Lost on Horseback Horses hip-check each other and stamp the dust on the dirt trail threading through the green mountains. Let me see if I can predict this one. Nick, they’ll give you that blondeone. It’s the most heroic looking. A blonde horse for a blonde dude, that’sthe logic they’ll follow. Rachel will probably get that smaller horse, seemsright for a girl. And Joel’s big, they’ll give him the big horse. See that one wandering off, munching flowers, and bothering the locals? That’s mine. Because I engage in similar behavior. Nick laughs at my line of reasoning. A brown water creek has been dug out into a large, shallow pond. Two kidsform a sopping wet, wobbly, two-man human tower, the base of which wears dripping, squelching Crocs. (Anxiety) cracked skulls and snapped necks when they topple. Splash – flailing limbs submerge under rippling water rings. They resurface spluttering water from lips and gulping air. Dogs lounge in the sun inside a chain-link pen. In a generator-powered restaurant built of particle board and corrugated tin, women boil rice, press guava, soursop, and mangos into juice, and grill fish for lunch. The grill sizzles. Reggaeton beats play. It’s lively here, but at least one of these lush green hills was the sightof a mass grave some years ago. Victims of Pablo Escobar, drug wars, andguerilla warfare. Hard to say where or which hilltop, it’s explained only invague gestures and vague terms. On the hilltops, near the shade of the tree line, crews of friends or families of four sit on blankets and grill hotdogs. The stable hand sets the length of stirrups, and fits bridles between bighorse teeth. Happy to drop a shoulder to shove a horse out of the way. Bullying them into good behavior. He wears a Guatemalan gaucho hat, a soccer jersey, and black mucking boots. But the story I had in my head was wrong. Nick gets the flower munching horse, Joel and Rachel’s horses are also reversed for reasons I can not understand to look at their respective sizes, and I get the blonde heroic looking horse. La Mona is her name. Memories return. I have seen the view of a horse’s mane and the back of itsflicking ears before. Felt this lurch and rock of its gait. Weekends withfriends off the clock at a summer camp job, taking the horses out for a ride. The bizarre way a horse can feel great precision in the urging of your intentions through the reigns. Lean and focus a sharp gaze at a place, and a smart horse will go there. Tug back, and she slows down. It seems so easy, yet. Experience counts for something. Rachel is beingwalked in circles. She is asking the horse to stop. English doesn’t work, so she tries Spanish. Nick is being brought into low-hanging branches by a horse that knows to account for its own height, but not that of an added rider. He laughs and bends them back from his face. They whip behind him as the horse nibbles shaded patches of grass. With a hissing whistle by the guide, and a flick of his switch, we’re off. LaMona is a competitor, and so I get to take the lead. Mountains so vast andgreen, on a scale too big for any picture. A view of the city’s pale buildingsin the valley. I am comfortable on the horse, so leaving the guide behind does not worry me. It does not worry the guide because he says the horses all know the trail anyway. We amble along, and I watch the green mountains and valleys flow by slowly in the sunshine. Nothing to worry about. But then La Mona trots up a green hillside following a needle-thin trail. I trust her. Why not? I can’t see the others. The trail gets thinner and thinner until I’m riding over grass. Ah, I was too proud of myself too soon. Clearly, this was a long, wrong turn. We arrive at a barb wired fence that reads, ‘Private Property, No Trespassing’ in Spanish. “I know you can’t read,” I say to La Mona. “But that sign says, No Trespassing. So how about it? Where are we?” Not so much as a snort in reply. I look back down the hill. My friends are nowhere in sight. “OK, we’re going back.” I tug the reigns, but La Mona shakes her head. I pull again and she doesthe same. She agrees to do an about face. But as soon as she gazes downhill, her legs start buckling. Knees inward, almost knocking. Horse fear. She turns her head back. Her eyes bulge. She must be thinking she will fall if she tries to go down that (admittedly) very steep hillside. Though she is the one who brought us up here. “You’re like a cat that gets up a tree and doesn’t know how to getdown,” I tell her. She doesn’t understand accountability, this horse. She snuffles and pleads for a different way down. Anything but the very steep, very scary hill. I can see the trail we’re supposed to be on below. I just need a way to get there that is not a straight line down. Searching, I see a shallow incline in the green hill. A needle of a trail buried in tufts of overgrown grass. But it is not steep, and La Mona likes this path far more. There are logs and branches all over this route. The horse can step over some, but if the debris is big enough, I need to hop off her and clear the path. I kneel to pull logs out of the way. She steps forward into where the logs arelying. One of them rolls up over her hoof. She steps again to escape it andbats herself across her opposite legs. The muscles in her torso shudder. Shewhines a little. She is stressed out, getting clumsy, clip-clopping, unhappy at the branches scraping her legs. I shush her and pull the branches away from between her feet. Finally, after what seems like an hour of riding and working, clearing brush, shushing and reassuring, petting, cooing, coaxing, and finally riding again, and sometimes a tightrope balance of riding on a steep hill, I am back on that main trail. But where are my friends? I can’t see them anywhere. But it’s OK. We are back on the right path, now. La Mona knows the way from here. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
Cookie Smuggler Four shots of ouzo makes early morning strategizing a woozy challenge. Lesson of the road. Final night in Greece. Flight out in a few hours. Trying to figure out how to get pistachio cookies I bought on an island to survive reckless baggage handlers. Pistachio farmers on Aegina render their crop into every incarnation imaginable. Liqueur, soap, butter, bread, cookies, gelato, and of course bags of nuts. Well, they let me try this cookie they call a pistachio cigar. A chocolate crunchy tube filled with green pistachio butter. Think peanut butter, but made out of pistachios. It gets eaten, not smoked, in case the cigar name causes any confusion. Anyway, bought four cans, but they are not crush proof. Wrapping the cans in jeans really doesn’t help much. The only crush-proof part of my gear is…the hollow body of my acoustic guitar. Well, the strings are overdue for a change. They are not going to survive more altitude and humidity fluctuations in playable shape. They’ll sound like garbage, so they might as well be sacrificed to a worthy cause. Twisting metal tuning pegs. Prying up black bridge pins. Twang. Ping. Accidental notes get deeper, wobbly and unnatural before the string gives way and whips and snakes on its own. Each of the four cans fits snugly into the guitar’s sound hole. No wait. Two in, t-shirt, two more in, another t-shirt. Final t-shirt to secure them. Yes. Cigars in a guitar. Multiple people have told me this travel story. Except they were traveling from Cuba. Maybe it is from a movie, or it is one of those real-life tropes. Now I’ve got this story, too. Except mine are cigar cookies from Greece. But consider that these cookies are in plastic tubes with metal soda can tops. Some security agent scanning my guitar will see it loaded with four metal-capped cylinders with an unclear manner of tubing inside. Will they know it’s chocolate and pistachio not bomb casings and explosive putty? Will I ever bring home the flavor I tried to carry off that island? Time alone will tell. Goodbye to this room with its hard mattress, its unseeable biting insects, and balcony view of the Acropolis. On to what’s next. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
