Sadly, Las Fallas is over, and X and Henry now be off to the Barcelona of fabled accent and lisp that they had already encountered in Valencia, but to the tune of somewhat different tongue. People from this region - Catalans - proudly consider themselves to be an almost entirely separate entity. Even after research, and being there, it is confusing to a non-native. But, this is why one travels.
As for our couple, soon to be roaming down the various La Rambla - Henry still holding out hope of romance once they are alone together - we shall see if this fridge magnet sticks true.
As for our couple, soon to be roaming down the various La Rambla - Henry still holding out hope of romance once they are alone together - we shall see if this fridge magnet sticks true.
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Chapter 22: Spain. Valencia. Barcelona.
We awoke early, still in the Spain of our mutual decision.
We opened our eyes at approximately the same time.
We placed our feet on the floor in a similar manner and arose to the sounds of the nonexistence of Las Fallas, quietly dressed to the reality of Frances and Duardo readying themselves for jobs amongst the collective morning breath; X opened the bedroom door and we walked out together.
I could note the small talk. Perhaps describe the various of normality that occurred that day, a Wednesday later into that month of March full of travel: we were packed and off to the beauty that be Barcelona and Catalunya and its yet another language and or dialect to comprehend. Wonderful this Spanish place.
The 4 of us in the tiny Toyota car, moving past those maybe martini olives spying by the side of the highway; a dried-up riverbed paralleled our drive back into Valencia, met us when we were there with bridges to cross within and amongst the metropolis. Francesca hugging and double-kissing the two that used to be a secret, a warm but not overly dramatic salutation for we would be back most probably the coming Sunday; she smooched her husband and drove off to work, to translate words and sentences back in Torrent, leaving the three of us standing in front of the castle façade of Estación del Norte. To the left of us be a circular, four-storey building of brown brick - a bull ring in Spain, and the Hemingway that I have never really known.
But backpacks and the crisp euros hidden in foreign pockets or tucked in waist belts along with Canadian passports; to that very busy train station speaking the Spanish of languages. To the fact that no run destined for Barcelona was available until the early evening. To a shiny new web design job in downtown Valencia awaiting Duardo - and the separated two with time on our hands in the vast city, middle morning.
“Let’s go this way,” she said in front of a growing sun and the movement of people not that far from the absolute centre of the now dormant festival referred to as Las Fallas. The wrought iron gates of the corrida that were locked; we peeked through arched entrances but Plaza de Toros was in off-season or something to the effect of only being able to tour the bull fighting museum. “Safe,” she said. And we paid the toll and walked upstairs and pressed our noses against glass displays of tiny outfits of pomp and glitter and struggled with the double descriptions of legend and fact - the words of official Castilian, and its dialect or different of Valenciano that made somewhat sense to the people exposed to French and reading a flash card in a museum designating a national pastime, a context that rushed the years and vegans since an American writer made it famous worldwide.
We made our way and snapped the outdoor pictures that I ponder this Now in my hand: a very few of me in the foreground, some with her smiling and presenting the architecture that I am inept to describe beyond adjectives of convergence and basic material. We made our way together, civil. She suggested and I thumbed my way through the thick Lonely Planet pulled from a shoulder bag; a restaurant mentioned by Frances, a map of the city, and we were off through the maze of streets we did not know. Towards an alley and a gated entrance, and this restaurant closed until early afternoon. To a cerveceria around the corner and a few cervezas in the noontime; to the perk of local ears and their whisper of inglés with the hearing of our tongue spoken.
She was wearing her pañuelo, telling me that we should probably do our own thing once we made it to Barcelona. I could describe the rather average interior of that establishment, the basic diner aspect of it all, but I’d prefer to go with the fear that swam my innards with the closing punctuation of her statement. The end of hope and or finding of romance in this country. But I shall let her speak: “I need to be away, Hen,” as she stroked the left of her eyebrow. “You need to be away.” And I was nodding, not disagreeing. I sipped my quinto and pondered my actual place in the universe of planets and moons and various others just waiting to eventually explode individually. Anon.
We tipped the proper modest and walked with the end of our brief siesta, entered lovely La Utielana and fumbled our way through the Spanish: I believe that I ordered a meat dish, and that she did not. We partook of the inexpensive house red and shared the light afforded by windows, French doors to my left, her right. Cloth napkins and the two of us with our language: “Can you believe that they burned those pretty fallas to the ground?”
“Makes perfect sense to me, mama. It does.” I shoved a piece of bull’s tail in my mouth and chewed the thought of a desert in America accepting gasoline and match to wood for ceremonial purposes of exorcism, an eventual excuse for a naked party.
“I know, I know, but they were so pretty, Hen.”
But that necessary fire. “I can still smell it on me. Here, have a sniff.” I extended my arm and she leaned forward to place her nose to a fine cologne earned on vacation. “Funky, eh?”
“Not bad, but I haven’t shaved in days - fucking cool, no?”
“Not so much,” I added. “I, myself, have managed to keep it quite neat and tidy.” And she knew exactly where I meant; and once in Barcelona … we were to be doing our very own thing.
We left a humble gratuity, took a slight buzz and time left to kill into the streets littered with the bits and pieces of the day after the end of festival; unlit Las Fallas signs arched over our wander throughout the wend of calle and avenido, the similar Bank and Cooper and Elgin Street of my Centretown condensed and aged while our Canadian country was being discovered and conquered by various enemies of Spain some centuries later. I perhaps exaggerate, but tell the truth when saying that I was told that we needed to buy another disposable camera - two actually, as we did. One each, paid for separately and carried back out into the growing heat of the reason as to why the siesta was probably invented; we quickly found, sat down at a sidewalk café, beneath a patio umbrella.
“I’m bagged,” she dragged her voice downhill, offering me a cigarette.
“You’re serious about this separating in Barcelona? You don’t wanna just hang out until?” The gaseosa that had been the mellowing of the red wine meeting my lips, the afternoon that was the travel day.
“Yes, Hen - fuck.” A pair of chicas did strut themselves on by within the placing of her hyphen before curse word. “They’re beautiful, no?” We leaned towards them.
I slow nodded and engulfed this pair of presentation ass inside the designer jeans withstanding swoosh and slap of tiny purse supported and crossed across heart and the revealed breast. “You’ve noticed it, too? What the hell is it: the water, diet?” as I followed a grace making its way up a broad promenade, Valencia proper. “They walk of dancers or friggin’ beautiful bull fighters putting their one tiny toe slowly in front of the other.”
“I think it’s these cigarettes,” as she stared at her Fortunas, “and this fantastic coffee.” I tilted my head that certain way. “The metabolism, Hen - the way we girls stay thin.” She moved her pelvis in accordance with the flashing of me her flat tummy. And so, yes, absolutely wonderful this that manner of vacation and the hiding from the desired sun below an umbrella amongst the words forming the phrases that I wish to remember into some sort of semblance that puts this emerging All into a positive light. “It’s Ok when you look, Hen. They are beautiful women.”
