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7. Bobadilla, Cha Cha Cha!

“Once upon a time in a place very far away from here, in a big lily pond in your great Aunt Emma’s backyard, there lived a Daddy Frog and a Mommy Frog and eight little-bitty Tadpoles.

“Now, the Daddy Frog was a great big bull frog and he had a great big voice, ‘CROAK CROAK The Mommy Frog was a medium-size frog with a much smaller voice, ‘croak croak: But the eight little-bitty Tadpoles didn’t make any noise at all because they weren’t even frogs yet.

“Well, there was this one Tadpole; he was the smallest of all the little-bitty Tadpoles — sort of the runt of the litter you could say. Anyway, he was always being a had little boy and the Mommy Frog was always having to scold him and the Daddy Frog was always having to spank him because he just wouldn’t mind them.

“He swam in all the places he was told not to swim. He would stick his tiny little nose out of the water when the mean old birds were by the pond, which he had been told a thousand times not to do. He nipped his little brothers and sisters on their little tails, which everyone knows could cause them to lose their tails too soon . . . and then they would never be able to become frogs! Ever! His daddy spanked him for biting his brothers’ and sisters’ tails and his mommy told him that if he ever bit their tails again she was going to send him off to the orphanage.

“Well, do you know what that naughty little Tadpole did? I’ll tell you what that bad little boy did. He started nipping at his own little tail! His mommy was beside herself. She got so upset she started to cry and she pleaded with him not to play with his little tail. She told him, again and again, how he would not be able to become a frog. . . ever. . . because ‘if you don’t stop playing with it, it will fall off!’

“Well, that bad little Tadpole didn’t listen to his mother and he just kept right on nipping at his own little tail and, sure enough, just like his mommy had warned him, it did fall off and he never got to be a frog!”

The Mother told me that cute little story when I was eight years old.

I didn’t get it.

Then she caught me playing with my peepee under the kitchen sink one day when I thought she was gone. She said, “What did I tell you about the little Tadpole who kept playing with himself?”

Then I got it. Oh shit!

Then I stopped playing with it.

We had a wet toilet seat for two weeks. I wasn’t about to touch that thing. . . not even to aim!

But then Teddy Bear Sam got so lonely that I decided to risk it. (Decided hell, I lost control and raped the poor little bastard!) So what if I never got to be a frog!

Then I remembered she had said something about the Tadpole losing his tail too soon. Too soon?!! That meant it was going to fall off anyway! Goddamn! I redoubled by efforts, vowing to get as much out of it as I could before the damn thing fell off!

It still hasn’t fallen off after all these years, but I’ve kept my vow just in case.

I was the only one awake in our crowded little compartment I was running out of self-amusements and with seven other people in there I thought I shouldn’t masturbate I would ye like to though We were jammed in there so tight that Gunter’s elbow was in my crotch Those damn benches were only four normal butts wide and at least two of the butts on our bench weren’t normal.

Yes I said bench Spanish third class trains are a phenomenon unto themselves Unique The wooden bench we had was as I said about four butts wide but it was only ten or twelve inches deep so I had to keep pushing myself back against the wall behind me to keep from sliding off And the bench opposite was so close that my knees were bumping the persons knees in front of me a rather large Chilean woman whose taste for garlic had been the cause of the drunken party earlier that night.

I remember having freaked out slightly when I first saw our compartment. We’d caught the midnight train out of Barcelona, and I had pretty much assumed there wouldn’t be anybody else on the train at that time of night. Günter led us down the center walkway in search of our assigned compartment. He stopped in front of one that already had six people in it! I argued that he had to be mistaken—surely these compartments are limited to four people and this one already had six! Not so. There were four little ticket brackets above the bench on each side . . . and that makes eight total. We squeezed in. Günter’s backpack easily swung up onto the luggage rack and out of the way. My suitcases, on the other hand, were heavy and bulky and awkward and generally impossible to stow. Everyone stared at me.

Besides the Chilean woman who ate garlic, our traveling companions included a French student on holiday, a Spanish soldier, a married couple going to the wife’s mother’s funeral in one of the mountain villages and a very old man who never said a word. He had his dog with him.

