Camino Journal Day 24

April 25

I slept in until I got the message from Maga that she and Cici were headed out. They invited me to have breakfast with them and I hurriedly got myself together and found their spot, joining them for croissants a la plancha, orange juices and tomato toasts. While eating we made a few more jokes and kept the mood high. I didn’t know how to just be friends. I wondered if I was missing an opportunity to have a love affair, but then that would cost one of these girls to become a third wheel to their own group. It’d have to be up to them to make the move.

I didn’t ask about Maga’s dad. I totally understood her feelings toward him and felt it a little uncouth to pursue sharing in such dark and forbidden ideas against parents. We kept it superficial, and they promised to listen to my music. Somewhere inside I hoped one of them would love me, that one of them would make a move. If I were to say something, the rejection would be too great. And really, after all, I didn’t want to be with either of them, and what was wrong with being friends? And what happened to ships passing in the night? Maga was so far up north in her icy cave, alone and with a new life, literally on the opposite side of the world from where she came, while Cici lived in Barcelona and worked as bartender trying to figure out her life. She was so talented with the guitar and singing, but I knew from experience she had a long way to go to get to any sort of the autonomy I’d attained. Still my mind allowed me to wonder at times what it would be like to have a quick fling with one of them, or what it would be like to live in the north with Maga or form a duet with Cici and start my life anew in Barcelona or have her come and join me in Texas. That meant breaking up their bond, of course, and it seemed their bond was the only thing pushing them on to finish the walk. Plus, neither of them would be readily accepted into the North Texas community with their accents. Their beauty and charming personalities would likely be able to usurp any blatant racism.

I let it ride. I wouldn’t suddenly make up a story about being in love in order to sleep with one of them, and I wouldn’t let either of them do it to me. We were all three on a mission to complete this Camino for ourselves and not be led astray by lust or love or sex. We laughed a little while at each other’s jokes, ate our breakfast and had a smoke together. Cici was quitting cigarettes and like me, was trying to lose a couple pounds. I wished them well and thanked them for their company. We all hugged and took a picture together and they set out toward Aviles and the next stages. I’d probably never see them again. Maybe I wouldn’t see anyone again, ever. Maybe I could just stay here in Gijon and, hole up and sell French fries as a street vender and never see anyone again. Ever,

I wondered the city streets waiting for the print shop to open while scoping out possible places I could start my music life here. I’d peak in through the windows and snap photos of the signage, judging whether they had a sound system or not, or if people came to drink or to listen. It didn’t matter to me. A gig is a gig is a gig. Pay me $50/hour + and I’ll sing the Barney theme song over and over like some MK-ULTRA psych experiment.

The air was fresh. The morning crept over the city like a slow emerging fog of workers and little shop owners. They all moved slowly across the beautiful Spanish streets. I had a couple coffee and smoke a few spliffs.

“Who am I?” I wondered, half expecting some inner voice to answer back. There was nothing. It was silence. My mind was a little quiet. Where did everybody go? “Joey? You still there?” I ask into the blackness. The sea’s waves rhythmically regulating splashes bump the shoreline and pier in succession, rocking the little boats and clad yachts that juggle around in their parking spot on the pier.

“Who am I? Do I need a woman? What would I even do with a woman. Yeah, it would be great fun to pass the time going into shops and browsing and buying little sweet nothings for each other and going out to dinner and pouring the wine for each other, and taking turns being obnoxiously lovey-dovey and saying the stupidest most childlike things to confess this inner love. This longing. This knowing. “Yes!” I suddenly feel some sort of calming sensation, “Yes. this is a knowing. A knowing.” I say again affirmatively this time out loud. “I know.”

But what did it mean to know. Describing down to its most intimate and minute detail the scene in front of me would take my entire life and maybe that of a few more generations. There was so much going on. And if I turned my head, another lifetime of explanation would beg to be drawn out. How are buildings made? What is geometry? How are those people, there? Do they live here in the city? Do they consider themselves Spanish? What’s their opinion on the United Nations? Do they have a vested interest in the war with Ukraine? And how many morsels of sand are out there on the beach? Is it true there are as many galaxies as grains I can fit in one hand full? Billions of lives sifting through my hands, billions of galaxies swimming through my body.

