by Eddie Rock
A drummer in full medieval costume walks into the plaza, banging and crashing away as the local children go crazy. Bang! A firework explodes, the drum suddenly stops, and playtime starts. Thankfully Swiss John is smiling again as he watches the children play. So I take the time to finish writing my crumpled postcards, paying particular attention to one for a very special friend back home. The picture on the front shows a man being savagely gored by a bull in Pamplona.
Dear Fuck Face,
Wish you were here . . .
Getting gored by bulls
Love from Eddie Rock
So with playtime over, we drink up and hit the streets, finding a chemist and a postbox. Then a steady walk back to the hostel with Swiss John confessing to me that he was partial to a bit of heroin in his younger days.
Back at the hostel we find Cocker and Belen on a top bunk, massaging each other’s feet while staring dreamily into each other’s eyes.
“Wine fountain tomorrow,” says Cocker.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Yes. Wine fountain tomorrow,” he says again.
“A wine fountain? Where? No, hang on, don’t tell me . . . it’s on chocolate mountain next to the beer waterfall.”
“You’ll see,” says Cocker. “I thought it would be up your street!”
A wine fountain. Honestly, does he think I was born yesterday? I laugh.
In my mind I see a stately wine fountain with a muscular Neptune and Apollo, the birth of Venus with streams of wine flowing from the penises of cherubs—and Cocker with his mouth open, refreshing himself on vino blanco!
A Brazilian guy arrives in a taxi and climbs out onto a set of crutches with a cast on one foot. So I help him into the hostel and into the dorm with his pack. He tells me that he took a bad fall crossing the Pyrenees on day one and has ruptured his Achilles tendon. So from now on he will be taking each stage by taxi. There I was complaining about my back, knee, and ribs, but this poor man has come from Brazil, and on the morning of day one it’s all over for the guy. He also tells me that two people died coming from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, in the blizzard.
So I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, really.
* * * *
That evening, Tucker, Cocker, Belen, Swiss John, the crippled Brazilian, and I find a nice restaurant near the plaza, and all, bar one of us, has the eight-euro pilgrim’s meal with free wine. Swiss John, however, spends twenty euros on a plate of six neatly arranged asparagus spears, with a dribble of sauce on top and no free wine.
So to change the subject from his extortionate meal, he decides yet again to tell us his theory of the Camino de Santiago Gospel according to Swiss John.
He tells us that the first 200 kilometers of the Camino represent our youth, when we are getting used to our environment and learning who and what we are in life.
The second 200 kilometers represent our adolescent years, when we are trying out new things (Like ecstasy and heroin? I wonder to myself) and doing wild and carefree things.
The third 200 kilometers are our adult lives, when we get down to the serious business of making a living and making our lives happen and have meaning.
The last 200 kilometers is our old age, when we reflect on where we have been and what we have done and how we want to end our lives.
(Still probably doing the odd ecstasy tablet now and again.)
The remaining kilometers are the walk to Finisterre on the Atlantic coast, and this represents our time after death, when the pain has ended.
“Life is pain,” says Swiss John.
“Sounds like he’s been reading too much Pablo Coolio again.” I laugh.
“Paulo Coelho is his name,” says Cocker in a huff.
“So what was that tree-growing bullshit all about then?”
“Dudes, have you been overdoing it on the acid?” laughs Tucker.
“No, no, no, it was our way of regrowth and new beginning,” says the sagely Swiss John.
“What a load of bollocks!” I tell them.
“It’s not bollocks!” Cocker protests. “Once we master the seed exercise, we are moving on to the speed exercise,” he says, pulling a silly face.
“See, I knew it was something to do with drugs. Pablo Cocker!”
“Oh yes, har, har, very funny,” he says. “It’s actually where you walk along at half the speed as normal while taking in your surroundings.”
“What’s new? You do that anyway,” I tell him.
With the meal over and the wine quaffed, we toddle off back to the hostel, and even before the lights go out, the snoring starts and my imagination takes me back to the scene in the Vietnam movie Full Metal Jacket, when they throw a bedsheet over the fat snoring soldier, then pull it tight, and the whole platoon takes turns bashing the fuck out of him with their soaps in their socks. Now there’s a thought!