“And Fallas … and then you die, yes no, mama?” I smiled and truly meant to be of the day after that was this city around us coming to grips with having to go to work on this morning that was now an afternoon with the fair X sitting across from me in denim. “I’m tired, too,” was me continuing to move the conversation. “I’m wiped, X.” And hazel eye done met familiar hazel eye on the outdoor of that café in that Valencia-with-a-lisp. Wonderful what the imagination will allow. “So what are you gonna do in Barcelona?”
“I want to do nothing! That’s just it, Hen.” She closed her left fist and placed it down upon our sheltered table. “I want to be in Spain.” She stretched out her arms to the side … and I thought that we already were, supposed that something relatively simple was then keeping her from realizing it herself and stopping her from shouting Oh my god I’m in fucking Spain.
I apologized for a rather late night stroll taken around the suburb known as Torrent.
“Enough with the sorry. Hen, we’re going to Barcelona to have some fun, see a beautiful city … and then whatever - do what you want or go somewhere else once we get there,” said smooth, period. Her.
“Was it the sex? Was it something that I ignored?” The Jesus Years leapt my mouth with no particular regard to the future. “Do you want the big Klimt painting or the funky girl with a veil we bought at the Manx? Your choice.”
“You need to stop smoking - you’re not used to it yet.”
“We can talk to the landlord about the escape clause for the lease; they love us … and I can’t really see it being a problem for us to be out of there by … May.” I sucked and smoked a Fortuna, referred to the wisdom of my pre-Jesus Years: “I wrapped myself up in the belief of this sexy being - my body and what it received, what it needed from you at the time of us.”
“Have I not told you to slow down on the cigarettes? Have I? It’s really different from weed.”
And this is where I didn’t listen. “I’m starting to enjoy their feeling, mama, even when I am not half-cut. I think that I should rather like to continue with this study that I have been set upon in the name of Spain.”
“Hen - you’re a pothead, not a smoker.”
But I shooed her away, “No No: What I have in my hand here is a habit, and quite very different from a way of life of dope.” She shut up for a second. “Was it the dope?” asked of a cigarette smoker.
“Can we talk about normal?”
“Only if I can have another cigarrillo, senorita.” Fair enough, she agreed, and passed and lit beneath an umbrella taming the afternoon sun - so that, yes, we could talk more freely. “I’m sorry,” as I continued looking into her eyes and sprinkling my thoughts with the sounds of a once alive Jimi Hendrix celebrating the essence of the world occasionally within my hand: weed, and what it does. “I have my ciggie - and you … you have the floor. Let us now talk of this thing that you wish to call normal, shall we?”
“Bite me, Henry.” Find me sexy, I said. Just once, added by the me that smiled, sucked, inhaled upon things, stuff, love bajo in nicotine. Speak, I goaded, and placed my clenched fist to her very own mouth full of the fire of one of those Spanish cigarettes; she indeed had the microphone, I mimed to her. “You can still bite me,” the bend and spit of her said say into my fist: heaven for a brief second of my time. I was skid.
“And I wrapped myself up in this silly little belief of you finding me sexy at the time of us. Porqué, senorita?”
“Why didn’t I ravage you more, Henry? - fabulous of you to ask.” A puff quick and a blow hard, and this point where she was angered by something I had said in the openness of a wide-awake siesta. “Stop speaking about it and everything involved with it. I’m in Spain - remember? I wish to be in Spain, and walk around in Spain, and not have to deal with anything other than being in Spain.” Sounds reasonable, I gave her.
She nodded for a pair of espressos and I continued to learn to love the deep of a pure coffee. We sipped and she made use of the dead air that was the two of us in a foreign country together, alone but for the fact that we were seated across from one another on a regular old Wednesday without a single festival to go to. “Do you honestly think that I do not have the urge to jump you once in awhile?” Did, I corrected her. “No no, Hen, I am in this - the present.” She was the non-plunging neckline across my way, the simply smart girl I had brought with me from Ottawa to help me view the skintight pre-faded jeans exposing the camel toe of every second Spanish chica walking on by café in Valencia. Wonderful. “Hun, I almost want to be lying on our big, blue couch and talking about all that has happened this last little bit of this trip of me and you. I really really want to stop checking out these beautiful, thin women - but none of this will happen anytime soon.”
“Just as you’ll stop calling me Hun,” as I lowered my eyes, felt the straight smile that surely came my way, heard her give the promise to oblige: I truly possessed the power to kill a conversation anywhere in the goddamn world. “I’m sorry.” The two words that left my mouth somewhat over and over within Spain and its culture and language and my Canadian quality. “I’m sorry,” I leaned and whispered to the eyes across from me that afternoon I conjure and try very hard not to lie about to You in the now. “I’m working at separating the two of us.”
“That’s fine, Hen. It’s Ok; it’s Ok,” and the thing that she did does with her hand, the flick of disregard that be my lone walk through the Centretown that I speak from presently.
“We’ll figure everything out when we get back, yes no?” We nodded and I supposed upon a star, quite possibly wished as we paused together in the Valencia of my weak memory. There was a polite ask for la cuenta, the tip of the appropriate value before making a way back towards the train station that I could remember in skies and storefronts but would rather envisage to You the manner of her runway walk: she deserves a proper sendoff for the stroll making a way up the leg from the point of her Beatle boots kicking aside bits of paper and the plastic cups lining Colón towards Plaza de Toros and a trip north to Barcelona.
I watched this way of hers and mine to the coin-operated storage locker spelled in Spanish, to our Mountain Equipment Co-Op knapsacks retrieved. To the American kids slumming it between college courses, their speak of going off to Barco, spewing of the giant fire that was the night before, all of us the day after Fallas. To the mere outdoor shelter of a long overhead arch of beams and glass, locomotives waiting below - there is no winter here, I reminded myself.
I once rode an exterior escalator in the suburb of Los Angeles known as Anaheim; it was with this guy referred to as Bambino, shopping for a futon at an IKEA. Sorry.
X turned to me and tongued something very dramatic; she went away from the young Americans and extolled the meaning of some part of life: she walked up to a man within the Jesus Years waiting for a train and told him, “They’re not all bad, Hen - just kids,” and she then reached and lit a cigarette bajo in nicotine.
A twist of wind flew down the tracks and lifted her auburn hair ever so.
“Just skids,” I had way of say. “Take the mean of the parental income of any philosophy student and … and well.”
“And shut up, Hen. They’re kids smoking the same stuff as you.”
“Give me a cigarette.” Always helpful she stared me. “Can we smoke on this fucking train, X?” I had that new need of mine going. “Can I at least steal a ciggie off ya, mama?” She reached and placed exactly two Fortunas into the discrete of the red flannel upon myself in the warmth of a Spain - somewhat smiled for real, and I remain of an effort not to ever lie again. “Muchos gracias,” I grinned into an event taking place in that relative past of me and her handing off our boarding passes and climbing onto the Euromed for the three hour zip north to the Barcelona of praise and separation. Gaudí.
I do remember the seats being most cushy.
And I had wanted to sleep, but could not take my eyes off the graffiti-smeared walls that were the suburbs passing on by; blocks and blocks of concrete apartment buildings rising up and destroying the postcards I had yet to send back home.
The coast eventually working its way visible to our right, somewhere around the dormant beaches of Tarragona and the setting of the sun back within the central, the western Spain.