It’s 10am on a Monday in Asturias. I’m walking this thing like a champ and enjoying myself. Was there anyone out there? Is there someone, or something to hold on to? Is there any answer to any of this? “Why am I out here?”

“You’re trying to find me.” there is a new voice. It’s almost audible. Not only in my head. Not actually a voice at all. Just a feeling. This knowing. “Why are you so uneasy, Joseph?” the voice asks.

“God? Are you God?”

“No, I am he calling in the wilderness. How bout you imagine me the waves. Remember when Kerouac talked to the waves. Made a poem of the waves and sat there that night at Ferlinghetti’s place. He was searching for something. Sound of the Pacific at Big Sur what a beautiful piece of writing. Don’t you think?”

“I’ve always loved that one. I mean, he was one of the great writers. And famous too. And had money at that point. He was friends with, and admired by, important literary types. And here he was sitting out at the sea like a madman, probably drunk, listening to words. And he had every intention of publishing it and having it be understood.”

“Do you think the people ever understood Kerouac?” the voice asked.

“I don’t know. He used to be my hero. But he died drinking 13 boiler makers a day at his mom’s house,” I say with a sigh. “At least he paid for that house.”

“Kerouac was a tragic figure, but listen to this,” the voice recites a few lines from the poem:

“No human words bespeak
the token sorrow older
than old this wave
becrashing smarts the
sand with plosh
of twirléd sandy
thought------Ah change
the world? Ah set
the fee? Are rope the
angels in all the sea?
Ah ropery otter
barnacle’d be------
Ah cave, Ah crosh!
A feathery sea”

I couldn’t feel the bench below me any longer. I felt the presence of a best friend sitting there with me. Talking to me. Why did I want to change things? Why did I want to rule over this world? This life.

“So, who are you? This is different from when I talked with Joey and also different from all the monsters. Are you something? Someone? Or have I really gone off the deep end?”

The presence was so strong. The thoughts radiated into my skull, into my brain. Again, I asked, “Are you God? I’ve wanted so long to see you. To speak with you. To really hear you.”

“I am not God. I am closer to The One than you are, though. But you are now much closer to The One as well, as now you can hear me. If I were to take a form and sit with you, you might not like it. You might not be able to see it. You might be scared. It could set you back.”

“Why are you here now?” I ask with a sense of worthlessness and disbelief.

“Because you believe. Because you’ve called. We hear your call. The universe hears your calling. You have a voice so large and true and honest,” the voice pauses, “But you have been doubtful. You have felt lonely. You’ve invited the company of anyone. Of everyone. We cannot get to you with your, what you call monsters, around. We cannot communicate with you if you are divided upon yourself and have hatred in your heart. You, Joseph, have let the hatred go. It’s very hard for the people of Earth to do this. To not seek vengeance. Even your highest heroes are vengeance seekers in some form or another. Vengeance is not the way, and you have seen that now.”

“So, you mean like not only with my father, but with everything?”

“Yes, Joseph. With everything. The way you have treated everyone on the Camino with the utmost care and regard have helped us help you rid yourself of so many past traumatic experiences.”

“Are you an alien, then?”

“Humans are so preoccupied with defining everything. But this is part of the problem. Ask yourself how you know where you are right now.”

“I don’t know. By maps. Science. I guess.”

“Precisely. Everything is a construct. Even your body. How is it you’re racing around like a fat man about to have a heart attack three weeks ago and now you can do 20 miles without a blink? This is the power of mind. We create it all. We are all part of The One. The Creator. The Alpha. The Omega. The Beginning and The End. It is all God. We are all God. God is Mind. God is Love.”

“Show yourself!” I yell into the bay. The morning streets starting to fill for that first Spanish work break. “Show me. Show me something! Show me why I sacrifice. Show me why I’m so unhappy and alone! Teach me to be better! Who are you! What do you look like!”

