In my Quinto5 posting, I made reference to the movie Broken Embraces by the great Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.
This latest chapter of 'The Jesus Years' finds Henry looking over his shoulder, at times grumbling with Pedro's perceived presence as he wanders the Barcelona streets in the aftermath of his tryst with X.
His head still be in the clouds, and the fair X ... well, she has those feelings of her own. Enjoy, they're soon to be on a train headed south, back to Valencia.
This latest chapter of 'The Jesus Years' finds Henry looking over his shoulder, at times grumbling with Pedro's perceived presence as he wanders the Barcelona streets in the aftermath of his tryst with X.
His head still be in the clouds, and the fair X ... well, she has those feelings of her own. Enjoy, they're soon to be on a train headed south, back to Valencia.
Dude ... finally!
Chapter 28: Barcelona. Rambling.
Verbatim warning: Tobacco smoke can cause the arteries in the brain to clog. This can block the blood vessels and cause a stroke. A stroke can cause disability and death.
But I was unable, still, to blow the proper smoke ring. Teach me, I never said; but she or maybe I was within the misty world of missing left socks - of where all lost doggies and thoughts and cats go to - from the very moment of our slow awake in Barco that Saturday in that iffy month of March. With a crack in the drapes. With her denim already reapplied. Teach me how to inhale and shape my tongue or throat so that a halo of smoke emerges, I never said. With her face peering into a mirror over a sink that doubled as my urinal. With her hazel eyes catching me and saying nothing, and stuff; no guilt no regret no smile for bed number 1 and its erstwhile wet spots shared through the night.
“Yeah, sure sure, go on - take a couple.” My Fortunas, bajo en nicotina.
“What are you doing? Hen, why are you blowing out like that?”
Up on one elbow was I, exhaling and dislocating my jaw to the rhythm of nothing in particular. “Trying,” I said. Great, she gave me, without so much as even offering an insight into the talent I knew she possessed. “You realize that all I really wanted was a hug, don’t ya?” Despite all of the dirty little things whispered in her previous night’s ear, the final thrust of my hips before withdrawal and exclamation of God and what translates literally as little death. “Just a hug, X. With your arms.” Because I was in a foreign country, by myself and away. Because my joke became a lead balloon, a small part of the etymological reasoning of christening Page, Plant, Bonham, and Jones as Led Zeppelin. Sorry. “But sorry,” I did say to her just then. “How’s your head treating you?” With the natural of her curls still upon. With her cheeks looking a mite gaunt.
Just fine, she blinked me. Not a word, was more the manner of her further spread and peek through the long dust of drapes, up and into the brick wall Away that was the both of us abroad, separately. Barcelona and my part of the Barri Gòtic. Exhaust trailing from our tips of pauses for thought, for intake that made us fresh enough for the whatever part of the morning clock that we were squinting at. Because I imagined her about to go off and continue her exploration of the city.
To the door, to the hallway. To the mixture of French and Spanish exchanged with Miguel that would be the retrieval of her passport, a look past his bushy eyebrow into his old eye, perhaps not. To the spiral staircase and whether squeak or scuff of her Beatle boots over its marble, depending upon the mood I gave her, left her with whilst perched upon one elbow on bed number 1, ciggie dangling from the James Dean lip. Telling the truth in the nude.
Because I could very well lie and insist that there was a sweet kiss and thanks before that late morning bye, imply that Ottawa isn’t pronounced as Oddawa by us locals. But I shall leave it at that and describe the dragging of my ass out of bed. The wool covers thrown off, the running of the sink tap after my late morning wiz. The quick wet shave of above and below, whatever it was that led me towards another day in Barco. Vacation. The tepid shower that was the communal bathroom door left open even though, and just because. To myself I sang the chorus to Waltzing Matilda and rubbed a thin bar of travel soap absolutely everywhere that a mumble of its verses would allow before water turned too cold.
Buenos dias, senora. The changing of the shift that was most likely the lady who had banged on my door the previous day, had been warned by departing Miguel to leave my room the alone that morning courtesy some crude gesture of the Spanish sort performed by his wrinkled hands. “Uno mas, por favor,” I gave her wealth of having survived General Franco and the daily climb up that spiral staircase; her full figure behind the desk, bits of grey amongst jet-black coif if it done mattered to the handing over of my Canadian passport to our minimal understand of each other. A smile and the varying of crows dancing upon the edges of our eyes. Gracias, without a lisp. My hand sliding down a long balustrade, hunting for Spanish dust with the tip of index, all to the great modern Almodóvar training his movie camera on me for inspiration, waiting perhaps to follow me go talk up the transvestites of La Rambla. Do something weird and yet normal. Leading him towards that which he could film and edit and release into the world and, after winning a few choice festivals, send across the Atlantic for me and me alone to toddle off to a local theatre and watch and wait for myself to cry or stifle a remembrance of why I lose more and more art every day.
I actually turned my head and looked back over my shoulder. Had the specific muscles of my facial all ready to tell his lens that today was not a good day amongst los Años de Jesús to try and capture the true experience. Maybe next year, I was prepared to mouth into the camera, being the actor that I already was. The door opened to street and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon enough as I decide which way I went with no particular idea at all. On my self, the 'Lonely Planet,' Spain version; a notebook, a travel read, and some flannel in case the sun done went down. Them black Nikes on my feet wandering back out into the warren of the Gòtic, daylight. Hookers asleep for the time being - females and them certain males trying to be feminine, halfway into their expensive operations but still never kissing Juans on the lips. Stay with me, I winked to Almodóvar.
In the city, somewhere, the Olympic facilities from ’92.
In the wonder of Barcelona, a sightseeing gondola that takes one on a thick wire out over the harbour for a breathtaking view back.
The familiar restaurant with its triumvirate of outdoor chicken rotisseries that I walked past just then, film crew in tow. Listening in with their native language to my eavesdrop through the arches towards the Plaça Reial, water from centre fountain trickling behind the occasional English of varying accent. Young American girls grouped together for added security; packs of early to rise Dutch geezers with slide shows waiting to spring from the Kodaks hanging from their point and click necks. The necessary old man feeding the pigeons. My sneakers continuing towards La Rambla, the high rise of the birdy turdy-encrusted monument to señor Columbus. Because I felt not like exploring. Because there was a notebook in my pocket that needed some updating for some certain reason.
Dear Fonzie: This is not the Centretown circle of friends that I come to you from. This is me beneath a specific palm tree with a wonderfully shaded view of what has happened within the history of a patron in your audience.
I sat my pen and realized the crew hadn’t wasted a lick of film on filler shots of the masses filing up and down Rambla, buskers taking their marks on imaginary stars painted on the promenade. The side of my left ring finger invisible blue from smudging correspondence and ink and stuff to be signed Henry before Canada-received and sent off to appropriate area by Mama Post.
Nonetheless, this was the part where something extremely exciting should happen.
Pedro Almodóvar took uno momento to smear some Vaseline around outer circle of his nonexistent viewing lens. I immediately took on a glow far beyond the sensibility of a Barbara Walter filter, a piano playing in my background, wind through the shortness of my hair.
Pedro zoomed in on my inner skid.
Me, awash in the Pink of Floyd soundtracks. Doing a much of nothing in midday aside from justifying small vacation in Barco. Searching for the Robert Redfords quietly sipping their imaginary café cortados across from me.
Say something or anything, Pedro voiced sound that would be taken out in post-production.
I coughed, cleared the way for the past to enter the day of the week within them Jesus Years of mine. Dear Fonzie: do the math for me just this once.
