FIESTA: Al Fin

WAKE UP. TOM WAKE UP. Erik shakes me out of REM and before the blood even begins to flow he's telling me we have to leave. His lips are blue. He's shaking. "I'm freezing, man. I can't stay here anymore." Without a word I rise and pack my things, feeling the cold myself now penetrate my jacket to the bone. We're luckier than we know to be dry, but it doesn't occur to us breathing fog on the riverbank at dawn in late September northern Spain.




We went to warm at the zinc in Ibiza where the girl behind the bar smiled and asked about our night. We didn't have to say much to give sufficient response. We swirled our wide white coffees and flipped distractedly through newspapers, exchanging nods and taking rejuvenating sips. But something caught our eyes. Sections in the paper devoted to the festival, sections outlining food. We suddenly remembered why we had come in the first place and scrambled through our packs for the programs we'd picked up the morning before that felt like a few days at the very least. All of a sudden it came into focus. This day, Sunday, was the beginning of the exposition of all things for the stomach. Degustacion. Tasting, sampling, whatever it is. Tables and tents shelling out toasts and sausages and plates of cheese. Barrels upon barrels of wine. We were not so tired anymore. Quite the contrary, our appetites made us acutely perceptive and we began to feel carnivorous. But things wouldn't kick off for another couple of hours. We satisfied ourselves on subsequent rounds of sloshy cups of milky coffee, distracting our minds by recounting the previous night as we moved to a table in the back for more warmth.

Tomás! I turn and see a slender girl of equal age and semi-familiar face. Her smiling face is swollen with exhaustion, and I realize I must look about the same. She calls us over to sit with her and the big guy she's with, who is also smiling though I'm sure we've not met before. For the next hour or so we talk on and off as a group or in pairs, about the night, about the weekend, the general state of affairs. Unfortunately, by now my brain is less than adroitly converting my thoughts into Spanish and lengthy conversation is beyond me. Eventually we're two pairs at one table. But somehow the guy and I strike up something about women and amuse each other for a minute or two before they decide to leave. As they stand, he comments about the danger of disagreeing with the girl whose name now escapes me and I casually say all women are dangerous, or at least I think I do. This does not sit well with her and for the first time her smile shrivels as she sternly reproaches me. This catches me off guard and I excuse it as a joke, but to this day I have a feeling she remembers me with a less than fond impression. My point is thus proven as they walk off and E and I sit at the table covered in empty mugs and cigarette butts in silence for a while before we, too, shove off.

Early still but we decided to walk by each place we wanted to hit, making sure we could find it the moment the lunch bell rang. Our first stop was by the municipal police, and as we walked by group after group of Santiago pilgrims we spot very few signs of the night that had passed. There is more than something to be said for the midnight clean up crew militia that sprays and scrubs every surface of Logroño in late September. When we found the place we were thrilled to see that the feast had already begun. Avoiding any notion of doubt, we walked in and without a word placed our 5's on the table in front of two old sweatshirted women flipping and topping toasts. A ticket each and we sidestepped along to be handed two massive pieces of grilled bread painted with tomato and olive oil puree and topped with soft, salty slices of cured ham. At the end of the table a man had about a hundred dixie cups of dark red wine and we snatched one each and went over to the balcony. In the parking lot below I looked down and without knowing why, I turned to Erik.
"I hate hubcaps. What do you hate?"
"Jeeze, man, no one's asked me that before."
"Excellent. Then you've got some things to reveal, don't you."
"Well...I don't know."
"Unacceptable. What things do you hate. What do you find odious in this world? Me, it's hubcaps, fake maple syrup, and stepping on the bottoms of my jeans."
After a pause, "I hate swimming."
I almost dropped my toast and wine. I looked for a while at him with wide eyes as his face flushed and he stepped back a few feet. Not out of fear, at least not fear of attack. I must have looked like I'd seen a ghost. It wasn't too far off from what I felt.
"No one's ever said that to me before, man. I don't even think I've ever known a person who would say it."
"Well I do. I never liked it."
"This is amazing. Let's get another cup."
Done with our toasts, we picked up our packs to leave and without breaking stride or looking anyone in the eye, we each grabbed a cheeky cup and walked back to the street. One down.

While we were inside we'd heard the church bells singing out the twelfth hour and concomitant commencement of the feast. We made for the plaza where we expected to find a stall or two more. Little did we know.

We queued up and waited for our 4 tickets and wine glasses like we had ants in our trousers. All around music played and people walked by holding dark red goblets and giant savory toasts. Finally at the counter we put our money down like it was Vegas and we were sure of a jackpot roll. A stroll down the aisle showed sausages, cheeses, mushrooms, ham, and any combination of the lot on toasts to one side, and great wooden barrels manned by short, stocky gray-haired guys swilling claypot jugs with the same dark red nectar. We each got some cheese and some morcilla, leaving the ham and the sausage out of satiety, and drank our glasses down while we waited on the longest line for the mushrooms. We'd realized somewhere along the way that it's understood: the mushrooms are supernatural. While on line we schemed how to get more of the flow of red vine. I saw someone rinse a glass in the fountain and told E to hold our position. Using my scarf I decided they looked nearly unused and, with a wink to E, signaled that I would make my attempt at securing a second round of our free drink. He just watched. I was a bit nervous of getting called out and rebuked in the middle of this event, but thirst conquered timidity and just as I was about to set my glasses down like a man expecting drink, I watched an older man saunter over with a glass, drain it (mostly) into his mouth and reach it out for a refill. I just pushed mine forward and took them back to Erik. I should have known. In Spain, you never have just one drink.

