by Eddie Rock
The Irish couple drink up and leave, and I’m not far behind them.
Out in the street I smell the unmistakable scent of hashish and manage to make friends with a group of jolly Galician musicians, who offer me a well-needed toke on a large joint. My first smoke in a month.
“Muchas gracias, amigos!”
After a stoned stroll, I eventually find my way back to the room, and as my head hits the pillow, I’m out like a light.
The next morning rigor mortis has set solid into my whole body. Everything hurts. The only thing I dare to move are my eyelids and eyes, and even that’s a struggle. I lay staring into the darkness and attempt movement, then cry out in pain as the pit bull jaws of a cramp bite down on my right calf and won’t let go for what seems like an age.
After a long, hot shower, I limp into the outside world and bump into Yannick and Theo, proudly showing off their new Compostela certificates. We sit for a while on a sunny terrace with pints of Asturian cider, no longer in any hurry. Theo tells me that the Three Amigos are staying at the pilgrims’ hostel not far from here, but they will soon be leaving to walk to Finisterre, so I quickly drink up and go to find them to say our last farewells.
In the army barrack–style pilgrims’ hostel at the other side of town, I find the amigos being hassled by a drunken Scottish pisshead who is getting angrier and angrier by the minute. First, I think to myself, What the hell is a Scottish pisshead doing in Santiago de Compostela? To be honest I don’t want to know, but he is hassling my amigos, and Ze looks worried. The open window behind him is a tempting option to dispatch this bum if he starts getting violent! We can always say that he fell. But thankfully, an equally inebriated Galician hobo comes into the dorm and manages to pry the drunken erbert away from my friends. We all breathe a sigh of relief as they leave noisily, with the Scotsman looking back, swearing and waving his fist.
“Why don’t you come with us to Finisterre?” asks Ze.
My excuses are feeble and unworthy.
“I can see it in your eyes!” he says.
He knows and I know. . . . Ricardo takes me to one side and slips into my hand a small “Brazil” badge with the green and yellow flag. I put it on immediately and shake his hand for the last time.
I say farewell to Rodrigo and again to Ze. True pilgrims in every way and true gentlemen. Never to be forgotten.
I make it back to the cathedral just in time for the Pilgrims’ Mass and find the place packed to the rafters with tourists, pilgrims, priests, nuns, monks and druids. A few Mexican waves start but fail to take shape, and a nun sings “Ave Maria” as the priests file in and begin mass. A group of men in cassocks undo some thick, heavy ropes and any minute now the bells will ring and we can all leave. Instead, they lower down a World Cup replica and set it swinging right through the central isle of the cathedral, bellowing out frankincense and myrrh as a group of Japanese tourists get dangerously camera happy.
“Health and Safety Act 1974” comes to mind, or possibly “Not now, Mr. Yamamoto.”
Thankfully, the procedure takes place, with no fatalities or serious injuries, and at the end of the ceremony we all hug and shake hands with our fellow pilgrims and head back out into the sun.
Next on my agenda is to get my Compostela certificate and last, but not least, find a travel agent. The certificate was easy enough to obtain, but trying to find a flight into the UK is proving to be a difficult and costly business.
“You could fly via Amsterdam,” suggests the helpful travel agent.
And so the story ends where it started . . . Amsterdam!
“Hello, is that Señor Gilberto the Moor slayer?”
“Eddie, me old lad. How the hell are ya?”
“I’m flying in tomorrow afternoon,” I tell him. “What are you up to?”
“It’s my birthday on Saturday: the big forty,” he says excitedly.
I’ve known Gilbert three years and have been to two of his fortieth birthdays already, so I suppose one more won’t hurt, will it? Will it?
So the next day I’m sitting in the sun, at the bar, waiting for my taxi, and a grim realization hits me like a ton of bricks. “Shit. I never put my hand in the handy handhole to have my sins forgiven! Fuck!”
There’s still time. I leave my pack with the barman and sprint back to the cathedral as the morning mass is in full swing.
I sneak in through a side entrance, but the forgive-me-not handhole is cordoned off with a security barrier and a guard in place. The clockwork South African girl sees me and begins frantically waving at me from the pews, blowing my cover, and I realize that it’s now or never! As the smoking silverware flies through the air; I slip under the barrier unnoticed and stick my fingers in a well-worn hole. Then I’m immediately escorted off the premises by an angry nun.
