"It is easy to be holy on the mountain top, not so easy in the city."
Anon
Teo and I ended up spending two nights in Sarria. Last rest day of the five hundred mile walk. The owner of the bar/restaurante/hostal charged us fifteen euros per person per night for a room with two beds in it. We hadn't any heat in it on the first night and it was difficultly cold. Gonna guess it was under fifty degrees, maybe forty-five in our room. The two blankets on each of our beds were not enough. Made jokes that the produce, cheese, sandwich meat that we had bought would not in any way spoil.
My mother's second husband came into our lives not long after my biological parents divorced. I was five years old. My brothers, Leone, six, the eldest, Marco eight. Garry Fleming was a large, loquacious black man. While the marriage between he and my mom lasts officially probably three years or less, he was in and out of our home for another two or three years and he still was quite present in our lives for another four or five at least after that. I have not spoken to Garry now for probably eight years. His affect on my life was and continues to be profound.
Garry was a shining, proud, handsome man. Loud, ebullient, gregarious, intense, loving. He taught my mother how to cook, how to raise a family. He was as much a father to me for those many years as my true father was. Many of the ways that I am today are so deeply embedded in his being that it becomes painful in all of the sublime, beautiful ways to even think on. I strongly believe that his love and his paternal affections for my brothers and I, especially during those mysterious, ghostly, first years of the dissolution of our core family, helped to heal the ugly, primal, purple bruising of our little souls. A powerful man, physically, emotionally, his stalwart personality, at least from our unsteady perches, gave us a certainty that our world, our mother, our home, was entirely safe from any intrusions that could in any way injure us. This allowed us, in my opinion any how, to feel safe again, to re grow the confidence and the sureness in our still forming understandings of the so recently shattered, fire bombed communities of our inner worlds. For this I can never really know how to repay him, how to thank him, to honor him. Perhaps here I can begin to try. He was an often profane man, swearing good naturedly, grabbing us, telling off colored jokes. He was also a stern disciplinarian-not in any way overly so, but he set boundaries, taught us the correct ways of doing chores, listening to our mom, etc., and one did not cross those lines without an expectation of his response. He was a minister at the time that he and my mother met. Then a community organizer. He was the type of man that, upon meeting, one did not forget. Like my biological father, my step-father was completely larger than life, both almost caricatures of a man's man, if you know what I mean.
As a child my mom, brothers and Garry and I would always go to his family home in Galesburg, Illinois, for Thanksgiving. We grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and the drive down was always snowy, cold, long enough to be a road trip, but not so long as to be buredensome. His mother, Dor, was a sweetie. His step-father, John Loveless was kind of a creep, used to hit his mom, kind of too cool for rules, but treated us well, drinking every afternoon into evening in his postal delivery uniform at the dining room table. His half-brother, Greg, was usually there. Funny, a bit jive, but fun to hang with. Garry's cousins, Goose, Michael, and Wally Gator, a riot when they all got together, some rowdy midwestern black folk, drinking, telling big stories, tall tales perhaps, but entertaining. Getting red eyed, laughing louder as the night wore on. They too were always really good to us, considered us full family.
Thanksgivings there were always a riot. Garry's Aunt sue, who grew up in a house next to Carl Sandburg, he of the "Chicago, city of big shoulders' fame, used to baby sit her on his front porch. She would cook possum, squirrel, coon, while preparing collard greens, beans, cornbread. Garry too cooked soul food for us in our home, his home, as we grew. The rich, buttery smell of ham hocks and navy beans pouring sweetly through the house. God he can cook. Still prepares these when we visit. God bless you for your love, and for the nutrition, poured into our little hearts and bodies. Thank you for your energy and your patience and your kind treatment of our mother and ourselves.
My brothers and I grew up as people of color, although our skin tone, and my blonde hair and blue eyes, marked us as not so. And me, this skinny white looking kid with the funny Mexican name. Story of my life. Too brown for the white kids, too white for the brown kids. Except when we lived in Madison, and with Garry and his family.