ESTELLA TO TORRES DEL RÍO
THE WINE FOUNTAIN
ONLY IN THE DREAMS OF HOMER J. SIMPSON would you expect to see a wine fountain. But it seems it does exist after all, so I’m up early. It’s 5:00 a.m. and Manuel and Swiss John are standing around the doorway like a pair of knob-heads, waiting for the hostelero to let them out. Our three-euro breakfast is more like a chimpanzee’s tea party but with far less manners, hygiene, and patience. As we begin to eat, vulture-eyed pilgrims gather around the outskirts of the table, waiting impatiently for a seat to become available—a bit like a game of musical chairs at a children’s birthday party, only twice as daft. Because as soon as a chair is vacant, even for a split second, it immediately has a new owner; then another idiotic Euro debate as the chair is tugged backward and forward, just like you’d see at a four-year-old child’s birthday party.
“What is wrong with some people?”
I need a fresh coffee, so I leave my plate on my chair to signify to someone that the chair is taken, and two seconds later the toast is stuck to the big fat arse of a stupid Frenchwoman.
“Nice one, thank you,” I say.
“Look at my trousers!” she shrieks.
“Look at my toast; you’ve flattened it.” I point to her big fat arse.
“You are a rude man,” she says.
“Yes, I know,” I tell her.
As she waddles off, another rude pilgrim seizes the moment and now he’s sat in my chair next to my hot coffee and plate.
“For fuck’s sake, man!”
After breakfast, we gather outside in the cool morning and watch our own Romeo and Juliet getting ready for the day.
“Why do you keep calling her bellend?” I taunt Cocker, who’s trying his hardest not to stare at her mesmerizing bosoms, enhanced even more by the Wonderbra effects of the pack straps.
“No, Belen—a bit like Helen, but with a B,” he says.
“Sounds like bellend to me.”
“Dude, what’s a bellend?” asks Tucker.
“It’s the end of your penis,” I tell him. “’Cause it’s shaped like a bell.”
As Belen adjusts her funbags, her tiny water bottle hits the cobbles with the lid snapping clean off. She stifles a sob at the symbol of their shared love lying shattered and broken at their feet.
“Maybe we could glue it,” says Cocker, clutching the remains.
“Behave yourself. Look at the state of it,” I tell him.
Belen sobs and Cocker hugs her, wiping away her tears. Then, as she stops crying, he tries in vain to mend it with some superglue from an old tobacco tin out of his pack.
“That’s not going to work, you flaming tool,” I tell him again, and what makes it worse is the useless cockend doesn’t even have his own water bottle. He used mine for the first day or so and then Belen’s, and now that he can’t mend this one, it looks like he’s going to cry too.
“Oh for fuck’s sake, here, have one of mine,” I say, lending them one of my adventure-sized unbreakable bottles.
We all set off happily for a short while until our pace gets slower and slower.
“Yeah, I get it, two’s company and th
ree’s a crowd.”
“What?” says Cocker, acting dumb.
“Have you started your speed exercise this morning?” I ask him.
* * * *
Up ahead Manuel stands at a fork in the road, happily telling everyone that the wine fountain is closed. Where on earth he’s got this information from at this hour of the day is anybody’s guess, but I’m not taking the word of a Jonah when it comes to the nitty-gritty of wine-fountain enjoyment. Upon my arrival, I’m disappointed to report that the fountain is not like the one I had imagined at all. There are no jets of wine firing into the air, no cherubs or bare-breasted mermaids or anything; it quite simply comes out a tap, and contrary to the belief of Manuel, it is open for business. “You’d never get this in England,” I say to a bemused Japanese tourist as I empty my water onto the ground, replacing it with cool, fresh wine and take a large hearty gulp. “Mmm, fresh vino.” Very nice indeed.
Tucker arrives, complaining about the snoring last night, and a few people I’ve never seen before pitch camp and hit the vino too. It would have been great craic if the Afro lads were here with their guitars and drums, and I wish I had never given my other bottle to Belen now.
“Free wine on tap. You wouldn’t get this in England!” I shout to Tucker.