“Yelling doesn’t work,” the voice sounds like an old am radio transmission now, intermittently breaking up, “You’ll only lose the connection….” and the voice is gone.

Kerplosh, sploosh, ratatatatatat goes the machine gun sea. I’m back on my bench. Why so angry? Angry with a presence so divine and of mystery. Would it come back? I just want proof! “I just want proof!” I yell into the sea.

I’m no longer alone on the pier and it’s closer to 11am now. I head over to the print shop and without problems have the man print me 100 stickers to go with the next song release, Easy Back Home. It’ll cost me 55 euros. I pay him on the spot and tip him a little. They are very nice people and tell me the stickers will be done by the end of the day. Perfect, I think.

I head off to get a razor shave for the second time on the walk. Keeping the mustache growing but going down to the bare skin on the rest of my face makes me feel distinguished. I find a barber and go in. It’s a little bit fancier as Gijon is much more metropolitan than San Vicente where I got my last shave. I wondered sitting there with the hot towel over my face if I was living in a simulation. If this is all some sort of dream. Some meaningless game going on in the computer of a teenager sitting in his room in his parents’ house being forced to go to bed as to attend school in the morning. I wondered about this new voice. I thought about the old voice. And in the black blankness from under the steaming towel, I remembered the All Consumer, still sleeping in my deep subconscious. How was I to deal with him? I’m angry with God! I’ve forgiven my father, forgiven society and even have forgiven myself, but now to forgive the creator! To forgive the one truly responsible for all this….life!

The barber returned to remove the towel and began lathering my face. Was he a bot? Part of the simulation. Could there be a program that allows for autonomy in the Non-Player Characters while they are not being interacted with? Am I just an NPC when my controller is away doing something else? Did this man have kids? A wife? Was his mother alive? Did his father beat him while he was young? What if all our rules and organizing in society is merely to keep the peace while we NPCs live our “lives” while the program is turned off. Kind of like Toy Story, I think.

The cream on my face is minty and gives a slight sting. I wonder if this guy knows what he’s doing. He starts in shaving. He is scraping deep and hard and going all the directions. Up, down, diagonal, sideways. He uses long scrapes with the straight razor and then small, short up strokes, presumably to nick out the hair roots. I feel my skin getting irritated. Somehow, I’m powerless to tell him to stop and just leave it, defaulting to trusting in his expertise as a barber due to my inexperience in visiting one. I wince a few times and he finally acknowledge me, “Oh. Lo siento, sir. Almost done.”

He cleans away the excess shaving cream and with both hands dripping with an aftershave that must have come from hell itself, the barber begins to slap the shit out of my cheeks and neck and face, repeatedly and with force until I feel like I’m being beaten up. I slightly start to dodge the man’s hands as they strike my skin, and he finally lets up. I sit there with rosy cheeks looking at myself in the mirror. It doesn’t look bad. At least he didn’t fuck my mustache up, but the stinging from the aftershave combined with the physical pain of his slapping hands left me dizzy. Was any of this real? Was I supposed to pay for this?

“Bien?” he asks me as we both look in the mirror. I’ve only ever been slapped by my parents or a crazy teacher back in the 80s, or that one time with that one crazy lady in bed, but hell, this man just slapped the shit out of me more times than I’ll ever experience again in my life and we both stared into the mirror like everything was normal, his arm draped over the barber’s chair, body hunched over to see my face from my perspective as I gazed in wonderment.

“Good. Good. Mejor that you left me with some of my face at least.” I say sarcastically while he’s grabbing my jacket and hat from the coat closet adjacent to the register.

“Tienes mucha cara, sir,” he laughs at the perfectly landed insult that also served to explain the amount of scraping he’d done. “It’s been a pleasure to serve you.” I couldn’t help but laugh as well, and he seeing I understood the colloquial expression made him laugh again. He flashed me a kind smile. I saw in his eyes we were brothers.

“That’s 14 euros, sir.”