Blues Under Athens Lugged my guitar on a crowded tram during rush hour. It’s killing me inside that I can’t…move! Fingers getting stiff and cold and I know, I just know they are going to play tricks on me when an audience is watching. I want to shake some blood into them, but that would mean smacking strangers, which of course I’m not going to do, so I shove them in my pockets. Twang! A passenger bangs the guitar and it strums in its case. Wincing at the thought of damage, but she’s been fine on every airplane and bus, so she’ll be fine one more time. Right? Right? Some bartender told me I could play an open mic tonight. Sounded fun. Problem: no idea where the venue he mentioned is. Hoping to find out by returning to the same bar, asking the same guy. But it’s getting under my skin! The thought of playing in front of people. Stomach jumping in anticipation. Some things don’t get better the more you do them, huh? Last time I performed was in Morocco. Squeezed and popped out of the tram. Fresh air and a little personal space. Sun sinks. Shadows pool out vast, dark and cold between buildings. Ah, I can shake my fingers now. OK. Let’s find this place. Hope that same bartender is working so I can ask again. Nope. New faces. This shot of mine is getting longer and longer, isn’t it? Ordered the same drink I had last time. Can’t remember its name. Gin, lick-lipping fresh blended berry juice, and tons of shaved ginger for heat. Salt on only half of the rim for a counter melody. A murky pond to drown a little stage fright in, no? Ah, why not drink two. People party late here, so I might be early yet. Where is that music place someone mentioned? Where you can play an open mic? The other guys said next door, but it’s all dark windows, rolled-down shutters, graffiti. There is no “next door.” No idea, tonight’s bartender says while scooping ice out of the bin. Did I drag the guitar all this way for nothing? Is it dead weight for the night out? Any idea what the place is called? He said it was basement, something. Basement. The place is called Basement? That or it’s in a basement. Details are hazy on this one, my guy. Rumor and hearsay. Urban legends. Local folklore. He laughs, and asks his buddy in Greek. The buddy tells me go to the wooden door on the corner. That sounds like what you’re looking for. Drain drink, pay up, and head to that wooden door in the empty alley. But this is just the door to somebody’s apartment. Greek names written on paper tags next to the buzz-in buttons. I still try it, just in case. It’s locked. No signs for a bar, a venue, a club, or anything. But next to it is a small door. Black door on a black wall. And scrawled in white chalk today’s rain has half washed away, ‘the party is here.’ I test this knob, and it does open. Bright red lighting on dark carpeted steps. A letter U in white backlight. This must be it! Down saggy steps to an empty basement with a few couches here and there. A stage the same height as the rest of the room. You with the band? Someone asks. Nope. Heard there was open mic. Later, maybe. A band plays first. Ah, I might drink for a while then. Ha! Hm. Yes, listen. You guys use the place as a bar, but I’ve been trying to get you all to understand what the fuck is really going on here because there is. He stretches out his fingers, grasping for concepts. More to it. But have a drink, maybe today, you listen, next time, maybe play. Maybe play tonight if you’re ready. But it’s becoming a members only listening club soon. Sure. No problem. Got a place I can leave my guitar? He smiles, and nods. Puts it in the sound room. Walking lighter now – nice. Two Euro beers. No wonder the bar part outshines the other concepts. Signs scrawled in marker. The bar itself is a salvaged bookshelf or something. It’s not meant to be a bar. The place is furnished with scavenged, repurposed, improvised objects. The place fills up with twenty and thirty-something Greeks. Nose rings, choppy hair, tattoos, black skinny jeans, dark shirts, angular, Goth jackets, punky boots, silver rings, cross earrings, and so on. Maybe everybody wants to hear Punk tonight. But no, not Punk, Funk begins. Well above my skillset. This is the band. When the open mic starts, it’s the twelve bar blues of all things. Blues. One of the first things you learn how to do on guitar. The blues really gets the crowd going. Sweet Home Chicago and Miss the Mississippi have the Greeks swaying and nodding. Why do punk scene kids in Athens care about Chicago and Mississippi? I ask someone. I was there in another life, he says longingly. Hmm. Lot of people in those places say that about Greece, you know. The islands. He laughs and shrugs. Must have been a recent past life, I tell him. 1930s, maybe. A girl tells me there is a whole blues conservatory in Athens as well. Fingertips itch and I can feel those same five notes you learn to play for Blues soloing under them – it makes my fingers wiggle to hear guitar playing I like. The Blues. It grooves addictively. It cycles like the seasons, or a woman’s period. It’s sad like life. It howls like a wildcat and it bitches like a bad day. You can do it in a jam session and you get to tell your story or play your guitar solo on it, but then the shape of it stays the same and it’s someone else’s turn. Didn’t get to play that night. Maybe next week, if they play the Blues again. But I did think I began to understand something, like I began to get it. Either that or I was drunk. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
