tell her about a hostel in the heart of Barcelona, a mighty wind blowing in from the Mediterranean and fighting against heavy dust drapes.  A window split to Open to send the Between somewhere safe and just possibly Away.

Suppose that I had added the slow adjustment of my eyes to the dark, told about a slip of the poke and a nibble taken upon a familiar God sandwich.

Out on the terrace we four had a good old talk that could very well come across as smooth to eyes without the same backstage pass that be a dangle around Your neck, without benefit of angle and voice over to convey sun’s heat in real time: the significant exchange caught and sent to the lab for processing appears easygoing enough.

Suppose I didn’t edit, or that friends always return borrowed books.

In a cardboard tube straight from La Rambla, my ex-girlfriend heaved and unraveled an encrusted poster created using nothing but the ability of a spray can to be an acrylic owl winking from the branch of a certain tree in a world with two full moons.  “Here - sniff sniff smell it,” X insisted them the high-pitched scent still upon that simple gift from walk and watch and buy of both of us for the two of them.  An artistic experience captured and carried away.  “I have no freakin’ idea how she doesn’t pass out using seven, eight damn paint cans to make this one little teeny tiny portrait.”  In this such scene, one will observe her turning to me for visual punctuation - the sun high, the shadows slightly to the right of neutral, the four of us gathered around a thick piece of 3-by-2 foot commercial paper splayed out all fantastic.  Wonderful that the recent identifying of the Jesus Years but the only for real What that ran my head just as Francesca’s right nipple became clearly visible and fat brown down the front of her work blouse with every lean and look into wise eyes the rough diameter of spray caps, pupils that were unpainted and carefully shaded around to fully emerge head body feathers and atmosphere into our holding hands right then and there.  Sorry. 

X excused herself for a moment.

“Are you sure?” leaned into my very sensitive ear, whispered in front of her tall husband by name of Eduardo Ruiz Colon.  And the more to this story: Sure Sure in hushed tones, I gave to that Francesca and black shock of her believable Spanish hair, leaving out the tiny bit about her juicy areola as Duardo not five feet from the thoughts within my head just then and there. 

I was absolutely somewhat sure to them that I was Ok for the foreseeable.  

Just before the turn of tap and X’s return about to happen itself into a dinner drive back to big city Valencia.  Amongst the omission of things not directly involved with the squint of Francesca and her big chocolate stare suggesting acceptance of my say, my eyes; and perhaps I had been, or am, too hard on her.  I thanked her for her English right on the spot.  Smiled to Duardo and allowed my ex to walk back on stage.

To the tiny elevator.  To the On ramp taken at a very high rate of speed.  To them maybe martini olives and big old potatoes turning into metaphors at that grace of dusk out my car window.  To us boys in the back seat and girls neglecting to send us a simple ask to dance.  To Valencia’s lack of booming skyline; to gradual entry along the dry river bed and the tremendous amount of brick and stone encountered after a swim across the Atlantic.  We crossed some bridge and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon enough as Frances finishes slamming the tiny Toyota into the final Park position.

I should describe passing by the simple store where X and I had purchased a disposable camera in the language of the land; go on to intimate the thickness of tawny trees ripped from witches arms and planted to grow down the middle of promenades, just so that I could walk on by and never know their genus.  And I could lie and pretend that I had not exceeded my daily weekly monthly question limit to all within my concerned.

I should remind of the notepad waiting in my coat’s inner pocket; the specific memories constantly on my forgetful mind.  We should end up in an American-themed restaurant replete with burgers and Spanish-only waiters listening to the culmination of a bit of their language learned on our vacation.  We four should be relaxed and in no need of seating arrangement: there was the very real exchange of sentences if not near paragraphs in one breath.

There should be lines of dialogue instead of X and me insisting upon payment of the bill; the modest tip shouldn’t really be the exciting part about being simply complicated.  We should embark on a rather long sashay through the city streets at night, and be friends passing around the ball of confab within the odd vestige of Fallas hanging from a neighbourhood banner not yet removed, guide map forgotten to a gutter.  Used petardos recognized.

