Barcelona

Finally, Barcelona. I can’t believe it took us so long to get here.
“Yeah, what happened? You first started talking about going during the flight to Billings.”
Yeah, right, I dunno, it was supposed to just be calm, quiet, and warm. It was supposed to be easy. It still feels a little weird. Are you sure we didn’t already go?
“Now that you mention it, I am having kind of a echoey feeling like a déjà vu.”
Maybe with all the jumping around, we got this one out of order?
“You know, I’ll go anywhere; so if you want to pick someplace else…”
No, it’s cool, it’s all ready now and should go smooth if the shadow of dizziness wears off. But just to make sure, let’s start at the top of the hill.
“The hill?...”

From the top of the hill, Barcelona spills out towards the coast. The rooftops all about level, punctuated by a few taller ones and capped off near the beach by two clearly out of proportion: the Torres Maphre. Those would work well for a place to meet if we get separated – you can see them from just about anywhere in the city.
“That’s not foreshadowing is it?"
Oh, no, I’m just saying,… I’m always careful to stick right with you on these trips you know… (Anyway, if anything this piece seems to be full of aftshadowing. "Is that even a word?" If not, I get dibs.)
“Just checking.”
Ahh, you feel that? Warm morning sun. Let’s just take a second to stand face on to it and feel warm.
“Yeah, we’ve had enough snow and rain for a bit.”
("Didn't you remember my having said that when we were in Melbourne?"
Yeah, I knew I'd had you say that somewheres.
"How'd you know before I said it though?"
Trying to understand that starts to get me dizzy.)
I totally agree, nice to be someplace where we can just do, without worrying about being prepared – look, I’ve still got carrots in my pocket.
“Hey, hang on to those, I’ve got an idea…”
("Didn't we use those in Port Townsend?"
Geez, I hope I'd've washed my pants by now, at least tossed out the old produce...)
I open my eyes back up and take your hand to lead you down the hill, but you keep your eyes closed and pull me back.
“Wait, don’t worry about getting to work on this in a hurry. Stay here in the sun for a second. We could use a warm moment methinks.”
You are so right. Let my eyes close again, appreciate the warmth where the sun’s on me and from your hand. Deep breath in, another, let my shoulders and forearms slacken, switch to lacing my fingers with yours, another deep breath, and Whoa! Snap out of it in response to the tug on my arm.
“You’re relaxed enough, let’s get down there and see what’s the big deal here.”
First thing, we gotta find Las Ramblas – the main avenue through town to the beach. Barcelona is primarily for walkers – everyone walks. There’s a wide promenade down the middle of the road lined with large palm trees. The city’s just coming to life for the da and people are starting to fill up the promenade. The language sounds like French, but with all the edges rubbed off it like Spanish. We’re clearly visitors here: everyone says ‘Good Morning’ to us in accented English. The smell of fresh bread pulls us to a bakery window to pick out a handful of rolls and some fruit salad for breakfast. There’s a bench handy – go ahead and sit, I’ll see if I can scout us out some coffee. Sitting back in the bench, you get a chuckle out of my trying to get the coffee fixed right for us by the vendor who doesn’t speak any English (It’s hard enough getting them to do it right at Dunkin’ Donuts), and I have to laugh too seeing you smirk at me as I bring it back. You might not laugh until you taste your coffee, I’m still not 100% sure that was cream that he put in.
“It’s fine (and not your sharp, tight-lipped fine), how’s yours?”
It’s good, but I’ve got a wide range of ‘good’.
“Well, the rolls are good without question, you want a few grapes?”
Yes, please.
The simplicity of our breakfast is matched by the leisurely pace we take with it – nobody seems to be in any kind of hurry, and we just naturally fall into rhythm with them, people-watching, imagining stories for them; by the time I stand up and brush the crumbs off me it’s midmorning.
“I can’t believe you were able to get me up early enough that it’s only now midmorning.”
Well, just because I’m starting slow doesn’t mean there aren’t things to do. Come on.