The Island of Weird Sounds An ocean of crashing waves where the sky should be. Salt waves surging and crashing, ebbing and flowing overhead. I open my eyes. The real ocean is lying down in front of me, where it belongs, but its sounds emit from above. Aural illusion. Because there is an immense tan cliff with thousands of round pores and a long arced top standing behind me. The sound of the waves bounces right off the cliff top and reflects down from above. Disorienting. No sand on this beach. Just water-polished, smooth white pebbles. Mostly just under ping-pong ball size. Some bead-sized. Worn flattish and round. The clear water is the color of cloudless blue Jell-O. The pebble bed is perfectly visible for about a hundred yards into the water, morphing under the soft, foamless, rounded tops of harmless waves. This weird place is on Agistri. Not many people on this island this time of year. The tide rolls out and it sounds like a rainstick. Shik-a-tak-a-shok-a-taka shika shika. Hundreds of white pebbles rolling over each other downhill. Water sloshes around them as they sink below the tide. Other sound effects. When I walk in shoes, the smooth, golfball-sized pebbles squeak and grind against each other under each step. Somehow, this sounds like ice cubes being dropped on a taut basketball. This crunchy bounce-like noise ricochets off the cliff wall same as the waves. Funny little piece of the world. It only has two aspects: blue water, and polished white stones. Sounds coming from the wrong direction. The smooth, sun-warmed stones are almost like a massage bed if you have a towel to drop over them. The smell of wildflowers appears and vanishes with each swoon of wind. Hard to say whether you’re awake or dreaming. Easy to say, actually. I’m awake in the regular old real world. Because here come three other people. A girl braving the freezing water for bikini pictures. A fat boyfriend who is regulated to photographer duties. A long-haired third-wheeler seeking the comfort of a joint. No more private island. “Ok, get one of me candid. Lower angle, lower.” Oh, weird. Her voice is coming down from the top of the cliff, too. Flopping back down on the towel, I see there are coin-sized pebbles on top of coffee-bean sized pebbles. Shades of white on white. Now, I know you’re no expert on fluid dynamics, but the coin-size pebbles can be submerged under the bed of bean-size pebbles with a simple press of a fingertip. I submerge about twelve pebbles, just pressing them down. Bam! Bright red in the field of white. Sea glass. Frosty red glass polished smooth. Looking extra special with all the contrast. And wow! Here’s a green one. Specialties. Rarities. Ok, time to start stacking. Sea glass sandwich is what I’m thinking. Coin-sized smooth white pebble. Red cloudy glass. Another white. Green frosty glass. Final white pebble. Done. Nice. We’re getting somewhere. Accomplishing things. “Now a video. Me like, pushing my hair back.” Ha. She’s still floating up there. Whoosh. Shik-a-tak-a-shok-a-taka shika taka tika. Look at this particular pebble. Exactly the size, shape, and color of a mint Mento. Matte, not glossy, though. Looks lick-able. Well, why not? Lightly salted, not minty. Of course. The tide touches the cliff wall when it’s flooded full. A lightly salted place, on top of everything else. Now look at this white pebble. It has three divots exactly like bowling ball holes. A distinguishing little feature. A way for it to feel unique in a world of conformity, no doubt. I toss it behind me and it clinks somewhere. I bring a flattish stone to the shoreside, wet, bright pebbles squeaking and grinding under each step. Fling the stone sidearm. It skips about three or four times before sinking in a splash. “Not bad,” faces from the two guys. The girl does not react in any way. Yeah, I am a pretty good skipper. Actually.Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
The Voice of the Dead Artwork by Kiefer Likens Traffic jam. One so clogged the cab driver gets out of the car, stands in the road, and throws his arms up in the air. The meter on his dashboard still ticks upward. Bigger bill for me. No easy ride back to the AirBnB to conclude a weekend at the beach here in Athens after all. What’s stopping traffic? A cluster of people wearing black hoodies and sweatpants. Between the rows of honking cars, a bald guy carries a massive megaphone practically the size of his torso. Next to him, a man with his hood up has a large banner rolled into double scrolls tucked under his arm. Megaphone guy leads some of the crowd into the courtyard in front of a columned building with carved statues standing on its roof. Stark white statues in twisted poses, with a crooked knee or one lifted arm. The man’s voice blasts through the megaphone louder than the engine hum of all the taxi cabs, trams, and drivers. Louder than the drumbeats from the speakers of cafes serving coffee and juices to people gathered under the round, metal reflector screens of gas heaters. His message is in Greek. The crowd repeats his words. What does it mean? I ask the cab driver. Though many people here speak English very well, this cab driver does not. He shrugs and gestures, watching the road. Roaring police sirens drown out our efforts to speak anyway. Blue lights shine into the cab. Officers arrive by motorcycle whizzing between the stopped cars. Two officers per bike. They wear black jumpsuits, white helmets, and ridged bulletproof vests. Screaming rises. A fire now blazes on the sidewalk. Protesters converge around an orange backhoe parked in a small construction site just off of the sidewalk, practically next to this cab. What are they doing? Tipping it over? The suspension of the backhoe buckles as people clamber on it. More riot police appear carrying plastic see-through shields. Hissing sound. Some sort of gas pellet or canister has been set off. Wind blows the smoke it emits through the courtyard. Smashing glass. Fire erupts inside the cabin of the backhoe. Rubber seat coverings melt. Dashboard dials and the plastic handles of levers all drip down. Black soot streaks its smashed windows. Protestors tuck their noses and mouths into their hoodies and run from the fire with ducked heads. Police bark orders from a megaphone. Stinging, sickening chemical fumes make a haze of the courtyard air. Harsh enough to make my nose drip and eyes water. The driver rolls up all the windows, but this hardly helps. He fishes a COVID mask out of his jacket pocket and puts it on. Holding my breath, I tap the driver on the shoulder with a five Euro bill, he sighs, takes it, and flicks his fingers for a quick wave goodbye. I twist back to check for more oncoming police motorcycles, then pop the door open, and dart between stopped cars to the far side of the street. Fresher air here, but the smell of burning rubber is stuck in my nose. A gigantic banner with Greek letters written in red and black ink has been posted on the fence of the construction site. Wind makes it luff and ripple. Beside me, two girls and a guy all about my age huddle and speak in hushed tones. Do you speak English? I ask. They are surprised at the question. What does the banner say? One girl tells me it reads, “This crime will not be forgotten. We are the voice of the dead.” Which crime? Which dead? The 57 people who died when two trains crashed on the Athens-Thessaloniki line. Scattered locals have told me what they think of the accident this past week. A barber, a cab driver, and a couple on a hiking trail who were kind enough to give me a lift back to the bus stop have each explained in their own way that the government shells out big money to cronies and cousins to run the train lines. And with this money, these buddies and back-roomers created a system in which a passenger train full of students lounging with headphones on, daydreaming and gazing out the windows, rolling along on all the certainty of steel rails were directed into a nose-to-nose collision with a freight train running in the opposite direction on the same track. Four train cars knocked off the rails. The front carriages