I paid him a 20 and told him to keep it. Leaving the store or worried the razor burn was coming on at any moment. I got my phone out, in leu of a mirror close by, and took a couple pics to make sure. The shave looked good, but my face fucking hurt. I’d have to clean it regular and hope I didn’t break out in full blown razor burn, that not only looks stupid but could be a comically tragic way to get an infection while hiking.

Heading to the grocery store for a few more provisions, I prayed God would show himself. I also considered I was just too stupid to understand God, or the voice from earlier. I could grasp at the concept of an ever-expanding universe, and the infinite light years of space and the millions of years of time, but maybe I was just too dense to know God when I am staring it in the face.

I read Chariot of the Gods years ago and thought how maybe, just maybe - our whole concept of god is really just that of ancient astronauts. Someone like us that visited from so many light years away and inspired all this…this creation and mess I’m living. But if that’s true, who’s their god? Or better, who’s their creator? Even the atheist can’t pin that one down. What if Rick and Morty are right and we are just a battery to some car in a higher functioning civilization? The battery manufacturers put the carbon, oil, diamonds and gold in and then add a little bacterium that consume those things and produce a usable energy for the battery on a higher plane of existence. It’s totally plausible.

What is the point of existence if I’m just a small bacterium powering some carbon polluting vehicle in a higher plane of existence? Who am I?

“I am the I am.” the voice again.

“I am what I am?” I stupidly respond. “I think therefore I am?” I mockingly tort.

“Everything just is, Joseph. None of this is here, but it’s all here at the same time. A paradox.”

“Does ‘we are what we are’ work too?” The sarcasm and anger show through.

“Don’t joke about YHWH. Although I do love your wit.”

“I love you. I love you more than anything.” the words spill uncontrollably from my mouth. “I’m in love with life and all the people and all the music and all the strife and greed and love. I’m in love with love. I love forgiveness. I love redemption. I love the human capacity for understanding in the face of adversity.” Compassion fills me.

“This is what I love about you, Joseph. This compassion. This overwhelming need to help and fix the broken hearted. To show how there is so much joy and sustenance in every moment. Like you described on the bench this morning. To understand what one can see with just a glance has taken thousands of years to grasp, and you humans haven’t even begun to really get it. That’s why the I am is so patient with your anger.”

“My anger? I’m not angry,”

“And with your defensiveness too.” the voice laughs as it prods me to be honest with myself. “It’s okay to be angry sometimes. It’s okay to not understand. With you, you love until you are threatened and then you use anger to protect yourself. It’s why you’re stuck. But you’ve honorably served your purpose. Like David tending his sheep, he was destined to be a king. Destined for influence and respect, but for so long was denied it while he made sure the flock was safe, thus sustaining the entire family and tribe.”

“I love the story of David.” I pander.

“Of course, you do. Your father has overlooked you, banished you from his wealth and heritage, and taken what is rightfully yours. The laws are the same for all in this life and in the olden days. Right of the first born is a cosmic right. This is why we cannot hate or seek revenge. Things will work out. Everyone plays a purpose for the other, and the choices we make as we move along influence our world. You have sought vengeance more than any other thing in your life. You’ve let your hatred guide your path. David also committed adultery and murder. That’s the part of his story we don’t like to look at. Kind of like how you don’t like to look at parts of your story.”

Defensively I respond, “Well, at least I’ve never killed anyone. Or had another man’s wife, or cheated on my wife.”

“But you’ve defiled yourself. How many times have you given your body to a stranger? You cannot count them. They are too numerous and too fleeting. Very few mean anything to you now and are only a stain on your essence. A scar of a time you felt worthless.”

“Is that adultery also then?”

“Close enough, but do not get lost in Paul’s dogmas, stay with the metaphorical parable. Stay with the literal image not the sematic semantics of the written word.”

“So you are not God. Not an alien. Not me. Not us. I’m not crazy and talking to myself. Then what?” In my mind rang from the depths of the all, from the quietest loud, into my mind like fire “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord. And the Lord is Love”

I didn’t hear it like the voice I was speaking with. I didn’t hear it like any human voice I’d ever heard, but like a large pang in the stomach, heart and mind all at once, and activating up the spine to the head. “A voice calling in the wilderness….” This is the wilderness. I’m a savage in the wild.