“Do you think you’d fall for the relax in the sun thing again? How about if we held hands?”
I mumble something to myself and roll my eyes up.
“Okay, I’m ready, where do we go?”
I’m still considering the previous offer…
“Nope, too late.”
Fine… Pause. Grin. How’s that?
“Did you mean Fine?”
Yeah, mine’s still missing something, it needs work. I think I still smile too much when I do it.
A little further down, Las Ramblas opens up into Plaza Catalunia. The architecture and public art around the plaza match the language – stylized and unusual, hard to place. By this time of day, the plaza is a bustling open-air market. Can’t beat the convenience, we can easily pick up what we need for the rest of the day. A picnic lunch to take to the beach (bottled drinks, oranges, why do there have to be so many seafood places?, a couple of sandwiches, a bit of chocolate). I try to keep an eye open for something unusual to surprise you with later (without being too obvious about it, and you pretend not to notice) as a keepsake. Nothing jumps out at me, but I do pick up a couple of notecards (I never know when I’ll need a nice card for you), and we take some nice pictures of Snowman modeling some cool-looking alien jewelry. I can’t make up my mind about finding something and we’ve made our way all through the plaza, so we continue our way down toward the beach of Costa Brava.
Twenty or thirty minutes later and we’ve made it to the beach. The Mediterranean lolls lazily up onto the fine sand. We find a large boundary rock apart from anyone else, and sit to lean against its sunny side. It’s bright, and I put my sunglasses on and get out my cap to pull down to shade my eyes. The sandwiches get eaten – ham and something, I think mine might’ve had something apricotty – and we split one of the waters. Just a sip or two for me thanks. The oranges are a surprise – more red inside than I’d expected, but their tartness sets off the smooth sweetness of the chocolate and vice versa.
After lunch, we’ve each brought along a book. I’m using mine mostly as a surface to work the crossword on. What’d you bring? You’re still working on those Calvino short stories?
“I like to reread some of them. You said I could hold on to it until I was done, and this way I might not ever be done.”
Do you have a favorite?
“On different days it’s different ones.”
Well, then you might not ever be done with it.
“How’s the puzzle going?”
Don’t know yet, just getting started…

…”You doing that in your head?”
What do you mean?
“The puzzle – you’ve been sitting there with your pen in the same box for about a half hour. Does that mean it’s too easy or too hard?”
Mostly it means I’d dozed off there under the brim of my hat – it feels so good just to be sitting in the sun, and the sun off the water dazzled me a bit, so I closed my eyes just for a second. I didn’t snore did I?
“I don’t know: somebody got me out of bed early this morning, so I think I might’ve nodded off first.”
I think I remember wondering why you had leaned up against my shoulder.”
“I wasn’t asleep yet then, just getting comfortable.”
Well, slide back this way and be comfortable – we can just sit quietly this afternoon. After I finish the puzzle, I’ll read to you if you want and we’ll just let each other drop in and out – hopefully we can keep ahead of that post-nap crankiness.
The afternoon slides by: I have to guess a few letters for the puzzle (proper names intersecting – always problematic), we read some stories, we tell some stories, we wordlessly watch the sailboats, clouds, and sun pass over the water, we take a stroll along the surf as the day comes to a close, we watch the stars appear over the sea.
We’ve still got some time to kill before looking for a place to go for dinner – dinner happens late here. It’s going to take us a while to walk back up the hill though.
“We’ve got to walk back up?”
Um, well, here’s the thing: I’m not looking forward to going back up (I’m always surprised how relaxing all day can make me tired), but every place down here by the water is all about seafood (gotta get better at thinking about that – couldn’t get much worse).
“How about carrying me up then?”
That’s something, let me save that idea, ‘cause I just had another.
("Do you mean save it for last month's Vancouver piece?"
I guess so, yeah.
"Maybe it's time to start putting an outline together for these."
I keep trying to tell you how much I need an editor.)
When we get to the rental place, you’re giving me an ‘are you sure you know what you’re doing’ look.