engulfed in flames. People inside tumbled against the ceiling and walls of the tipping train while fire raged. Lives lost. Greased palms and dark money have deadly consequences, but not for the people getting paid. A flicker of a thought – this is a glimpse of Greece beneath the customer service. This explosion of longstanding anguish over government corruption. Perhaps this is the source of the half-shrugs – the hesitant exhaustion I have detected when asking baristas and bartenders here and there what they think of life in Greece. A woman dressed like one of the protesters staggers up onto the sidewalk nearby. Her black hair is in a ponytail. Ashen white skin, nose dripping, eyes red. Maybe from a face full of teargas, or gulping fumes from the burning backhoe. Two people help her to a seat on some steps near a cafe and squeeze her hands. She is in her late twenties. The protesters disperse. Lines of riot police in militant gear stand watch on every sidewalk corner. Why is that backhoe being left to burn? Are firetrucks busy with other riots around Athens? Is the fire department here well-run, or useless? Something tells me I would get mixed answers if I asked around. Even more strangely, a competing vision of how this Sunday will proceed asserts itself. For all the chaos, there is still a significant number of people who are determined to have a leisurely afternoon at the cafe of their choice. They are strolling along, dressed in long pea coats or leather jackets, sunglasses and scarves. This is a slightly older crowd. The baristas and waitresses continue to serve them. What else could they do? Orders are placed for freddos and frappes. Pastries with layers of flaked dough, crushed green pistachio, and creamy cheeses are served. People roll cigarettes or puff vapes, watching the aftermath of the conflict with what appears for all the world to be detachment and disinterest. They must be local; they are chatting in Greek. Summer is the big tourist season, and since mid-February, I have encountered just one Canadian and no other Americans. Then what is this place? Is it lethal, failing infrastructure? Is it divine espresso and perfect pastry? Is it screaming and burning in the streets? Is it long hours of watching the sun set over ancient temples to the sound of ambient techno? It is all of those things at the same time and far more, crammed and struggling right alongside each other block by block. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
Wheelbarrows of Spanish Rubbish Now I am a farmer in Spain. It happened fast! This change in my way of life. Seems I hit a lurch in my grand lark around the globe. Turns out, when you spend a ton of money, you don’t have it any more, so out of a deep desire to keep seeing the world, I am now working on a farm about a half hour from Sevilla. The gig gets me a room and groceries, and I still have afternoons and weekends free to explore. Fair enough. Sweet deal. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another. The first wheelbarrow full of wood for the compost pile is ready to be trundled down the hill. In the upside down U-shaped bowl of the barrow lie tangles of thorns. Enormous plates of palm tree shaped like shell bits from a brown lobster, but made out of wood. Big bundles of palm fronds with sharp dead spines along their stems. Mats of wet, fibrous, woven tissue. Rolling the barrow down to the wood waste pile, through thigh-high greenish weeds. Simple living. A white bell tower stands sharply from the horizon line. What Andalusian character! What rustic Old World charm. Time to hurl the handles of the barrow skyward and send the thorns, fronds and palm plates into the heap of other thorns, brushwood, and chunks of downed trees. The brush pile runs for a hundred curving yards. Barrow number two. This one weighs less, but it’s stacked so high with thorns that the wooden tips rake and scratch my legs whenever I take a step. I could adjust it, but they don’t quite cut through my work pants, so forward down the same hill it is. Oh wow, look at that. The same Andalusian architectural touches, and the same blistering rustic charm. Wait, lemme brew a little presence and gratitude for this scene of beauty – oh whatever, seen it. Get it. Let’s flip the barrow once more. And go get another one. Oh, yeah. Two barrows down, one hundred and forty seven to go. This is the life. This is what it’s all about, farm life, very traditional, very healthy. This is awesome. This is boring. The five fat dogs of the farm are barking all at once now. Probably because the same van they have seen every day of their lives at the exact same time is pulling up the driveway. It shocks them every single day. It blows their dog minds. It is a situation that requires immediate frantic prancing and barking. It is the same van they see every day, and look, look everyone, it’s back. Barrow three: heavy on the crab-leg and gigantic lobster-claw-like plates of palm tree bark. Deep smell of wood spice, rich in the nose, with piquant notes of thorns to draw light red lines of blood from my forearms above the leather gloves. Presented ingeniously on a generous bed of delicately aged palm fronds. Get a load of that same Andalusian bell tower. Drink in those mounds of brown fields striped with plow tracks. Isn’t it bucolic, isn’t bliss? Haven’t I seen it twelve hundred times over the bow of the loaded barrow? How many wheelbarrow-loads are left? Does the bell in that tower ever ring? When is lunch, and what will I eat when lunchtime arrives? Yes, yes, doggies, that van, that van is still back. Get on the case, boys. Bark the ever living heck out of that situation. The van, the van. Something must be done. Charging around must be accomplished. Deep inner feelings must be vented. There is so much to do today. Another barrow, this one loaded deeper than a ship making a voyage for the new continent from the days of whenever we were up to exploration. It’s bringing a precious cargo of palm tree chunks and thorns to the New World. I’m wrestling the one white wheel through the long grass for the rubbish pile. How will I do this repetitive menial job? Better than anyone who ever did it. They will call me the Wheel Barron. When I leave the mortal plane, people will say, ‘we lost a wheel one.’ Lunch is scheduled for sometime next month. I will bomb that cute little bell tower to pile of charming bucolic ashes. I will sow those plow tracks with salt. I will use this very wheelbarrow to bring the Iberian Peninsula to its knees. I will drain the Strait of Gibraltar one wheelbarrow full of water at a time. I will do no such thing. I will heave this wheelbarrow upside down, then go get another one. I’ll barrow a heap of rubbish that is kind of like this one, but really very different. A new salad of palm plates, spiked fronds, thorns, and yard waste. With a good attitude, I will do this chore till sundown. It’s getting me a cot in a finished barn, after all. It’s getting me eggs, tuna cans, oranges, and rice. Haul and heave, haul and heave, working the earth here in Spain. The black plastic pipe carrying water down from the stone pump house gurgles near my feet. Birds sing. White butterflies bob and flutter. Let’s get another barrow.
