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HANGIN' 'ROUND; A.D.1979
After a long night my train reached Madrid. I was
still in that zone separating the two sides of the abyss. There was no way
back. I could say to no one who I was, or what I was doing. I had to keep cool,
tidy, watch the world moving around me, like a ghost, see and touch nothing.
Six years of military prison was pending on my head. My Future had crossed that
abyss separating yesterday from today. I had to get out of Spain, reach Paris.
In the meantime, act normally.
And there I was, in Arguelles; in those days
everything that happened in Madrid had in Arguelles its source. I got me a bocadillo de calamares and sat by a guy with a guitar. A Jazzman. Beautiful guitar. He could play. He
passed me his baby. Yeah, she could rock too. We made friends. He was from
Saragossa, came down to Madrid to clear his mind. He had a stormy fight with
the love of his life, Nieves, and had to go away.
“Where are you heading?” asked me.
“Paris”.
“I have a flat in Paris; I'm moving back after
Christmas. Come with me” said he.
“Well, am leaving in a couple of days. I can’t wait
that long”
“Of course you can, is Christmas, you come home, my
parents are great”.
It takes a drop of water in the rain to fill up a
pond. Why not? There was no man in this world that could read my mind. All I
had to do was to play the normal guy on his way to Paris. A young writer
looking for a place to be born. Nothing in me betrayed that image. You could
marry me to your sister for that matter.
Things came out as he said. Parents are always happy
to see their son with a young, smart, educated, and healthy fellow. It would be
their honor to be my host. My friend introduced me to the city and left me
wandering at pleasure while he was fighting to regain back the love of his
life. I discovered Saragossa Cathedral, a place famous in the Spanish Legendary
History Book because it was built upon the rock where from the Mother of God
was taken to Heaven. That’s a story to be idolatrized, stigmatized, criticized,
sanctified, analyzed, jollified or burnt according to the people’s state of
mind. I will only say that if in the old times God took a man to Heaven for the
fun of it, why would He leave his Mother in the hands of Death? Obviously Saint
James, the son of the Thunder, was dead long before the Spanish Legend began.
It could not be Saint James the guy buried in the Crypt of Santiago de Compostela, North-West Spain. But taking in account the
Word of God to his Mother from the Cross, it seems very obvious to me that the
Thunder who delivered the Gospel to Spain was no James but John. As everybody
can see the life of John is the story of those Spanish rivers which cross the
lands under the surface, and here and there they come out again to breathe some
sunshine. Once the Jewish persecution on the run, where better than Sweet Spain
to take away the Mother of God and spare Her to see the effects on Her people
of the fury of the later-on Saint Paul? Persecutions in Spain took place very
late. And as a matter of fact no one really knows when the Conversion of Spain
was made. It seems that the Spanish People accepted Christianity as one of
course matter, and wherever John went the Adoration of the Mother of God was
built in the heart of the Nation. It was, then, a Gift from God to Spain the
Stone where from the Mother was taken to Heaven. I mean, if you were God would
you leave your Mother alone in the midst of those antichristian wolves? And
would you let Her die? What make you think that you are better than God?
Anyway, Saragossa's Cathedral Old Square was much
simple and natural than the New Square. 34 years ago there were orange trees in
the corners of the Square, and benches where you could seat in the shade and
meditate like a white chocolate Buddha facing the wheel of eternity. The city
was still a town, pollution was not master and noise was not supreme. It was
the right spot for me to sit and meditate.
What have I done? One day before I had a wonderful
Future and one day after I was a deserter, no home, no help, alone in the
world, a threat of six years in prison if I made I wrong move.
The good side? That from the very day I reached Madrid
my nightmares were gone. I had never before in my life suffered from bad
dreams. Until then I had never in my life gone through any kind of disease. I
was so healthy that some people thought it unjust, even nasty. All my teeth in
place, all perfect, all white as immaculate pearls. No criminal record, no
psychiatric record. Six feet tall, perfect weight, athletic, polyglot, the
perfect word in the perfect moment, humble and always smiling as a young man
with no problem at all. If you saw that guy sitting there in the shade of the
orange tree, staring at the Mother of God’s Cathedral, you saw a young, healthy
and wealthy tourist admiring the work of the Spanish religious genius. But in
my head, it was me, at the edge of this side of the abyss, point blank, hanging
in the blue, with a soul between Heaven and Earth and my head in the clouds. I
knew it, and I knew it perfectly well, only God could had produced the force
needed to tame my heart and rule my mind. My will did step back before no one.