Everybody else’s running around town on a scooter – I’ll keep it safe, you focus on making us look cool (like, you know, Bradgelina cool. “Hmm, something about a sow’s ear…”). Fest dich halten, Liebchen.
The night’s just cool enough to wake us up again. All the art of the city that seemed odd in the daylight looks otherworldly in the spotlights at night. We make a point of passing the most popular Gaudí-designed buildings and neighborhoods, the Cathedral Barcelona, and finish up at the still-unfinished Temple Sagrada Familia. The scooter doesn’t really go fast enough for you to need to hold tight for safety, but it’s starting to get chilly so you lean in for the last few blocks (at least, that's how I explained it to myself). Still too early to sit down to dinner, so we each get a clara (it’s like a shandy) from a curbside café and wander around the temple – here, you should pull on my sweatshirt.
The Temple looks like it’s been stretched out, or, alternately, like it’s melting. The ornamentation is spooky in places, and at times the Temple seems to be some weird alien skeleton. The whole effect is magnified by both the sharp lighting and the construction cranes over the top of it all.
“Well, that’s certainly, um,…”
Imaginative?
“Yeah, okay.”
So much of this place in unreal, you think it’d been easier to conjure up. Though it does help to explain why it’s hard to place.
“Maybe you were trying to hard?”
One good way to find out – let’s find a good tapas restaurant to hang around in, and while we’re hanging around for courses to show up, I’ll tell you another one.
“Or, I could tell one…”
I would absolutely enjoy that. Let’s go.

Behind the 8 Ball

Few men can keep alive through a big surf to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind

Finally my name got to the top of the board, and I got to challenge for the table. Well, not my name exactly, but the name I use for these kinds of things. I put my quarters in and the balls came thundering out with a crack and a rumble, sounded to me like a bad omen, though who could say what of; my opponent seemed straight forward enough not to raise any worries. I went over to rack ‘em up, same way I always do, it’s completely equitable, but it sometimes raises a complaint, so I pause and wait for a look of agreement before I lift the triangle. It’s what I get initially, but then something else like surprise or a question, but then you continue on and break, dropping a solid – 5-ball. You try for the 3 next, but they’re packed in too close still. You do manage to open it up a bit. I try to pick up a stick that’s heavy enough for my preferences (heavier’s usually better for me if I’ve been drinking), and that doesn’t deviate much. After chalking up, the cigarette smoke gets ahead of me (when did that start?), and I pause to wipe my eyes. You spot the scar on my eyelid.
“I thought that was you. You indeed are Ulysses”
Eurycleia?
“What?”
Nothing. 9-ball in the side.
“Hold up a minute. Don’t you write under the name of Ulysses?”
Yeah, but not at the moment. The swift ship is hauled up on the shore, haven’t written in a few weeks. So,… 9-ball in the side.
“Last I remember, you were tagged for a meme to tell 8 things about yourself.”
Uh-huh.
“So why not write about that? That seems easy enough.”
Seems easy does it? Thing is, anybody who really wants to know 8 things about me already does. I’m not sure I know 8 things about myself with any certainty. Maybe 8 things about the writing though – that way I can be sure to reveal only what is expected.
“Yeah, I could probably think of 8 questions about the writing.”
Okay, shoot. Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now in the waves and wars. Add this to the total—bring the trial on! No, wait a minute, let me shoot finally. You know, 9-ball, in the side? Gotcha. Now 10-ball, far corner, one bank.
“How did it start?” Pass.
“How does it end?” The butler did it of course. Who am I, freakin’ J.K. Rowling? No, sorry, pass. If I knew how it ended, what reason would I have in writing it?
“Alright then, why those places?”
Have you read City of Glass by Paul Auster?
“No.”
Well, when you have, you may have found and understood the answer to that question. I’m counting that 10-ball as a scratch by the way – didn’t plan on that second bank.
“I’ve got an obvious one, why ‘Ulysses’?”
Well, you’re going for a combo on that question, why don’t you take a shot while I plan which angle to take on that.
“1-ball in the corner. Yes!”
