La Ducha No Trabaja

OK, allow me to take a break from the whole crazy-mother nightmare. We'll undoubtedly come back to that later, as it is a long and ever-continuing story. But for now, the whole travel thing reminded me of an interesting adventure I had, far away from the insanity of my so-called family.

A few years ago, before the whole 9/11 ordeal, I took a trip to Spain -- just me and my backpack, without much of a plan. I'd studied a few guidebooks for sure, and had a few must-see sights on the list, as well as some decently-rated but cheap places to stay in various cities, but no reservations or solid commitments other than a railpass. I landed in Madrid, expecting to spend a month traveling the whole country, or most of it anyway, at random. Wherever the wind, the trains, and my very limited Spanish language ability would take me.

So, after an interminably long flight next to a fat guy who should have had to pay for half my seat since one of his thighs pinned me to the window, there I was in the airport in Madrid, staring at the conveyor belt long after all the other passengers had retrieved their baggage. I hadn't even brought a carry-on; just the clothes on my back and my passport -- yeah, stupid me. Everything else was in my backpack, which was now apparently somewhere other than Spain. Mine was, it would seem, the only bag lost on that flight.

So I approached everyone I could find who looked official, trying to explain to them in my toddler Spanish that everything I brought with me was in that pack -- clothes, guidebooks, maps, my camera, toiletries, sunscreen, etc. As they were airport employees and thus used to this sort of scenario, they were rather unsympathetic. Especially since in Spanish I probably sound like Rain Man. So basically the final word was that I was to contact them when I found a place to stay, and then they would try to find the backpack and get it to me where I was staying.

Having flown from SFO, I was wearing a leather jacket, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. In Madrid it was around a hundred degrees fahrenheit (don't remember what that is in Celsius -- maybe 40?). I had nothing else. Since I didn't have my guidebooks, I had no idea where to find a hostel or anything, so I simply got on a bus to downtown Madrid, which is a bit of a trek from the airport.

I got off the bus and walked around until I spied a hostel, but of course I didn't have a guidebook to tell me if it was a good or bad choice. But I was really tired and very upset at myself for being so stupid as to not bring a carry-on to a fucking foreign country, and pissed at the idiotic airlines for losing my bag -- just mine; nobody else's. That's what REALLY hurt.

But I figured they'd get me my pack in a day or so, and thus I decided to make the best of things. I went into the door of the building and boarded a tiny, clunky elevator to the third floor. I got out and there was this grimy door with a sign on it saying the name of the hostel, and I rang the buzzer. A three-hundred year old man answered the door and I asked "por favor, tienes una habitacion?" The answer was a complete mystery to me, but his gestures indicated that yes, there was a room available. So I followed him down a dimly-lit hallway to the very back of the building. The room was around two square feet. maybe three. There was a sink, a stool, and what some people might describe as a bed. The light was already on. There was once a window in the room, but it had been bricked up. Asking "why" seemed like a futile gesture, since I wouldn't understand the answer anyway.

There was a communal toilet, and shower, in the hall, but I was informed that the shower "no trabaja." Which means that it doesn't work. At a certain point in my desperation I attempted to turn it on anyway, which was a very large mistake indeed, but I will get to that later.

I was informed that the room would cost me the Spanish equivalent of seven dollars per night, and that I had to pay in advance for three nights. I was certain I wouldn't need three nights; that I would get my pack the next day and be off to a much better-rated hostel, but I was relieved at the low price and so I just paid it. Haggling didn't seem like it would be productive, and he looked like someone who needed the money anyway. Boy was I naive.

Okay, so I pay for the room, and I splash my face and head out into the city, still pissed off but relieved that I have a place to sleep. I get some change and find a payphone, call the number the airport employee gave me, and realize that, while conversing in Spanish is rather difficult for me in person, it is IMPOSSIBLE on the phone. So they spend several minutes on the other end trying to find someone who speaks English to talk to me. Meanwhile, I am discovering just how expensive the telephones in Spain are, as I keep having to put coins in the thing (everybody in Spain uses prepurchased calling cards, or their cellphone, but I didn't know this yet). Eventually I run out of coins, and just as some woman finally says "Hello can I help you, sir?" in English, the phone goes dead and I have to go find some more change. So I call again and try to explain that I was just talking to someone in English and the phone cut off, etc -- so finally I am talking to the woman who speaks English, and she is very nice. Before practically running out of coins again, I manage to give her the address of the shithole -- I mean hostel -- where I am staying, and she politely informs me that my bag should be arriving from New Jersey within a couple of days. NEW JERSEY? I scream, COUPLE OF DAYS? Then, of course, the phone goes dead again.

Turns out that when I switched planes in Newark, my pack didn't follow me. Why? Because God hates me. Anyway, now all I could do was wait. and wait. And try to remember I was on vacation and didn't have a care in the world. Yay.

So I bought a couple of those yellow disposable cameras and went out into the Madrid heat in my long-sleeved shirt (left the black leather jacket in my so-called 'room') to try and make the best of the waning afternoon. I saw a few sights, took a few pictures, learned my way around the Madrid metro and bought a pass and a map. I stopped and ate at many little places, and had some gelato and later some tapas, sangria, and Estrella, Spain's version of Budweiser. Cheap piss-beer.