“Non, non” - out loud, for he or they could not hear the pen or this mind that is was mine.
But I don’t take direction well, I had to kind of tell him - that Pedro that I conjure to You this Now for that Then. People began to look and I could no longer write. Dearest Fonzie: more later, beyond this thong bikini postcard to pin up on the wall beside the Oak’s service area.
And I was done. As was he, that Pedro with the alphabet soup of cinematic credentials to follow his Spanish sounding Almodóvar. Apparently he could not work like this that. Fair enough, I gave him and stood up to a rousing chorus of seagulls that will unfortunately never be seen because, of course, the camera was set to Off. Time be money, even in another language. Subtitles, and my attitude taken from a song given to me by a set of genes with an expiry date. I don’t need this shit, I told the school kids climbing over bronze bulls circled below the Italian Columbus, across the street from the ebbing tide of seawater spelled with a capital M on the flat map proven round courtesy him.
Maybe the beach, I lifted myself. Perhaps the daily constitutional to ward off evil and scurvy; perhaps a piece of fruit grabbed along that way. Uno limón, I knew to say; the change from a euro given from my pocket to a vendor along palm-lined Passeig de Colom. To a walk with a view of that gondola making its way out over the harbour. To a running cement wall bordering the exposé of female nipple lying on blanket on sandy beach in March. To a North American peek taken along the way, all to the order of she loved me, she loved me not. To the sun and a very large city and nothing having changed. To the poke and straight squeeze of a simple lemon into my mouth.
To never being fixed and all that jazz.
But this is the part where something really exciting should happen. Dear Fonzie: sorry for the coitus interruptus, sorry for this few Latin that I know - but one never can tell who may be sneaking a read of this talk far removed from the mailings tacked to the wall beside your cash register. These the garbled explanations on how you have managed to remain them in love with you long after they have found out about other and yelled and screamed, still walked up to your Oak and asked for an autograph despite the one and many new with your eye sitting them on the wood of your bar, legs crossing and uncrossing. This the guess from a ways Away. This for your eyes only, in my moment of squat lotus amongst the world’s sand invisible to you in the snow of Ottawa. P.S. - it’s beautiful here.
To the pastel backdrop waiting for a surrealist to pick up his brush. To the bounce of a tanker mostly sepia on the wet horizon. To the noticeable curvature of the earth that was is the thousand yard stare taken along all coasts. To the reason why the siesta was invented in the first place.
When I awoke I was still sweating, mumbling my mantra into the afternoon heat. I was blinking hard and then stealing a quick flash of glimpse, trying to burn visuals past my cornea and into onto proper cortex: an old painter’s trick that did zilch for this here actor explaining things to You now, perhaps even making a bit of shit up, although I no longer lie. Am no longer bitter beyond destroying surprise endings. Rocky II eventually getting up first. The little girl’s words not being properly heard above the noise at the finish of La Dolce Vita. Rain Man actually saying “Raymond” all along, his long lost brother’s name. I was soon boring myself, skimming the brain for the exciting parts to play along with the fresh nicotine prop slow burning in my left hand, stuff to make love to the rhythm of my jaw shaping smoke into puffs of clouds people often mistake for animals, lost relatives, cartoons, even Jesus chowing down on doughnuts. And while no one has ever confirmed a sighting of God, I had no qualms in asking the big guy for a personal appearance in the Barcelona sky - with or without the lisp; the Monty Python bellow from the aboves to peer down at the myself stretching legs straight and conjuring plot lines anew within that Spain that really should have been something exciting happening right then and there in the exact.
Maybe some more of them side streets, I lifted myself from a bench near the edge of a marina and the boat styles I cannot name beyond sail and fishing.
To more of sundry lady knickers on the line, through and below and back into the deep of Gòtic that day devoid of video playblack and totally reliant upon memory mine waltzing into a traveller’s bar where the employees all spoke five different languages just through sheer proximity to one another country. Fruity organic drinks with funky names I should be able to recall or very least make up for my own amusement this now, thinking to You. A designated republic for the squelch of lime and mashed mango put to blender; a juice and beer bar with internet access; a notice board and rooms for rent above. Stuff written in Spanish, bits of English. Girls and boys with dreadlocks, tattoos on passports.
Dear Fonzie: I got lucky last night.
In a traveller’s bar I put my nonexistent pen down. For I no longer wanted to experience, though should have been talking to someone anyone, learning more of that there Spanish. Meeting Yanks and lads from Liverpool with lousy haircuts. But I no longer wanted to experience, past the previous night’s withdrawal, beyond reaching for the next nicotine puff.
In true Centretown fashion she should have walked in, caused a jiggling of the dinky little bell above that glassed door and shared a Fortuna or two with me.
Verbatim: Tobacco smoke hurts babies. Tobacco use during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth. Babies born preterm are at an increased risk of infant death, illness and disability.
In true vacation style I imposed my time change on a less eastern world, totally ignorant of where anyone was or were exploring outside the particulars of my exact point within Catalunya. A phone card home into their morning light: “Fonzie please. Yes, I know he’s quite busy, darling, but it is important. Tell him it’s Henry.” The necessary Pause.
“Yeah, bitch!”
“I thought I would say you something real quick.”
“Yeah, real quick.”
“Fonzie: what are the birds mad at in The Birds? Why’d they go ape shit like that? That … that fire at the gas station - were they trying to tell us something?” The long distance charges clicking away to the sound of me smoking and him exhaling into a girl in the background.
“Say what?” he gave me, so I asked once the more, repeated Hitchcock’s take on black crows, left out the nonessential fact of Tippi Hedren being Melanie Griffith's real-life mother. “Are you high … in Spain?” A laugh. But, of course, You know that to be not the case. “I’m in the middle of someone, Henry. Can this come back in a sec?” Could I stand to get lost in the middle of Barco, to be more the specific to the both of our situations.
Love and short kisses good-byed from our respective afars. The toss of a then useless piece of plastic clear across a traveller’s bar. Thank god there was music blaring in both our backdrops, delivering us from awkward. I assumed that he continued with the girl of the week, but never did ask him.
Only told him my side of the story upon return to similar time zone days later. When it was just beginning to be all over. When I began to become a lone gunman, continued to talk to You in the specific, beyond the soft pronoun that sometimes lumps people together into lower case meaning.
To the late afternoon, to the nearing of buenos tardes proper. To the usual draw of Molly’s Fair City. To the gathering of a pub within an any city. To the similar stool that I sat myself down at, half waiting for Damien but mostly picturing his dirty blonde hair at the front of boat bouncing a wave to Mallorca or Ibiza. To the wish to no longer experience beyond the terribly exciting incident that was surely about to happen right before my very eyes, beside the guy sitting right next to me, eyeing my book on accidental burials over my shoulder and trying to explain me that the term mentor comes from a character in Homer’s 'Odyssey.' Stuff in a pub, even in Spanish Barcelona. And I was relatively happy, no longer experiencing - letting an older American yap away in my ear without bothering to even ask which state which county he derived from, the for why in hell he be amongst the group of us pretending the Spanish experience.
He ordered his Guinness in local, as did I, applying the suitable modest of tip to la cuenta.
To his immediate left - another tourist of the English-speaking language freeing my return to a stare off into space; a reach down for my feet, a finger inside my Nikes to rub the collection of energy that was my walk through them narrow streets, was my exact place in the universe emanating with every loving squeeze applied to aching arch and toe.