To one of them inner city bridges across the river of dry bed; and while I include the bit about a stone lion supine on either side, I stroke that genuine leather of my jacket that night in that iffy month of March.  My hands free, occasionally in and out of pocket, but never entwined with any part body of X.  My right hand searching small left inner of my coat, and I could fudge it and explain the What I exactly wanted to note down, but that would have nothing to do with an unfamiliar feel, grab and pull of: For a good friend - Duardo; a golden Las Fallas button pinned to sentiment on tiny piece of paper found by the me stopped and falling behind the walk.  The me staring into space and beginning to cry but trying to hide.  Comprehend within that misused plural known as the Jesus Years.

I stifled and fell back on my stage career, joined a view of the mass of glass becoming the beauty of Palau de la Música closed for the evening.  Music and emotion, memories conjured with waiting song.

A walk a smile, my light of ciggie, and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon as two hairy grown men finish a conversation voiced with no words, no hugs.  And then I grabbed his certain hand, squeezed real quick and real tight.  It was over before the girls had looked back to wave us along museum concourse and down stairs into a river bed park.  Thanxs, I mouthed my Spanish guardian in a world spinning blithely beneath me then.  Now.  And sorry, for that and this - leaving shit out of a lead through a night tableau of used condoms never seen but heard with the squint of the eye.  Tall trees and overstuffed garbage cans laughing at the growth of flowers with specific names, the metropolis vaguely described by me as Valencia.

“People come here at night to do the nasty,” by one of them speakers of two Spanish languages.

And if poor memory serves enough, the ticket booth was closed and the gate between us and large Gulliver be padlocked for the evening, quite safe enough from misguided literary tour.  “Have you read the book?” as we four surveyed the black metal bars between us and the lying down him somewhere off in the dark.  Not so much, they gave me.  And neither still have I, denying the time to stare into a Now map to find Valencia’s many inner bridges and avoid any semblance of making things up, improve upon a wish for the truth.

“Hello, Mister Gulliver man,” yelled to him, but nothing in return for that ex of mine.  “Again, why is he tied down?”  Something about little people, some further of stuff we others knew not more of.

“Either way he ain’t going anywhere fast,” I gave to her with a lift and grunt and push of her denim up them black bars.  And no, she still could not see the big guy.  But yes, the background and his significance, the exact of architectural surroundings while I contemplated running my hand along the crevice of the very ass that I did grab and scoop off a naked mattress just that afternoon.  Her left of them Beatle boots resting on a cross beam; another unreturned salutation spoken and thrown out to the Gulliver man.  “Maybe he’s sleeping one off there, X.”  But vacation, her last day of; my final hours of watching her right foot swing freely with the rhythm of a song in her head - all the important stuff that moves nothing towards history lesson on the metropolis known as Valencia.

“X, he maybe gonna have dream of you calling his name to him.”  My tall and hairy saviour, one Duardo Ruiz Colon.  “He maybe wish a lot his hands free to cover the ears.”  And mostly sober us four.

Francesca giggling at our ways.  “You’re speaking English to him, girl,” she offered her friend and mine.  Oh, X received. 

“¡Hola, Señor Gulliver!  ¡Hola!”  And a snicker and the black sky above the under-described canopy still keeping pretty much to itself amongst guys not holding hands and girls possibly chasing the boys into the backs of foreign police cars.  Come down, I urged her, for my fingerprints were on file and countries tend to talk to one another if need be.  “Bonsoir, Monsieur Gulliver.  Bonsoir.”  He’s hammered, I begged up; told her she could wave to him from the fucking plane.  Within that tomorrow that was to be.  Fair enough, as I helped her descend into the palm of my left hand, spun her into the arms of a fully grown woman by name of Francesca Cruz Marcos.  They did the dance of the slow and we the males watched for a sec or two, asked our silent selves if we were aroused.  He smiled, as did I, and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon enough as I rip the secrets from our mouths and invent sufficient dialogue to fill the three or four seconds of love involved in the wrapping of her arms around another’s pretty little head.  The doing of that twice kissing thing.

“Perhaps we need some alcohol,” being my grand contribution to it all.  As Duardo agreed with me; as them girls started to sing en français, a traditional that sounded familiar enough to a boy from an Ottawa on and around the border with a Quebec.

“What they sing, Onray?  What the words?”  So I gave him the bits and pieces of Jesus walking the farmed land of the Eastern Townships of Quebec.  “Onray, Jesus not a farmer in Canada.  Jesus spend time here, but not the Quebec.”  I suggested him up the very real possibility that we were both lying.  “Onray, everyone know that Jesus walk in the Spain - right here in the Spain.”  Suppose that I conceded him the Jesus Years, but maybe kinda offered up the Lord’s name in vain.