I liked Madrid, but it was hot and very smoggy, and as I may have mentioned before, I used to have asthma as a kid. I've mostly grown out of it, but if I'm in a really smoggy place I sometimes have to use one of those over-the-counter inhaler thingies that I still keep with me, just in case. Only this time, it was in my pack. Which was apparently in New Jersey.

After awhile I went back to the hostel to crash after a long, wearying day. I went up the creaky, coffin-like elevator and Señor Yoda let me in. I went back to my room, turned the key in the door, and turned on the light, which I had turned off earlier. What I saw then made my blood run cold.

When the light flickered on, the room became alive. There were hundreds of them. Maybe millions. Or maybe there were only ten. But they were the biggest cockroaches I'd ever seen, and they scattered across the floor and the walls as soon as I turned on the light. Each of them was around two and a half inches long. I swear. you could actually HEAR them.

I was dumbfounded. I wanted to throw up. But there was nothing I could do; I had given the airlines this address, and the last thing I wanted was to confuse them by moving, perhaps never seeing my backpack and its contents again. Besides, it was now around ten at night, and there wouldn't likely be much of a chance of getting a different place until morning anyway, assuming I could find one.

I decided that I would get drunk, and then I wouldn't care about the bugs. Those of you who know me are surely aware of how little I drink as a rule, but it had been a difficult day. So I went back out to the street and found a bar, ate some more ridiculously cheap tapas and shared a pitcher of sangria with one of the very few ugly women in Madrid. A couple of times I considered trying to go home with her, because I kept thinking that she was downright attractive compared to what awaited me in my room. But I noticed several men at the bar looking over and laughing at us, and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I remember wondering what Papa Hemingway would do, but then I realized that Hemingway would have brought a carry-on, a flask, and a gun.

Okay, so I drank as much sangria as I could stand without throwing up, given that I am a serious lightweight, especially by Spanish standards. Alcohol is NOT generally my poison of choice.

I said adios to La Señorita Fea, and I staggered back up the street to face the giant roaches, now filled with liquid courage. I boarded the now-familiar coffin, and woke up ol' King Tut, who let me in with a grumble, something about extranjeros, which I knew meant 'foreigners' -- and I headed back down the hall to the Amityville Room. I paused at the ancient porcelain bowl to rid myself of some of the sangria, and noticed that my chest felt quite heavy, even through the haze of cheap fruity wine that filled my head. I wondered if the grungy stuff that passes for air in Madrid had gotten to me. I turned the skeleton key in the door of my room and flipped on the dreaded light. There they went -- it seemed like there were fewer of them this time, which made me feel a little better until I realized they were probably all gathered in the bed, waiting for me. This thought immediately indicated to me that I hadn't drank enough sangria; that there simply wasn't enough sangria in the world to do the trick. But the room was spinning around by now, and so I plopped onto the bed. there was no need to lift up the covers; it was about two hundred degrees in there, and I really dreaded what I might see under there anyway.

I could swear I heard and felt things crunching under my back as I lay down, but perhaps it was my imagination.

Anyway, I left the light on all night, thinking the little bastards would stay hidden. It worked for awhile. Soon I was lying there wheezing, my lungs unable to fill with air. It got worse and worse, until it was intolerable to lie down. Right about then, the monsters under the bed started getting used to the light, and scampering out for a looksee. I sat up against the wall on the bed, and for a few minutes I watched them all begin to crawl out of their hiding places. I knew they were coming for me, and I couldn't even breathe. Maybe they knew that. Maybe the door would be locked from the outside. Maybe there were bones under the bed, hundreds of them, picked clean. Maybe that's why I'd had to pay IN ADVANCE. The old guy was their stooge!

The room was still spinning, and I felt sick to my stomach, and I could barely breathe. I could smell the day's sweat on the clothes I was trying to sleep in, the only clothes I had. NEW JERSEY? I thought, A COUPLE OF DAYS?

Bugs crunched under my hiking boots as I sprinted clumsily to the door, half-expecting not to be able to open it. But it opened with a creak, and I dashed down the hall and into the elevator and out into the street, which had cooled off to about 80. It was around two a.m., my first night in Madrid.

I don't know if you've ever had an asthma attack, but it feels a lot like drowning. You simply can't get enough air. You panic, which makes it worse. Lying down increases the pressure, but walking around makes you need to breathe more. And wandering around in the smoggy air that caused the problem doesn't really help either.

I sat on a bench for awhile, watching rather seedy-looking men walk by, and worried about the ones who paused in front of me, fumbling for a cigarette or a switchblade or something. Then I would get exceedingly uncomfortable and I'd walk around a bit, trying to relax. Spain is a late-night kinda place, but there don't appear to be any 24-hour drugstores. Nothing was open except bars and nightclubs and places to eat. I wasn't hungry, I didn't need a smoky bar, and dancing wouldn't have been very appealing either.