A fifty something Japanese woman that we have walked on and off with over the last week plus of our journey, Atsuko, also stayed at the hostal we were in. She told us to call her Ate, her nickname. I told her to call me Peb. She and I diced that Tchan was a good nickname for Teo, as the suffix 'chan' means something like 'dear' or 'small' in Japanese. For example, I have a friend in Japan who goes by the name Kachan; his given name is Katsuyuki, but his mother prefers that he go by her pet name for him.
Ate is a funny, goofy sort. Her English is okay, maybe a three out of ten. She walked about the last half of the way into Sarria with us, has been walking since St. Jean. She asked us how much we paid to stay in this same hostal. "Thirty euros for both of us, together." She looked puzzled in that overly exaggerated, Japanese way, head cocked, eyes askance. "I pay thirty euros myself," she says. "Why?" I didn't know, of course, what to say. "Maybe because you have heat?"
It is kind of strange why it is that the subject of my step-father, Garry, popped into my heart this past day. Sitting out in the sun, writing, yesterday am, two German guys, maybe twenty-two or so, began talking with me. Martin and Martin. I know, right? Good guys, both carrying guitars, been walking since the French coast. Good English skills, especially Martin. Gotcha. The blonde haired one, more elvish featured, blue eyes, sharp nose, bit taller than Martin. Martin II, we will call him, is a bit burlier, but by German standards, so maybe five eleven, maybe hundred eighty five or ninety pounds. Both look fairly young, Martin II brownish hair with a tint of red, wispish beard and mustache, cap like a German WW II u-boat sailor
We are situated at the top of a long set of old, stone stairs, perhaps five meters wide, rising a good Fourteen to twenty meters, maybe forty, fifty big steps strung out over a horizontal distance of thirty meters. The Camino comes up these steps as it passes through Sarria, this town. The place Teo and I are renting a room in is here at the intersection of this stairway and the street that it flattens out onto. While we are talking, maybe over an hour, Teo comes out, we four get on well. Camineros continue to walk up through here, looking for albergues usually. We greet them, the welcoming committee now.
Next thing I know there is a particularly unusual site, a black Caminero in a bright orange jacket, trekking gear, who appears at the top of the steps. Now it is not that most of the black pilgrims are not wearing bright orange that makes him unusual-no-it is that in almost forty days and almost six hundred kilometers of walking he is the very first black person that I have seen.Given that Americans have not started showing up on the Way until the movie, The Way, came out two years back, and given that hiking, skiing, golfing, are not much given to having blacks participate in them, it is not surprising to me to not see blacks here. But it surely was surprising to meet Dwayne.
After more or less doing a double take, I heard him express happiness in hearing some serious English, American English at that, being spoken, invited him to join us. Now Dwayne is a talker. I know this because, well, it takes one to know one! He is also a man of Christ. Now this I do not say, as the aforementioned on phrase on talkers, because I am one, because I am not. Dwayne wears his love of Christ Jesus proudly and loudly. He is a genuine man, a gentle man, an intelligent man, a good man. Those characteristics became obvious five minutes in.
A woman Caminero walked up the stairs that Dwayne already knew. She began talking to the two Martins, who were off to one side now as Dwayne and T and I were getting to know one another. He said 'Hey," to her as she began to walk on. He introduced himself to the Martins, found out hat they were German, and busted out a loud, "Oh, okay, so she's your HOMEgirl!" To which the Martins both, not understanding the colloquialism, said, "Huh?" Teo and I cracked up hardcore, fist bumping, giggling.