“X!  X, what the hell is the song about?  Tell Duardo here about Jesus speaking French in the Eastern Townships.”

“He never came to Canada, Hen.”

“And what of these Jesus Years?”  Francesca giving me that What, and I proceeding to quote her loving husband.  Francesca giving it a laugh, and the me pondering my most exact place in the universe. 

“You’ll see, girl.”  Precisely what, she wondered.  “The chronological pull of 33 years on this planet, that’s what.”  And we men older, them two girls yet to attain or achieve the Jesus Christ experience of everything resolved into one neat little package of excuse.  My upward gaze strained towards the left, accessing the brain’s creative side of hope according to the various of Customs officials to have contained and observed the some of me and others along our travelling ways.  “Perhaps we just need some alcohol.”

“Perhaps that’s your new girlfriend,” a female did have say.

“Alcohol as my girlfriend?  Just maybe, pretty mama, I truly get off on excuses - give me my Jesus Years or give me death.”  Now that we were out in the open.  “Alcohol be my newest girlfriend to lie down in a soft bed, or kick close the public bathroom door and ride the dirty pony with.”

“Very nice, Hen.  Nice.”  Thanxs, I gave to her and the night air without a French Canadian of song to strain Gulliver against his many of tether.

“Yes, and maybe … we need to head home.”

“Yes, we walk now, Frances; back to car.”  And some stuff added quickly in that Spanish of languages.  Fair enough, I nodded towards my ex.

“Good-bye, Mister Gulliver man.  À la prochaine,” wave promised in the next time French of hers and spotty mine; and Jesus the everywhere man supposedly with no need to physically swim the Atlantic to properly observe the North American cenotaphs that tend to create the excuse before me now helping to explain the subsequent walk and ciggie lighting of that way.  The pairing off of the boys and girls behind my eyes; the topography of a bumpy Fallas button finger-played with in my pocket. 

To a bridge spelled in Spanish, stone lions at the ready.  To a small Toyota 4-door purchased with their share of a lottery win.  To a drive through the sedate Monday night streets at a very high rate of speed, boys at the wheel, my head out the passenger side with nose for the shopping of a Versace window, mental note suggested but forgotten until You came along and made certain things necessary.

Music on the Spanish radio that for the life of me I cannot identify.

The tiny tire screech of the Torrent Off ramp accompanying the sporadic dialogue that most certainly happened within that night’s commute home; the memory that was is mine to express, invent with no word of a lie, comfortable with the very knowledge that those days are behind me now, mostly.

To that tiny elevator I may or may not have mentioned.

To everything from the early flight times on our Air France stubs, to the silver bottle of Ponche Caballero - a slightly sweet liqueur that be resting on a coffee table.  Opened, and talked about.  Things asked and then a this by me with all sincerity: “Speak gently but quote sexy of me, mama.”

“Hen, I wouldn’t begin to change your precious words in any of the futures.”  And I’ve left out the beginning to context but included the Spanish lubrication to her add of, “This wasn’t easy for me at any all.”  Despite a bright purple candle burning on the table, another done lit atop a large TV left to Off … waiting for a colour of crayon to arrive.

This certain Canadian woman with a ticket to ride beside me the very next morning.

Could I give her this and maybe some of that: “Can I just sip quietly with my new girlfriend alcohol?”  Sure, she whispered me then and there.

“But I won’t quote no sexy of you.”  And I could lie and intimate that I did not imply my plight out loud to all those involved, that I sat there and believed that the end would be quite spiffy enough to comfort me.  “I will tell these two wonderful friends of mine that I am sorry for any of your unease, but I won’t quote no damn sexy of you.”

“But that’s all I want: one simple damn sexy of me and you.”  Said aloud, into the proceedings temporarily devoid of them two Spanish people speaking in the mix of things that happened one night in a Torrent on the outskirt of a Valencia.  “Maybe have Stairway to Heaven playing in the background, the window presenting a breeze?”  This I prodded to the one I loved.

“How about a hostel under the cover of Barcelona?”  Even better, I responded to a fellow bartender; leaned and grabbed, poured around the horn, avoided.

“Kiss me quick,” was my plead and reception of scowl from her.