Her hand rubbing the left of eyebrows: me with the window seat beside the edge of the country; she with the gradual doze that leaned her on my shoulder, slumped her slowly down to my hip and the glossy brochure I believed to be extolling the wonders of travel in Spain. I practised the translations until I grew tired of, alternated looks out towards the Mediterranean with thoughts around the train car that was my ex in my lap, snorting and smoothing the above her particular eye.
I do remember being newly apprehensive about the actual want for a cigarette - that already urge an hour since leaving Valencia; but the pause, the almost brush of her auburn with my hand - a cooing that left my mouth on a relatively empty car then devoid of natural light.
X slept and I eased her away in those increments of mine, placed the right side of her face down onto the seat. Brought her left hand down to side so that I may turn and be quiet up the aisle towards the sliding door separating us from the smell of fabled smoking coach - two ciggies still resting comfortably in the pocket of my flannel and in absolute need of fire: “Perdoneme … mechero?” and the tilt forward, flick motion of my right hand that was a cigarette low in nicotine dangling from my mouth; the very kind mystery lady of age who surmised and borrowed me her lighter, received return and watched me scurry off to the corner of an open car with my necessary fix. Blow smoke at the window.
Pero: Spanish for weed - still in my thoughts, with me in the manner of the packaged munchies for sale on that set aside coach performing its purpose of satisfying cravings.
A final puff before my leave. “They have potato chips in Spain - cool, n’est pas?”
X took one and crunched away, still half-asleep in the foreground of the Mediterranean whizzing on by behind her. “Why wouldn’t they? They have potatoes, don’t they?”
“Yeah, I know. I just thought that they were above the entire chip phenomenon somehow.” She straight-smiled me with the non-flattened side of her face, chewed and grabbed a handful of the something entirely obvious to her. “Yeah, I know,” I repeated.
It is this past, approximately 9-in-the-evening, as the lights of Barcelona come upon us. The idea was to head towards avenue La Rambla and the centre of town; I say this now for there really was no plan, just stuffed knapsacks and the two of us riding an escalator up into the clean concourse of a train station with people speaking that Spanish of languages. The wander of our search for an exit, the discerning of a transit map in a foreign city, the usual that might perhaps seem prosaic or boring if not an actuality in two people’s differing of memory: the small necessities that are avoided in the recalling of any romance and or tragedy; the bus that was waited for then finally deemed never to come - her sigh of relief - and the broken Spanish that I spoke to a taxi driver. The ten to fifteen minutes later that was the two of us climbing out near the open park of Plaça de Catalunya, the cabbie accepting our modest tip and pointing with his chin, the saying of his ‘Rambla’ leading us into the night of modern expression along a former protective wall that was within the complicated city of old, a something long since torn down and walked upon by tourist and native alike, by two people moving together but separate.
That upper strip of La Rambla, its knotted trees of tan presented to the two that were tired and trained for the neon or flag of an any hostel or pensión. Wonderful that stroll amongst the flood lights, a sign announcing the Museum of Sex, a median wide with stone and the passing of traffic to its left and right; mine hand almost grazing hers. We walked and jiggled locks, rang door buzzers with no return voice on a Wednesday late into an evening in Barcelona, the gradual Barri Gòtic to be actually specific. I leave out bits and something more of the history of this famous Walk, omit to conjure up the opera house - the Liceu - that was blown up by a fanatic and recently restored and seen by the two of us when we gazed to our right and saw a grand edifice of lime set back from the street; this All, amongst unveil of backdrop that be the prick Franco and the people of Catalunya fighting the provincial quest in the streets - this long stretch that be its eventual end at the birdy turdy-encrusted Columbus monument, a then down into the wet of the Mediterranean.
And I should really just let X speak while that lovely smoke-laced pañuelo still grace her head: “I don’t care at this point - anywhere anywhere, Hen. That one looks pretty, that one there.” Her finger to the buzzer … subsequent the lack of answer, our continuation down wondrous thoroughfare that felt of what Paris would be to the Me that had never really been there. Missed out on that pretty Tower built by Eiffel.
“Pensión,” I voiced out loud with my left index finger; an answer to a pressing of a ringer and an ¡Hola! screamed from the two that were together but separate. To the power click of a security door, and that simple it be; to the climb of a switchback staircase derived of granite or something perhaps quite similar. “Do we know the difference between a pensión and a hostel?”
“Do I need to?” Fair enough, I gave her, and followed her hand up the deep brown of a rail made of a certain type of wood. A door that was ajar, and the Spanish chap that be the ubiquitous old man of the five-foot-four-and-three-quarter stature holding the keys to the flow of a vacation in English and partially translated varieties of the Spanish language: inevitable verbs introducing a noun to an entire sentence full of present and past composition and the rest of the subconscious that be what Mother lean over and say with a giggle and a pinch and a teaspoon of pabulum zooming plane to land the runway of infant tongue.
“I think he wants see our passports,” she done said. Why, I asked. “¿Pour que?” she queried an elderly gentleman adorned in white wifebeater, no stains to be seen upon: he tried, we tried, and both sentences ended with a Si solving nothing but a smile; we motioned, and he used those hands of his and accepted the shake of mine and the look of her - euros up front and if we chose to leave for a pint or a nibble he would be so kind as to hang on to those passports for us, retrieve upon our return. This be what I slightly believe to have happened at moment within that late Wednesday in Barcelona - after Fallas and the death that was promised to me on more than one occasion by one Eduardo Ruiz Colon. Our grin when his key opened the one-bedroom, private toilet replete with shower: something akin to 45 euros per night, split two ways. Wonderful, I said out loud in English. Gracias, with a lisp when taking the key from said older gentleman. The smiles 3 and the click of door on his soft way out.
X and I towards our one window view to the outside, tall with open shutters; La Rambla and its median of trees the few European stories below us, the straight strip running noise to the above that was the two us peeking together into a new city, cosmo of quality. Taking turns, if I try hard not to lie too much to You within that late that was still early in Spain, if not Centretown some six western hours waiting to happen.
“Hey hey - just one little measly bed, X.” She of the requisite cooties fear, me with the bend and lift and, “Always check beneath the mattress. Always.” And the familiar find of a Polaroid with my index, middle, and thumb combined. “Beautiful. Beautiful. Look at these fine, upstanding citizens.” The absolute wonder of a couple of young girls travelling to Spain and having a few too many drinks away from home and indulging the art of instant photography that be the Eventual within my left hand that dying night in Barcelona.
“Is that a nipple?” Yes, I gave her, and did believe upon that partially exposed shade of red. “They laid back on the bed, took this picture … and then chucked it underneath the mattress?” Simple, I thought. Why not, asked of her.
“I’m gonna use the washroom, Hen.” Me next, spoken to her on other side of that closed door, somewhere around 11:30-in-that-P.M. Silence. Silence. “Hen?” Yes, I done said. “Say something, Hen.” Such as, I wondered. “Hen, say or do anything.” She wished of me to present background noise of an any kind so as to create comfort for the bladder, more precisely her brain and the body’s manner of producing effect. And so simple the way I began to talk out loud to myself; easy the mumbled out sentence of two plus two that amounted to me pacing the approximate size of my future bachelor apartment in the part of Ottawa referred to as Centretown by me and others in the know.
