It's a degree of fatigue that leaves you silent, breathing heavy, slow breaths that dim the lights upstairs a little bit with each exhale. Thoughts drift in and out of present consciousness. One tries not to think about all the number of Spanish goodies we're going to devour at the very first eatery our eyes should come along when we reach San Cugat. One tries not to think of the malnurished purgatory we've unwittingly placed ourselves in. Not so much as a vending machine anywhere throughout the platform. We're void of any and all possible num-nums in our packs. The Verspegerst bottle is empty. And my stomach is howling about as loud as the battalions of crickets surrounding us, but still, we have to wait. Sitting, legs splayed on the platform, leaning back on our bags, we waits. Long enough so that for a few moments time loses its meaning and I stare blankly out over the wilderness stretching out towards the mountains, the faraway lights of civilization, the stars twinkling in the humid night. I can almost feel the glazing coming over my eyes as everything shifts out of focus, and the sounds are so amplified in the mind that they all cancel out into an undulating hum that grows louder and louder as the focus fades and the sand falls slower in the hourglass. For moments I'm there, and for moments I'm not there. And before you know it, there's light on the track and the train's arrived. The R7, hourly, to Martorell; our savior, our everything. There aren't many passengers at that hour and we slink into some seats next to the doors, silent. Hunger pangs sprint laps around my belly, and my pack seems unsparingly heavier. Grant and Max both have huge bags under their eyes. We look past each other's blank faces, down the empty aisles and out at the darkness flying by. Irritability's running high amongst the lot, with agitated asides and pithy sarcasm. Everybody's too tired to argue, so all we do is sit and mull. When the train stops at San Cugat de Villes we bolt out of the tiny terminal with unknown energy and all due haste, running heavy-footed with our bags bobbing up and down. Straight across the parking lot, up a shrubby incline, to find ourselves at a quaint little round-about and there we see it, not a hundred yards away. A couple is finishing up what looks to be a tremendously satisfying meal at a table outside on the empty street. The small, hole-in-the-wall tapas is the only place still open, and we each fall into seats at the only other table outside.
Financially, my pockets are turned out. I'm broke. Stalled. There's money on the way, but who knows when it'd be there. And maybe Max is on the same boat, I'm not sure. Either way, for me anyways, this late dinner, this feast fast approaching, this ultimate indulgence is inevitably going to be on Grant's dime. To be paid back of course, just in due-er time. And for that I am eternally grateful.
[stop]
Because this is the most incredible of meals. Fried seafood and cheese never tasted so good. Exquisite decadence at it's finest from some little late-night suburbs Tapas. It floods parched taste-buds, it inundates the senses. It's dumbfounding. And ever time I think back to it with real hesitation and nostalgia, it's just more so. One of those memories that bosoms over time into the most beautiful thing in the mind. Here's how it starts. From the first bite.
Now, many debate upon this first bite, for it does not come about by favorable means to a few particulars in the group (mostly everybody but me). We orders the special, which is in Spanish, but from what we can make out, it's just a whole bunch of plates of everything from fried calamari to muscles and clams to fried anchovies and etcetera. Fried mozzarella nuggets. America eat your heart out. This is going to be divine. It's going to take ten minutes though.
I believe it was Albert Einstein who, in his early years before the fame and glory, surmised this grand hypothesis as to the characteristics of time and how it reacts to certain pressures and stresses applied, namely a seizing delirious hunger associated with traveling by train for hours on end without a proper meal. I don't remember the report exactly, but he hypothesized an exponentially separating correlation in which, as the seizing delirious travel hunger became more and more severe, time would slow to a turtle's pace, minutes crawling into infinity. I submit a proof positive to this hypothesis because dear God, those ten minutes seem like an eternity to me. Literally. It's as if I had managed to quantify it, measure out its vastness, and see my feast shimmering far off across that intangible distance.
What hellish ring of Dante's Inferno are we on?? It's intolerable, and yet, unavoidable. A shriveling feeling, something to be rid of as soon one can. It's no place for me, and my eyes keep searching for some kind of solace. Something to loose myself in. But the streets are empty and cleanly lit by streetlights. Total monotony, total serenity. It's driving me crazy. And so as the well-off looking (by comparison) couple saunter off into night, of course I eye them. I eye them with all the hunger of a leashed moutain lion. I want to eat, to devour their satisfaction. The look of contentment on their faces. And then my eyes fall to their former table. They had eaten probably no more than three quarters of their special. It's a veritable treasure trove of unfinished seafood and meat plates. And I am veritably a pirate ship, buccaneer crazy from this stomach grind.