Dwayne hit it off with Tdog and I in the first moments. What's the saying, "You know your friends in the first moment you meet them more than you'll know an acquaintance in a thousand years." We were friends instantly. He immediately reminded me of my step-dad. So much so that it was a bit peculiar. Thought he must be from the heartland, the Midwest, where Garry was reared. He said, surprisingly, that he was Delaware. Fifty three, though I thought he was my age, Dwayne shares so many characteristics with Garry that it kept making me shake my head. Both of them say, for instance, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no," when they are making an emphatic disagreement. Both make the sound, "Mm-mmm-mmm," as in, "You don't EVEN know." Both have a clear, precise, well educated use of the English language, well educated. Both of them have that big eyed, "Son, I EVEN playin'!" look on their face at times. It turbid out later that Dwayne was raised in St. Louis.
Although at ten thirty in the morning T and I had not had many thoughts about what we would do to pass the day away, we talked with the Martins and then with Dwayne until the sun slid behind the buildings in the late afternoon, sitting at a table in front of the bar/restaurant below our hostal, sliding the table over every so often to stay in the heat of the sun.
Ate left that morning, and we wished her well, told her that maybe we would see her in the plaza in front of the Cathedrál in Santiago. A bit later I made an arrangement with the somewhat unkempt but friendly enough owner of our establishment to grab the heater out of Ate's ex room and move it into our own. T and I, judging from the type of guy that this owner seemed to be, decided that he probably just sort of charged people whatever he figured he could get out of them. Funny that he charged Ate, the Japanese female, more than he charged us. We felt good about paying the low end price.
My confidence is returning. I spend little time sulking, missing my life, embracing instead my life. Cocky almost, my old self. Younger. Down maybe twenty pounds from when I started this crazy march, stronger in all ways, smiling, talking fast, bright eyed, catching the eyes of women more often than I can't remember when. More likely to sing to myself, to dance by myself when alone in a room, making my plans for my life, damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.
Spending time with Dwayne brightened me. Teo really connects with him, he even said this to me. He said, "He's not aggressive. I like that about him. I feel like I connect with him." I left them alone at times so that they could do their thing, give Big T another adult to listen to, confide in. Dwayne is a youth minister, he teaches classes to youth, tries to teach them about life, about marriage, about how to change the oil in a car, how to balance their checkbook, how to do their laundry. He has written a few books, his most recent one is on marriage, a nut that he, after four failed ones, is still trying to crack. Teo connected with him on this subject. Given that T and his girl, Veronica, have been together for two years now and that T has converted to Catholicism in the last year, Dwayne's views, also a Catholic, are of particular interest to him. I went and smoked a few cigarettes, wrote, allowed T to talk freely in front of Dwayne without feeling like he would have to real anything to me that he may not want to.
The three of us went to dinner together at a decent restaurant. We had a terrific time. I bought a couple of appetizers for us, croquetas de casera y quiexo de Gallega along with pan and a jarra (pitcher) de sangria. Talk flowed smoothly, easily, filling the space of our table warmly, comfortably. Teo and I split a chuleta de ternera, a veal chop. This bad boy looked like a brontosaurus steak from the Flinstones, 800 grams, the better part of two pounds. It was the kind of place where the Server brought out the raw slab of raw meat, two inches thick, showed it to us for our approval and for our arousal. We had it cooked rare. And it can still chilled in the center, blood red. The server cut it from the bone, any canine's wet dream, then cut two chunks and placed one on each of our plates. Time to dig in!
Some hour later, about two and a half hours after we entered the establishment, we got up and waddled ourselves out the door, the two blocks to the stairs, up them, parted company with Dwayne after making arrangements for getting together in the am, and parted company.
The next morning we arose, me taking a hot soak in the tub, writing, reading, T doing his thing in bed. We moved downstairs, had the tostada, butter, jam, and cafe con leche that came included for our fifteen euros per person. Met Dwayne there, talked, readied our packs, walked out to hit the trail. A well made, full color pictures and all sandwich board had been set out front by the unkempt looking owner. The name of his hostal was printed on it, as was the price 'por persona:' $12 euros each.
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Location:Camiño Proelo,Portomarín,Spain
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