Hungry in Germany MANNHEIM – Three whole days bedridden with a stomach bug, likely from a German sausage that didn’t sit well with me. The last 48 hours on nothing but water with electrolyte tablets dissolved in it. Welcome to Germany. Outside my window, twin white smokestacks belch white steam into gray sky. Flat-fronted, boxy Mercedes trucks back in and out of work lots. German zoning isn’t like American zoning. When I first got off the tram in this district with its manufacturing plants, factories, and construction yards everywhere, I thought I had been given the wrong address. Surely, I thought, nobody lives here. They do, though. Couched between paved lots where cranes haul yellow girders skyward, surrounded by industrial buildings, vehicles, and smokestacks, there is a sturdy German apartment where I’ve got an Airbnb. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another. I came to Mannheim to spend time with a friend from back home. She advised me not to bring up the fact that Germany is still not allowed to have a military. Apparently, her German fiancé reacted quite badly to this topic and spluttered about the small army and further rearmaments going on due to Russia and Ukraine. Don’t know much about it. Not that I have anybody to talk to about current or historical events while lying in bed with a stomach bug. But alone and woozy, I do have time to think about that no military, or small military rule. I mean, surely enough is enough by now, right? So much time has passed. So much cultural evolution has happened. Right? Daylight breaks. It’s just below freezing outside. Lightheaded and extra cold after 48 hours without a bite of solid food, I layer up and begin the half-hour walk to the nearest tram station. I step outside and inhale the fresh air. Scratch that, it’s not fresh at all, it all stinks of rotten eggs. The rows of factories all churn up groundwater and kick hydrogen sulfide stink into the neighborhood’s air every single morning. My stomach flips over. I shiver and try not to breathe too much. As I cross the Alter Rhine, the rotten egg smell blows away, but the temperature drops sharply as I walk over the bridge. The Alter Rhines – leftover bodies of water created when the Germans straightened the Rhine. After all, you can’t have a river running wherever it will, wild and free. That’s just unruly and disorganized. The water-chilled wind rips through my peacoat and two sweaters. It’s so cold I might as well be out here shivering naked. “Nein, nein! Du wirst dir das Bein brechen, wenn du das so machst!” A work crew foreman is barking orders at a crew member who was about to drop down a manhole with a tool bag slung over his shoulder. The workmen all wear rubber suits with reflective cuffs on the legs. Look at the rage on the foreman’s face. Listen to the murder in his voice. The wrongness in the work of his crew stinks like filth in his nose. I shrug my head into my coat and press forward into the wind. The sky is gray. The water is brown. The old brick buildings have broken-out windows, walls with missing chunks, and exposed peeling plaster. Vines grow over bricks. The newer buildings feature the same harsh industrial angles you might see in any other city. This part of Mannheim is either old and abandoned or indistinct and unremarkable. There is an underground tunnel leading to the train station across the street. The walls are covered in graffiti. Puddles and creeks of piss run down into the sewer grates. You have to pay to use the scattered public bathrooms around here. Men, women, and children alike all find hidden corners and go in the streets rather than cough up a half Euro for the pay toilets. I hold my breath and focus on making it to the other end of the tunnel to catch the train. Train Ride To be honest, I don’t have a plan. I just ride the train until the area out the window looks promising. The buildings don’t have signs. There’s no indication of restaurants around. The train pulls to a stop with a cafe. Maybe they have soup on the menu. I hop off the train and walk over to read the menu posted outside. I study it and work to remember my survival-level German vocabulary or decode what I’m reading. Through the streaky brown glass, I see people inside smoking like it’s 1959. The woman behind the counter throws her hands up at me in impatient rage. I check to see if I’m blocking anybody’s way, but I’m not, I’m alone out here. Come on lady, can’t I read the menu in peace? Nobody else has ever done this? I lift a hand to thank and appease her and walk away. What hospitality! What warm hearts. I should just go back to the Airbnb and sleep. I can make it one more day without eating. More than halfway there already. Though the hunger seems to double or even triple the cold weather. Wonder if the cleaning lady is still there. She’s another figure who projected an air of silent, clenched rage. Her eyebrows tweezed to pitch-black perfection. Hair disciplined in a gelled black bun. A snarl in her mouth. The hard angles of her shoulders as she whipped dust out of the corners of the room. More disgusted than the foreman of that work crew. OK, what is with this place? My friend can’t hang out with me, I’m all alone. Can’t stomach the food, see a ray of sunshine, or even a smile for that matter. Yeah, I’ve changed my mind. No military for you sausage-fueled, shivering, snarling, barking little martinets. Who straightens a river? Leave it alone. Germany, your coldness, harshness, and anger are seeping into my blood like the windchill. Back Home The cleaners leave all the windows open, so even though I step inside I can’t really warm up yet. I leave my coat on. What’s this outside my door? There’s a chocolate Saint Nikolaus standing there. Wrapped in red tinfoil with gold crosses on his red hat and shoulders. I pick it up and stare at it. It unbolts my brain for a moment. How many years since a Christmas at home? How many years more since a Christmas with magic? This little chocolate saint. Taking an auger to mood and memory. I’m too old to think about stuff like that anymore! I’ve got to put this guy down. He’s dredging my spirit too much. I can’t be in a foreign country so woozy, witless, and starving that a chocolate saint can strip the years and makes me a kid again. I’ve got to get inside my room fast where I’m not exposed. I text the Airbnb host, “thank you for the chocolate!” She writes back, “It was left by Saint Nikolaus, of course!” She adds a winking emoji. Ah, you guys aren’t so bad. You’re the sweetest people ever. Sorry for what I thought earlier – the sausage-munching rage machine thing. I didn’t mean it. This chocolate is rich and delicious, and it’s the one thing I’ve had to eat all day. I eat it sitting near the radiator.