“Bloody good job, the country would be on its knees,” says one of the new English pilgrims, and I have to agree that this is the best morning of free entertainment since Cocker lost his sandal, and talk of the devil.
“Here he is, Mr. Skip the light fandango and his neon rubber boots. . . . We were just talking about you.”
“All good, I hope,” says Cocker, looking concerned.
“Of course,” I say angelically.
“Whoa, not bad for free wine,” he gasps.
Belen declines, saying it is too early, and she sits with us and peels an orange, drifting off into her thoughts.
“Do you mind if I join you?” asks the English pilgrim.
“Not at all; the more the merrier,” I tell him.
“Hi, everybody. My name is Joe,” he says.
“Joe, this is Cocker and this is Bellend,” I tell him.
Joe coughs and splutters wine straight out of his nose while trying to speak, and Cocker gives me a dirty look. Belen looks up from her book
“B. E. L. E. N.,” Cocker retorts like an infant.
He eventually calms down and gets into the party mood.
“Come on, Cocker, make the most of it! Get plenty in you, mate!”
I thrust the bottle into his hand, but Belen is anxious to leave now, so we take a few pictures of our group and then Belen gets up and throws on her pack, only just managing to squeeze her huge knockers between the pack straps. Her boobs appear to be getting bigger every day!
“I’m going, boys. Enjoy your fun,” she says, and we all watch her cute little ass wiggle slowly out of sight. Now Cocker is stuck between a rock and a hard place, but like the big Jesse he is, he chooses love over alcohol and runs off up the road.
“¡Adiós, amigos¡” he shouts, running after Belen.
“Love is the drug,” sighs Joe thoughtfully as Cocker turns and gives us the finger.
“Pussy-whipped and he’s only just met her.” I sigh.
A group of very stern-looking French pilgrims arrives, and even in French it’s easy to understand what they are saying, and it’s not friendly. They fill their canteens with water, take boring photos, and leave us with very dirty looks. One of them is the hippo-arsed breakfast-flattening madam in a fresh pair of shorts. She casts me a filthy glare, but all I can do is laugh. A solitary nun walks past, crossing herself and looking to the heavens, as do a couple of old Spanish ladies in black knitted cardigans, only adding to the hilarity. The Dutch students arrive with noise levels reaching epidemic.
Today for some reason they all have red T-shirts on with the words “Camino 2003 TRUE SURVIVORS” and their names underneath.
There’s DIRK, JOOP, FRANZ, BERT, LEO, HENNIE, JAN, JOYCE, and JAAP.
The kid Dirk, he’s the one with the squeaking bed.
“Hey, Dirk! Geen masturbatie meer alsjeblieft”” I shout across, and give him the universal wanker sign. Dirk looks sheepish, with his friends laughing and wanker signing, while rolling huge cigarettes of pouch tobacco and taking crafty swigs of wine before their gimp of a teacher turns up in his leopard-skin underpants.
“Can you honestly imagine a wine fountain in England?” I ask Joe.
“It would make a good documentary.” He laughs.
This week on Wine Fountain UK.
Police officers John and Mike are back at the wine fountain as tension flares between rival gangs. Fountain security guard Bill is finally released from hospital two weeks after his vicious assault, while tramps Percy and Lawrence have an unpleasant surprise when wine turns to water. Stay tuned for this week’s episode of Wine Fountain UK.
I bid farewell to Joe and wobble along the strange road. It’s getting very hot, and odd buzzing feelings have started in my feet. Suddenly my whole body starts to itch. When I sit, I want to stand. When I stand, I want to sit. The back of my hands and ears are getting covered in some kind of small itchy blisters, so I rip the sleeves from a long-sleeved shirt to make some sun protection and catch my reflection in a window. I look like something off Mad Max, and the wine is taking its toll on my senses.
“Ooooh the sun has got his hat on, hip hip hooray, the sun has got his hat on and he’s coming out to play! Oh the sun has got.” What the fuck, I can’t get this stupid song out of my head. It goes around and around on a continuous loop. What depth of my subconscious has it come from? Not that I’m complaining, you see . . . as I’m afraid, I’m very, very drunk. Wine for breakfast. “Rock and roll.” All I need now is sex and drugs and—“Yeehar!” Maybe the Dutch youths really have got some weed?