“Ir romero y volver ramera.”
“Go a pilgrim, return a whore.”
One of the oldest recorded sayings of the pilgrimage.
WHAT EDDIE DID NEXT
WELL, AS YOU GATHERED from the last chapter of the book, I flew straight from Santiago to Barcelona and then back to Amsterdam. From there I took a train back to Rotterdam to meet up with my aforementioned short fused former comrade, Señor Gilberto, to help him celebrate his third fortieth birthday. A happy Birthday it was not. Drug fueled drunkenness ensued ending in the usual bloodshed. This time it was Gilbert who came off the worst after being given a special gift of 67 stitches by a knife wielding maniac. I proceeded to the airport the next day with my tail between my legs and back to England to face the music. It was during these troubled times I began writing this book and gradually my life improved. But in 2011 I had had enough of living in England once and for all. So I sold everything except for my tools and my van and came back to Galicia with the intention of buying and restoring a ruined house on the Camino, But the Lord moves in mysterious ways.
In 2012 I bought an abandoned farmhouse deep in the Ribiera sacra region of Galicia very close to the winter route of the Camino de Santiago. My new intention was to build a writers retreat and try to live in peace but as always temptation and trouble were lurking just around the corner.
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Well Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. Buddah Shakamoonie managed a whole 7 years and I´m not far behind him. Ghengis Khan would be proud as I have spent most of this time living in a Mongolian Yurt even in the Galician winter. Also during these hard times Karma caught up with me and valuable lessons have been learned the hard way.
While living here in Galicia I have met a whole cast of interesting people from Nuns to Narco traffickers. Witches and Warlocks, Fools and Fiends to say the least. From the comfort of my half finished wooden cabin I have began writing again. My first project is Be Careful What You Wish For, a book about my 7 years of adventure here in Galicia. I am also writing a comedy script featuring some of these strange characters. As they say life is stranger than fiction.
People often ask me ´Did the Camino change your life in anyway?´
What do you think?
REFERENCES
“To Be a Pilgrim,” John Bunyan, 1684.
A Practical Guide for Pilgrims: The Road to Santiago, 8th edition, Millán Bravo Lozano, 1998.
Liber Peregrinations, Aymeric Picaud, published in the year 1130.
“Wish You Were Here,” Pink Floyd, 1975.
“Jesse” Joshua Kadison, 1994.
“Old Woman, Old Woman,” Trevor and Simon (swing your pants).
The Waltons theme tune, Jerry Goldsmith, 1929.
The Great Escape theme tune, 1963.
“Waltzing Matilda,” Banjo Paterson, 1903.
“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” the Hollies, 1969.
“Dirty Old Town,” Ewan MacColl, 1949.
“Little Donkey,” Eric Boswell, circa 1959.
“Walking Back to Happiness,” Helen Shapiro, 1969.
“Highway to Hell,” AC/DC, 1979.
“Walk This Way,” Aerosmith, 1975.
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“St. Elmo’s Fire,” John Parr, 1985.
“Catch Me if You Can,” Brendan Shine, circa 1970s.
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” Ashford & Simpson, 1967.
“There Must Be an Angel,” Eurythmics, 1985.
The A-Team theme tune, Mike Post and Pete Carpenter, 1983.
“Walk Like an Egyptian,” the Bangles, 1986.
“Road to Hell,” Chris Rea, 1989.
“Loco in Acapulco,” the Four Tops, 1988.
“Bette Davis Eyes,” Kim Carnes, 1981.
“Peaceful Easy Feeling,” the Eagles, 1972.
“Seven Drunken Nights,” the Dubliners, 1967.
“Every Breath You Take,” the Police, 1983.
“Piano Man,” Billy Joel, 1973.
“Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep,” Middle of the Road, 1970.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK the following people for their support: Sir Jack Herer, God, Suzie, Jamie, Paul, Sarrel, and Alex. The Mule, Mr. John Lydon, my old English teacher. The Devil. Nick and Helen, Dale and Emma, Ridley and Erin. Becky P., Ralph K., Simon B., Cocker and Swiss John. Buddah Shakamoonie. The Three Amigos. Harriet S. John and Mike. Gilbert. Steve P. Jo and Noel. Pokie and Klausie. Martin T. Andrea J. The spirited people of Spain and some of my fellow pilgrims, and last but not least, Mary Magdalene, the patron saint of sinners, and Saint James for getting me there in one piece.