“Say a nothing now,” was Duardo’s advice and manner of allowing me to take a moment to walk out onto the terrace for a ciggie bajo en nicotina.  “Onray, the Jesus Years between a me and you for now.”  Did I offend.  “No, man, no.  This the time for the man to cum and think away from the woman.  His woman.”

“But what if no woman?”  Amongst them sparkled stars and the potted plants possessing Latin language, a barbecue with its propane set to Off; things not necessarily made-up and or invented on purpose but happening of coincidence.  I added that I was the youngest of two, left out that I was the actor in the family.  Stuff.

“The Years of Jesus no joke, Onray.”  He did the full smile involving inevitable crows that been flying longer than mine.  And my saviour said to me this: “Jesus a man to give us a last year to think about the woman.”

“Duardo, they whacked his male ass in the end.”

“Si, but he think long time before that.”  Years, I added, and he nodded and I almost tossed my dead butt off a grand terrace into the oblivion below.

“I believe,” I began.  For it had already started to seep in that I was embracing the excuse.  “But then?”

“No thing, Onray; no thing but the thought.  You think for the time.  Taste, and then have a nice nap.”  Sleep one off, was my guess.  “Wake up and grab her hand for the few second of the day that make up the year.  Si.  The Jesus Years just for moment of when that happen.”  I should strive for that, I said, walked back inside to Winnepeg-spelled-all-wrong reminding me to be all professional within the life of a thespian.

“Duardo, they still smacked his bare ass in the end.”  And the girls did smile and look up from a conversation.  “It’s true.  They smacked his ass red.”  And I suppose that time itself did shuffle around the clock in the normal fashion of evenly spaced seconds piling upon one another, building into the paint-by-numbers before You.  “What?  Jesus had an ass.”  But not the point, they looked.  “What?”  But my guardian angel hung me out to dry for the while that was his wife kicking her feet up on their wondrous coffee table and leaving it up to me to fill in those slices of clock coming and going.  “We had consensual sex … and … she’s still leaving me in the morning.”

“We’ve moved on, Henry.”  To something in the way of one Francesca Cruz Marcos.  To just enough room on the comfy couch to make my move and flop fashionable enough for all those involved.

“How have we moved on?”  The Jesus Years supposedly not soothing that there mind of mine squat down between in Spain.

“We’re up to relationship.”  They were past Before, almost fully caught up whilst I had partaken in simple ciggie not ten feet away, not five minutes since.

“Have I explained Sorry?  Have I even had enough of these Ponche Caballero guys?”  This is the really exciting part where I grabbed that silver bottle, divvied up the remainder.

And listened to this: “I’ve always liked you,” Frances touched my hand.  I need some pot, I told her right then and there in the snug that was her to my right, X to the left of my will to fall off the wagon not one week into detox from girl named Mary.

“You don’t believe me?”  That wasn’t it, was the way of my return to Frances.  “Why this thought then?”  And my hairy saviour cross-legged comfortable in his chair, watching me fight the cigarette-thought rubbing my temples with the memory of my old apartment and a stereo left to On: a song deserving to play its full way despite my urgent need to go, catch up with some friends with cartoons for names; because of its certain sound and the beginning and the end of lyrics; because just that continuation to artistic fruition was comforting to know as I walked out onto Cooper Street and headed towards the hot new show on Elgin Street, away from my pub, towards X’s ease of attraction.

It wasn’t a thought, was my answer for Frances; and it wasn’t a feeling, but an observation ripped strictly from my very own paranoia.  Could I please have some pot now, I smiled. 

So explain, the two girls said, because my switch of distractions had been discussed in the interim.  Because Duardo refused my strain of stare. 

It wasn’t anything in particular, I gave her.  And it was not an action or any lack there of but the odd note taken whilst my girlfriend had left me to spend pennies in the restroom at Maxwell’s: knowing looks thrown to me back in the Before.  Could I please just have some pot now, a grimace and the raising of me and my ready bladder; a slight storming of the hallway and the taking of a right towards a bidet and everything working out for the evening, in the unknown end.  Wonderful.  Absolutely perfect that the What that ran my brain was devoid of Jesus and all things remotely religious.