You gonna take that 2 also, though you played off it and didn’t call it?
“I got the 1 in didn’t I?”
I see. Well, back to the combo you actually called, beaten off our true course by winds from every direction across the great gulf of the open sea, making for home, by the wrong way, on the wrong courses. I feel adrift like that in part, and part of my hope for the stories is to help me make sense of the travels, to tell east from west, the dawn from the dusk or where the sun that lights our lives goes under earth or where it rises. The meaning of my stories might only become apparent as they play themselves out, or it may never show its meaning but only its general orientation. I’m as anxious to draw the meaning out of it as you, maybe more so.
Les Étoiles, les étoiles, lights of white and blue, tell me stars why I look to you?
“Pardon”
Just a Melody in my head, you gonna take another shot?
“6-ball in the corner”
Lotta green there
“Eww”
Aw come on, that was pretty close. Part two of your answer lies in the fundamental ambiguity of his essential qualities. Like Ulysses, I can sometimes be unnamed and unrecognized within my own story, though I may be at your very table. Often I’m purposefully misleading, as he was a man of many devices, and known to the world for every kind of craft, a hero defined more for his ability to use words than for his ability to apply physical force. My first instinct is to try to influence rather than lecture you, to try to leave enough undefined space in the story that you can put yourself in it, or let it through your defenses.
“Then how do I know if I can be sure of these answers, how can I tell the true parts from the fictions?”
Well, they’re, Falsehoods all, but he gave his falsehoods all the ring of truth. More than that, the falsehoods were used only to illuminate a deeper truth. The stories are absolutely true at their core. The truths are carried by devices whose basis is inconsequential next to the heart of the stories. Did we ever meet? Did we ever speak? Did you ever see me sink this combination of 11-ball in the side, followed by two banks to put in this 12-ball back here in this corner? Get in there,… fall! Now, there’s a shot I could never hit sober. Sometimes you have to remind them who’s in charge.
“Are you usually in charge?”
I’ve led before. I’ve been gained leadership through consensus, accepted it by rank, taken it by individual challenge, been given it by seniority, earned it through excellence, been sought for it according to my skills and knowledge. Sometimes it’s been like:
They swung aboard, they sat to the oars in ranks and in rhythm churned the water white with stroke on stroke. Other times, more like:
I forced them, hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast and shouted out commands to my other, steady comrades.
I think if you were to check, you would find all would say I did my best for them, though we were not always fully successful. Still, when others break and rush back to the ships, you’d do well to have me near to restore their resolve. At times, in certain circumstances, it is possible to give your best effort for each other and still not succeed. And at the crucial moment, sometimes in book 12, whether you make it or not comes down to self control more than command control. Nowadays, if I’m leading at all, it’s an effort to get others to the point where they can lead themselves. Though I do find myself leading in this game again. And with that lucky 13 sitting right in front of the side pocket like that too.
“You sure you don’t want to leave it there blocking the pocket?”
Good advice, but since I already feel a bit exposed I don’t see any reason why I should seeking safety now. Besides, it would mess up the little game-within-the-game I got going on with myself.
“Hey, I’ve seen you before, and you were writing—you were out at Pearmund with earbuds in scribbling in a notebook”
Is there a question in there?
“What were you listening to?”
Right now, I’m going to close my eyes and wait to hear that 13 falling in the side pocket. I’m always listening to something, the reader with a varied-enough taste in music should be able to determine what I was listening to while writing each piece – there’s usually an obvious clue – a line, circumstance, emotion or tempo dropped in out of what I was listening to. They all have a soundtrack when they get delivered – that’s part of what’s in the manila envelope. Chatou, for example, has got Iron and Wine in it. And I don’t mean train bridges and cabernet.
“What were you drinking at Pearmund?”
The Redmund’s Reserve – the little guy’d hung out with me earlier in the morning, and he kinda sold me on it. That’s 6 questions by the way.
“Yeah, so why wasn’t the answer in bold then? That’d be pretty cheap.”