A man, that Hector of a Spaniard, grabbed a specific green bottle off the second shelf and measured out what came to be two fingers of scotch in a rock glass, neat. I was guessing, but the What that ran my head was that he was aware that, for whatever reason, some girls just smell better, perfumed or not into the horizon housed beneath that fake tin ceiling: the Glenfiddich sipped slow, and I could sense her from three people over. Her friend possessed those equal parts of professionally blended blonde, red and brown, but still, my nose for the single malt girl sitting on the wood, paying with the same euros as me. This female friend of hers, this one who arched her Nordic spine and lengthened her lovely self towards her give or take size 3 or 6, licked the up and around of her Guinness moustache sex and yet neared not enough the tickle of pheromones for an off-duty bartender no longer wishing to experience or finish a sentence of thought properly.
The last of single malt girl’s lips on glass, swallow and taste, and You are denied her exact face and left to rely on my firm belief in the existence of chemicals within our ken, beyond our immediate 5 senses. It is to be believed that I turned not so much away from her and friend as back to a man of normal height, possible salt-and-pepper of hair, although with my memory this should not be taken as gospel. I did done look to this man and ask him if he realized that the beverage before him was, and still is, recommended for mums-to-be. “Guinness is quite high in iron,” was the add to my most illustrious story.
And so we talked, in that English of languages. My left hand unclenched itself, my lower lip no longer felt the bite of incisors. I even offered to let him peruse that book of mine that had so interested him in the before - if only he would be so kind as to tell me why it was that blonde hair looked dark when it be wet. That he paused and ultimately did not know the answer was quite alright - I was talking and no longer watching amber liquids slide down pretty throats devoid of Adam’s apples.
Just barely experiencing the fact of being in Barcelona was I. “Yeah, the phrase predates the boxing metaphor,” begun by me to him, “…whether or not the half-dead realized that the string tied around their finger was connected to a bell outside their dark coffin of supposed death, I have not read that far yet.”
“Hmm, yes … confirming the death.” This as he thumbed the pages and diagrams of my spring read documenting the history of a specific fear, the hum of an any pub on a Saturday turning into night. This as I laid one of my hands flat on the bar - the older American pulling himself away from the book and placing 2 fingers on my left wrist. In my mind, I can recall reassuring the audience that despite not having my passport on my person, I did indeed continue to be one of God’s living, breathing children. “Beautiful,” he gave me, despite the idea that I have presented this man no job no family no real reason for sitting on a stool in a certain area of Barco. Quite content he was, shooting the shit and maybe kinda helping tell me that I had an approximate pulse of 75-beats-per-Spanish-minute.
He’s wearing shorts, white socks and sandals.
In my world, the colour of fake tin ceiling matched the fading sky. Both very real and above me.
Stay with this that shade of my choosing and take a leap of faith sometimes employed in the relaying of a story some may find hard to believe beyond parable: not that I existed, but that what I had to say was fully true within a point of reference.
That X actually did then stroll through them opened oak doors to my far left was the rest being that there matter of conjecture, funny things said of endings. If I were a bitter man I could be tempted to impart the lessons learned from famous bad final episodes: Cheers teaching us that despite artistic licence, the guy should always end up with the girl.
Within my last night on piece of Barcelona earth, the denim still reached her auburn head to toe, her shirt she had up and gone and changed from dark to the light of white, her underwear ever the nonexistent - the still between the me and You sworn to secrecy. Her God sandwich the sense of remaining on my lips as she approached and called me Hen not Hun, shook hands with the older American I choose this point of time to christen in the name of my father, Thomas. I pronounced her given proper to his handshake and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon enough as I decide on exactly how it was that I was seen: the degree of backlighting and sense of self that be the cinematographer and director having a few beer in a hot tub before the very first call for Action to capture the concerted effort of this life of mine.
When she asked of me the day’s events, when she asked of me what I had been up to, this be the What I gave to that former girl of mine: “Darling, I’ve been sooo busy. You don’t know. Can you mind what I have been through in the hours before? Can you mind?” Her beauty to my assumed accent, side to side tilt of head.
“Hen, you’ve never even been to Sri Lanka.”
“Can you mind me to my own?”
“And this after meeting my kitchen staff one time; where did you keep this gift buried? Huh? Give their mannerisms a rest and just speak normal to me.”
“Sure. Just say that you have brief memories of me apologizing to you late last night.” The older American presented query if we 2 were together in the romantic sense of the word. “Imagine that we be,” to the face of a man with actual name I know and yet withhold despite the slim chance that our intersection of ways will ever be vaguely recognizable to him in the Now. “Imagine that we be past the middle of a something, somewhat near its end.”
This with a smile, this as she grabbed his older left or right hand and looked up at him with the round of hazel I choose to reserve strictly for myself at this moment: “Have you two been talking about stupid stuff?”
“Not so much,” I lied for one of the very few times in my entire life.
“Your boyfriend is seemingly afraid of dying.” All this, with no colour of hair no regional dialect no background story to him sitting in that pub just off the court Plaça Reial, Barcelona; beside me, a Fortuna burning its way towards my index my North American swear finger.
I told my ex-girlfriend that I did not entirely appreciate being ganged up on, and by way of gift from me to You she up and kissed me not four blocks away from where P. Picasso paid girls for everything but the sweet lip on lip, back in the day. She grazed my cheek with fuchsia and the rest be a blur of the smell of a pretty girl rousing me from a sleep on a comfy blue couch, large one-bedroom apartment, the Glebe area of Ottawa, Canada. Taking me to Spain. Experience, and that nose of mine up in a seemingly tin ceiling I may or may not have mentioned; my neck stretched into a very brief yearning for a jean jacket of my own, to match hers and walk the hand in hand down the forever streets of yuppie towns.
“I’ll leave you to two to yourselves.” With grace and wit, nary a further word given by him upon departing Molly’s genuine imitation Irish pub. A few steps of his to our collective right of being. She. Me. Coldplay in our ears. A necessarily Spanish bartender. An ex-pat Brit doing the shaky-shake for various of martini or shooter needed above and beyond the myself opening my mouth and not asking for a real smack on my kisser.
“I have very brief memories of apologizing to you last night.”
“Hen, I have very brief memories of late last night.” That she tasted of vanilla had zip to do with why she up and done lied to me just then and there for no real reason at all.
“I did absolutely nothing today, X.” I experienced the soft steal of exposed nipple on beach blanket, the slit and squeeze of lemon juice down the back of my throat, the lure of knickers hung on the high line. “I jotted down a few bare sonnets for the folks back home - told them that things were all fine, wished they were here to help fill in the spaces not taken up by our love and fun.” That imagination mine. “What’s postage here, for thee umm … international send back across the pond?” That she paused and ultimately did not know the answer was quite alright; I was no longer within the older American, the single malt girl.
“Didn’t you do the Guidí apartments? The tour? Everything is built in these curves.” I shrugged and acknowledged having only been outside on the street, looking up at their funky balconies, Flintstones windows. My previous day.
“Sorry. No, I walked along the beach, partook in siesta. It was all quite beautiful, of course. Have you been? Have you seen?”
“Can you mind?” she gave me. And so yes, I did up and comprehend her put of the Sri Lankan syntax, translation of English say said by a few funny speaking guys in hair nets on her cooking end of Elgin Street back in our Ottawa, Centretown.
“We should go. Together.” Within our last hours in that Barco by the sea. Smoking and a drinking with my love was I; believing we almost back in that together sense. I could lie and say that I wasn’t buying her booze, not trying out my sing along voice despite my hatred for Oasis. This is to say that I am leaving out whispering to the memory of her hair making its way from a pub on Ottawa’s Sparks Street not so far from the historic gunning down of its rebel namesake, D’Arcy McGee: working its Then straightened auburn way down my eventual chest later that initial evening of taking one another for a walk around the proverbial block. That thing called first sniff, sexual touch. “I truly just wanted a hug last night.”
