The Camino

by Eddie Rock

  This week on The Jerry Springer Show:

  “Pregnant but still a virgin!”

  We meet Nazareth couple Joseph and Mary.

  “So how has this come about, Mary?” asks Springer. “You’re a virgin but you’re having a baby?” He winks back at the audience.

  “Jerry, Jerry; Jerry, Jerry!” The crowd goes wild.

  “And, Joseph, do you believe her?” asks Jerry as the crowd goes boooo.

  “Well, I did do for a start, Jerry, and then when the boy was born, a load of shepherds and three wise men turned up. So I don’t know what to think anymore, to be honest, Jerry.”

  After the break we find out the results of the paternity test.

  * * * *

  According to the Catholic Church, there is room in hell for sixty million souls. Sixty million and one, probably, knowing my luck.

  This religion evening has gone to my head a bit, and back in Bethlehem the wind blows under the stable door and up through the big gaps in my manger. I spend a very itchy night under the sheet provided against the old horses’ hair mattress and curse the day I ripped the zipper out of my sleeping bag back in Pamplona!

  HOSPITAL DE ÓRBIGO TO EL GANSO

  LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

  IN THE DISTANCE is the remarkable sight of Eva in tight tennis shorts. “Come on, let’s catch up to her,” says Dave, quickening his pace.

  Before long I can’t get a word in edgeways, as Dave bombards her with every question under the sun. There was me playing it cool and now here he is, giving it his best shot, and to make matters worse she’s lapping it up. All the groundwork I put in and now to lose her to him, as she laughs at all his jokes and boring stories. I’ve been here before with Cocker and Belen, so I speed up and leave them to it for a while.

  I smoke a cigarette and wait for them on the steps of Astorga cathedral as Monster-Truck-Vampire-loving JJ waddles past, eating a huge tortilla while slurping from a three-liter Coke bottle.

  Buffet-slaying fat bastard!

  He doesn’t even notice me as he fills his fat face, and it feels like I’ve been bitten right on my knackersack by a medieval mattress mite. “Great!”

  The two lovebirds arrive, fluttering all over each other, and we go inside the cathedral for a look around. Dave immediately starts doing his annoying crossy-handy thingy, kneeling and bowing all over the place.

  “Who teaches you to do all this ninja shit, man?” I ask him.

  “The priests teach you,” says Dave, studying his guidebook.

  “Yeah, right!”

  “I used to be a choirboy,” he says, leading us up the aisle.

  “That doesn’t surprise me one bit,” I sigh.

  On top of the excitement of the cathedral, they now want to visit the flaming museum next door.

  I can’t be bothered and I’m beginning to get fed up with all this shit, so I sit, guarding their packs. They play mister and missus in the museum, and an hour or so later they eventually appear, all happy and touchy-feely.

  “Anyone fancy a beer?” says Dave, reveling in his ever-growing ability to charm Eva’s pants down.

  “Yes!” I almost shout.

  Inside the bar we get stuck into some San Miguel and a whiskey chaser for the road, all courtesy of Dave. I suppose he’s not such a bad lad, really. I normally like to leave my drinking until I’ve finished, but today can’t do any harm, I shouldn’t imagine. I probably need one or two to help me cope with listening to his bullshit all day long.

  On leaving Astorga, Dave does the usual and gets us hopelessly lost.

  I wish he would just lose his stupid book instead of us all the time.

  The fucking tool! As he stares gormlessly into his blue guide, my hands itch in frustration and I realize that I’ve left my gloves back at the bar. It’s all Dave’s fault, the knob-head.

  With the help of my professional guidebook, we get back on track again. Dave is telling Eva about his recent trip to Ireland, where he kissed the Blarney Stone; his trip to India, where he kissed lepers; and his trip to Indochina, where he visited a holy temple and kissed a golden monkey. What have I got to match that?

  Wild West–style brawls? Drug experiments? Motorcycle accidents?

  How about the time I got deported from Australia, including being escorted onto the plane in handcuffs by two armed federal police? She’d love that story! Or maybe the time I got thrown off a nightclub balcony and ended up flat on my back in an inflatable swimming pool full of foam with a naked stripper wrestling a naked dwarf. But the best part of that story was . . . Or the time I shot the paper delivery girl with my mate’s air rifle! Maybe not?