My view of La Rambla that was me tired and yet willing to go.
To my ex-girlfriend securing the top button of her Levi’s and ever so briefly deeming me smile and possibility of future. To the two of us agreeing to step down those wide stairs. “I should rather like to explore this part of town,” I smiled.
“Why must you continue to speak that British of yours?”
“Whatever do you mean?” I called her Hun and allowed her to push open the heavy street level door that was the two of us first leaving our passports to the security of a pensión not hostel and an old man adorned in the splendour of a wifebeater.
To the strut that was the two that were not together. To the two that were at the near of midnight on a certain Wednesday. Towards a two-storey McDonald’s within restored limestone. To the inevitable that was the turn to the left off La Rambla and the walk beneath an arch into the open-air court that be Plaça Reial and the two of us not ever holding hands in front of the various of palm trees and ornate lamps lighting a European square stared upon by grand balconies with no hope of affordable rental by soon to be Centretown me: a circular fountain in the middle and the dope that was whispered around its pool, songs that were sung to American knapsacks, British bandannas. The buskers out, the tourists plied, the outdoor cafés serviced by senior gentlemen of proper attire: it was quite pleasant and dare say almost romantic amongst the feeling of the two of us being away and in the city of Barcelona.
“Sangria?” she said, and I agreed to go beneath an unnecessary umbrella at that sniff of midnight listening to our por favor allow us to slowly sip the mixing of wine and juice, stuff. Sorry - the recipes do vary.
The square. A series of balloons that were blown and stretched beyond capacity, the Spanish of his acoustic guitar his language mixed with the commodity that was broken English or German handed out to the slightly intoxicated. “Gitano,” I proffered of the darker complexion, a lilt that was the velvet-striped fedora and voice singing towards us. Gypsy, she nodded, to the fact of the two of us pretending to know the difference or aspects involved. Wonderful the eventual red that made our lips at ease with natural voice leaving our lungs in front of the next act to flip his hat upside down beneath our nose: the man, his cute little monkey, the over the rail alms of euros that silenced our guilt of being yet another foreigner in the heart of a tourist city.
These words of hers: “The monkey’s Spanish is probably better than mine.” In the eyes, in the ears, in the face, in the gesticulations, in the prestidigitation of an old man travelling from town to town with an animal on a leash and a smile. “His Spanish would be different. He knows gypsy Spanish, and stuff.” Maybe card tricks, I added. “Exactly,” she nodded of sangria in an elegant vase floating slices of marinating orange, lime. “He must have been at Fallas, in Valencia.” This seemed entirely all possible, reasonable to the me checking out three American girls and their similar English to ours, a string of words with an accent discernible to a Canadian living close enough by.
And this: “You guys are speaking English,” a tiny halter-top did say our way, two tables from. I nodded and X turned around to greet the collection of them three eyeing us. “Thank god you’re speaking English. No one speaks English here - no one … except us, and those guys over at the fountain. My god, it so good to actually speak to someone in English.” I shall leave out the significance of her breasts and the young of her hair and skip straight to the friends stirring their shared vase of sangria as the emptying patio was realized and moved towards the two of us that were together and separate in front of the necessary introductions; the inevitable exchanging of countries. The hi’s and the hellos of three students staying at the Kabul Hostel just across the square, other side of said fountain.
“They have no curfew, thankfully,” girl number two going by the for real name of Amber did explain of their raunchy digs of bunk beds and custodians speaking only that Spanish of languages. They had been clubbing for a few days in Madrid and I suspect that they never did grasp the age of myself or the girl they assumed was my sweetheart. But we spoke that night of Home as a whole, through the motion of waiters closing the pretty umbrellas one by one, approaching our formed group with an avoidance of the eye: the girls’ quest for more sangria meeting with a firm No from the elderly gentleman working for no tips, an answer producing the North American middle finger return from the hand of girl number 3 with the tremendous tints to shade of hair.
A thought walked away from and tucked into the side pocket of experience by some guy and his whatever wage within the core of Barcelona prone to running into non-locals.
“So, anyways, what are you girls doing tonight?” I make this part up, for after it was determined that they were from the New Jersey on the outskirts of New York City the conversation took on the inevitable spin of two rather large towers coming down with a loud bang; girl number 1, the Lindsey I seem to recall, blabbed ad nauseam until her friends smacked her and reminded her that they were in Spain to have fun away from college, books, thought.
And as always, to never ever discuss politics in the presence of strangers or alcoholic beverages be the absolute thing to kinda do: girl number Three went by the name of Alexis to us; she was pretty, as the rest were, as X was beneath one of the remaining umbrellas still spreading its wings beyond the last call of a Plaça Reial patio, tourist central, Barcelona. And with that time of night and tale of Spain I make reference to, came the rise to leave for whatever club made sense to them and their eyes that were connected to their exposed breasts and leading down to the young round of their derrières that pushed collective cleft up from plastic chair and promised themselves the remainder of a moment that involved brief eye contact from girl number 1 and the person thinking that Then to You in the Now. I discerned my desire, including the all that was an ex-girlfriend and the patois that be a break from college without a care in the world. So yes, the good-bye waves from around the centre fountain; the slight pause amongst the smell of hash, the wink by the me of us that had a history of indulging its pleasures.
The shake of my No to the dreadlocked dealer, and the eventual stagger that was X and me tired and headed toward our one night in a pensión.
She supposed that they were all quite beautiful - and this be my invention of thought, really.
We moved beneath that arch that was more the joining of two buildings rimming the square; chose the right of step that was the return up La Rambla. A pause spent beside a side street with triad of pop-up deterrents made of concrete and hydraulically raised from the cobblestone by cue from traffic light or gizmo that I shall never know - but I, we, saw it one night, that night, walking home together our first time in Barco, because I never ever make stuff up anymore. And true, period.
“Hen, this key won’t open the damn door.” Jiggle it, I done said. But no. But the buzzer utilized and more of the simple listen up to a speaker for an old man wearing no sleeves and in possession of the power for a click involved with opening the door towards granite and an unnamed type of wood guiding folks safely to the bachelors, one-rooms of a pensión in the merry wealth of Spain, month of March; X retrieving our passports.
The door to our room locked behind as I begin to think You some of the rest: “Come to the window,” she did say of those shutters that were still open and doing hello above the proper spelling of a long stretch of talk within the downtown of Barcelona.
I stood beside her, leaning ever so romantically with that little something extra special that involved me and my ass wiggling about. “What of it, girl?” It was the view, she referred to at the time: just have a look with me again, she added. “Whatever,” I said. Across from us a hostel with all its second-floor windows yanked to Open, T-shirts and cutoff army pants hung to dry on faux balconies. It was now a Thursday, 2-something-in-that-A.M., and cliques of people wandered down the wide of median, past kiosks of newspapers, maps, and shrink-wrapped porn. We shared a final puff of cigarette and just watched a below the two of us alone together in Barcelona “I won’t be able to sleep in that bed beside you.” She turned towards me. “I won’t - you know that.” A straight smile before her manner back down to street level.