“I have a strong desire to sleep with you again.” The hazel of her eye whilst in Spain I simply refuse to share once the more. Prefer to keep for myself.
“Does this involve a hug at all?” And we joked, as that ago night walking the Laurier Street Bridge, over the boats of Rideau Canal and past Ottawa University, towards her apartment in Sandy Hill of Victorian mansions; from them days on. But this not the downfall, the descriptive before and after denouement that I steep in apologies beyond the precise reason for why I had to begin this conversation with You, someone. “Sorry. I kid, and then we laugh.” Her lips closed and curled upwards, help present me the baby crow’s feet that crept her face into a little something passed along from one performer to another. A true smile. Two actors vacationing in Spain, together and apart. “We’re gone tomorrow, we should go to the beach.”
“No, Hen. We go buy a bottle of some cheap red wine and wander down towards the pier.” That too sounded good enough, I agreed her, and stared the girl that had made it abundantly clear that I should never ever walk off and leave her alone to fume: that she was squat lotus on a tiny side street off Bank and watched as I punched my left fist clear through a picket fence did not entirely solve the matter further than X up and agreeing to live and lie next to me for the next two-and-one-half-years of her life. Before Spain. Before the magic of alcohol walked us out the open oak doors of Molly’s Fair City not holding hands but together in the rather sense of proceeding side by each. Up the middle walk of La Rambla continuing to sound French to my ear, Latin I supposed. Them aforementioned hydraulic pillars rising up from pavement of certain off street holding back tiny cars awaiting. Traffic measures. Stuff within that there city on the planet.
Could she uncork it for us, X motioned with two moving hands, handing the bottle back to a lady no longer concerned with purchasing support bras. There was a black horse on the wine label, that I do indeed remember. There was a long line of tourist tapas to begin that rectangle of deli-slash-restaurant, and it made me feel better that we did indeed manage to speak within bits and pieces of one of the Romance languages that evening. The señora nodded her dark hair and smiled, waved a silver ring on one of her ten fingers to present an ease in view of the ennui associated with the most travelled strip in Spain, these two actors wishing to tip her beyond the usual modest. She handing us a warm stick of also purchased brown bread, accepting of our gracias, hasta la vista. We beginning our continued dance back along the promise of making a way past the clean-shaven trannies plying their La Rambla wares in front of the peep palace, squinting within the flood lights of historic old Christo C. directing a circle of traffic some 200 feet below his birdy turdy pedestal.
To a pause, and the manner with which a guy and girl normally cross a busy street at night together; past a mingling mix of teens hiding in the shadows, and that thing called very first sexual touch. Saturday night. To the concrete pier. To a series of secluded steps down towards that spate of shifting water the colour of night and spell of Mediterranean. “We should feed them; they’re just so little, Hen.” Bits of baguette torn off and tossed for the wee minnows swimming at our feet. Sneakers and Beatle boots removed, wine sipped straight from the very mouth of that there bottle passed back and forth. A gondola silenced somewhere in our above; an overly-lit naval yard way off to our right. The realization of the moon’s gravitational pull on our bigger self. Stuff. “How’d Miguel treat you this morning? Some of the Spanish eye, n’est pas?”
“No. Not at all. We spoke a little en français - his Parisian, my Québecoise. He told me things.” I presented her the outright option of stopping the lies. “No, he smiled his little, grey beard and gave me back my passport, then read me lines from his paperback.” Which was. “I don’t know - it was in Spanish, Hen. But it sounded right.” I told her that was how the fuckers worked in 2 languages - not translating everything, the cool of an unknown. “So what,” she gave me then and there. Feeding our gaggle of tiny fish, continuing what may or may not have been about to occur amongst the sporadic walk-by and peek of couplings two and three associating with the beautiful draw of everywhere Man’s touch borders Nature.
“I joke, and then we do the laugh, together.” Within that aftermath of tannins soaked up, accepted and mostly giggled upon. “Show me your tongue, darlin’. Show me some cheap red.” Ok, she gave unto me, with that sipped liquid from a grape picked off vine working its way through the cockles. With the director of photography having the supreme courtesy of pulling a few strings of the Spanish film guild to turn the object of my imagination into a staggering level of flashback.
“I gotta race like a piss horse,” from a country girl, this woman of my considerable thoughts.
“Damn, girl - go on,” I goaded and proceeded to observe the slow unzip and bend, trickle strip release of her bodily fluids into the beginnings of a sea. “Smile. Say queso.” A photo snapped within this all that be me asking for the simple wrap of left and right arm around the middle round of body. A squeezing, because such an act does exist. A disposable camera handed back to her for my attempt to maybe go pee into a then empty wine bottle: “I care about the environment,” was the voice over I presented to her point and click of a something that was developed and quite possibly copied and hung on the office wall of shame of whichever film lab she employed before receipt and give of doubles to me. In the after Spain. Just before the move, when she put pen to paper and reassured me that It hadn’t all been bad.
“You’re kooky,” she forwarded the film with her left thumb. And this could be as good a spot as any to begin speak of my father, or to light another ciggie with the last and maybe explain You that I experienced an entirely normal upbringing in the semi-burbs of East Ottawa, those parts of cities not of the core but eventually growing references of old and once of the outer edge of town. Before the strip malls, or the moment I leaned over to pucker a kiss for the next picture in line to record the time two people travelled to Spain together, apart. “Hen, I have a strong desire to sleep with you right this now.” Amongst the Big Dipper and a train headed south in the morning, away from the edge of Barco at our toes. I could lie and say that I propositioned right then and there, or always read every review that I can get my hands on before deciding to go see a movie; that I don’t get butter with my popcorn, that I even still walk into certain cinema.
To the truth. To a lifting of my butt up from the concrete despite the sudden couple sitting near to us wanting to watch the scene unfold within shadow. To that maybe moment I moved in for a simple smooch beneath the stars, amongst the Spanish whispered. Within her grabbing my hands, pulling them to each of her breast, nipple without a bra. To my mouth put to the side of her neck, clavicle, suprasternal notch for a taste of salt.
That night that slowed with a nibble and simple bite to lobe dangling pearl Christmas present; a smear across her cheek and want of lip.
There might very well have been words from her; a snicker or two from the interlopers getting their rocks off in the peanut gallery. She may have even called me Hun right then and there, such as the past - when the kiss was allowed and she didn’t extend her long neck and lift her nose to the any sky, feel a necessary shove to snap me out of it. Whatever that be in Spain.
“Let’s get one of them chocolate waffle thingys from that stand up top. Come on.” Her left in my right. A smile from her eyes to lead me up the steps and back into the shine produced by a large city at night, electricity.
Dear Fonzie: I believe that I mentioned something to the effect of myself getting some last night. The details are mine, but the name you already know from back home.
To the truth. To the share of a tourist confection within the watchful eye of Christo C. To the bellies full of cheap vino helping us avoid unease with prolonged contact within iris. To casually conversing in that English of languages we both shared a certain fluency in the ability to create full, long says with proper grammar and audible commas. Pauses. Paying close attention to the falling back on of old ways. Pauses. And the wisking of us safely back across Passeig de Colom, colours painted into our cheeks for the walk into Plaça Reial and a sit down for spot of late night sangria. Some civil chit chat that I’ll leave be, because of my memory being shot and all, not to be trusted with relaying the full withdrawal of romance. My red lips not being on her red lips; and this just the way, every day since February 20 of that Year of Jesus that I didn’t realize at the time.