  It’s getting hotter and hotter and my hands are itching like mad, thanks to Dave the rave and his crap guidebook. In the village of Murias de Rechivaldo, the arrows evaporate into thin roasted air. A car pulls up nearby and super Dave demonstrates his cunnilinguistic abilities to the occupants. “Perdóneme, señor,” he begins, guidebook at the ready. “Dónde esta el albergue, por favor?”

  The locals in the car laugh and joke with clever clogs, who keeps looking back at us, smiling and nodding knowingly with a smug look on his face, until finally the locals announce that the next hostel is over twenty kilometers away! That wiped the stupid smile off Dave’s face, I can tell you.

  So with that, we follow dispirited Dave slowly out of town with talk of rain forests and rare butterflies. I want to talk about customised motorbikes and war films as he tells Eva about pygmies’ pointed cocks somewhere in the Amazon jungle. Pygmies’ pointed cocks! Where does he get it all from? On the desolate track, Eva tells us she needs the ladies’ room, so I seize the moment and march off as Dave turns his back and shuts his eyes. The whiskey has dulled my many pains, and I feel invincible as my pace quickens to a steady jog with my arms pumping the poles, propelling me farther and farther to freedom as I plow up the track toward the ancient village on the horizon.

  A gap appears in the high stone wall complete with yellow arrows.

  In the old stone courtyard I throw down my pack, and as luck would have it, I find myself straight outside the old pilgrims’ shelter.

  “Twenty kilometers, my arse!” The Spanish locals have got a wicked sense of humor, joking with our pale-faced companion. I’ll give them that for nothing. I book into the hostel and take a wander up the ancient street. I find Eric sitting on a stone slab outside the old bar, drinking a large glass of beer and smoking a roll-up. He shows me a pebble he’s brought with him from Belgium and explains the ancient tradition of bringing a stone from home to place at the Cruz de Ferro, the highest point of the Camino, high in the mountains.

  Inside the old bar a group of Americans are having a good-old time drinking whiskey and beer. One of them is an absolute dead ringer for Ronnie Drew, the famous singer from the Dubliners, with his two-tone beard and soft eyes, and his bearded pals wouldn’t look out of place swinging their pants at a beatnik folk festival.

  I see Dave wandering up the old cobbled street toward me.

  “How come you stopped here, then?” he asks.

  “It’s as good a place as any, I suppose, plus I just met Ronnie Drew from the Dubliners. He’s walking the Camino with his wife; he’s going to sing a few songs later on,” I lie.

  Dave can’t believe his luck, and I can’t believe he believed my bullshit, but he is quite gullible, it seems. He goes inside in search of Ronnie as I walk back to the hostel and spot Eva in the queue for the showers. She says a quiet hello as I pass, and I don’t know what to say to her anymore with pale face on the scene. I’m certainly not playing second fiddle to him, that’s a fact! I grab my towel and wash kit from upstairs and fall in behind Eva in the queue.

  Eventually the shower is free and she goes in, reappearing seconds later with a dirty great big grin on her face.

  “There are two showers in here; I don’t mind if you don’t. We are all pilgrims, after all,” she says.

  The hostel owner shrugs his opinion, so I follow her inside the stea
my room and we strip naked. It seems like my wish has come true!

  I leave Eva getting dried off and take one last look at her naked arse as I head out the door. All this showering has left me with quite a thirst.

  * * * *

  Back at the bar . . .

  “Ronnie Drew,” laughs Dave, gesturing to the bearded Americans

  “Where’s Eva?” he sighs, next to a pile of empty beer bottles.

  “Eva has just got out the shower, David,” I say, ruffling my wet hair.

  “Oh, did you see her?” he asks.

  “Yeah, you could say that,” I say with raised eyebrows.

  Eva joins us moments later and asks me for a cigarette.

  “I didn’t know you smoked!” says Dave in a shocked, effeminate voice.