“Hey - call LuLu, Hen.” It wasn’t really her problem. And so why avoid the inevitable, me thought: I marched myself off to the bathroom and closed the door, bent down and peered back out the old-time keyhole at the pretty girl leaned out a high window; I sighed and dropped my pants to the floor, closed my eyes and began to picture girl number one, Lindsay, pulling down her halter-top to reveal a tattoo of an American flag just above her left nipple. Don’t speak, I seem to remember telling the girl in my head.
We awoke early, still in the Spain of our mutual decision.
We opened our eyes at approximately the same time.
We placed our feet on the floor in a similar manner and arose to the sounds of the nonexistence of Las Fallas, quietly dressed to the reality of Frances and Duardo readying themselves for jobs amongst the collective morning breath; X opened the bedroom door and we walked out together.
I could note the small talk. Perhaps describe the various of normality that occurred that day, a Wednesday later into that month of March full of travel: we were packed and off to the beauty that be Barcelona and Catalunya and its yet another language and or dialect to comprehend. Wonderful this Spanish place.
The 4 of us in the tiny Toyota car, moving past those maybe martini olives spying by the side of the highway; a dried-up riverbed paralleled our drive back into Valencia, met us when we were there with bridges to cross within and amongst the metropolis. Francesca hugging and double-kissing the two that used to be a secret, a warm but not overly dramatic salutation for we would be back most probably the coming Sunday; she smooched her husband and drove off to work, to translate words and sentences back in Torrent, leaving the three of us standing in front of the castle façade of Estación del Norte. To the left of us be a circular, four-storey building of brown brick - a bull ring in Spain, and the Hemingway that I have never really known.
But backpacks and the crisp euros hidden in foreign pockets or tucked in waist belts along with Canadian passports; to that very busy train station speaking the Spanish of languages. To the fact that no run destined for Barcelona was available until the early evening. To a shiny new web design job in downtown Valencia awaiting Duardo - and the separated two with time on our hands in the vast city, middle morning.
“Let’s go this way,” she said in front of a growing sun and the movement of people not that far from the absolute centre of the now dormant festival referred to as Las Fallas. The wrought iron gates of the corrida that were locked; we peeked through arched entrances but Plaza de Toros was in off-season or something to the effect of only being able to tour the bull fighting museum. “Safe,” she said. And we paid the toll and walked upstairs and pressed our noses against glass displays of tiny outfits of pomp and glitter and struggled with the double descriptions of legend and fact - the words of official Castilian, and its dialect or different of Valenciano that made somewhat sense to the people exposed to French and reading a flash card in a museum designating a national pastime, a context that rushed the years and vegans since an American writer made it famous worldwide.
We made our way and snapped the outdoor pictures that I ponder this Now in my hand: a very few of me in the foreground, some with her smiling and presenting the architecture that I am inept to describe beyond adjectives of convergence and basic material. We made our way together, civil. She suggested and I thumbed my way through the thick Lonely Planet pulled from a shoulder bag; a restaurant mentioned by Frances, a map of the city, and we were off through the maze of streets we did not know. Towards an alley and a gated entrance, and this restaurant closed until early afternoon. To a cerveceria around the corner and a few cervezas in the noontime; to the perk of local ears and their whisper of inglés with the hearing of our tongue spoken.
She was wearing her pañuelo, telling me that we should probably do our own thing once we made it to Barcelona. I could describe the rather average interior of that establishment, the basic diner aspect of it all, but I’d prefer to go with the fear that swam my innards with the closing punctuation of her statement. The end of hope and or finding of romance in this country. But I shall let her speak: “I need to be away, Hen,” as she stroked the left of her eyebrow. “You need to be away.” And I was nodding, not disagreeing. I sipped my quinto and pondered my actual place in the universe of planets and moons and various others just waiting to eventually explode individually. Anon.
We tipped the proper modest and walked with the end of our brief siesta, entered lovely La Utielana and fumbled our way through the Spanish: I believe that I ordered a meat dish, and that she did not. We partook of the inexpensive house red and shared the light afforded by windows, French doors to my left, her right. Cloth napkins and the two of us with our language: “Can you believe that they burned those pretty fallas to the ground?”
“Makes perfect sense to me, mama. It does.” I shoved a piece of bull’s tail in my mouth and chewed the thought of a desert in America accepting gasoline and match to wood for ceremonial purposes of exorcism, an eventual excuse for a naked party.
“I know, I know, but they were so pretty, Hen.”
But that necessary fire. “I can still smell it on me. Here, have a sniff.” I extended my arm and she leaned forward to place her nose to a fine cologne earned on vacation. “Funky, eh?”
“Not bad, but I haven’t shaved in days - fucking cool, no?”
“Not so much,” I added. “I, myself, have managed to keep it quite neat and tidy.” And she knew exactly where I meant; and once in Barcelona … we were to be doing our very own thing.
We left a humble gratuity, took a slight buzz and time left to kill into the streets littered with the bits and pieces of the day after the end of festival; unlit Las Fallas signs arched over our wander throughout the wend of calle and avenido, the similar Bank and Cooper and Elgin Street of my Centretown condensed and aged while our Canadian country was being discovered and conquered by various enemies of Spain some centuries later. I perhaps exaggerate, but tell the truth when saying that I was told that we needed to buy another disposable camera - two actually, as we did. One each, paid for separately and carried back out into the growing heat of the reason as to why the siesta was probably invented; we quickly found, sat down at a sidewalk café, beneath a patio umbrella.
“I’m bagged,” she dragged her voice downhill, offering me a cigarette.
“You’re serious about this separating in Barcelona? You don’t wanna just hang out until?” The gaseosa that had been the mellowing of the red wine meeting my lips, the afternoon that was the travel day.
“Yes, Hen - fuck.” A pair of chicas did strut themselves on by within the placing of her hyphen before curse word. “They’re beautiful, no?” We leaned towards them.
I slow nodded and engulfed this pair of presentation ass inside the designer jeans withstanding swoosh and slap of tiny purse supported and crossed across heart and the revealed breast. “You’ve noticed it, too? What the hell is it: the water, diet?” as I followed a grace making its way up a broad promenade, Valencia proper. “They walk of dancers or friggin’ beautiful bull fighters putting their one tiny toe slowly in front of the other.”
“I think it’s these cigarettes,” as she stared at her Fortunas, “and this fantastic coffee.” I tilted my head that certain way. “The metabolism, Hen - the way we girls stay thin.” She moved her pelvis in accordance with the flashing of me her flat tummy. And so, yes, absolutely wonderful this that manner of vacation and the hiding from the desired sun below an umbrella amongst the words forming the phrases that I wish to remember into some sort of semblance that puts this emerging All into a positive light. “It’s Ok when you look, Hen. They are beautiful women.”
“And Fallas … and then you die, yes no, mama?” I smiled and truly meant to be of the day after that was this city around us coming to grips with having to go to work on this morning that was now an afternoon with the fair X sitting across from me in denim. “I’m tired, too,” was me continuing to move the conversation. “I’m wiped, X.” And hazel eye done met familiar hazel eye on the outdoor of that café in that Valencia-with-a-lisp. Wonderful what the imagination will allow. “So what are you gonna do in Barcelona?”