So with a tip of the hat I'm not wearing, I casually slide the closest plate of unfinished grilled-sausage off their table and onto ours. Mike laughs. Grant looks confused, and Max turns a disdainful sour. I can't cared less, truthfully, as I pop that first slice of sausage (mmmm) into my mouth. So savory still, so juicy. Maybe not so hot, but not entirely cold either. Is it delicious? God, yes. Is it satisfying? I'm drunk off the satisfaction, as my stomach once again greets food. It is ecstacy. Somewhere way up in the clouds that night, in Elysium amid gords of Greek wine and chicken legs, Dionysus is looking down on our silly world, smiling at me and saying, "It's good, ain't it." And it is.
Max doesn't share my enthusiasm for this remarkable turn of events. "Dude, really?"
I almost choke on the chuckle that squirms out. "Yeah, man." And I pop another sausage slice into the ole' chompers, and I take a deep breath and my eyes close and a pure look of pleasure smiles across my face.
"You don't think that's a little rude?"
"Uh, no?" Which means I don't really care, which I don't. "Is it more rude than not finishing your meal and letting that food go to waste?" I don't catch on right here, but I think that's what locks us in. Debate time, bitches.
I'm not sure if Max is taken aback by my retort. If he is, he hides it well because he comes back quick. I don't even have time to pop another slice in. "Yeah, dude! They paid for it. Who cares what they do with it? It's their's."
"Well they left it, so who care's what I do with it?"
"It's just impolite, man. Don't you think, Grant? You serve. What's your whole take on it?" Max says.
Grant shrugs uneasy, "I don't know... I guess if I saw someone slipping food from a plate, I'd kinda look down at it. I clear tables with half finished plates all the time."
"Okay." I can understand that. It's a matter of etiquette. An affront to manners. Personally, I tend to be one who likes to associate with politeness and common courtesy in my everyday living. True, I guess I would be naturally inclined to look down on someone taking someone else's unfinished food. And at that moment I come to realize the stark substantial fork in the road between etiquette and morality. I like to think that my moral compass points pretty true. But like any compass, it's been calculated away from that polarizing magnetic force. Re-calibrated to point geographically north, not magnetically north. They're sure as hell close, and depending on where you are, it might not be re-calibrated at all. And so too are our internal compasses. I guess when we're all little babes, ripe with minds waited to be impressed upon, we learn to point true. We're re-calibrated, not by our guises entirely, and with any luck we're pointing the right way and the sun's always setting off over the port-side bow.
And so here we are, caught somewhere between geography and magnetization, seeing a difference in our calibrations. So I think about it. The situation. The predicament we now find ourselves wrestling with. Each opposition. The leaving of the food paid for, dishes of half eaten seafood. The consumption of that food paid for by another. By this time in the trip, I've developed a certain pedestal upon which to place food on in general, as a means of nourishment and as a means of existence. It's our most precious commodity. At this point I think my weight's coming into the range between 140 pounds and 145 pounds. I'd lost ten pounds since the trip began, since London. And I greet food - any food, any nourishment now - as a special kind of gold. An edible trophy I deserve for living, just for making it this far. It makes you think of the extremes. You recall hearing the horrors of African starvation. Children not eating for days. Mothers and fathers fighting for rice and powdered milk. You see images of a vulture staring down the curled stick-and-ball figure of a small child in tattered clothes like dead venison. And when you do, it hurts because we know we can't really do anything about it, or we feel like we just don't have the time because we're so busy with our own lives. And then I think about how broken I still feel, and just how lucky I am. To be where I am, to be where I'm from, to have lived this life. Then I look back to Max, resolute, and decide in my mind and aloud, "But I think I would look down more at those who didn't finish their meals, man." And that's that. And another sausage slice.
Max still isn't so sure. But to hell with that. I whisk another plate off the neighboring table and in my head, I tell myself I won't let food go to waste if I can help it, and I'll lay down my shield of pride more often, and let people see who I am. An animal maybe, but an animal of clear conscience. It's a plate of marinated beef and I pop the pieces of seared flavor into the ole' chompers. And Mike and Grant try a bite or two of the sausage. And I grab a plate of half-finished calamari.
When we see our food coming, we discreetly huck the plates back onto their respective table. They bring the five course meal out, plate by plate and we eat like kings at a midnight jubilee. Our moods lighten and we laugh and we reminisce. Irene, or next host, texts Grant her address. She lives just around the corner.
