Camino Journal Day 17

Buskin in San Vicente de la Barquera

April 18

With the arrival of the dawn, so too had arrived a sinking feeling in regard to all the self-help I’d been getting into. I felt what in Spanish is known as a bajón, a slight and sudden feeling of crippling depression. I’d felt this before. It always comes as I search my psyche for answers. I go deeper and deeper until, I hit the brick wall of my relationship with my father, and thus the world.

Hung over in the morning at Hotel Big Light

The coffee shops were already opened, and I dressed, rolled a spliff, and went out. I was a little groggy from the Orujo the night before but checked my notebook and was proud of all the writing that had come.

“How do I move past this trauma?” I thought to myself strolling the promenade and checking out places I might eat a Menu at later in the day as I made my way over to the print shop just off the main plaza next to Hotel Big Light where I was staying. The man was super helpful, and I remembered ordering a copy of The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho back in 2019 and checked to see if it was there. It was, along with so many other classics of Spanish literature that I’d love to read. I ran my finger across the binding of titles like Martin Fiero, Don Quixote, and Los Soledades.

“That’ll be 60 euros, jefe.” The man had finished importing the design and making up a new business card for me. I also had printed a new sticker for the upcoming single Easy Back Home, due out in a about 5 days. I paid the man and left with my new book to add to the other two in my already weighted pack. I thought about the weight I was losing and how more weight added to the pack couldn’t hurt the overall goal. I was still carrying the poetry book autographed and given to me on my first night of partying in Mora. I had begun translating some of the poems and had fantasies of returning to Mora and delivering my English translation of the La Ventana Del Cielo by Fernando Novalbos with photos by Armando Tendero Perez, but it was slow going and the language so intense and saturated with colloquial meaning, the task seemed to be pointless.

I returned to the hotel to put my new book away, grab my guitar and notebooks, then I headed down to a bar called The Lewer. It was around 10am, time for the first coffee break for the regular workers. As I was leaving the hotel, the receptionist, who was also the owner, manager, cleaner and previous cook, stopped me.

“My child. So sorry about the heater, but we are not able to turn it on at this time. It is much too expensive in Spain right now. Must be due to the Ukraine war. I’m really sorry. We’ve decided we can refund you your second night if you like.” My second night was only 30 euros, and I’d already paid the 100 for the two nights.

“That’s so very kind of you. Thank you so much,” I said as I continued on toward the door with an expression of sheer surprise at this type of hospitality, common in the American corporations, but unheard of in Spain. In a tourist town like this one, they didn’t care if you liked them or not. The views, the ocean and the old towns drew hundreds of people a day, and now after the first Easter weekend in two years providing much needed income to places like Hotel Big Light, the people were feeling worn out for the sudden onslaught of work.

“Oh no. My child. You must misunderstand me. I mean, you can leave, and we will not charge you for the second night.”

“Well, no. I don’t want to do that. I’m happy here. Very a gusto. No need for this.”

“But you said you were unhappy with the heater not being on. We will not turn it on tonight again. But we can refund your money and you can go away.” she said in a half polite, half rude tone that suggested I was a little insane to ask for heating in a war time.

“Oh, no. Maam. I’m not leaving. It’s just fine. I’m happy here. I just like to have a heater for the morning shower and hair washing,” I pull my pony tail out from behind my neck and show it to her, “I’ll be back later.”

I thought it odd the unneeded conflict. I requested the heater be turned on, and with nighttime temperatures down in the 40s F, it seemed to be a normal request for any human. I had noticed some newspaper clippings about Franco visiting the hotel once back in the 1960s and wondered if she, and everyone else staying there were cold blooded populists.

I ordered a coffee and a slice of Spanish omlett and pulled out my notebook and got after it. The weather was shit. It was cold and overcast. I sat in my coat out on the patio so I could smoke and scribbled while I half-heartedly listened in on the locals having their chats. It was all about the light bill. This establishment claimed to have spent 2000 euros over the last month on electricity.

“It’s all my profits,” the barman says, “Impossible to carry on like this.”

His customer responds, “Bring back the goddamn king, fuck. This country could use some stability.”