“I want to do nothing! That’s just it, Hen.” She closed her left fist and placed it down upon our sheltered table. “I want to be in Spain.” She stretched out her arms to the side … and I thought that we already were, supposed that something relatively simple was then keeping her from realizing it herself and stopping her from shouting Oh my god I’m in fucking Spain.
I apologized for a rather late night stroll taken around the suburb known as Torrent.
“Enough with the sorry. Hen, we’re going to Barcelona to have some fun, see a beautiful city … and then whatever - do what you want or go somewhere else once we get there,” said smooth, period. Her.
“Was it the sex? Was it something that I ignored?” The Jesus Years leapt my mouth with no particular regard to the future. “Do you want the big Klimt painting or the funky girl with a veil we bought at the Manx? Your choice.”
“You need to stop smoking - you’re not used to it yet.”
“We can talk to the landlord about the escape clause for the lease; they love us … and I can’t really see it being a problem for us to be out of there by … May.” I sucked and smoked a Fortuna, referred to the wisdom of my pre-Jesus Years: “I wrapped myself up in the belief of this sexy being - my body and what it received, what it needed from you at the time of us.”
“Have I not told you to slow down on the cigarettes? Have I? It’s really different from weed.”
And this is where I didn’t listen. “I’m starting to enjoy their feeling, mama, even when I am not half-cut. I think that I should rather like to continue with this study that I have been set upon in the name of Spain.”
“Hen - you’re a pothead, not a smoker.”
But I shooed her away, “No No: What I have in my hand here is a habit, and quite very different from a way of life of dope.” She shut up for a second. “Was it the dope?” asked of a cigarette smoker.
“Can we talk about normal?”
“Only if I can have another cigarrillo, senorita.” Fair enough, she agreed, and passed and lit beneath an umbrella taming the afternoon sun - so that, yes, we could talk more freely. “I’m sorry,” as I continued looking into her eyes and sprinkling my thoughts with the sounds of a once alive Jimi Hendrix celebrating the essence of the world occasionally within my hand: weed, and what it does. “I have my ciggie - and you … you have the floor. Let us now talk of this thing that you wish to call normal, shall we?”
“Bite me, Henry.” Find me sexy, I said. Just once, added by the me that smiled, sucked, inhaled upon things, stuff, love bajo in nicotine. Speak, I goaded, and placed my clenched fist to her very own mouth full of the fire of one of those Spanish cigarettes; she indeed had the microphone, I mimed to her. “You can still bite me,” the bend and spit of her said say into my fist: heaven for a brief second of my time. I was skid.
“And I wrapped myself up in this silly little belief of you finding me sexy at the time of us. Porqué, senorita?”
“Why didn’t I ravage you more, Henry? - fabulous of you to ask.” A puff quick and a blow hard, and this point where she was angered by something I had said in the openness of a wide-awake siesta. “Stop speaking about it and everything involved with it. I’m in Spain - remember? I wish to be in Spain, and walk around in Spain, and not have to deal with anything other than being in Spain.” Sounds reasonable, I gave her.
She nodded for a pair of espressos and I continued to learn to love the deep of a pure coffee. We sipped and she made use of the dead air that was the two of us in a foreign country together, alone but for the fact that we were seated across from one another on a regular old Wednesday without a single festival to go to. “Do you honestly think that I do not have the urge to jump you once in awhile?” Did, I corrected her. “No no, Hen, I am in this - the present.” She was the non-plunging neckline across my way, the simply smart girl I had brought with me from Ottawa to help me view the skintight pre-faded jeans exposing the camel toe of every second Spanish chica walking on by café in Valencia. Wonderful. “Hun, I almost want to be lying on our big, blue couch and talking about all that has happened this last little bit of this trip of me and you. I really really want to stop checking out these beautiful, thin women - but none of this will happen anytime soon.”
“Just as you’ll stop calling me Hun,” as I lowered my eyes, felt the straight smile that surely came my way, heard her give the promise to oblige: I truly possessed the power to kill a conversation anywhere in the goddamn world. “I’m sorry.” The two words that left my mouth somewhat over and over within Spain and its culture and language and my Canadian quality. “I’m sorry,” I leaned and whispered to the eyes across from me that afternoon I conjure and try very hard not to lie about to You in the now. “I’m working at separating the two of us.”
“That’s fine, Hen. It’s Ok; it’s Ok,” and the thing that she did does with her hand, the flick of disregard that be my lone walk through the Centretown that I speak from presently.
“We’ll figure everything out when we get back, yes no?” We nodded and I supposed upon a star, quite possibly wished as we paused together in the Valencia of my weak memory. There was a polite ask for la cuenta, the tip of the appropriate value before making a way back towards the train station that I could remember in skies and storefronts but would rather envisage to You the manner of her runway walk: she deserves a proper sendoff for the stroll making a way up the leg from the point of her Beatle boots kicking aside bits of paper and the plastic cups lining Colón towards Plaza de Toros and a trip north to Barcelona.
I watched this way of hers and mine to the coin-operated storage locker spelled in Spanish, to our Mountain Equipment Co-Op knapsacks retrieved. To the American kids slumming it between college courses, their speak of going off to Barco, spewing of the giant fire that was the night before, all of us the day after Fallas. To the mere outdoor shelter of a long overhead arch of beams and glass, locomotives waiting below - there is no winter here, I reminded myself.
I once rode an exterior escalator in the suburb of Los Angeles known as Anaheim; it was with this guy referred to as Bambino, shopping for a futon at an IKEA. Sorry.
X turned to me and tongued something very dramatic; she went away from the young Americans and extolled the meaning of some part of life: she walked up to a man within the Jesus Years waiting for a train and told him, “They’re not all bad, Hen - just kids,” and she then reached and lit a cigarette bajo in nicotine.
A twist of wind flew down the tracks and lifted her auburn hair ever so.
“Just skids,” I had way of say. “Take the mean of the parental income of any philosophy student and … and well.”
“And shut up, Hen. They’re kids smoking the same stuff as you.”
“Give me a cigarette.” Always helpful she stared me. “Can we smoke on this fucking train, X?” I had that new need of mine going. “Can I at least steal a ciggie off ya, mama?” She reached and placed exactly two Fortunas into the discrete of the red flannel upon myself in the warmth of a Spain - somewhat smiled for real, and I remain of an effort not to ever lie again. “Muchos gracias,” I grinned into an event taking place in that relative past of me and her handing off our boarding passes and climbing onto the Euromed for the three hour zip north to the Barcelona of praise and separation. Gaudí.
I do remember the seats being most cushy.
And I had wanted to sleep, but could not take my eyes off the graffiti-smeared walls that were the suburbs passing on by; blocks and blocks of concrete apartment buildings rising up and destroying the postcards I had yet to send back home.
The coast eventually working its way visible to our right, somewhere around the dormant beaches of Tarragona and the setting of the sun back within the central, the western Spain.
Her hand rubbing the left of eyebrows: me with the window seat beside the edge of the country; she with the gradual doze that leaned her on my shoulder, slumped her slowly down to my hip and the glossy brochure I believed to be extolling the wonders of travel in Spain. I practised the translations until I grew tired of, alternated looks out towards the Mediterranean with thoughts around the train car that was my ex in my lap, snorting and smoothing the above her particular eye.