So we visited each barrel tent once or twice and ate our supernatural fungus by the grass, avoiding our clothes with the drops of fresh hot virgin oil, and talking about the tastes of the place. We were full but the festival was in full swing and today was the day for eating. Down the main street, leading west from the square away from the old city, the street had been cordoned off and lined with long wooden tables. Teams manned each and set up displays of bread loaves, cheese rounds, grape bunches and bottle arrangements. Each bodega took a table, and next to each was a massive iron cauldron being loaded with sausages and broths and beans and meats and stirred by men and women alike.

I was feeling a bit cheeky and E and I still had fluid in the glass so I turned to one of the maids of a table and asked for a bit of queso to wash our wine with. She enthusiastically obliged and while she broke chunks away from a thick, dark, almost grey wheel of mature cheese she asked where we were from. When I told her her eyes nearly popped. She stabbed the wheel once more, doubling the amount of crumbles and brought them over to our outstretched hands. Before we could thank her she had turned and started slicing a bright red sausage. This too she gave and E and I exchanged devilish smiles. Once again her back was turned but this time she'd taken some plastic cups and one of her bottles and was filling three with wine. By the time she turned back our mouths were full and our faces had completely altered. I must have looked like a man in agony. I had never had such a pungent, tangy, sharp, flavorful, nutty, bready, and overall amazing cheese in my life. I wanted to live forever chewing that bite. She asked the matter and I demanded to know the source of my ecstasy. Idiazabal, she said. A Basque cheese. A cheese for ancients, old gods like the ones ousted by Zeus and his brothers. A cheese to satisfy the libido of a raging bull. A cheese to die in the name of. We drained our glasses and took the plastic cups. We clicked them, drained them, and she poured again. When she handed those her face changed. She grabbed the top of her head with her hands and said Pan! Necesitais pan! And with that she stuffed our already full hands with ripped chunks of rustic brown loaf. She ran over to her partners and came back saying how we were the boys from America. They were simply too pleased to have us there. One guy told me about his love for the Wu Tang while another confided with E that in an hour or so they would start serving their stew, and that there was no place we'd rather be. We told them our purpose - finding a cheese tasting somewhere away from the center, and they helped a bit with directions before telling us once more, to make sure we returned for the main event. Apparently the wine bread sausage and heaven cheese were just snacks.

After a bit of confused walking and laughing, we stood outside what looked like a Galician bar. We must have missed it, misread the description, something. Fuck it, I said, we did not leave those people to come out here for nothing. I walked in thinking to ask the barman what the idea was, when I realized that the back wall was no wall at all. I motioned to E and we passed through the bright bar full of men standing around up-turned barrels watching TV's and passed through onto the back patio, where 40 or 50 people shuffled around with glasses of wine and plates of cheese. To our right, the table of life. 5 euros got us each a glass and a plate of 5 or 6 various cheeses. All wonderful, though no single one comparing to the greatness that had just been had. We positioned ourselves at the back and observed the interplay of each cheese to the wine. I ran back to snap a shot before the cheese was all eaten and we left that dreary part of town to head back to the nucleus.

Back on the street of good fortune, the scene had changed. All things quantifiable had increased. People, noises, obstructions, glasses, plates, voices. We found the table of our old friends but they were hard at work and the guys dealing with the public were strangers to us. We worked our way up to them and they just looked at us. So we asked for a few plates and one man started to say something. Luckily one of the boys from before caught sight of us but something had changed with him too. He merely took the man and said a few words and in a couple of minutes we had plates and forks in our hands and were left to our own devices. It was a bit sad but then again we got to devour a plate of steaming bean and meat stew and we sopped every drop of it up with more of that rustic loaf. It was like thanksgiving in the street. On top of it all, the sun was out.

...

After that, much rest was needed and had. We met with Paula and her friend in the evening and asked them what they like to do in their town besides eat and drink. Shrugs. We walked through an artisanal market, trying to taste everything we could for free and act like we were considering buying each one. The vendors were not fooled, and the samples were meagre. Then we walked the streets as evening gave way to dusk and we talked about places we'd walked by in the dead of night or the madness of fiesta and observed the various aspects of the city, the broken, the beautiful, the strange, the charming. Some cultural dance and music under a tent with white sangria, a few cavernous church bellies, and street after street of pale yellow brick. We split again and E and myself walked through the food and drink alleys one last time. I couldn't help myself, nor did I want to while we were there and I got some wild plate of white sauce, potato and meat. I think there was even fruit on it. It was great but I was drunk with food and not able to appreciate subtlety. We ruminated over our decision to come over some glasses of wine and decided we could scarcely have had a better weekend. In fact, we scarcely had had better weekends before. In one last bar the glasses ran for 70 cents and some people who lived in Madrid wanted to talk about languages and football. We stood for a few hours drinking and talking and trying not to admit that our bodily health was rapidly declining. By the time we ambled out and through the plaza toward the station, we were both glad to be nearing the moment where we would no longer have to support our own weight.

Just outside the station, Paula and her grinning boyfriend met us for one last goodbye. It was 1am Monday morning, and they had left their homes to see us off and tell us how much fun it was to have us. It was a wonderfully kind gesture and it could have been drawn out too long by our gratitude had we all but lost the faculty of conversation. We smiled, hugged, and promised to meet again, and with that we boarded the bus and crashed into our seats, asleep before we started moving.