So I spent the night alternating between sitting on benches, lying on the grass in the park, and wandering the streets, knowing there was nothing I could do until stores opened in the morning, whatever time they open in Spain. At around eight a.m. I became somewhat rejuvenated in spirit, as I'd made it through the night and I knew that soon I would find relief. I had already made note of several farmacias within a reasonable distance. No Walgreen's; no Rite-Aid. Places I normally denounce as symptoms of The Chainstore Virus -- but oh, how I longed to see those welcoming neon lights and windows full of OTC medicines and cheap trinkets.

Soon the streets were teeming with people. I wandered back and forth between the farmacias, none of which had hours posted in the windows. At ten o'clock I spotted one of them opening its doors, and I almost got run over crossing the street to get there. Of course, as soon as I stepped foot in the store, whoever had opened the door disappeared into a back room somewhere. I tried to call out for someone, but by now I could barely speak above a whisper, and I'm sure my lips were probably blue. There was no little bell to ring. So I waited. and waited. The Spanish are rarely in a hurry; normally I admire that about them. At that moment, however, I would have killed for an annoying uptight anal American pharmacist.

There was a chair, so I sat down, my eyes moving between the counter, my watch, and the other farmacia across the street and a block down. At ten fifteen I was about to take a trip over there, when a man with thick glasses said something in a deep Castillian voice that I assumed meant "can I help you?" since the word "ayudo" (to help) was in there somewhere.

I looked at him pleadingly, with blue lips, bloodshot eyes, smelling like sangria and old sweat. It didn't seem to faze him, but neither did my attempts to communicate through a desperate game of charades. "Favor de dame medicina! no puedo -- er -- como se dice BREATHE? I can't...breathe!" I flailed my arms, tried to mimic spraying an inhaler in my mouth, put my hand on my chest and wheezed horribly...no response. He must have thought I was just crazy or something. He fired off a long string of heavily-lisped Castillian and began to return to the back room when I screeched "Asthma! Por favor? Entiendes? ASTHMA!" Apparently, "asthma" is the same in spanish, though spelled differently, and so that stopped him in his tracks. He actually laughed a little. "Oh, asma! Veo, veo..." Then he mumbled something and reached behind the counter, pulling out a little box of what appeared to be a cortosteroid inhaler -- normally overkill for a condition like mine, which hardly ever appears unless I'm in a foreign country with no pollution laws and without my baggage, but I would have been overjoyed if he'd pulled out a gun and shot me in the head, so I grabbed it, threw a thousand peseta note (this was obviously before the Euro reached Iberia) on the counter and ripped the box open. as I sucked down the gas like it was lobster risotto with white truffles, he placed a five-hundred note in front of me as change. Five hundred pesetas. About three fifty. Drugs are cheap in Spain, I thought to myself, as my breathing returned to a normal state I almost didn't recognize. I thanked him with every Spanish word I could remember, and I took my smelly self out into the brilliant new day. Even the powerful sangria-induced headache I was just now noticing wasn't going to keep me from a state of euphoria. I had survived my first night in Espana, a place I wouldn't normally think of as all that dangerous.

I spent the next two nights sleeping in the park, my money and passport in the bottom of my hiking boot. I couldn't brave the bugs, and my pack hadn't shown up yet. I tried to use the shower at the hostel on the second day, and when I turned it on, at first nothing happened. Then there was a low moan, which turned into a rattle, which became a squeal. Then a trickle of brown water dripped out of the showerhead, and then everything became kinda foggy and surreal. From what I could tell, the showerhead shot off and just missed my head, and I was doused with foul-smelling brownish liquid. Then I heard the frantic voice of the old man screaming what must have been Spanish obscenities aimed at the illiterate little foreigner who was trying to use his obviously broken shower. Not having a towel, I ran past him, completely naked and covered with rusty fluid. I toweled off with my already foul shirt. I left the building, and found a lavanderia and washed my shirt once, but I still couldn't find a place to shower, so I went back and used paper napkins at my little bug-infested sink. The geezer just glared at me as I walked by, noticing that he had put chairs in the shower with several signs taped to them.

On my fourth morning in Madrid, I awoke early and went to have what was now my favorite thing about Spain, chocolate a la taza for breakfast. It's warm liquid bittersweet chocolate, and it is better than any I've had anywhere. I now had five disposable cameras filled with pictures in my room, and two more in my pockets. I already had the beginnings of blisters on my feet that would make for more stories later in my journey.

That morning, almost four days after staring forlornly at an empty conveyor belt, I took the elevator up for the last time. When King Ferdinand opened the door this time, he was chattering excitedly about something, and I assumed it was because I hadn't paid for a fourth day, and I would need to check out. But then I noticed the backpack sitting on the floor by my room, glowing like a Rennaisance painting of the Baby Jesus. It WAS just like Christmas morning. I have never, before or since, been so happy to see a pair of my own underwear.

I changed clothes even though my body was filthy, and I brushed my teeth for the first time in four days, even though the water was brown. Then I hoisted my pack up onto my sticky back, waved adios to the old Spaniard, and began my vacation, feeling like I'd finally reached Base Camp and could now climb the mountain...

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