A birthday and those white orchids I may have mentioned as a gift and an offer to meet me in Spain; a final kiss before It all went south and made Itself known as a capital letter.
“You know I love you.” To this my nod of reception to her, flush with experience and the night sky.
Verbatim warning: Tobacco smoke can cause the arteries in the brain to clog. This can block the blood vessels and cause a stroke. A stroke can cause disability and death.
But I was unable, still, to blow the proper smoke ring. Teach me, I never said; but she or maybe I was within the misty world of missing left socks - of where all lost doggies and thoughts and cats go to - from the very moment of our slow awake in Barco that Saturday in that iffy month of March. With a crack in the drapes. With her denim already reapplied. Teach me how to inhale and shape my tongue or throat so that a halo of smoke emerges, I never said. With her face peering into a mirror over a sink that doubled as my urinal. With her hazel eyes catching me and saying nothing, and stuff; no guilt no regret no smile for bed number 1 and its erstwhile wet spots shared through the night.
“Yeah, sure sure, go on - take a couple.” My Fortunas, bajo en nicotina.
“What are you doing? Hen, why are you blowing out like that?”
Up on one elbow was I, exhaling and dislocating my jaw to the rhythm of nothing in particular. “Trying,” I said. Great, she gave me, without so much as even offering an insight into the talent I knew she possessed. “You realize that all I really wanted was a hug, don’t ya?” Despite all of the dirty little things whispered in her previous night’s ear, the final thrust of my hips before withdrawal and exclamation of God and what translates literally as little death. “Just a hug, X. With your arms.” Because I was in a foreign country, by myself and away. Because my joke became a lead balloon, a small part of the etymological reasoning of christening Page, Plant, Bonham, and Jones as Led Zeppelin. Sorry. “But sorry,” I did say to her just then. “How’s your head treating you?” With the natural of her curls still upon. With her cheeks looking a mite gaunt.
Just fine, she blinked me. Not a word, was more the manner of her further spread and peek through the long dust of drapes, up and into the brick wall Away that was the both of us abroad, separately. Barcelona and my part of the Barri Gòtic. Exhaust trailing from our tips of pauses for thought, for intake that made us fresh enough for the whatever part of the morning clock that we were squinting at. Because I imagined her about to go off and continue her exploration of the city.
To the door, to the hallway. To the mixture of French and Spanish exchanged with Miguel that would be the retrieval of her passport, a look past his bushy eyebrow into his old eye, perhaps not. To the spiral staircase and whether squeak or scuff of her Beatle boots over its marble, depending upon the mood I gave her, left her with whilst perched upon one elbow on bed number 1, ciggie dangling from the James Dean lip. Telling the truth in the nude.
Because I could very well lie and insist that there was a sweet kiss and thanks before that late morning bye, imply that Ottawa isn’t pronounced as Oddawa by us locals. But I shall leave it at that and describe the dragging of my ass out of bed. The wool covers thrown off, the running of the sink tap after my late morning wiz. The quick wet shave of above and below, whatever it was that led me towards another day in Barco. Vacation. The tepid shower that was the communal bathroom door left open even though, and just because. To myself I sang the chorus to Waltzing Matilda and rubbed a thin bar of travel soap absolutely everywhere that a mumble of its verses would allow before water turned too cold.
Buenos dias, senora. The changing of the shift that was most likely the lady who had banged on my door the previous day, had been warned by departing Miguel to leave my room the alone that morning courtesy some crude gesture of the Spanish sort performed by his wrinkled hands. “Uno mas, por favor,” I gave her wealth of having survived General Franco and the daily climb up that spiral staircase; her full figure behind the desk, bits of grey amongst jet-black coif if it done mattered to the handing over of my Canadian passport to our minimal understand of each other. A smile and the varying of crows dancing upon the edges of our eyes. Gracias, without a lisp. My hand sliding down a long balustrade, hunting for Spanish dust with the tip of index, all to the great modern Almodóvar training his movie camera on me for inspiration, waiting perhaps to follow me go talk up the transvestites of La Rambla. Do something weird and yet normal. Leading him towards that which he could film and edit and release into the world and, after winning a few choice festivals, send across the Atlantic for me and me alone to toddle off to a local theatre and watch and wait for myself to cry or stifle a remembrance of why I lose more and more art every day.
I actually turned my head and looked back over my shoulder. Had the specific muscles of my facial all ready to tell his lens that today was not a good day amongst los Años de Jesús to try and capture the true experience. Maybe next year, I was prepared to mouth into the camera, being the actor that I already was. The door opened to street and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon enough as I decide which way I went with no particular idea at all. On my self, the 'Lonely Planet,' Spain version; a notebook, a travel read, and some flannel in case the sun done went down. Them black Nikes on my feet wandering back out into the warren of the Gòtic, daylight. Hookers asleep for the time being - females and them certain males trying to be feminine, halfway into their expensive operations but still never kissing Juans on the lips. Stay with me, I winked to Almodóvar.
In the city, somewhere, the Olympic facilities from ’92.
In the wonder of Barcelona, a sightseeing gondola that takes one on a thick wire out over the harbour for a breathtaking view back.
The familiar restaurant with its triumvirate of outdoor chicken rotisseries that I walked past just then, film crew in tow. Listening in with their native language to my eavesdrop through the arches towards the Plaça Reial, water from centre fountain trickling behind the occasional English of varying accent. Young American girls grouped together for added security; packs of early to rise Dutch geezers with slide shows waiting to spring from the Kodaks hanging from their point and click necks. The necessary old man feeding the pigeons. My sneakers continuing towards La Rambla, the high rise of the birdy turdy-encrusted monument to señor Columbus. Because I felt not like exploring. Because there was a notebook in my pocket that needed some updating for some certain reason.
Dear Fonzie: This is not the Centretown circle of friends that I come to you from. This is me beneath a specific palm tree with a wonderfully shaded view of what has happened within the history of a patron in your audience.
I sat my pen and realized the crew hadn’t wasted a lick of film on filler shots of the masses filing up and down Rambla, buskers taking their marks on imaginary stars painted on the promenade. The side of my left ring finger invisible blue from smudging correspondence and ink and stuff to be signed Henry before Canada-received and sent off to appropriate area by Mama Post.
Nonetheless, this was the part where something extremely exciting should happen.
Pedro Almodóvar took uno momento to smear some Vaseline around outer circle of his nonexistent viewing lens. I immediately took on a glow far beyond the sensibility of a Barbara Walter filter, a piano playing in my background, wind through the shortness of my hair.
Pedro zoomed in on my inner skid.
Me, awash in the Pink of Floyd soundtracks. Doing a much of nothing in midday aside from justifying small vacation in Barco. Searching for the Robert Redfords quietly sipping their imaginary café cortados across from me.
Say something or anything, Pedro voiced sound that would be taken out in post-production.
I coughed, cleared the way for the past to enter the day of the week within them Jesus Years of mine. Dear Fonzie: do the math for me just this once.
“Non, non” - out loud, for he or they could not hear the pen or this mind that is was mine.
But I don’t take direction well, I had to kind of tell him - that Pedro that I conjure to You this Now for that Then. People began to look and I could no longer write. Dearest Fonzie: more later, beyond this thong bikini postcard to pin up on the wall beside the Oak’s service area.