I do remember being newly apprehensive about the actual want for a cigarette - that already urge an hour since leaving Valencia; but the pause, the almost brush of her auburn with my hand - a cooing that left my mouth on a relatively empty car then devoid of natural light.
X slept and I eased her away in those increments of mine, placed the right side of her face down onto the seat. Brought her left hand down to side so that I may turn and be quiet up the aisle towards the sliding door separating us from the smell of fabled smoking coach - two ciggies still resting comfortably in the pocket of my flannel and in absolute need of fire: “Perdoneme … mechero?” and the tilt forward, flick motion of my right hand that was a cigarette low in nicotine dangling from my mouth; the very kind mystery lady of age who surmised and borrowed me her lighter, received return and watched me scurry off to the corner of an open car with my necessary fix. Blow smoke at the window.
Pero: Spanish for weed - still in my thoughts, with me in the manner of the packaged munchies for sale on that set aside coach performing its purpose of satisfying cravings.
A final puff before my leave. “They have potato chips in Spain - cool, n’est pas?”
X took one and crunched away, still half-asleep in the foreground of the Mediterranean whizzing on by behind her. “Why wouldn’t they? They have potatoes, don’t they?”
“Yeah, I know. I just thought that they were above the entire chip phenomenon somehow.” She straight-smiled me with the non-flattened side of her face, chewed and grabbed a handful of the something entirely obvious to her. “Yeah, I know,” I repeated.
It is this past, approximately 9-in-the-evening, as the lights of Barcelona come upon us. The idea was to head towards avenue La Rambla and the centre of town; I say this now for there really was no plan, just stuffed knapsacks and the two of us riding an escalator up into the clean concourse of a train station with people speaking that Spanish of languages. The wander of our search for an exit, the discerning of a transit map in a foreign city, the usual that might perhaps seem prosaic or boring if not an actuality in two people’s differing of memory: the small necessities that are avoided in the recalling of any romance and or tragedy; the bus that was waited for then finally deemed never to come - her sigh of relief - and the broken Spanish that I spoke to a taxi driver. The ten to fifteen minutes later that was the two of us climbing out near the open park of Plaça de Catalunya, the cabbie accepting our modest tip and pointing with his chin, the saying of his ‘Rambla’ leading us into the night of modern expression along a former protective wall that was within the complicated city of old, a something long since torn down and walked upon by tourist and native alike, by two people moving together but separate.
That upper strip of La Rambla, its knotted trees of tan presented to the two that were tired and trained for the neon or flag of an any hostel or pensión. Wonderful that stroll amongst the flood lights, a sign announcing the Museum of Sex, a median wide with stone and the passing of traffic to its left and right; mine hand almost grazing hers. We walked and jiggled locks, rang door buzzers with no return voice on a Wednesday late into an evening in Barcelona, the gradual Barri Gòtic to be actually specific. I leave out bits and something more of the history of this famous Walk, omit to conjure up the opera house - the Liceu - that was blown up by a fanatic and recently restored and seen by the two of us when we gazed to our right and saw a grand edifice of lime set back from the street; this All, amongst unveil of backdrop that be the prick Franco and the people of Catalunya fighting the provincial quest in the streets - this long stretch that be its eventual end at the birdy turdy-encrusted Columbus monument, a then down into the wet of the Mediterranean.
And I should really just let X speak while that lovely smoke-laced pañuelo still grace her head: “I don’t care at this point - anywhere anywhere, Hen. That one looks pretty, that one there.” Her finger to the buzzer … subsequent the lack of answer, our continuation down wondrous thoroughfare that felt of what Paris would be to the Me that had never really been there. Missed out on that pretty Tower built by Eiffel.
“Pensión,” I voiced out loud with my left index finger; an answer to a pressing of a ringer and an ¡Hola! screamed from the two that were together but separate. To the power click of a security door, and that simple it be; to the climb of a switchback staircase derived of granite or something perhaps quite similar. “Do we know the difference between a pensión and a hostel?”
“Do I need to?” Fair enough, I gave her, and followed her hand up the deep brown of a rail made of a certain type of wood. A door that was ajar, and the Spanish chap that be the ubiquitous old man of the five-foot-four-and-three-quarter stature holding the keys to the flow of a vacation in English and partially translated varieties of the Spanish language: inevitable verbs introducing a noun to an entire sentence full of present and past composition and the rest of the subconscious that be what Mother lean over and say with a giggle and a pinch and a teaspoon of pabulum zooming plane to land the runway of infant tongue.
“I think he wants see our passports,” she done said. Why, I asked. “¿Pour que?” she queried an elderly gentleman adorned in white wifebeater, no stains to be seen upon: he tried, we tried, and both sentences ended with a Si solving nothing but a smile; we motioned, and he used those hands of his and accepted the shake of mine and the look of her - euros up front and if we chose to leave for a pint or a nibble he would be so kind as to hang on to those passports for us, retrieve upon our return. This be what I slightly believe to have happened at moment within that late Wednesday in Barcelona - after Fallas and the death that was promised to me on more than one occasion by one Eduardo Ruiz Colon. Our grin when his key opened the one-bedroom, private toilet replete with shower: something akin to 45 euros per night, split two ways. Wonderful, I said out loud in English. Gracias, with a lisp when taking the key from said older gentleman. The smiles 3 and the click of door on his soft way out.
X and I towards our one window view to the outside, tall with open shutters; La Rambla and its median of trees the few European stories below us, the straight strip running noise to the above that was the two us peeking together into a new city, cosmo of quality. Taking turns, if I try hard not to lie too much to You within that late that was still early in Spain, if not Centretown some six western hours waiting to happen.
“Hey hey - just one little measly bed, X.” She of the requisite cooties fear, me with the bend and lift and, “Always check beneath the mattress. Always.” And the familiar find of a Polaroid with my index, middle, and thumb combined. “Beautiful. Beautiful. Look at these fine, upstanding citizens.” The absolute wonder of a couple of young girls travelling to Spain and having a few too many drinks away from home and indulging the art of instant photography that be the Eventual within my left hand that dying night in Barcelona.
“Is that a nipple?” Yes, I gave her, and did believe upon that partially exposed shade of red. “They laid back on the bed, took this picture … and then chucked it underneath the mattress?” Simple, I thought. Why not, asked of her.
“I’m gonna use the washroom, Hen.” Me next, spoken to her on other side of that closed door, somewhere around 11:30-in-that-P.M. Silence. Silence. “Hen?” Yes, I done said. “Say something, Hen.” Such as, I wondered. “Hen, say or do anything.” She wished of me to present background noise of an any kind so as to create comfort for the bladder, more precisely her brain and the body’s manner of producing effect. And so simple the way I began to talk out loud to myself; easy the mumbled out sentence of two plus two that amounted to me pacing the approximate size of my future bachelor apartment in the part of Ottawa referred to as Centretown by me and others in the know.
My view of La Rambla that was me tired and yet willing to go.
To my ex-girlfriend securing the top button of her Levi’s and ever so briefly deeming me smile and possibility of future. To the two of us agreeing to step down those wide stairs. “I should rather like to explore this part of town,” I smiled.
“Why must you continue to speak that British of yours?”