Or maybe Swiss John has got some E?
I find myself ambling along, staring at the ground and wobbling from side to side while trying to step over the ant trails that cross the path every three meters or so. Tiny little lines of movement I don’t want to stand in. I must not kill an ant! It will bring me bad karma. I once saw a documentary on an Indian yogi on a Hindu pilgrimage. He just rolled and rolled along the ground with his disciples in front of him, sweeping his path so he didn’t kill any insects. Mind you, the silly bastard almost got run over by a lorry. Suddenly I find myself lost and alone in the middle of a field, looking and feeling like some kind of scarecrow, so I retrace my steps and finally notice a yellow arrow and proceed with caution on this very hot drunken day.
Luckily, up ahead I notice the camper-van with Pugwash at the helm, so I have four mugs of coffee in the hope it will sober me up, and I manage to bum a cigarette from smoking angel Benny. I get chatting a bit with Pugwash, and he tells me he walked the Camino when he retired from the navy and returns every year to provide pilgrims with coffee, biscuits, and foot massages. I still don’t fancy a foot massage but his coffee ain’t too bad.
* * * *
Back on the trail there’s not a soul in sight, so I try to play a few tunes on the harmonica. So here goes! I try The Great Escape theme and “Dirty Old Town”—a song by the Pogues that I tried to learn in Canada without success. The theme tune to The Waltons is impossible, but before the hour I have “The Great Escape” almost to a tee. Two angry, red-faced Dutch ladies emerge from the wheat fields. “Oops!” Looks like I’ve ruined their siesta and they are cursing me in Dutch. I lived in Holland for many years, so I half understand their language and they call me “a prick” and a “ball bag” and other unsavory Dutch words, including the C word.
Now, why couldn’t they have been a couple of twentysomething Dutch ladies, preferably one blonde and one brunette laid in the field, having sexual fantasies about a lone harmonica-learning hiker.
Now that’s more like it.
The sun beats down ferociously as I arrive in the small town of Sansol. The hostel is down a steep hill, and my knee almost pops out of its
socket yet again, then back up another steep hill until I finally arrive in the one-horse town of Torres del Río. I spot Tucker sunbathing happily in the plaza and drinking the rest of his wine. He’s first in line for the hostel and I’m proudly second. So I nip to the shop for a six-pack of beer and some cigarettes to while away the time. A Dutch lady called Whilamena joins us, and we all enjoy the world’s most ice-cold, refreshing beer.
More pilgrims arrive, including Manuel wearing a thick woolly jumper and complaining that it’s too cold, and the Dutch harmonica-appreciation society join the queue, still complaining of their ruined siesta.
Our peaceful gathering soon comes to an abrupt halt as a group of rude, obnoxious pilgrims turns up, and our queuing system, if there ever was one, goes straight out the window. When the shocked little Spanish lady arrives with a key, the place descends into total chaos. Tucker and I look on in disbelief at yet another display of Euro lunacy, but our friend Whilamena is angry and is gonna do something about it. She is rightfully third in line and pushes through to her place as a tall Italian man is jolted backward onto her bare foot! Poor-old Whilamena. She jumps around on one leg, holding her toe while screaming in pain, but the tall guy doesn’t even apologize. He just looks all deadpan with cold fish eyes, like they do, pretending it hasn’t happened! So she gives him a big shove in the back and he still doesn’t respond. So she pinches him hard on his arm like an angry child to no response yet again, then limps her way into the hostel.
To try and avoid this kind of infantile pilgrim behavior, Tucker and I have quickly invented a new policy of checking our guidebooks to find out how many beds there are, then count how many people there are, and if it all adds up, we sit back and watch the carnage unfold before our eyes. Eventually the commotion dies down and we saunter indoors unflustered, and I wonder to myself again what all the fuss was about.
* * * *
It’s time for another earplugged siesta for Eduardo in the upstairs dorm. I wake up an hour or so later to the sounds of alarmingly loud angelic singing as the Dutch harmonica appreciation society ladies rearrange their beds in an attempt to get their own back on me. They can actually sing quite well, and I find it therapeutic, lying there humming along.