“I know that smell.”  Add to that return and say of mine Duardo speaking his English amongst semi-obscure references to the sweet scent that walked my olfactory back into the living room, directly into his refusal to pass the hummer my way.  “Could I please just at least bum a ciggie then.  Please, I’m out.”  These words that were indeed mine and not at all scripted to appear sexy away from the dimensions of the now three of them cuddled on comfy couch, very real happening of mixed avail.

And this be the really exciting part where I was tossed, caught and lit a low in nicotine ciggie within that Spanish apartment.  Proposed a step out into them stars.

“Not so much,” they exhaled.  Fair enough, I checked my male zipper to be in the proper upright position.  Don’t mind if I do, I did walk away and wait for any one of them to follow me out and explain relationship to the flowers and the barbecue from Canada.  To the final night of my shared Spain wafting laughter from living room to terrace; rings of smoke everywhere as I looked to the West for reminder of my coming in the first place.  A stifle, and another deep draw to go with memory of being asleep on a couch, opening my left eye and listening to the reasons for why I needed to be sucking on a foreseeable ciggie on that awaiting coast of Mediterranean.  That one would somehow regret not going.  Exactly, I gave to the whispering wind.  Rubbed a spent ciggie into an ashtray and relaxed after having figured out nothing but an excuse to go with the nostalgia making its way to my nose.

When I went back inside.  When the three of them giggled and stopped talking.  When the cigarette-thought occurred me to plop in a chair and keep my mouth good and shut, to only stare.

Say something, say anything, they voiced when high.  When it struck me to merely shrug my shoulders and think the events before You in this Now.  When Duardo struggled and pushed hairy arms against them girls on his way towards fully erect, stomping a soft manner over to me.  Say some thing.  Say any thing, he fumbled.  And the part of me that is refusing to think lies to You just sat there and smiled within the colour of my tourist eyes looking on up, trying very hard to remember the last moment I loved a man strong enough to kiss him.

As he was grabbed by the scruff and planted a big wet one on his lips by me.  When words are not supreme to justify a fantastic conversation of tiny invisible forces for thank you and good-bye.  As I was reminded of my new girlfriend alcohol, my old forgotten friend weed.  “He say nothing to me, Frances.”  Said with an accent that I could dictate if absolutely imperative to his acceptance of my right of hands then and there within the inevitable half-sorry tossed from this straight guy to that married guy.

And the girls did then begin to swoon; candles continued to reflect mood.

“I trust everything is fine,” I began to make amends - for the sand from out front the apartment building still in my left shoe, my saliva drying on his lips.  I actually stood up and continued to address the Spanish studio audience in my mother of tongues.  “Did I offend?”

When the various of our iris did meet and briefly agree to say not a thing for the while involved with four people derived from different animals on the Chinese calendar.  As the microphone swung back to forth and continued to await what it deemed relevant to be hanging in that air.  As the Jesus Years continued to offer me an excuse.  “Am I at least a good smooch?”

And still she was quoting no damn sexy of me to her girlfriend Francesca, none that I could hear.

“You very good on the lips, Onray.”  I thanked him and tucked it away for use on this my snowy day with You in the Now; saved up the devastated-mommy factor that most often be the Only that keeps the possible many of us from inducing their very own premature corpse - brother Clay to cry but survive the permanent scar, just maybe find it somewhat difficult to watch his family sitcoms, tempt his memory of me in front of the kids.

And when Duardo began to ask for agreement from the others.

“Speak gentle of me,” I begged.

“Tell me why I should,” and that Francesca girl did promise me a kiss.  Nothing doing, was the manner of my return; I absolutely refused to explain my paranoia to any of them.  “Tell me, really, what it is about me that makes you believe that I am not a fan … of you.”  Nothing, was the further of my cool shrink back into that chair of design.  “In my house, and you’re refusing my kiss?”  So it was, I sipped the tiny last of my new girlfriend.

Hun, she breathed.  And so stop, I reminded: “Me llamo es Henry, señorita.”  Wonderful.  Fantastic the slow forget of our gradual lean and eventual loss of the lovely merge of once inflamed body part into another, that thing Sex gone all wrong.  “Stop with the Hun, Ok?”

And this be the really exciting part where beddy-bye was silent said by all.  The morning to be forgiving to the very different me and my nighttime smirk thrown across the single beds of certain spare room.  Torrent.  “Hen, no.  No!  Back on your side now.”          

                                                         -

“Hen.  Hen, wake up, we have to be leaving this Spain.”