My mind was so healthy as my body. There was no dirty
mental spot in me to be used for another man’s purpose. I could use people, no
one could use me. And I had learnt that to use people is a crime. I did it
once, I would never do it twice. It was me who decided who was to walk by my
side. Only God could rule me, use me, break my will and play with my mind and
my heart.
I wasn’t not sitting in the blue because I was mad at
their guys back in my military station. I was there and then because the result
of a spiritual process planned and produced by the same God who created Heavens
and Earth. I was His Creation, from the womb of my mother. He had all the
Rights over my soul, and was acting accordingly. There was nothing to say, just
let Him do. I was in His hand and He would take me to my new train… when the
time came. In the meantime take this…
“a little stone with a name written on it, a name that
nobody knows but he who receives it”.
When I left Spain, few days later, my conscience was
as clear as the French sky. My friend the Jazzman could not break apart from
the love of his life, and I kept going to Paris. He gave me the address of the
flat he was sharing with some guys, I could use his room for the time being.
Rue Moreau.
There was no one there in the Rue Moreau flat. To let
pass the time I took a ride around France. French people give you a ride as
soon as they see you. They are very educated. The best place to hangin’ ‘round in France during the winter is the
South-East Coast. Avignon, Cannes, Narbonne, Marseille, Perpignan, even along
the Pyrenees the sun shines. The West Coast is wet and windy, the Atlantic
reigns. But doing the round from town to town is what you get, today’s sunshine
is tomorrow’s rain. I took the step back to Paris from Bordeaux. I drew a flag
with the name on, “Paris”. I had no time to wave it when a lady pulled off and
said :
“Bonjour”
She was going to Paris. She was a chirurgien–dentist. I guess she got impressed by my natural dental structure. Raymonde was her name. I could stay in her house
until I meet the guys in the Jazzman’s flat. I did. No loving, she was in her
forties. Some days after I met the guys. It happened to be the Four famous
thieves on motorbike by the all Paris-Police looked for.
“You mind?” said to me Jean Paul.
“Feel free”, said I, “none of my business. I have
problems of my own”
“Yeah, you gotta have some
problems in your fucking mind” said Jean Paul, “that woman friend of yours she
is crazy about you and you are here with four motherfuckers. You can get in
trouble. If the cops break in through that door, you fall with us. You think
they gonna give a shit for your story? You are with
us, you are one of us”.
“What you care, anyway? You fill up my refrigerator,
all stolen things, yeah, you pay me the party when the night comes. Don’t
worry, I’ll be on my way whenever the wind blows”
The problem with thieves is that they don’t trust each
other. One of those days they got into a big fight because some money more or
less for you or for me, and knives answered the call, me and Antoine had to
separate both angry fighters swearing to kill each other. I chained Jean Paul
between my arms and Antoine got the other fellow same way, still both mouths
wide open pouring hell. We managed to bring peace, some blood for that matter,
nothing really to be worried about. Guns were not around that day, luckily.
That was the right day for me to move on. Better with Raymonde for the time being, till I made my mind where to go, than staying around
waiting for the next fight. That fight was like a storm coming; we could see it
every day a little closer. Then it broke. Sun was back again, but how long
until the next storm?
They never knew my position anyway, neither Raymonde for that matter. For how long I could keep my
secret? People reacted funny when told that someone is a “deserter”.
Raymonde had been trying to buy my company with a writing
machine she had. I could stay in her house as long as I needed to write my
first book. And I had been declining her offer because I could read in her eyes
that she meant to be my lover. But after that fight, and having no found a better
way out, I drunk the first bottle of wine I had in my entire life and forgot
about she being in her forties and me in my twenties. The writing machine would
be at my disposal all day long, she had plenty work, I would be free to fill
page after page until my first book was done.