I can’t resist to enter the conversation hearing this, “But doesn’t Spain still have a king?”

“Coño! Yes, we have a king, but he’s had his balls cut off by this so-called democracy. He’s powerless and sits by and let his people suffer. Look what the Queen did for England. Took them out of this god forsaken European Union. Her people will be better for it and keep their own money. Why do we need to send money to the Germans? To the Dutch? The Sweeds? Are they not rich enough already? And why not just buy Oil & Gas from America on our own terms?” he was now talking super loudly and the barman joined in,

Laundry day - San Vicente de la Barquera

“I don’t know if having a king is the answer, but definitely Fuck the EU. They already took my fortune once when we went off the peseta. A bar of bread used to cost me nothing, then suddenly it was up to almost a Euro - whatever the fuck that is. All I know is that the Euro is more than 150 percent markup for everything. The bread cost me 50 pesetas but with Euros it costs me around 170 pesetas for the same product. It was nothing more than a gran robo. Hijos de puta. Me cago en la leche,” he says and spits on the ground.

The barman, in his late 40s could hardly remember these numbers by himself. They must have been figures his father and grandfather talked about. He was getting worked up and so digressed and went back to the kitchen to do something before coming back out and starting the conversation again with another closer to his bar window leading to the patio. They talked a little more in private and I went back to my writing before I hear, “Where are you from peregrino escritor?”

“Texas! I say with the hard x. I’m Texan”

“They say it tejas, here in Spain. Coño, You’re Tejano! You Americans are supposed to be cultured. No se dice Texas. Say it right. Me cago en Dios.” he spits on the ground.

“Well, I was afraid you’d of confused me for a roofer.” I say to an eruption of laughter from the men.

"I said pilgrim not immigrant, gillipollas!” one of the ones drinking brandy says to another eruption of laughter from all around. I join in the laughter, stop writing for a moment, and roll a cigarette. Leaving my perch on the patio, I enter back in under the covering to the window and order another coffee. It’s still a bit too early for a drink, but I’m salivating a little over the man’s brandy. I got nothing to do today, I think.

“You’re alright, ya know,” the barman says as he’s preparing my coffee, “From Texas, huh?”

“Yessir,” I respond digging a couple cards and stickers out of my back pocket and passing them over the bar. “I’m a musician back home. I play every night of the week and I’m out here trying to spread my original tunes.”

“You compose?” he asks, “That’s stupendous. Where can I listen to something?”

I direct him to the QR code on the business card and he says, “Efecto del Covid, this card. It’s crazy how the human being can accustom itself to anything.” I thought him a bit of a luddite and a kindred soul.

As I’m sitting back down and moving my pen between sips of the delicious cafe con leche, I begin to hear my music coming from the overhead speakers. They’d searched it and put it on. It was my song Thinkin. None of them really understand the lyrics but dig the groove and make me feel a little bit special for a few minutes. I move permanently back over by the window and give up writing for the morning in favor of local conversation.

“This you?” he asks.

“Oh yes. Definitely me.” I respond.

“That voice! I didn’t expect it. No disrespect, but wow. It doesn’t really go with your face. You sound like an old black man,” he and his local customers chuckle at me. He continues sincerely, “You speak in a higher register. I love the singing voice. Why not talk like that?”

It seemed to be a precarious question, but it did remind me of all the low throaty male, and even female voices, you could hear in Castellano.

“I guess I talk in the high voice so you can hear me better. I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it so much.”

“Well, either way, I love this music. Thank you for sharing. Have a drink on the house. What’ll it be?”

Checking the time, I ordered a Kalimocho. I was gonna get drunk today. I take my first refreshing sip and feel the wine, sugar and caffeine begin to course my veins. I roll another smoke and put some hash in it, so I head back out to the edge of the patio to let the smoke drift away. The jovial conversation continues amongst the men and then it suddenly redirects to me,

“So what about this hijo de puta Biden,” one asks me and all of them wait with silent stare for me to answer.

“Well, they are all sons of bitches, politicos. Aren’t they?” I quickly retorted realizing for sure what I had suspected when one of them mentioned having a king again.