“What you are hearing is known as truth. I am truth. “I will send the Friend to you from the Father. He is the Spirit of truth, who comes out from the Father. When the Friend comes to help you, he will give witness about me.” - Those words you can read in the bible. As you have followed the path of the truth, and as you have prayed so often for wisdom and forgiveness, and as you have attempted to implement those practices in your life, truth has found you.”

“And my daemons? All those shadows, all the repression? What comes of it now?” I ask

“It’s gone. If you want it.” the voice responds and I see in my mind’s eye the billboards John and Yoko put up that Christmas season, “WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT”

The war could be over. My war could be over. The war with my father. The war with society and the banks and the tv and the media. It could all be over. If I want it.

“I want it,” I’m muttering over and over as I come out of a sort of trance as I approach the building to pick up my stickers. I ring the buzzer, and since I’d paid already, a pretty lady opened the window from the second floor and tossed my package down to me.

“Muchas Gracias! Que Usted tenga un buen viaje.” and she was gone back behind the shutters. My neck was still on fire and itching from the shave. I walked the mile back to my hotel and dropped off the stickers, washed my face and checked religiously for bumps. That guy really tore me up. Why hadn’t I just said, “Hey, What the fuck are you doing? This is a human face here!”

I donno. I took advantage of the hot shower and clean laundry that I had done while I was out that day. I washed my hair with as much of the bottles of shampoo and conditioner I could as I’d leave them there after just the one use.

Feeling fresh I went out to the closest bar and order a vermouth. I rolled a spliff and enjoyed a couple more refills on the glass while smoking, paid the tab of only 10 euros for three stiff pours and small tapas, and headed to the second closest bar. It was about 8pm. I ordered another vermouth and rolled another spliff. I still had at least 10 grams of the bar I’d bought so I tried to see how much of it I could get into one spliff. If it were possible, I would have just wrapped a paper around the entire 10-gram bar and smoked that. I had a couple more vermouths while smoking my monster canuto paid the 11-euro tab and headed a little farther down the street.

I traced the promenade and for good measure, bought a canned shandy from the market and sat back on my bench and rolled another spliff.

“Noah got drunk for days,” I think. “And who cares anyway. I gotta turn it off somehow. Letting go is the only way. For tonight I’m going to just drink it away. And maybe I’ll just drink it away until it’s gone for good. The only way is to let it all go.” I down the can and stumble a bit getting up to my feet. I head to the next bar, order an Anis on ice. I watch as the liquor becomes milky and swirl it in the snifter. I think it’s nice they serve drinks in the proper glasses as a normality over in Europe. I take the first stinging sip of the alcohol and the licorice flavor covers my mouth. With each sip another drag on a spliff. I get two drinks in and pay the 7-euro tab. The pours are at least an ounce and a half. I’m not spending anything, I think. For a night in Dallas with 8 liquor drinks and one beer, I’d be well over 60 or 70 bucks by now.

No one says anything. I tip fatter and fatter each round. I keep a continuous spliff rolled as I stroll the streets at random, using the port to situate whenever I feel like I’m getting a little too far from the hotel. I’m good and drunk. Good and stoned too. The ground sort of gives a little when I walk and the stars and air and everything feels perfect. A little too perfect. I wasn’t thinking. That was weird. And I wasn’t chasing ass either. At this point in most benders, I’m either looking for cocaine and trying to hook up, or both. But here on the Camino, there was no way for either and I didn’t want either. It had been a year sense I was snorting $50 bills up my nose.

I went to the next bar.

“Un Anis con yellow,” my drunken lips blurt. No one blinks an eye, but the few patrons look at each other.

“2 euros.” the barman puts the cup on the counter. I pay and watch the liquid turn milky white. I down it in one go.

“Put me another one down.” I ask. The barman pours over the same ice. I pay a five and tell him to keep the extra three, taking my glass outside to have a go on my spliff.