And I was done. As was he, that Pedro with the alphabet soup of cinematic credentials to follow his Spanish sounding Almodóvar. Apparently he could not work like this that. Fair enough, I gave him and stood up to a rousing chorus of seagulls that will unfortunately never be seen because, of course, the camera was set to Off. Time be money, even in another language. Subtitles, and my attitude taken from a song given to me by a set of genes with an expiry date. I don’t need this shit, I told the school kids climbing over bronze bulls circled below the Italian Columbus, across the street from the ebbing tide of seawater spelled with a capital M on the flat map proven round courtesy him.
Maybe the beach, I lifted myself. Perhaps the daily constitutional to ward off evil and scurvy; perhaps a piece of fruit grabbed along that way. Uno limón, I knew to say; the change from a euro given from my pocket to a vendor along palm-lined Passeig de Colom. To a walk with a view of that gondola making its way out over the harbour. To a running cement wall bordering the exposé of female nipple lying on blanket on sandy beach in March. To a North American peek taken along the way, all to the order of she loved me, she loved me not. To the sun and a very large city and nothing having changed. To the poke and straight squeeze of a simple lemon into my mouth.
To never being fixed and all that jazz.
But this is the part where something really exciting should happen. Dear Fonzie: sorry for the coitus interruptus, sorry for this few Latin that I know - but one never can tell who may be sneaking a read of this talk far removed from the mailings tacked to the wall beside your cash register. These the garbled explanations on how you have managed to remain them in love with you long after they have found out about other and yelled and screamed, still walked up to your Oak and asked for an autograph despite the one and many new with your eye sitting them on the wood of your bar, legs crossing and uncrossing. This the guess from a ways Away. This for your eyes only, in my moment of squat lotus amongst the world’s sand invisible to you in the snow of Ottawa. P.S. - it’s beautiful here.
To the pastel backdrop waiting for a surrealist to pick up his brush. To the bounce of a tanker mostly sepia on the wet horizon. To the noticeable curvature of the earth that was is the thousand yard stare taken along all coasts. To the reason why the siesta was invented in the first place.
When I awoke I was still sweating, mumbling my mantra into the afternoon heat. I was blinking hard and then stealing a quick flash of glimpse, trying to burn visuals past my cornea and into onto proper cortex: an old painter’s trick that did zilch for this here actor explaining things to You now, perhaps even making a bit of shit up, although I no longer lie. Am no longer bitter beyond destroying surprise endings. Rocky II eventually getting up first. The little girl’s words not being properly heard above the noise at the finish of La Dolce Vita. Rain Man actually saying “Raymond” all along, his long lost brother’s name. I was soon boring myself, skimming the brain for the exciting parts to play along with the fresh nicotine prop slow burning in my left hand, stuff to make love to the rhythm of my jaw shaping smoke into puffs of clouds people often mistake for animals, lost relatives, cartoons, even Jesus chowing down on doughnuts. And while no one has ever confirmed a sighting of God, I had no qualms in asking the big guy for a personal appearance in the Barcelona sky - with or without the lisp; the Monty Python bellow from the aboves to peer down at the myself stretching legs straight and conjuring plot lines anew within that Spain that really should have been something exciting happening right then and there in the exact.
Maybe some more of them side streets, I lifted myself from a bench near the edge of a marina and the boat styles I cannot name beyond sail and fishing.
To more of sundry lady knickers on the line, through and below and back into the deep of Gòtic that day devoid of video playblack and totally reliant upon memory mine waltzing into a traveller’s bar where the employees all spoke five different languages just through sheer proximity to one another country. Fruity organic drinks with funky names I should be able to recall or very least make up for my own amusement this now, thinking to You. A designated republic for the squelch of lime and mashed mango put to blender; a juice and beer bar with internet access; a notice board and rooms for rent above. Stuff written in Spanish, bits of English. Girls and boys with dreadlocks, tattoos on passports.
Dear Fonzie: I got lucky last night.
In a traveller’s bar I put my nonexistent pen down. For I no longer wanted to experience, though should have been talking to someone anyone, learning more of that there Spanish. Meeting Yanks and lads from Liverpool with lousy haircuts. But I no longer wanted to experience, past the previous night’s withdrawal, beyond reaching for the next nicotine puff.
In true Centretown fashion she should have walked in, caused a jiggling of the dinky little bell above that glassed door and shared a Fortuna or two with me.
Verbatim: Tobacco smoke hurts babies. Tobacco use during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth. Babies born preterm are at an increased risk of infant death, illness and disability.
In true vacation style I imposed my time change on a less eastern world, totally ignorant of where anyone was or were exploring outside the particulars of my exact point within Catalunya. A phone card home into their morning light: “Fonzie please. Yes, I know he’s quite busy, darling, but it is important. Tell him it’s Henry.” The necessary Pause.
“Yeah, bitch!”
“I thought I would say you something real quick.”
“Yeah, real quick.”
“Fonzie: what are the birds mad at in The Birds? Why’d they go ape shit like that? That … that fire at the gas station - were they trying to tell us something?” The long distance charges clicking away to the sound of me smoking and him exhaling into a girl in the background.
“Say what?” he gave me, so I asked once the more, repeated Hitchcock’s take on black crows, left out the nonessential fact of Tippi Hedren being Melanie Griffith's real-life mother. “Are you high … in Spain?” A laugh. But, of course, You know that to be not the case. “I’m in the middle of someone, Henry. Can this come back in a sec?” Could I stand to get lost in the middle of Barco, to be more the specific to the both of our situations.
Love and short kisses good-byed from our respective afars. The toss of a then useless piece of plastic clear across a traveller’s bar. Thank god there was music blaring in both our backdrops, delivering us from awkward. I assumed that he continued with the girl of the week, but never did ask him.
Only told him my side of the story upon return to similar time zone days later. When it was just beginning to be all over. When I began to become a lone gunman, continued to talk to You in the specific, beyond the soft pronoun that sometimes lumps people together into lower case meaning.
To the late afternoon, to the nearing of buenos tardes proper. To the usual draw of Molly’s Fair City. To the gathering of a pub within an any city. To the similar stool that I sat myself down at, half waiting for Damien but mostly picturing his dirty blonde hair at the front of boat bouncing a wave to Mallorca or Ibiza. To the wish to no longer experience beyond the terribly exciting incident that was surely about to happen right before my very eyes, beside the guy sitting right next to me, eyeing my book on accidental burials over my shoulder and trying to explain me that the term mentor comes from a character in Homer’s 'Odyssey.' Stuff in a pub, even in Spanish Barcelona. And I was relatively happy, no longer experiencing - letting an older American yap away in my ear without bothering to even ask which state which county he derived from, the for why in hell he be amongst the group of us pretending the Spanish experience.
He ordered his Guinness in local, as did I, applying the suitable modest of tip to la cuenta.
To his immediate left - another tourist of the English-speaking language freeing my return to a stare off into space; a reach down for my feet, a finger inside my Nikes to rub the collection of energy that was my walk through them narrow streets, was my exact place in the universe emanating with every loving squeeze applied to aching arch and toe.
A man, that Hector of a Spaniard, grabbed a specific green bottle off the second shelf and measured out what came to be two fingers of scotch in a rock glass, neat. I was guessing, but the What that ran my head was that he was aware that, for whatever reason, some girls just smell better, perfumed or not into the horizon housed beneath that fake tin ceiling: the Glenfiddich sipped slow, and I could sense her from three people over. Her friend possessed those equal parts of professionally blended blonde, red and brown, but still, my nose for the single malt girl sitting on the wood, paying with the same euros as me. This female friend of hers, this one who arched her Nordic spine and lengthened her lovely self towards her give or take size 3 or 6, licked the up and around of her Guinness moustache sex and yet neared not enough the tickle of pheromones for an off-duty bartender no longer wishing to experience or finish a sentence of thought properly.