“Sí Señor! That’s the goddam truth. Fucking thieves. All the politicians in this world are thieves. They vote themselves higher salaries and longer posts every damn chance they get, and what do they do for us? Not a goddamn thing. Nothing. They go on TV, and they apologize for their incompetence and then issue new bills that do nothing but funnel more of our money into their pockets. We need someone like Trump over here.”

Hearing it’s like a sharp knife pain in my side. They truly are all sons of bitches, these politicians, but Trump, for me is just another version of my father. A man with multiple families and children from different women. A narcissist who only cares about himself. Trump was always a Democrat. For my entire youth and young adulthood, Trump was a rich mogul with a philanthropic sort of humanist twist. But I never could buy into the lavish lifestyle at the emotional expense of everyone around him. He’s a con man. I stuck to my guns,

“They are all the same. Trump, Biden, Bush, Aznar, Zapatero, Clinton. All of them want nothing but to get a little richer.”

“You got that right,” the man returns to drinking his drink. Were they VOX people? Did they really want a president like Trump and a king? Had it been so long already that the people of Spain have forgotten the horrors of Francoism, Fascism and Populism? Yes. I guess it had, and if it had been to long for Spain, it had certainly been to long for the US. We were due for some catastrophic death.

“But you guys are talking Civil War over there, huh,” the barman continues the topic. “I mean we saw the Jan. 6th thing. It was unbelievable to see the American capitol taken over like that.”

“The people are angry,” I respond. “They need money and more services, better education and quality of life. But they are just so angry they can’t see it.”

“And guns? You have lots of guns over there too, yeah? We see all the shootings on TV. Crazy You Americans are something else.”

“Well, you can’t get away from guns while supporting people like Trump,” I say.

“But yall are fucking crazy. I mean. here we kill republicanos,” there is another eruption of laughter from the men, “Or at least we used to, Coño. I wish I could own an arm,” he sighs and makes another order and says, “You have your own arm back in Texas?” I nodded

“I’ve been gifted a couple shot guns along the way. Strickly home defense. But here too you can have rifles for hunting and such,” I add.

“Yes, but every single bullet is counted and accounted for when it’s fired. It’s un lio. In the USA you can buy as many bullets as you want, right?” he looks at one of the other men as if to affirm an earlier point from a previous afternoon’s converstion.

“Oh yea. You can buy them by the pallet. And you don’t have to register ownership of firearms either. Nobody knows how many guns are actually out there.”

This is psycho. I want to be able to have guns, but I don’t need a pallet of ammunition. That’s not what I’m saying here. Americans are fucking crazy.”

The conversation seems to dissipate, and I go back to my notebook and smoking at the edge of the patio. I was 100 percent in Franco country. I had not noticed it before. Only that I’d made about 45 euro a day in 2019. At least long hair and earrings on man wasn’t a very big deal anymore - at least in the Western world. The sun never came out, but I got some busking in and my laundry done before buying a few bottles of sparkling water and some healthy snacks and returning to the hotel for an early night.

I would pick up my stickers tomorrow in the morning. I made another reservation for a different private room on the outskirts of the little town. It was kind of like a B&B. It costs 27 euros for the night, and I was satisfied to be pampering myself again. To be taking some days off and caring for myself. After tomorrow, I would stay at the pilgrim’s hostel one final night in San Vicente de la Barquera before continuing on down the trail. It was still raining and called for continued downpours for the next two days at least.

I had slowed so much that I was sure I wouldn’t recognize any pilgrims along the way. I made around 25 euros busking for the day and considered again leaving my guitar behind. It was an unnecessary pain in the ass, but akinning it to my personal burden, I envisioned myself carrying it with joy and pride and allowing the guitar to do its magic and open doors for me. I wasn’t so concerned with playing for money on the streets as much as I was interested now to see how much the guitar did its own thing on the journey. It invited its own people in to its world and tended to those spirits which most needed it.

Hanging out the hotel window, I smoked a few goodnite spliffs while chugging the bottles of sparkling water. I didn’t want a hangover tomorrow and I hadn’t really drank all that much today anyway. It felt good to add the delicious high-quality H2O into my body.