If you’re going to talk like that, maybe we should revisit your 2-ball. But you’re close to being right, I’ll give you that one for nothing.
“Then why don’t you stop pacing?”
I’m not pacing, I just don’t see how to get a decent shot at the 14. You know, you could help out a bit by putting some of those in and getting them out of the way. Okay, so I’m going to hit the 14, off the end bumper, and towards the far corner. Towards that is, not to be confused with in, nicht wahr?
“Okay, I guess. Since you bring it up, what’s with the languages? The English speakers lapse into it, but the foreign speakers are always translated.
Those people just do that, often the foreign word they use captures the meaning better than the English equivalent, sometimes they just come out that way ‘cause it sounds better. That ‘nicht wahr’ is a good example. How could you get that meaning across in English and still manage to slur it out like that, ya know? There’s another important rule about the languages that is too interesting to get out of me when I’m just drinking beer. It’s more of a martini or green label kind of secret. I will tell you that I’ve broken it in this one. And there goes the 14, towards, but not in, the far corner pocket.
You want another drink? You better get it from me now, ‘cause this game’s not going to last much longer. Yeah? Okay. Hey Julie! Get me 2 more would you, and 1 over here, and put them on my tab?
“You know the waitress? How do you know the waitress?”
Those your final two questions? No, I’m just kidding, of course we’ll only count the questions that relate to the stories. But, to answer those two anyway, I know the waitress’ name – when she introduces herself, she tells it to you, probably because that’s what she prefers to be called.
“I’m sure she didn’t actually introduce herself by name to me.”
Must just be me then. Speaking of just me, I’m going to take a little personal time. I’ll be back directly. You take as much time as you need to set up your next shot.
When I get back, you give me a sheepish look and a shrug. You’ve put together the best run of the game to sink the 3, 4, and 7-balls. That pesky 6 still resisting you though. You’ve really put the pressure on me, and I grab my cap off to rub the hair on the top of my head.
“Is this the cap?”
Just a moment, I have to punch that 14-ball in before I lose my nerve. Maybe a quick sip of my drink first. You get yours? Good.
“Lotta green there”
Couldn’t be so pretty a shot otherwise, plus you’ll get to watch the cue keep on traveling right back here for the 15. Ahh, so nice. What were you saying? oh yeah, the cap? The cap is actually a stand in for several. It’s a little stupid actually: I’ve got a knocking-around cap, a work cap, coaching cap, winter cap, spare cap in the car just cause you never know – this one is the went-out-for-a-drink-didn’t-want-to-fix-my-hair cap. To make it more necessary, I just got my hair cut, and it really wants to all stand up. Not to mention the cap/pas cap thing that comes up now and again. The pen’s got a cap too, as far as that goes.
“Oh yeah, the pen? Isn’t that a bit quaint?”
Quaint? Heck, quaint’s practically my middle name. Watch how quaintly I nudge that 15-ball in the side and leave a easy shot on the 8 in the corner. Thanks for clearing up that mess of those other numbers you had all over the table. Ka-clunk, and where does that leave us? With the 8th and final.
You want to know about the pen? I don’t know exactly. When I need a quick excuse, I blame it on my poor typing skills. To be sure, I can write faster and more error-free than when I type. I have to be pretty tired to find myself looking at a handwritten page where the characters are not the ones I was trying for. It’s more than just speed though. I like creating the letters as well as choosing the words – it feels like more of a creative act for me to be working in pen. The ink is just more fluid than the keys, though I guess a font can be fluid…, but at the same time, the writing has a permanence that’s absent in the electronic medium. I’ve never had any written work lost with no hope of return. I’ve given things away that I doubt I’ll see again, I’ve had notebooks stolen out of my car. But while I doubt I’ll ever see them again, I can imagine that they might still exist, somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered. That permanence that writing has encourages you to get it right the first time and it requires you to think about what you’re putting down. And now, I’ll put down that 8-ball, grab my other drink and bounce a few ideas around about getting that swift ship back out onto the wine-dark sea. Thanks for the game, I truly enjoyed it.