  “I only smoke when I’m drinking, or after sex.” She laughs in a husky Marlene Dietrich kind of way.

  We see out the end of the night, sitting on the grass with Eric and the Dubliner doppelgangers with a large carry-out from the bar. Needless to say, the blood of the pilgrim flows freely.

  EL GANSO TO EL ACEBO

  TOMAS THE TEMPLAR

  DAVE EMERGES FROM HIS SLEEPING BAG looking like he’s just pecked his way out of an egg. My head feels as fragile as an egg, my brain has shrunk to almost the same size, and it takes us almost an hour to get ready.

  “Fuck me, how much did we have to drink last night?” says Dave.

  “I don’t know. I think I’m still drunk.”

  Eventually we stagger out onto the road and get caught up in a procession of fresh faces coming from Astorga. One of them is a highly excitable South African girl with crazy eyes, giving a running commentary about everything she sees, hears, feels, and does.

  “Her and Swiss John in the same room? Forget about it!”

  On top of my savage hangover, other strange sensations are beginning to manifest down the front of each of my legs, and I am not the only one to go through an odd metamorphosis. Now Dave’s face reminds me of Ronald McDonald, as somehow his lips have swelled to twice the normal size and are luminous and shining like a baboon’s arse. It cheers me up for a split second until I feel a sharp stabbing pain down the shins of both my legs, unlike any other. At first I put it down to shin splints and shrug it off, hoping it will go away with my hangover, but minutes later my walk turns into a very painful limp.

  In Rabanal del Camino we stop for breakfast before the steep climb to the Cruz de Ferro, the highest point of the Camino. What a day to start with a new injury!

  As we begin the steep climb, both my legs start to lock up, and like the drunken fools we are, we have run out of water. Dave starts to fuss at me like an old lady, and I feel a bit guilty about sneaking back into the room last night and putting a heavy stone in the bottom of his pack. But he gets us lost again, and I soon change my mind, even more so as he gets his blue guidebook out and a finger goes to his inflatable big red lips as he looks for yellow arrows.

  “Ah,” he says. “Past the Iron Cross stands a pilgrims’ hostel. It’s run by a member of the Knights Templar called Tomás, and that’s where we will spend the night. It says here that ‘Knights Templar Tomás is famous for chaining himself to the railings of the electricity board in downtown León when they turned off his power”, says Dave excitedly.

  “Nice one,” I tell him. “I can’t wait to meet him. He sounds like a rebel and an outlaw, and I bet he’s a top geezer.” That thought alone spurs me onward despite the pain. My legs are swelling like balloons and very painful to touch. Now I am starting to worry. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. The only saving grace is Tomás and the fact that we’re walking on tarmac and not on rocks. So I count my blessings and crack on. I try out a variety of new walking techniques, including sliding my feet, walking sideways, then dangerously backward, but nothing helps in any way.

  Eventually we reach the Iron Cross.

  At first glance it looks more like a pilgrims’ rubbish dump than a thousand-year-old shrine, with old shoes, cigarettes, mass cards, a sock, an old hat, and rosary beads littering up the place. I wonder if there’s a syringe full of morphine Sellotaped somewhere to get me to the next hostel.

  I take my pebble and drop it on the ground as Dave looks skyward, saying “Hail Mary” five times for my stricken legs. I scramble down the rocks, and shooting pains travel from my legs to my brain and out my mouth.

  We rest for a while on the grass and laugh as a young German arrives with the biggest, roundest rock on his shoulders. He clambers up the stones, and with a triumphant thud, the rock hits the ground, stops for a split second, then begins to roll back down again.

  “What a fucking douche,” I say to Dave as we watch him struggle again, only this time he places it carefully and jacks a few small rocks around it. At last triumphant! “Yeah, well done, you silly bastard,” I joke, and turn to Dave.

  “So if he does exist, do you think that God will favor he who places the biggest stone any more than someone who only brought a pebble?”

  He thinks about it for a moment.

  “Well, the meek shall inherit the earth,” he says sagely.

  “If you say so, Dave,” I tell him as he throws on his pack.

  “Ooh eck, these straps are cutting right into my shoulders,” he moans.