Laying down to fall asleep Joey was there with his film projector. As he was putting a new reel on, I faintly heard him telling me, “I’ve got Alexander Scourby over dubbing the rest of these I’ll show you. My eye lids closed, and MARCH 1983 - TEXAS appeared on the mind movie screen

“Baby! Baby, bring me a beer!”

Cindy is doing her make up in her slip and immediately rolls her eyes to herself in the mirror. “That’s my mom when she was young, pretty and skinny. The last lines of Ryan Bingham’s song The Weary Kind play in the background, “You are the man that ruined her world.”

“James, I’m getting ready to go to work!”

“Baby. Harold needs one too. We’re dying in here. C’mon baby, just bring us a couple beers real quick.” he snickers at Harold, his best friend. The game is on the television, and they are both lounging while holding empty beer cans. Cindy stops what she’s doing and looks in the mirror,

“Are you really gonna be this kind of woman?” she asks herself under her breath. She puts in her earrings and puts on her managers uniform ignoring the childish please that she fetches a beer. When she’s finished getting ready, she looks at herself in the body length mirror, smoothing her outfit and leaving her hands on her stomach for just a little while longer. She turns to the side. “Am I still pretty,” she wonders to herself knowing that James would lose all interest once she became fat with the baby.

Walking into the living room, she directly turns the game off, “Harold, go home.”

James interjects, “Wait a minute baby, we were just playing. Put the game back on. Harold, go get us those beers, man. Whatever she needs to tell me, she can say in front of my best friend.”

“James, Shut up. Harold, if you wanna ever come back over here again, then you should go now.” Cindy’s voice raises a little and James sits up straight ready for the now inevitable confrontation.

“Dammit Cindy! Don’t fucking tell me to shut up in front of our guests. This is my goddamn house! My wife will not disrespect me in my own domicile,” he’s already foaming at the sides of his mouth little spit balls that develop in the crevices where his lips meet.

“Wow.” I think to myself. “That’s my 20-something-year-old dad. That’s where this anger comes from, He just turned on her 90 to nothing.”

“Jesus, James! You know I’m pregnant. You need to stop fucking around drinking beer and get your ass a job. There, did you want Harold to know?”

James and Cindy had discussed an abortion and for that, the pregnancy was being kept a secret for the time being. Cindy was a liberal woman and as much as she wanted to be a mother, she also knew she and James were too young to have a child already. She was barely 21. They’d just graduated college, and now she was married to someone who she was less and less certain was actually a good person.

“James, I’m not doing this today. I have to go to work. We need to do something about this child. It’s real. You helped make it,” she gets her purse and keys ready to head out the door.

“Harold. You sit the fuck down. I will not be dominated by this female. Get a job! You don’t tell me what to do. I have a job! And I’m trying out for the Rangers this Spring.”

“Things have been great for you since you joined the Screaming Eagles. Kah-kaw!” Harold tries to lighten the mood but fails.

“For fucks sake, James. We’re having a baby. Get your fucking shit together.” Cindy slams the door behind her, and Harold and James sit in silence for a moment before Harold clicks the TV back on and the game fills the room again with sound.

They sit and watch for a minute. The Mets are losing. It’s the 7th inning stectch and the commercial breaks begin, “So you’re really gonna try out for the Rangers, huh? You think you can make it?” Harold asks a sulking and infuriated James who sits with his arms folded across his chest.

“I’m too slow. I’ll never make it, he says with a release of tension, ”But maybe I can meet some people and get into coaching or scouting. My parents want me to join the military, though. And I didn’t do Kinesiology. I did Criminal Justice. Just wanted to make my father proud, and now I’m fucked. It’s probably the military for me, just like my brothers,” James confides in Harold.

“Well, that'll do it for sure. Take care of your kid. Give it a good life.”

“Give him a good life,” James interrupts.

“You already know it’s a boy?”

“It’s not confirmed, but who are you looking at? This is James fucking Animal. It’s gonna be a boy and I’m gonna name him after my dad. Then we’ll call him Joey. He’ll be Joseph Animal. Another Animal in this world. You know there can’t be too many of us. Look at all the good Coronel Joseph Animal still does. There’re books being written about him. I wish my dad had named me Jr. He was a Jr., but he hated it. Geroge Joseph Animal III - That could have been me. My son could have been the IV. But my father hated being called Jr. and got rid of the titled as soon as my granddad past on.” Harold listens like a good friend. It’s the most earnest he’s ever seen James.