Caught Between Curfew & Culture | Colombia I am doing the tightrope walk of organizing a date while sitting here under a plant that’s sprouting from a stone patio, with a view of the mild, mid-afternoon bustle of a middle-classish, family-friendly neighborhood, my back to the door of a $7 per night Airbnb in Colombia. (In a cave with my book, Odd Jobs & After Hours. Get your copy on Amazon here.) Food delivery guys on motorcycles with insulated red backpacks putter at slow speeds down the block. The U.S. Marine veteran in the room next to mine is also out on the porch. He is cursing the snot out of a video pundit on his iPhone, and chain-smoking. And I am tapping, backspacing, Google translating, and double-checking my way through a Whatsapp conversation with a Colombian girl named Carla. We matched on Tinder. Through clumsy, ham-fisted, beginner Spanish, I am laboring to achieve that detached yet interested, breezy yet clear, kind of gamesmanship that Whatsapp flirting requires. (What? You’re above it? You’re telling respond when you see a message and not when an appropriately coy period of time has passed? You get to the point and you don’t waste anybody’s time? I doubt that, friend. I doubt that very much.) Ah, but Colombia! Colombia is a nation still capped by the cosmic dome of Catholicism. A people still cupped in the hands of God. Not like the bloated, broken, chimp children of the USA, desperate to suck all the money, food, and flesh they can into their faces while their little rock plummets through the void. For this fundamental fork in our cultural backgrounds, when I asked for her address so I could send her a cab to pick her up, she snapped back, “A cab? To my address? I’m not a prostitute!” Now, I thought I understood that in Spanish but I used Google translate to be sure. I put the phone in my pocket, a take a walk around the block. When I get back to my Airbnb, there is another message from Carla. “In the USA, the man can go over to a woman’s house for a first date, but it is different here.” “I understand. I was only trying to offer you a ride to the restaurant.” “Yes, I don’t have a bike or car, I need a ride.” I set the phone down again. What’s caused by the language barrier here, and what’s her? Is it even worth the trouble of explaining to this…woman, that cabbie’s need, and actually outright demand, addresses? You can’t coo gently to them like homing pigeons, and let instinct guide them. Go where you feel, cabbie. She’s out there, somewhere. A new message banner appears. “Can u send it here?” She drops a pin at a cafe that logically must be within walking distance of her house. “Yes. Does 6 work?” “Can we do 8?” “See you then!” Time to whittle, time to pace, time to kick cans, and kill time. But time does move on, and 8pm does arrive, and here I am in collared shirt and slacks, leather shoes, standing on a corner outsides a parrilla place. Parrilla. It means grill. That seems kind of general. I read the Spanish menu posted outside the joint slowly, guessing my way through words I don’t know. A cab pulls up to the curb, and out steps Carla, looking more or less like her pictures. Black hair, and good looking, like many Colombianas. Skittish steps. Darting eyes. (Is this neighborhood scary? Am I?) We meet and do a quick cheek kiss. She laughs at my clunky Spanish. We get an outdoor table. I can pick out what she does: nurse, and share what I do: writer. I manage to ask her what’s best on the menu, and she points to a mix of grilled meats over a bed of french fries. It has chicharrón, sausages, a grilled steak, some kind of sauce drizzled all over it. Peppers and onions in there, too. We get one of those and two mai tais. Soon that becomes two mai tais for me, and one for her, because the bartender is quite talented, and all communication is a taxing effort. She says something fast, something that ends in a rising, questioning tone. “No sabo,” I say, and shrug. She bursts out laughing. I sip my mai tai, analyzing this. Smiling. Clearly, I am funny. And this is good. Right? She types at blistering speed into Google translate on my phone. She shows me her English message. “I can’t believe you said that!” it reads. “When someone speaks bad Spanish we call them no sabos. If you want to say I don’t know, say no sé. I laugh and say no sé, no sé etching a deep, dark mental note. The mixed grill over fries arrives. It’s a banger. Hot, fresh, and tasty. We eat and chat about music, and movies, and work, and life, and English, and Spanish, and the USA, and Colombia. The mixed grill disappears, and the check appears. Blue-raspberry and red raspberry lights blast through the windows of the restaurant. Sirens wail. The heroic Colombian police department is doing a slow, loud roll down the street. Restaurants and bars up and down the block give their lights the double blink. “Curfew!” she says. “For COVID?” I ask. She nods. Spanish roars out of a police megaphone. I check my watch. 10pm. A whole city on high school curfew hours. I pay the check, and we’re out the door. There are just so many cops! And that megaphone message, which is definitely enforcing curfew runs on a loop. People are vanishing left and right. She tells me she needs a ride home, and I tell her I know. As I tap on my phone for a ride, she taps me frantically on the shoulder. Two cars, two cars! You’re an honest woman, Carla, I got it, I know, we’re cool. The Uber I call for her arrives. And look at me, Captain Charming, I open the door for her. She sits in the cab, steps out suddenly, then gives me a quick kiss on the lips. “Hide while your cab comes!” she says. It’s interesting advice, probably wise. I nod. Then I’m alone. It’s me, the law, and the great specter of COVID-19, making its deadly post 10pm rounds. Giant potted plants line the outside of a hotel on a corner. I dart over, and crouch behind one plant before the police pass again. Red and blue lights wash around the round, matte ceramics of the plant pots, and shine through their spiky fronds. There’s that same megaphone message again. The Uber driver sends me a message. “Sorry! No rides after 10pm for COVID.” No, that can’t be right. I try three more Ubers, but all decline. I try two yellow cabs. Same deal, no rides after 10pm. I peek out from behind the potted plants at the empty street. So here we are. It was 15 minutes to get here by car, which is (maps tells me) an hour fifteen by foot. Hmm. Cops are out, I saw them tapping people on the shoulder to get them going on their way. Right now, the streets are empty. What’s the move, here? Stick near buildings and start speed walking the hour fifteen back to the Airbnb? It’s the only option, and I had better get going. Maybe I can periodically check to see if there’s a rogue driver looking for a final fair of the night. I get going. Tap, tap, tap. Leather dress shoes, not too grippy, pretty hard-bottomed, on the empty street. Battery life dying fast. I take a notebook out of my pocket and copy down the street turns down in case the battery dies mid-journey. Ten minutes into the walk. No signs of cabs or Ubers. Compliance all around. Fifteen