The last of single malt girl’s lips on glass, swallow and taste, and You are denied her exact face and left to rely on my firm belief in the existence of chemicals within our ken, beyond our immediate 5 senses. It is to be believed that I turned not so much away from her and friend as back to a man of normal height, possible salt-and-pepper of hair, although with my memory this should not be taken as gospel. I did done look to this man and ask him if he realized that the beverage before him was, and still is, recommended for mums-to-be. “Guinness is quite high in iron,” was the add to my most illustrious story.
And so we talked, in that English of languages. My left hand unclenched itself, my lower lip no longer felt the bite of incisors. I even offered to let him peruse that book of mine that had so interested him in the before - if only he would be so kind as to tell me why it was that blonde hair looked dark when it be wet. That he paused and ultimately did not know the answer was quite alright - I was talking and no longer watching amber liquids slide down pretty throats devoid of Adam’s apples.
Just barely experiencing the fact of being in Barcelona was I. “Yeah, the phrase predates the boxing metaphor,” begun by me to him, “…whether or not the half-dead realized that the string tied around their finger was connected to a bell outside their dark coffin of supposed death, I have not read that far yet.”
“Hmm, yes … confirming the death.” This as he thumbed the pages and diagrams of my spring read documenting the history of a specific fear, the hum of an any pub on a Saturday turning into night. This as I laid one of my hands flat on the bar - the older American pulling himself away from the book and placing 2 fingers on my left wrist. In my mind, I can recall reassuring the audience that despite not having my passport on my person, I did indeed continue to be one of God’s living, breathing children. “Beautiful,” he gave me, despite the idea that I have presented this man no job no family no real reason for sitting on a stool in a certain area of Barco. Quite content he was, shooting the shit and maybe kinda helping tell me that I had an approximate pulse of 75-beats-per-Spanish-minute.
He’s wearing shorts, white socks and sandals.
In my world, the colour of fake tin ceiling matched the fading sky. Both very real and above me.
Stay with this that shade of my choosing and take a leap of faith sometimes employed in the relaying of a story some may find hard to believe beyond parable: not that I existed, but that what I had to say was fully true within a point of reference.
That X actually did then stroll through them opened oak doors to my far left was the rest being that there matter of conjecture, funny things said of endings. If I were a bitter man I could be tempted to impart the lessons learned from famous bad final episodes: Cheers teaching us that despite artistic licence, the guy should always end up with the girl.
Within my last night on piece of Barcelona earth, the denim still reached her auburn head to toe, her shirt she had up and gone and changed from dark to the light of white, her underwear ever the nonexistent - the still between the me and You sworn to secrecy. Her God sandwich the sense of remaining on my lips as she approached and called me Hen not Hun, shook hands with the older American I choose this point of time to christen in the name of my father, Thomas. I pronounced her given proper to his handshake and You’ll know some of the rest just as soon enough as I decide on exactly how it was that I was seen: the degree of backlighting and sense of self that be the cinematographer and director having a few beer in a hot tub before the very first call for Action to capture the concerted effort of this life of mine.
When she asked of me the day’s events, when she asked of me what I had been up to, this be the What I gave to that former girl of mine: “Darling, I’ve been sooo busy. You don’t know. Can you mind what I have been through in the hours before? Can you mind?” Her beauty to my assumed accent, side to side tilt of head.
“Hen, you’ve never even been to Sri Lanka.”
“Can you mind me to my own?”
“And this after meeting my kitchen staff one time; where did you keep this gift buried? Huh? Give their mannerisms a rest and just speak normal to me.”
“Sure. Just say that you have brief memories of me apologizing to you late last night.” The older American presented query if we 2 were together in the romantic sense of the word. “Imagine that we be,” to the face of a man with actual name I know and yet withhold despite the slim chance that our intersection of ways will ever be vaguely recognizable to him in the Now. “Imagine that we be past the middle of a something, somewhat near its end.”
This with a smile, this as she grabbed his older left or right hand and looked up at him with the round of hazel I choose to reserve strictly for myself at this moment: “Have you two been talking about stupid stuff?”
“Not so much,” I lied for one of the very few times in my entire life.
“Your boyfriend is seemingly afraid of dying.” All this, with no colour of hair no regional dialect no background story to him sitting in that pub just off the court Plaça Reial, Barcelona; beside me, a Fortuna burning its way towards my index my North American swear finger.
I told my ex-girlfriend that I did not entirely appreciate being ganged up on, and by way of gift from me to You she up and kissed me not four blocks away from where P. Picasso paid girls for everything but the sweet lip on lip, back in the day. She grazed my cheek with fuchsia and the rest be a blur of the smell of a pretty girl rousing me from a sleep on a comfy blue couch, large one-bedroom apartment, the Glebe area of Ottawa, Canada. Taking me to Spain. Experience, and that nose of mine up in a seemingly tin ceiling I may or may not have mentioned; my neck stretched into a very brief yearning for a jean jacket of my own, to match hers and walk the hand in hand down the forever streets of yuppie towns.
“I’ll leave you to two to yourselves.” With grace and wit, nary a further word given by him upon departing Molly’s genuine imitation Irish pub. A few steps of his to our collective right of being. She. Me. Coldplay in our ears. A necessarily Spanish bartender. An ex-pat Brit doing the shaky-shake for various of martini or shooter needed above and beyond the myself opening my mouth and not asking for a real smack on my kisser.
“I have very brief memories of apologizing to you last night.”
“Hen, I have very brief memories of late last night.” That she tasted of vanilla had zip to do with why she up and done lied to me just then and there for no real reason at all.
“I did absolutely nothing today, X.” I experienced the soft steal of exposed nipple on beach blanket, the slit and squeeze of lemon juice down the back of my throat, the lure of knickers hung on the high line. “I jotted down a few bare sonnets for the folks back home - told them that things were all fine, wished they were here to help fill in the spaces not taken up by our love and fun.” That imagination mine. “What’s postage here, for thee umm … international send back across the pond?” That she paused and ultimately did not know the answer was quite alright; I was no longer within the older American, the single malt girl.
“Didn’t you do the Guidí apartments? The tour? Everything is built in these curves.” I shrugged and acknowledged having only been outside on the street, looking up at their funky balconies, Flintstones windows. My previous day.
“Sorry. No, I walked along the beach, partook in siesta. It was all quite beautiful, of course. Have you been? Have you seen?”
“Can you mind?” she gave me. And so yes, I did up and comprehend her put of the Sri Lankan syntax, translation of English say said by a few funny speaking guys in hair nets on her cooking end of Elgin Street back in our Ottawa, Centretown.
“We should go. Together.” Within our last hours in that Barco by the sea. Smoking and a drinking with my love was I; believing we almost back in that together sense. I could lie and say that I wasn’t buying her booze, not trying out my sing along voice despite my hatred for Oasis. This is to say that I am leaving out whispering to the memory of her hair making its way from a pub on Ottawa’s Sparks Street not so far from the historic gunning down of its rebel namesake, D’Arcy McGee: working its Then straightened auburn way down my eventual chest later that initial evening of taking one another for a walk around the proverbial block. That thing called first sniff, sexual touch. “I truly just wanted a hug last night.”
“I have a strong desire to sleep with you again.” The hazel of her eye whilst in Spain I simply refuse to share once the more. Prefer to keep for myself.