“You know Harold, that bitch actually mentioned an abortion for my son. Can you fucking believe that shit?”

James’s eyes glaze over. The spit returns to the corners of his mouth in little white clouds. He’s ranting but also fantasizing.

“I can’t believe I’d marry a woman who would kill her own baby.”

“Whoa man,” Harold interjects, “I’ve known both of you now for how long? Cindy is a good lady. She’s a college graduate and even already a manager. Tons of guys wanted to be with her, and you got her, man. She’s really smart and super pretty. What’s going on, man? You don’t seem like yourself right now. I got your back, but calling your own wife a bitch?”

“Didn’t you see it though,” James jumps in, “How she thinks she’s better than us? She bosses me and embarrasses me in front of my guest.”

“Man, it wasn’t really like that though. I’m friends with both of you and this is both yalls house. You’re gonna have a kid, man. I get to finally be the god father to your child. That’s something cool. Something we’ve talked about for a long time now. Seems yall have a lot going on right now. I mean, hell, I want to congratulate you on having a child. You’re my best friend, man.” Harold is being sincere.

James explodes, “What? What the fuck are you saying, Harold? Have you been fucking my wife? What? You think it’s your baby? Why are you so fucking great about it? Think it’s your baby? Scared I’ll abort your son? Fuck you, Harold! Maybe it’s time you did go.”

“Damn man. I don’t know what to say.”

“Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of my house you piece of shit.” James says in the coolest demeanor you could ever imagine. The entire house went cold. James seemed to have a renewed poise and to have collected himself. “Get the fuck out, Harold. Now!”

“Damn, James. Calm down. You’re not acting like yourself. I’ve never seen you this way.”

“I said, Get the fuck up off my couch and get out that fucking door.”

“Alright James. I’m going. Just gimmie a second,” Harold gathers his wallet and keys up from the coffee table and puts on his jacket, “Maybe you should see someone. You don’t seem alright, man. I’ve known you for how many years, now? I’m your best…” and before he could get the next word out of his mouth James attacked him with consecutive fast-paced punches to the head and face. Harold tried to cover up but was surprised and took a few hits while falling backwards over the couch from where he’s just been standing.

“What the fuck Harold,” James screams, “You’re wrecking my fucking house! Is this what best friends do? Come over and tear shit up? You better get the fuck up and leave right fucking now. And don’t you ever mention my wife’s name again. You fucking hear me!” and James draws out the end of his final statement in a rage filled scream that sounds like engines moaning at peak performance. He’s pacing and huffing his chest as the white foam in the corners of his moth grow larger with every breath and seem to fling themseleves from his tongue and lips with every word.

“You’re nothing but a piece of shit, Harold. You’re lucking to have me as a friend. Your family is shit compared to mine.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant, but okay, James. Whatever you say. I’ll try to come by and check on you soon,” Harold says as he closes the door behind him to leave.

For a few minutes James Animal just stands there staring into space, almost like he’s left his body. Then suddenly he writes the words out on a piece of paper, “I got your fucking job, you bitch!” and sticks it to the mirror of Cindy’s vanity.

James walks out to his car, gets in and drives the few blocks down to the recruiter’s office. Within an hour he’s enlisted in the Army and due to swear in and head off to basic the following Monday. No one knows where James went for the rest of that night. He wasn’t at the stadium for the game, something he never misses, and for a change he wasn’t hanging around Cindy’s concession stand like a jealous creep.

Cindy couldn’t help but feel a little relief at her work without him hovering, a felling she’d all but forgot could actually be a part of her job. The time passed quickly as before when she actually enjoyed her job and her life, a time too far gone for her now. She wondered what she would do. She could say she miscarried, and they get a divorce. She could run away and raise the baby on her own. She knew it would be crazy to stay with this man any longer.

The projector reel pitters out and the lights go off. The glazing hues of the crescent moon make their way through the half slitted curtains to my room in the Hotel Big Light. I sleep soundly nuzzled below the three layers of covers and sheets.