Barcelona [circa 2006]

It took us two weeks to figure out that the three-euro per eight-ounce glass of water they were charging us in France was a sham. Euro Survival 101: Always buy food and water off the beaten path. I was standing in line, waiting to buy my liter of water and chocolate bar, sweating my ass off, praying the train hadn’t left. We, Mike and I, were in Port Bou [pronounced Poor Boo], a tiny town tucked away in the Pyrenees Mountains, gathering our provisions, preparing ourselves for the next leg of the trip: Barcelona, la tierra de Gaudi. The sting of our backs from the rickety train ride was almost unbearable, yet visions of Catalonian sugarplums persisted in our heads. We’d reserved beds at a hostel called Kabul, located on La Rambla, the strip known for its vibrant and eternal nightlife. Something exciting awaited us in Barcelona. On the train, my eyes traced outlines of the rolling hills on the other side of the glass. Over, and over again, they tumbled and implored me to sleep. When I awoke hours later, we’d arrived.

Bon Viaje, the subway sign read. “Catalan, what a strange language,” I thought to myself. We boarded the train, and every square inch of the car was filled with people. I remember vividly the sweat dripping from my eyebrows, and the sweat of others, hanging tenuously from the curly black hairs around me. Every so often, I’d watch those drops make a climactic fall onto a neck below them. The windowpanes and the air around me were stained with this very sweat; I could barely breath. The train stopped, and I watched it spill out onto the platform. The car was empty. A brief moment passed before my lethargic limbs woke from their repose and disembarked.

Outside on the street, we approached a middle-aged man to ask for directions. His back was turned. As a gesture of utility, I decided to blurt the first phrase that came to mind, “Donde está Kabul?!” I asked. The man turned franticly, looking to each side, making sure he was the recipient of my flash interrogation. His face began to contort, his confusion quite clear.

Mike turned to me, “Kabul is in Afghanistan, you moron. We’ve got to give him an address or something. You’ve gotta be more specific, man.” I stood there, absorbing my failure, as Mike began to talk. He clarified that we were in search of the Kabul down the road, not the capital of Afghanistan. We headed towards the hostel. “Donde está Kabul,” Mike muttered under his breath, laughing.

That night we left the hostel to explore the surrounding streets. The Canadians at the hostel raved about the famed “fuego al trago” or “fire shot” {Apparently they bring you a shot of 151, light it on fire and wait for you to drink it}. But it was closed. All we found were scraps of beige paper strewn about empty streets. They glinted subtly under the dirty yellow streetlights. Wooden soapboxes were sloppily scattered about, resting on their sides and backs, abandoned by their users. We walked towards the pier and came across a pack of young Spaniards, who were vigorously selling cans of Estrella Damm, the local lager. Their tongues stammered quickly and my mind paced to keep up. The cans were a euro each {the same price as six at the store around the corner}. We made our way to the pier and let our legs hang quietly over the water. We sat there, drinking our watery beers, admiring the luster of the rolling waves under the moonlight. It was one of those moments when you realize you are actually halfway across the world. We didn’t sleep much that night, because the Australian, or the “The Hunter” as he came to be known, had captured a young Spanish damsel {his only Spanish: soy el hombre de tu sueños, ven conmigo}. The eighteen or so onlookers in the room didn’t seem to matter to him. They fucked all night; We got no sleep.

***

In the morning, we headed out to see the sights. We brought a soccer ball just in case we ran into some challengers.  We walked La Rambla in the morning, before it woke. But this time, the soapboxes were turned upright, and the artists were unpacking their dufflebags. We visited the incomplete and extraterrestrial looking Sagrada Familia, before venturing to Güell Park, the physical embodiment of the “rabbit hole” -I can only imagine the hallucinogens Gaudi was on to envision such a place. It was something you’d expect to see in a game of Candyland, not a major city.

By noon, the day’s heat had arrived and was in full swelter. We headed down a long, narrow street lined with gilt colored apartment buildings. The massive constructions hung ominously over, their shadows jutting into the streets below. It appeared as though they were equally tired from the heat. We saw a mirage in the form of a park. We looked at each other excitedly; it was somewhere to kick the ball around. We began down the road to further investigate. When we arrived at the park we realized, much to our chagrin, that it wasn’t much of a park, at least in the traditional sense. It was more of a hill with graded slopes, mostly bark and bushes. We began up one of the cement slopes. Even if the park was fruitless in providing us with an appropriate soccer space, we could at least get shelter from the heat. We needed to rest our increasingly vertiginous minds. Maybe if we climbed up a few grades we’d find a flat area where we could juggle and kick the ball around.

There was a quick rustle in the bushes to the right. My gaze followed the noise. It persisted. What was it, an animal, or had someone followed us here, preying on a couple of young tourists? I was convinced we’d picked up a stalker {someone probably saw us slogging through the streets helplessly and decided we were carrion}. Mike pointed to something. I turned my head every which way, trying like hell to find what he was pointing at. It was a black blob, teeter tottering back and forth. My vision was blurred. I felt like I was in an Escher drawing: I was seeing something, but what exactly, I wasn’t sure. My vision came into focus: There were two people, their motions stopped, they saw us.

It was a man and woman. Her parachute sized skirt had just come down and she propped herself upright from the leaning position she was in. In front of her was a large man in a dark business suit. He was buttoning his pants. He gave her a few dollars and went off in the opposite direction.

“Holy shit, dude! Did you see that?” Mike exclaimed.

“Yeah, I saw something. I mean, I saw them, but I didn’t see what happened. What happened?” I asked.

“It was a whore. You should’ve seen it man! The falling of her dress and the raising of his pants… they were in perfect synchrony! He must have been fucking her up against that tree” he laughed, “I bet he was on his lunch break or something.”

“Yeah, I think I caught the end of that.” I lied.

We continued walking up the graded pathway. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d missed. It was like one of those moments when you rummage through all your stuff, looking for keys, only to find them resting obediently inside your palm.

We reached a flat spot and began to kick the ball around. It was unprotected from the sun, so before long we decided to abandon ship. We sat on the bench. Mike talked- about what I don’t remember- and I sat, my chest drooping heavily over my legs. After a few moments, I asked Mike if he was ready to start heading back. I told him I probably needed a nap if we were going to drink that night.

Heading back, our legs felt like bricks. I blamed the Hunter for all of it {bastard!}. We headed back down the street, and the buildings were still at rest. We turned left, heading back towards the subway. The day was at its slowest. All the stores were closed for their afternoon siestas. Mike and I were silent. I turned to him to comment again on the strangeness of what we’d witnessed, but decided not to. My energy was too precious. I stepped over something on the ground. We turned the corner a block from the subway. Sirens buzzed in my ears. Was I imagining them? Where were they going? Or, better, where were they coming? They seemed to fade in and out. They appeared in the distance, gliding quickly on top of an ambulance, coming right for us. They were coming for me. Maybe someone on the street noticed my posture, my frailty. I felt nauseous; the heat was pounding harder than ever. I looked down to find that I was sweating, hair drenched clear to my scalp. The sirens became peripheral; I could only see them now, coming closer, closer, their sounds evaporating. I looked into the store window immediately to my right. Cerrado- Closed. I lifted my gaze. There was my reflection, staring back at me. I began to pull at my face to make sure it was still there, that I wasn’t dying or in a dream. Mike shook me.

“Get it together. Did you see that?! That thing we stepped over was a dead… a dead guy, a fresh one. The ambulance just came for him. Look, dude!”

I turned, only to see the closing ambulance doors. He was really dead.