“Does this involve a hug at all?” And we joked, as that ago night walking the Laurier Street Bridge, over the boats of Rideau Canal and past Ottawa University, towards her apartment in Sandy Hill of Victorian mansions; from them days on. But this not the downfall, the descriptive before and after denouement that I steep in apologies beyond the precise reason for why I had to begin this conversation with You, someone. “Sorry. I kid, and then we laugh.” Her lips closed and curled upwards, help present me the baby crow’s feet that crept her face into a little something passed along from one performer to another. A true smile. Two actors vacationing in Spain, together and apart. “We’re gone tomorrow, we should go to the beach.”
“No, Hen. We go buy a bottle of some cheap red wine and wander down towards the pier.” That too sounded good enough, I agreed her, and stared the girl that had made it abundantly clear that I should never ever walk off and leave her alone to fume: that she was squat lotus on a tiny side street off Bank and watched as I punched my left fist clear through a picket fence did not entirely solve the matter further than X up and agreeing to live and lie next to me for the next two-and-one-half-years of her life. Before Spain. Before the magic of alcohol walked us out the open oak doors of Molly’s Fair City not holding hands but together in the rather sense of proceeding side by each. Up the middle walk of La Rambla continuing to sound French to my ear, Latin I supposed. Them aforementioned hydraulic pillars rising up from pavement of certain off street holding back tiny cars awaiting. Traffic measures. Stuff within that there city on the planet.
Could she uncork it for us, X motioned with two moving hands, handing the bottle back to a lady no longer concerned with purchasing support bras. There was a black horse on the wine label, that I do indeed remember. There was a long line of tourist tapas to begin that rectangle of deli-slash-restaurant, and it made me feel better that we did indeed manage to speak within bits and pieces of one of the Romance languages that evening. The señora nodded her dark hair and smiled, waved a silver ring on one of her ten fingers to present an ease in view of the ennui associated with the most travelled strip in Spain, these two actors wishing to tip her beyond the usual modest. She handing us a warm stick of also purchased brown bread, accepting of our gracias, hasta la vista. We beginning our continued dance back along the promise of making a way past the clean-shaven trannies plying their La Rambla wares in front of the peep palace, squinting within the flood lights of historic old Christo C. directing a circle of traffic some 200 feet below his birdy turdy pedestal.
To a pause, and the manner with which a guy and girl normally cross a busy street at night together; past a mingling mix of teens hiding in the shadows, and that thing called very first sexual touch. Saturday night. To the concrete pier. To a series of secluded steps down towards that spate of shifting water the colour of night and spell of Mediterranean. “We should feed them; they’re just so little, Hen.” Bits of baguette torn off and tossed for the wee minnows swimming at our feet. Sneakers and Beatle boots removed, wine sipped straight from the very mouth of that there bottle passed back and forth. A gondola silenced somewhere in our above; an overly-lit naval yard way off to our right. The realization of the moon’s gravitational pull on our bigger self. Stuff. “How’d Miguel treat you this morning? Some of the Spanish eye, n’est pas?”
“No. Not at all. We spoke a little en français - his Parisian, my Québecoise. He told me things.” I presented her the outright option of stopping the lies. “No, he smiled his little, grey beard and gave me back my passport, then read me lines from his paperback.” Which was. “I don’t know - it was in Spanish, Hen. But it sounded right.” I told her that was how the fuckers worked in 2 languages - not translating everything, the cool of an unknown. “So what,” she gave me then and there. Feeding our gaggle of tiny fish, continuing what may or may not have been about to occur amongst the sporadic walk-by and peek of couplings two and three associating with the beautiful draw of everywhere Man’s touch borders Nature.
“I joke, and then we do the laugh, together.” Within that aftermath of tannins soaked up, accepted and mostly giggled upon. “Show me your tongue, darlin’. Show me some cheap red.” Ok, she gave unto me, with that sipped liquid from a grape picked off vine working its way through the cockles. With the director of photography having the supreme courtesy of pulling a few strings of the Spanish film guild to turn the object of my imagination into a staggering level of flashback.
“I gotta race like a piss horse,” from a country girl, this woman of my considerable thoughts.
“Damn, girl - go on,” I goaded and proceeded to observe the slow unzip and bend, trickle strip release of her bodily fluids into the beginnings of a sea. “Smile. Say queso.” A photo snapped within this all that be me asking for the simple wrap of left and right arm around the middle round of body. A squeezing, because such an act does exist. A disposable camera handed back to her for my attempt to maybe go pee into a then empty wine bottle: “I care about the environment,” was the voice over I presented to her point and click of a something that was developed and quite possibly copied and hung on the office wall of shame of whichever film lab she employed before receipt and give of doubles to me. In the after Spain. Just before the move, when she put pen to paper and reassured me that It hadn’t all been bad.
“You’re kooky,” she forwarded the film with her left thumb. And this could be as good a spot as any to begin speak of my father, or to light another ciggie with the last and maybe explain You that I experienced an entirely normal upbringing in the semi-burbs of East Ottawa, those parts of cities not of the core but eventually growing references of old and once of the outer edge of town. Before the strip malls, or the moment I leaned over to pucker a kiss for the next picture in line to record the time two people travelled to Spain together, apart. “Hen, I have a strong desire to sleep with you right this now.” Amongst the Big Dipper and a train headed south in the morning, away from the edge of Barco at our toes. I could lie and say that I propositioned right then and there, or always read every review that I can get my hands on before deciding to go see a movie; that I don’t get butter with my popcorn, that I even still walk into certain cinema.
To the truth. To a lifting of my butt up from the concrete despite the sudden couple sitting near to us wanting to watch the scene unfold within shadow. To that maybe moment I moved in for a simple smooch beneath the stars, amongst the Spanish whispered. Within her grabbing my hands, pulling them to each of her breast, nipple without a bra. To my mouth put to the side of her neck, clavicle, suprasternal notch for a taste of salt.
That night that slowed with a nibble and simple bite to lobe dangling pearl Christmas present; a smear across her cheek and want of lip.
There might very well have been words from her; a snicker or two from the interlopers getting their rocks off in the peanut gallery. She may have even called me Hun right then and there, such as the past - when the kiss was allowed and she didn’t extend her long neck and lift her nose to the any sky, feel a necessary shove to snap me out of it. Whatever that be in Spain.
“Let’s get one of them chocolate waffle thingys from that stand up top. Come on.” Her left in my right. A smile from her eyes to lead me up the steps and back into the shine produced by a large city at night, electricity.
Dear Fonzie: I believe that I mentioned something to the effect of myself getting some last night. The details are mine, but the name you already know from back home.
To the truth. To the share of a tourist confection within the watchful eye of Christo C. To the bellies full of cheap vino helping us avoid unease with prolonged contact within iris. To casually conversing in that English of languages we both shared a certain fluency in the ability to create full, long says with proper grammar and audible commas. Pauses. Paying close attention to the falling back on of old ways. Pauses. And the wisking of us safely back across Passeig de Colom, colours painted into our cheeks for the walk into Plaça Reial and a sit down for spot of late night sangria. Some civil chit chat that I’ll leave be, because of my memory being shot and all, not to be trusted with relaying the full withdrawal of romance. My red lips not being on her red lips; and this just the way, every day since February 20 of that Year of Jesus that I didn’t realize at the time.
A birthday and those white orchids I may have mentioned as a gift and an offer to meet me in Spain; a final kiss before It all went south and made Itself known as a capital letter.
“You know I love you.” To this my nod of reception to her, flush with experience and the night sky.
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