Staring up in the sky I wonder again how many moons does Earth have? Was it two? or the 8 I was momentarily seeing? Noticeably drunk, I knew I could probably get away with one or two more drinks at another bar, and so finishing my spliff and rolling another one for the walk, I headed back toward my hotel Alda Pasaje.

There was an alcove where I’d busked back in 2019 and I stood there and sang a few songs accapella. After opening my eyes, having sung Love Me Tender, there was a couple there making out. They gave me a 5-euro bill and kissed the whole way out of sight. I laughed and thought again, “How is it in Europe I get handed money by the only people walking by. Amazing.”

I hit the last bar. One I could walk up to and order from an open window to the outside. I could lean on the sill and not be too noticeably drunk.

“Un anis.” I ask.

“You want it with ice?”

“Yea. Thank you.” I go to rolling up my spliff while he pours.

“You American?”

“Yea. From Texas.”

“Ah Texas. I had a girlfriend there once. Nice people from Texas. What city are you from?” he asks.

“Fort Worth. Ever heard of it?”

“Oh yea. My girlfriend was from Springtown.” he notices the surprised look on my face, “I didn’t last too long there. I had no car. No job and her parents were just some rich hillbilly racists. They wouldn’t speak to me in Spanish. It was crazy, tio.”

“Holy shit.” and I draw it out. “I can completely see. I’m from Azle.”

“Wow man. Small world. I’m probably the only Spainard in this entire country that knows where Azle, TX is,” he pauses and puts my drink on the counter for me. “Funny huh? This life? Sometimes you just know you’re in the right moment.”

“Salud, to that tio. Salud. How much?”

“3.50.” I give him a 10 and tell him to keep it, “No man. Is too much.”

“But I thought you lived in Texas. Gotta tip the bartenders there,” I insist.

“Well, you got me. But here,” he takes the bottle of anis and sets it on the bar top, “Pour how much you want.”

I take a few preliminary swigs from the drink he’s already poured, licking my lips and lighting my spliff. Everything just tastes so good. The licorice, the hashish, the tobacco, the sea air. It’s all so overwhelming but so welcomed. I steady the bottle over my snifter and fill it a 1/3 of the way. Nothing excessive. I put the bottle back and go sit down over at a table. The barman motions a thumbs up again and smiles. The Spanish are so kind.

What was I going to do with my life? This is a lot of fun to travel and get drunk. I know everyone wants to do this. I find meaning in it all, but maybe I can let go of all the past and really have a nice life in the future. Maybe I can pay off my debts and own property and have security and stand up for something in this life. Have something to defend. Maybe I can. Maybe I can’t.

I finish the Anis and barely make it up to my room I’m so plastered drunk and high. Thankful to see the three liters of Vichy Barcelona sparkling water I’d bought earlier there waiting for me, I down one immediately. I feel awake again. I roll my late nite spliff and hang out the window watching the people go in and out of Burger King. I think back on the days when burger king was real meat. When all the burger places were real meat and the food tasted good and wasn’t like eating poison. When I do cave in for some McDonalds, it’s out of some strange nostalgia for a simpler time when a happy meal meant I got tasty food and mom was happier cause she didn’t have to work so hard feeding me after working so hard all day. And now they are all like eating cardboard. It pangs me to see the places here in Spain, to see the people passing up grandma’s croquettes and slices of jamon serrano for some corporate fast food that in three generations will kill their grandchildren from all sorts of diseases and ruin their economies and agriculture with greed and infinite unbridled capitalism.

“Damn, I could really go for a croquette,” I think. Resisting the urge to go back out, I settled for the digestive cookies I’d bought earlier and drank down the other two liters of water while packing my bag for the morning. I’d head on to Aviles. It would be a long 10-hour day, but I was ready to be finished with this trip and ready to get back home and start really living life without hate, if that were possible. Either way, I still had over two weeks to go. While readying my pack a coin fell out of one of the small zip-up pouches. It was a coin a friend had given me a couple days before I left to Spain.