“Whatever do you mean?” I called her Hun and allowed her to push open the heavy street level door that was the two of us first leaving our passports to the security of a pensión not hostel and an old man adorned in the splendour of a wifebeater.
To the strut that was the two that were not together. To the two that were at the near of midnight on a certain Wednesday. Towards a two-storey McDonald’s within restored limestone. To the inevitable that was the turn to the left off La Rambla and the walk beneath an arch into the open-air court that be Plaça Reial and the two of us not ever holding hands in front of the various of palm trees and ornate lamps lighting a European square stared upon by grand balconies with no hope of affordable rental by soon to be Centretown me: a circular fountain in the middle and the dope that was whispered around its pool, songs that were sung to American knapsacks, British bandannas. The buskers out, the tourists plied, the outdoor cafés serviced by senior gentlemen of proper attire: it was quite pleasant and dare say almost romantic amongst the feeling of the two of us being away and in the city of Barcelona.
“Sangria?” she said, and I agreed to go beneath an unnecessary umbrella at that sniff of midnight listening to our por favor allow us to slowly sip the mixing of wine and juice, stuff. Sorry - the recipes do vary.
The square. A series of balloons that were blown and stretched beyond capacity, the Spanish of his acoustic guitar his language mixed with the commodity that was broken English or German handed out to the slightly intoxicated. “Gitano,” I proffered of the darker complexion, a lilt that was the velvet-striped fedora and voice singing towards us. Gypsy, she nodded, to the fact of the two of us pretending to know the difference or aspects involved. Wonderful the eventual red that made our lips at ease with natural voice leaving our lungs in front of the next act to flip his hat upside down beneath our nose: the man, his cute little monkey, the over the rail alms of euros that silenced our guilt of being yet another foreigner in the heart of a tourist city.
These words of hers: “The monkey’s Spanish is probably better than mine.” In the eyes, in the ears, in the face, in the gesticulations, in the prestidigitation of an old man travelling from town to town with an animal on a leash and a smile. “His Spanish would be different. He knows gypsy Spanish, and stuff.” Maybe card tricks, I added. “Exactly,” she nodded of sangria in an elegant vase floating slices of marinating orange, lime. “He must have been at Fallas, in Valencia.” This seemed entirely all possible, reasonable to the me checking out three American girls and their similar English to ours, a string of words with an accent discernible to a Canadian living close enough by.
And this: “You guys are speaking English,” a tiny halter-top did say our way, two tables from. I nodded and X turned around to greet the collection of them three eyeing us. “Thank god you’re speaking English. No one speaks English here - no one … except us, and those guys over at the fountain. My god, it so good to actually speak to someone in English.” I shall leave out the significance of her breasts and the young of her hair and skip straight to the friends stirring their shared vase of sangria as the emptying patio was realized and moved towards the two of us that were together and separate in front of the necessary introductions; the inevitable exchanging of countries. The hi’s and the hellos of three students staying at the Kabul Hostel just across the square, other side of said fountain.
“They have no curfew, thankfully,” girl number two going by the for real name of Amber did explain of their raunchy digs of bunk beds and custodians speaking only that Spanish of languages. They had been clubbing for a few days in Madrid and I suspect that they never did grasp the age of myself or the girl they assumed was my sweetheart. But we spoke that night of Home as a whole, through the motion of waiters closing the pretty umbrellas one by one, approaching our formed group with an avoidance of the eye: the girls’ quest for more sangria meeting with a firm No from the elderly gentleman working for no tips, an answer producing the North American middle finger return from the hand of girl number 3 with the tremendous tints to shade of hair.
A thought walked away from and tucked into the side pocket of experience by some guy and his whatever wage within the core of Barcelona prone to running into non-locals.
“So, anyways, what are you girls doing tonight?” I make this part up, for after it was determined that they were from the New Jersey on the outskirts of New York City the conversation took on the inevitable spin of two rather large towers coming down with a loud bang; girl number 1, the Lindsey I seem to recall, blabbed ad nauseam until her friends smacked her and reminded her that they were in Spain to have fun away from college, books, thought.
And as always, to never ever discuss politics in the presence of strangers or alcoholic beverages be the absolute thing to kinda do: girl number Three went by the name of Alexis to us; she was pretty, as the rest were, as X was beneath one of the remaining umbrellas still spreading its wings beyond the last call of a Plaça Reial patio, tourist central, Barcelona. And with that time of night and tale of Spain I make reference to, came the rise to leave for whatever club made sense to them and their eyes that were connected to their exposed breasts and leading down to the young round of their derrières that pushed collective cleft up from plastic chair and promised themselves the remainder of a moment that involved brief eye contact from girl number 1 and the person thinking that Then to You in the Now. I discerned my desire, including the all that was an ex-girlfriend and the patois that be a break from college without a care in the world. So yes, the good-bye waves from around the centre fountain; the slight pause amongst the smell of hash, the wink by the me of us that had a history of indulging its pleasures.
The shake of my No to the dreadlocked dealer, and the eventual stagger that was X and me tired and headed toward our one night in a pensión.
She supposed that they were all quite beautiful - and this be my invention of thought, really.
We moved beneath that arch that was more the joining of two buildings rimming the square; chose the right of step that was the return up La Rambla. A pause spent beside a side street with triad of pop-up deterrents made of concrete and hydraulically raised from the cobblestone by cue from traffic light or gizmo that I shall never know - but I, we, saw it one night, that night, walking home together our first time in Barco, because I never ever make stuff up anymore. And true, period.
“Hen, this key won’t open the damn door.” Jiggle it, I done said. But no. But the buzzer utilized and more of the simple listen up to a speaker for an old man wearing no sleeves and in possession of the power for a click involved with opening the door towards granite and an unnamed type of wood guiding folks safely to the bachelors, one-rooms of a pensión in the merry wealth of Spain, month of March; X retrieving our passports.
The door to our room locked behind as I begin to think You some of the rest: “Come to the window,” she did say of those shutters that were still open and doing hello above the proper spelling of a long stretch of talk within the downtown of Barcelona.
I stood beside her, leaning ever so romantically with that little something extra special that involved me and my ass wiggling about. “What of it, girl?” It was the view, she referred to at the time: just have a look with me again, she added. “Whatever,” I said. Across from us a hostel with all its second-floor windows yanked to Open, T-shirts and cutoff army pants hung to dry on faux balconies. It was now a Thursday, 2-something-in-that-A.M., and cliques of people wandered down the wide of median, past kiosks of newspapers, maps, and shrink-wrapped porn. We shared a final puff of cigarette and just watched a below the two of us alone together in Barcelona “I won’t be able to sleep in that bed beside you.” She turned towards me. “I won’t - you know that.” A straight smile before her manner back down to street level.
“Hey - call LuLu, Hen.” It wasn’t really her problem. And so why avoid the inevitable, me thought: I marched myself off to the bathroom and closed the door, bent down and peered back out the old-time keyhole at the pretty girl leaned out a high window; I sighed and dropped my pants to the floor, closed my eyes and began to picture girl number one, Lindsay, pulling down her halter-top to reveal a tattoo of an American flag just above her left nipple. Don’t speak, I seem to remember telling the girl in my head.
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