minutes into the walk, with the longest steps I can manage. Red and blue lights shine around the corner, so I step into an alleyway. The cops drive past while I’m crouched behind a dumpster. Then it’s back to hoofing it, to pitter-pattering along, making the big long trek home. Twenty-five minutes into the walk, and 10 percent battery life left. Ding! It’s a Whatsapp from Carla. “Home safe! Smiley emoji. Thank you for lovely time. I’m going to bed now.” And I look up at two stars, shining in the night between the buildings, and I take a deep, sweet, fresh, breath, and write back, “Happy for you! Sleep well.” Then it’s back to the hike. Police sirens again. They’re getting louder faster which means that they’re not after me, they’re after a real crime. Right? I crouch next to a set of steps under an awning, and a squad car barrels down the street, sirens screaming. Half an hour left to walk, and that’s easy, that’s doable, that’s practically recreational, but these dress shoes are hard as marble slates on the bottom, and they feel like they are too small now. It’s around then I start turning over in my mind, “two cabs, you can’t ride with me then tell the driver where to go after, I’m home safe, I’m sleeping, that’s all that matters. I’m good! That’s all that matters!” Not because I really mean it, but because it makes me laugh, and a little angry, and that keeps you going, going, going. Phone is dead. Going off my paper directions. City zombies appear. There are maybe twelve homeless people in this next stretch of road. Swaying back and forth. Screaming into the night. I should take a right turn and try to get around them. But can I course-correct after the detour? Should I walk between them instead? They’re skinny, they’re not too dangerous. Right? Or maybe…Or maybe they’re fueled by bitterness, hunger, and crack fumes, maybe they’re armed with shards of broken window wrapped in rags, and garden hoses with nails driven through the end to make spiky whips. Maybe they’ll smell Gringo on me, and descend like drooling junkyard dogs. I take the detour, and trust I can still find my next turn. My collared shirt is soaked with sweat. Feet still mad at me for wearing dress shoes for this unplanned hike. Wait a minute. Who is this? One moped rider is going down the street. I step out and wave at him to come over. He’s a delivery driver going home. I can tell from the insulated red bag behind him. I hold up some peso notes and point at the address on my paper. He gets it. I climb aboard behind him, and he zooms through the final stretch of my walk-in about 7 minutes, even with a detour to avoid a police curfew checkpoint. I thank him and hand him the pesos. I reach into my pocket for more to give him, but he refuses and drives home. The veteran is still on the porch, still watching videos, still chain-smoking. “Date go well?” he asks. I do a quick recap of the date, the curfew, the trip back, and he finds the scenario hysterical. “Put that story in your book!” he says. Let myself into the room. Turn on the shower. Kick off the dress shoes. I step into the cramped, narrow shower. Didn’t get mugged! Didn’t get fined for violating curfew! Didn’t get lost. But wait. Did the date go well? Did I do OK? Was I weird? Ah, forget it. No sé.
Epiphany in Medellin *** Enjoy this story, and for stories you won’t find online, grab my book here. Here I am, sitting on the stone tiles of a gated front porch on a block in Colombia, waiting on hold for a hospital back in the USA to send me written proof of a negative COVID test. Not sure how often cops ask for proof of negative, but the Airbnb host told me to have something ready. And she told me to practice saying, “I have proof I’m COVID negative,” in Spanish. Tengo prueba de COVID negativa. Or something. I set the phone’s on hold jazz music to a quiet speaker setting, and watch the block wake up. People aren’t going to work today. It’s Epiphany, and that’s a national holiday here. That’s when the Three Wise Men brought gold, Frankincense & Myrhh to baby Jesus. There’s something about watching a day start in a foreign country that’s like seeing a play begin. Queue the woman shaking a washed blue shirt over her balcony and hanging it on a white line. Queue the couple opening the front door of the apartment and assembling a ramp over the steps for the man’s moped to drive down. This morning, everybody is out on their apartment balcony doing chores or eating breakfast. Each of the four balconies visible is like its own world. One with a grandmother-age woman and her daughter, one with a couple, one with a family of four, and one family of three, are all having a day-off kind of morning. Instant coffee and a cigarette while leaning off the rail for one dad, pancakes and orange juice for the kids, and moms bustling around on mom business. Colombia has barred travel again, but I got here just before the gates closed. Now, I must stay in my Airbnb unless I can get proof of a negative COVID test. But the hospital’s hold music will not end. No cabs run, and many restaurants are closed. I start to realize I may not be able to get a bite to eat today. But no wait, look across the street. A few apartment doors to the left. A woman is pushing an industrial grill out the door. She and a man walk a big striped restaurant sign out of their front door. The sign reads Donde Toby. (Where is Toby? That’s what that means, right? The street food place is asking me where Toby is? For its name?) I can’t get over how different the apartments are here. You never think about building codes until you see what happens when they’re not there. Each building is slightly different creating a patchwork of odd angles and different colors. Motorcyclists and moped buzz down the block. A skin and bone man in a baggy polo and ripped jeans has two trash bags on his arms. He rifles through bags of trash left on the ground. Around the corner, on a second story balcony, somebody is reading what must be the gospel through a megaphone. I can hash out enough Spanish to know it’s the gospel, and based on the day it must be the story of the Three Kings. Black haired mothers in pandemic masks walk their children down the block. And underneath it all that hospital hold music won’t end. And it’s times like these, hungry in a foreign country that’s closed most of its restaurants, unable to leave and delivery service on holiday, yes, it’s times like these that make you ask the big questions. Such as, where is Toby? My patio is four feet above sidewalk level, made of brick-colored stones standing behind a painted white iron gate. If I walk to the end of the patio, I can see down the street where the man is preaching. There are lush green mountains rising behind him. They are covered in mist, but in the morning you can see their looming, rolling shapes. A voice crackles through the hold music. It thanks me for waiting and asks how it can help. I explain my situation. Sizzling grill, Spanish megaphone sermon, the rising buzz of a motorcycle’s engine. Dogs yap. A little bit of rain comes and goes. It’s all a symphony nobody could ever write.
