FIESTA: Wine-induced Sensory Forfeiture Blues

Outside the cathedral, amid thousands of bodies moving in all directions or none at all, we found Paula and her two friends standing in the sun. Erik introduced and I passed the tinto. We stood for a while conversing in the usual chat and looking around at the people sea in which we were situated. A call was made and we began to move, heading toward a narrow outlet at the northwest corner of the plaza. The road had been neglected at points and it was clear along patched cobbles between pale stone buildings both vacant and occupied that the city had fallen to hard times before. This, however, was anything but. Music oscillated as we shuffled like a hundred penguins down the street past bars where light disappeared behind swaying walls of bodies holding clear plastic liter-sized cups.
Ahead of us a gap opened up and a boisterous brunette in a yellow t-shirt howled into a megaphone. I rested a minute on a stone sill when from the interior behind me a slender arm reached around and held out one of the aforementioned buckets of drink. Not wanting to be in any way rude, I took it and gladly guzzled down some of the red wine and cola mix they call kalimotxo. A body followed the arm out the door and and cute curly haired girl of my age stood smiling. She told me I was crazy to try to brave the street and though I did my best to explain that I was with friends, I don't think she was interested in trying to hear what I had to say over the bedlam in the street. Instead she repeated the price of a drink in the bar and offered me more of hers. But suddenly I felt a shove from behind. I turned as some overly-concerned coeds set themselves to freeing up space for a woman who witnessed the invention of flight and couldn't have reached the top of my head with her cane to walk out of the bar. The force was reciprocated from the crowd outside and I threw my hands against the wall above my head to form a human buttress beneath which I silently watched the well dressed woman in a long russet skirt and rectangular navy blazer pass indifferently and disappear with her cane around the corner. Something rose up within me telling me to flee the scene and I thrust my backpack up above my head and barreled for the open alley to the right just ahead.

In there I ran into Erik and for a moment thought I would be able to convince him that we needed to cut our losses and regroup, as it seemed to me that Paula and the gang that had lured us in there in the first place was lost up ahead. But words fell on deaf ears and in the same moment that he began his peevish protest a shocking sensation seized my spine as a volume of liquid came crashing down onto our heads in the street, and in our reaction to crouch and seek shelter, we saw Paula waving at the entrance to the alley. There was no chance of turning and fleeing and so we dove back in and without realizing how or by whose volition we whisked down a few stairs into a bar. Beyond the stairs the sunlight failed, but it was replaced by the neon strobes and lazers of a dance club. Music shook the walls and most importantly, bartenders shelled out not buckets of bargain wine punch but cups and shots of overpriced liquor. So we took the stairwell and stayed along the edges, smoking cigarettes and drinking wine on the sly as we talked and exchanged looks of knowing disbelief over the heads of passing bodies. Outside I could just make out the sound of the megaphone and shrieks as people dumped buckets of water down from the balconies above. I looked around me and realized we'd grown, while several more people came toward us from the back and embraced Paula and her friends. Now we were quite a few guys and girls passing  drinks and talking shit. I had no concept of time in that warp save from the progression of numb comfort mixed with excitement. Every once and a while I'd look to Erik and see his smiling eyes a bit slimmer each time and then I'd be pulled away by some drink or offered cig. At one point I took it upon myself to refill our supply and headed toward the exit to find a deal.

It was out in the street that I finally understood The Sun Also Rises, a disorienting experience where at one point any attempt to track the time is thwarted. I felt like I was reeling, and I very well may have been, and the force of the midday sun on my battered senses was like a straight shot to the head. I moved. I may have run. I had to find solid ground. Inside another bar I found friendly faces and asked about their drinks. They quoted a price and I didn't like it. I said something bad-mannered and they turned their backs to me. So I left and felt the burning of the outdoors again, as everyone around seemed suspect. None showed any mal intent but they could easily be hiding it behind indifferent smiles. I felt paranoid. To my right a door was open and I walked in and saw rows and rows of bottles stacked on palettes. I thought for a minute but decided to avoid incurring unneeded wrath and went past the racks in search of help. An old man in a denim jacket looked at me through the smoke of his cigarette and continued doing whatever he was before I'd disturbed. After a minute he slowly walked over and I grabbed a bottle and said -How much? He tilted his head and looked over his glasses. -3.50. I handed him a five and without a word he brought it behind a counter, opened a drawer, gave me change and walked back to where he'd been working.

On my way back to the bar, I walked into the first place I'd tried and tapped one of the guys on the back. He turned and saw me clutching my trophy. I smiled and said 3.50 and he put his hands up and we were friends again. I said have fun and walked out like Will Hunting. In the bar we passed the bacchus until it was empty and stayed to talk and smoke some more. Every once and a while a body would fall inward or another would be carried out, and we just stood and watched as the rest of the population melded in our minds into one laughing talking drinking smoking pulsing organism. Or maybe that was just my mind. By the time the sky grew dark I knew it could not hold up for much longer, and E sensed the behest for hiatus. We agreed to meet Paula and hers later on, after rest and rehabilitation. We walked out and down to the grassy river bank where I spread my blanket and rolled up like a pastry and shut my eyes on Erik watching over from a bench.