  “Mine did that at first,” I tell him.

  “No, it’s strange, but my pack feels heavier,” he says, puzzled.

  “It’s all that wine we had last night, mate.”

  * * * *

  The descent into Manjarín is a nightmare beyond belief. I feel shooting pains with every step, and then every so often a lightning bolt of pain stops me literally in my tracks, leaving me gasping for breath.

  Eventually we enter the abandoned village, keeping a keen eye out for its famous occupant and our savior, Tomás the Templar. At first it looks like the village children have made quite an impressive play den, with a ramshackle watchtower made of planks of wood, rocks, and tarpaulins, with rope and string holding it all together. But didn’t he say “abandoned village”?

  “This is it,” says Dave, befuddled with excitement.

  “What!”

  At Casa Tomás an old table is set for dinner, and miserable-looking pilgrims lie slumped in flea-bitten settees, swatting flies, with looks of “we were here first” and “we’re better mates with Tomás than you are” on their smug faces.

  There’s a clapped-out Mercedes in the drive, and it looks like Tomás has guests. The legend finally appears dressed in jungle fatigues with crosses, ornaments, and crystals slung around his neck like Mr. T. of The A-Team—only a third the size, but with that same crazy fool look about him. He doesn’t look happy and keeps refilling his glass from a bottle on the table. I can’t look away from the bottle, as satanic flies buzz around my eyes, ears, and mouth. Funnily enough, Tomás is strangely unaffected by them.

  “Perdón, señor,” says Dave. “¿Donde esta los servicios?

  Tomás scoffs grumpily. “¡Donde!” gesturing to the surrounding fields

  “Don-day? What’s that supposed to mean, Dave?” I ask.

  “Anywhere,” he says, as five bluebottles land on his big glistening lips. So no toilet, and by the look of Tomás, there are no showers either! Flies land on my lips, in my ears, on my scabby hands, and in my eyes. I smoke the world’s fastest cigarette and angrily stamp the butt into the ground as intense pain shoots through my fragile body and mind!

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Fuck this fucking bastarding shithole!” I scream.

  “But, but, but, where are you going?” says stuttering Dave, as I grab my pack and limp away.

  “Anywhere but here!”

  “But, but, but!”

  “You can stay here with Lord of the Fucking Flies! I’m off,” I tell him

  “But your legs,” he says.

  “It’s not my fucking legs, Dave! It’s my fucking head,” I say, hobbling slowly away, closely followed by a buzzing black cloud.


  “But where are you going?” he says.

  “AS FAR AWAY FROM THIS SHITHOLE AS POSSIBLE!”

  * * * *

  Now, according to Dave’s book we are ten kilometers or so from the next pilgrims’ shelter, and as long as it’s not run by Tomás, I don’t care. I’m nearing the end of my sanity all in one day and I’m worried, very worried. My head is all jumbled up and I feel feverish and dizzy.

  The descent from the mountain is an absolute nightmare, and we pass some very strange rodent-type people shuffling along. The rodent man has a rat-tail hairdo, which I deem suits his face and probably his personality, and his rodent partner just looks like an albino chipmonk with pink eyes. Their strangeness is confirmed, as they totally ignore our friendly salutations with dull, sour looks.

  To add insult to injury, my hands start itching like crazy! Luckily, inspiration comes in many forms—in this case, a jolly one-legged man on crutches and the bouncing breasts of his happy blonde companion fly past us, giving me new hope for a few minutes, until a sharp pain has me cursing in five different languages.

  The hostel appears to be flyless and also has a very nice bar and restaurant. So we celebrate our immediate arrival with refreshing tankards of San Miguel. As soon as we get a couple of beers into us, Dave’s incessant worrying flicks from my legs to wondering where Eva is. He doesn’t have to wait long before she arrives. She’s wondering whether or not to carry on to the hostel in Molinaseca, not far down the road. But before she has time to think, Dave buys her a large beer, helps her off with her pack, and plonks her between us on a solid oak stool.

  I’m in no mood for drinking or listening to any more bullshit, so I leave them to it. Ten minutes later I find myself a nice bottom bunk in the quickly filling dormitory.