Few months after, so it was. I called it “Light, Truth
and Life”. But because one of those turns of the tides I lost my passport, Raymonde found out my military position and she got
scandalized, naturally. I paid the guys to get me a fake passport. I had to get
back to Spain and find me a publisher.
What I did. But for no success. Too young to mind
failure anyway. Raymonde had passed me plenty money
in exchange of the promise that I would get back to the military. Women! I
bought me a wonderful guitar and moved on to Ibiza to pass the summer. The
loving days of the hippies were fading away and the Island of Love was being
invading by the classis tourist looking for a fuck, cocaine and alcohol. In the
beginning was Marihuana, then LSD, after came Heroine, and finally Cocaine.
Evolution has never stop since, I guess. Even so Ibiza was still clean. You
could still sleep by Arenas Blancas without worry about fags, pedées and all dogs of sex looking for a solitary drunkard to suck his cock and leak
his ass before raping it.
I had to sit beneath the stars and stare at the
future, see my way through it, make it happen, keep on moving. First of all I
had to learn to write like a sanguinary poet ripping an essay till the blood
turn into sweet wine and the rigidity of the lines become as sexy as a woman's
lips. I had to get back on reading. The world of the essay was new to me; I
wrote that first essay with the feeling I used to write my letters to my old
friends and my papa. An essay is the motherfucker of the book world. It got no
feeling, it is a head breaker, a soul toaster, a machine of shooting words into
the heart of a flower born to be kissed by the queen bee. You can’t essay with
the heart, you got do it with your pride, and if you miss de l’orgueil, then use your hairy potato.
And that’s it, that’s how potatoes turn into philosophical soup.
Go back to Madrid, get you a room, buy you the best books
on Science, water your intellect, cultivate your thoughts. You have that what
nobody had, the Secrets of the Creation, now you got to dress the box, make
strong the tree, give a foundation to your house. You get it? All right, don’t
waste my time, back to the big city light.
Autumn is paradise in Madrid. It was before the
Weather was jeopardized, raped and sent as partner to the Global Crisis. I got
me a buhardilla in La Latina, filled the place with the most expensive scientific books in the
Market : Geology, Astronomy, Physics, Philosophy, and so on. But happy as I was
with my new toys while my brain was getting higher and higher my pocket was
getting lower and lower. I had to sell out all the books to compensate the
balance. An find me some work.
The objection to my good intentions was my situation.
I could not find me a normal work; it had to be without contract. I work, I got
the money, no names, no questions.
A friend of mine was running a small bar in Arguelles,
and he was looking for some help. He had the place for fun. He had the money,
didn’t need the place, but he like it the atmosphere, the girls, the smell of
the cocaine burning cigars. He gave me the place to make of it whatever I
wanted. I changed the Music, turned it into a rock&roll cave in the middle of a pop pool where everybody was playing the same bullshit.
La Cueva became famous in few weeks. The guys took
the drink outside and made of that corner their point of gathering, bringing
with them their marihuana, and their camellos. No problem, until the cops came around and began
to smell. I had a friend in Narcotics anyway; I told him, “hey man, marihuana
and beer, what’s your problem?”. Yeah, just around the corner the Band of El Carpio, a real Junky, was stabbing the people one night yes
and another also. And they were coming to the most helpless place to make
noise?
“Stop your tearing me apart, Raul. I know your story”.
“So? What’s yours?”
“Shit, you wouldn’t believe even if I tell you”
“Try me”
“Man, Heroine is invading the country, we received the
order to stop the trafficking. You know what? Still I have the gun in my head”.
“Serpico’s story, right?”
“Worse than that. Here the big chiefs are the
godfathers”.
“We don’t want no more heroes”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about our redadas. It’s just a show”.
He had the look of a horse damned to lose the race. Farfan was his name. He knew everything and everybody in
the Arguelles Towers. I lost his tracks sometime after. And I won me a
girlfriend. She was a student of Biology. My age, elegant, smart and fine.
Marta was her name. I never told her who I was. Just a guy, learning to write
and to live. She fell in love with me and I loved her. But I think she was to
clever to understand the difference between to love and to fall in love. None
of us knew anyway what was next.
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