Landing in Colombia Medellin at Night Enjoy this story, and for stories you won’t find online, grab my book here. *** Rain splattering the windows of the airplane. Dim purple and orange light shining through the little round window. Going just by the big flat tarmac alone, Medellin, Colombia, looks like Miami, Florida. I’m watching the tarmac for signs of Colombianism, you might say. Meaning what? Meaning having seen tarmacs in England, Russia, the USA, and now Colombia, I always watch to see if they, for example, drive the suitcases in a different kind of tiny truck. Yeah, it just looks like more Miami for now. A couple of friends of mine will be here in a few days. They’ve been before. They said I should come down this time. Just for a few stories. Just for a lark. And as you do, I larked my luggage out of the overhead bin and larked myself out the double sliding front doors. “Where you go?” asks a cabbie. And I set one bag down to fish an address out of my pocket, and he grabs my bag and starts stomping towards his cab, being the aggressive salesman he is. And wanting to keep up with my socks and underwear, I stomp after him to his cab. I mean, one ride seems as good as another. He’s got this stick shift Hyundai. A ceramic Virgin Mary is glued to the dash in front of the passenger. Two rosaries are looped around her stand. He floors the gas pedal shooting between rows of waiting cabs and Ubers, and those rosary beads rattle against the dash. We drive under palm trees and so far it is nothing I haven’t seen before. But the cabbie is getting agitated over something. “Get ready, get ready. Man, you gonna see something here, man!” Whoosh! The treeline ends, and there is all of Medellin, a city built in a green valley. Yellow town lights run up the sides of purple mountains. Clouds drift in front of the tops of skyscrapers. A yellow biplane circles near the mountainsides. “Hey! Where we going?” I can’t stop staring. “Where we going?” I hand the cabbie the address of the Airbnb. “I don’t know, I don’t know!” I check the dash for a GPS. Nothing. “Can you use your phone?” I ask. “No card!” That’s a shame. My own phone is dead as a brick. The battery decided it couldn’t hold a charge anymore sometime in the middle of my layover at MIA. The charger takes ages to wake it up, if it can bring it to life at all. Bad timing, you know, going to a foreign country, but you can’t put things off forever or wait till everything is perfect. Otherwise, you’ll never do them. The cabbie barks, “Policia! Policia!” Oh great. Meaning what? Get passports, bribe or bail money ready? Chuck this bag of coke out the window before he sees us? There’s the cop in military green with a lime green helmet on a motorcycle by the side of the road. But then the cabbie screeches the Hyundai to a stop in the dead middle of the road, and tells me to roll down my window. The cop is checking a phone in a heavily padded case. “Hey, it’s alright, we don’t need to bother him,” I say. “We can go.” The cabbie whips his hand in circles to tell me to roll down the window again. Grudgingly, I do. The cop looks up. Cabbie grabs the address. He must be asking the cop how to get there in Spanish. The cop does some gesturing. Left at the this and right when you see that. And bang, we’re off again! “I would never, ever stop in the middle of the road to ask a roadside cop for directions in the US,” I say. “No?” “No, they’re by the road to give you tickets, you can’t just roll down your window and yell, ‘hey, where’s Dairy Queen?’ at them.” “La policia es mi seguridad!” Must be, “police are my security.” His voice rises to a full bellow in this tiny cab, with just him, me & ceramic Mary. What I lack in Spanish, he’s making up for in sheer volume. “¡La policía es mi protección!” He thumps his chest. Not in the milkiest suburbs of the states could you find this kind of confidence in the boys in blue! “La policía no es corrupta!” Not even a little bit corrupta? I’ll still keep my distance, you mad cabbie you! We scream around a bend in the overpass. His whip the wheel & tilt the tires driving style makes this yellow cab shoot through the dark like a bullet. But what incredible greed my eyes have for all things Medellin! The dance of mist over moonlit mountains, the jungle plants and flowers growing from every island in the road. Has my battery pack brought my phone to life yet? I check it. Still dead. A motorcyclist appears in sideview mirror’s reflection. “Phone down, phone down, other hand, no window hand,” yells the cabbie, who is now sweating heavily into his stiff-collared shirt. He then mimes and chatters and explanation. Medellin runs on motorcycles. They rule the streets by day. And sometimes, a motorcyclist will steal an iPhone right out of a driver’s hand, even at a full 60-70mph. Which strikes me as a rather acrobatic, visually stunning kind of a crime. Imagine, you’re rocketing along in the passenger seat of a cab. A motorcyclist’s image swells in the sideview mirror. The biker’s shoulders dip left. His arm swipes through the window, scooping your phone right out of your hand, then zoom, he vanishes off into the night, carrying your drunk texts, your photos, your alarm clocks, your work email, your apps, your absolutely everything down into the underbelly of a world about which you know nothing, and if you’re lucky, you never will. Anyway, my phone stays in my pocket for the rest of the ride. Finally, the cabbie pulls off the highway into some side streets. The odd angles of apartment buildings are jammed together. They’re smaller, more cramped than you might see in the states. Everybody has a small balcony. “Peligrosso, peligrosso,” the hoarse cabbie stage whispers. There are enormous piles of garbage bags on street corners. Street art of the Joker, for some reason. Windows covered with large metal shutters, and bars. Doors made of solid metal. Possibly bulletproof. And city zombies (they are in every city) shuffle around in a nearby park. Bug eyed, broken toothed, slack jawed and jonesing for poison, no doubt. There’s a man with a shopping cart in a poncho and straw hat. There’s a woman in cutoff shorts, heels and a halter top. Nails a puma would envy. I don’t mean to make assumptions, but she probably has an engineering degree. One rail-thin guy is standing in the middle of the street, arms crossed over his ribs. A cigarette burning in his fingers. He looks like one of the city zombies. The cab squeaks to a stop, and the cabbie shouts for directions again. This cabbie will ask anybody where a street is! Three turns later, he drops me off at a place. This neighborhood looks a little better. Iron gate painted white. A lockbox with a key inside. Luckily, I wrote down the code before my phone died. The room is the exact size of a queen-sized bed. There’s a full-sized bed in the center. You have to scoot sideways like a crab to get around the bed to a miniature bathroom and shower. Can you drink the tap water here? Folks back home told me no. I boil tap water in this electric kettle, and drink tea-temperature water, unmixed with anything. But hey, I made it. Bedtime. To be continued.