Without thinking, I pulled out my Marlboros, lit one and gave one to Günter. Suddenly the whole damn compartment was astir with “Yes, thank you,” “Oui, s’il vous plait” and “Si, gracias’ Seems as though one doesn’t partake of anything unless you intend to share it with all. That turned out to our benefit, though. We had forgotten to bring food. They don’t have club cars. But there was enough food for an army in the baskets our roommates brought with them. Cheese, bread, fruit, some kind of beef stick (I think) and garlic. We all passed on the garlic. The woman peeled a clove for herself and then bit into it, nibbling like a rabbit and running her tongue around the outside of her mouth, apparently checking for any misplaced morsels. Everything tasted like garlic after that. Even the apple. Someone suggested that wine would clear our taste buds. We all looked to the soldier to see if he was going to forbid the wine drinking on this public conveyance. He smiled and reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of dry red. He yanked the cork and passed the bottle. We gave him a

mild ovation. Halfway through that bottle, the French student produced a vintage Bordeaux and got it started around. The Chilean garlic-eater followed that up with one of the smoothest, full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignons I’d ever tasted. I just kept passing the cigarettes around, afraid someone might notice that we hadn’t contributed to the feast and cut us off.

After the singing and dancing (mostly upper body stuff because there was no room to move your feet), they dropped off one by one. . . squirming on those hard benches, nestling onto each other’s bodies or the side walls to prevent whiplash from the head falling around during sleep.

I was finally getting sleepy myself and I began to hallucinate a little bit in my half-conscious state. I could hear voices coming from the other compartments. Some were in Spanish, others in French and still others in languages I didn’t recognize. Then very gradually, I started understanding them all. Perfectly. They weren’t changing into English — I just understood them. They blended with the sounds of the train until the whole thing mounted to a great chorus! A Beethovanesque Climax!

And sleep.

Dreams ran rampant. Incomprehensible. Garlic dreams of murder and mutilation. Wine dreams of mayhem and Mother.

I woke in a cold sweat. I had a chill from my damp clothes. My mouth was dry and there was a large wet spot on Günter’s sleeve where I had apparently drooled on him. I smelled like stale wine and garlic. Everything smelled like stale wine and garlic. And cigarette butts.

I roused Gunter, and we went for a walk up toward the front of the train. Every compartment in third-class was as cramped and crowded as ours. Between third and second we ran into some boys with an urn of coffee. Hot mud. It was perfect. Cleaned the palate like Drano.

Second-class was almost empty and the few who were there had whole compartments to themselves. Some of the compartments were totally void of human life. I was most covetous.

They wouldn’t let us even walk into the first-class car, so we turned around and headed back to our meager quarters in the last car of the train. As we neared our compartment door, I noticed there was a small landing (terrace? balcony?) outside the door that would’ve led to the next car if there had been another car on that train. I ran out the door.

Air! I hyperventilated. Günter came out and steadied me before I fell off. I braced myself against the iron railing and tried to suck it all in.

We were in the mountains. Beautiful, green, soft hills surrounded us. Trees zoomed by us on either side of the tracks. We zipped through dozens of short tunnels as we snaked our way through the passes. I was agog. And it was like that all day!

One of the greatest things was seeing everything backwards . . . especially coming out of tunnels that I never saw us going into. It would be like always having to pull out without ever inserting.

I even pissed off the end of the train. That was strange too. Well Günter did it first! (Why is it that whenever boys pee outside, they always have to compete to see who can pee the farthest? I could’ve won a few of those contests if they would’ve let me pee off the end of a train. It goes a long, long way.)

For the first time since I’d met Günter, I wasn’t in the mood to talk. So, of course, he was.

I missed half of it. I’m looking at wildlife and he’s going on about his grandmother. Something about a field and some potatoes. I may be getting him mixed up with a movie I saw once, but like I said I wasn’t listening very well.

While I was trying to count tunnels, he told me something about his uncle and a circus clown.

I tried to concentrate, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t stay in one place in my head for more than about thirty seconds, so I was missing a lot of good stuff—stuff I could’ve used on him later.

Like his story about some old person who lived somewhere and who would pay or bribe the little boys to suck them off or touch them or something, but I didn’t get whether it was an old man or an old woman or where this all took place or what was paid or exactly what it was that this old person did to or for the little boys. Too bad. That would have been a good one to remember.

The longest span I was able to reach was right after he used the word “hustle” in connection with Pamela, but he was already so far into the story when I tuned in that I couldn’t make much sense out of it. I got the part where she was the one who paid for his way to Barcelona in the first place, but I couldn’t figure out how they had met or anything. And there was something about Pamela and William knowing each other. Small world, I thought and then tripped out again.

We were passing this magnificent hillside smothered in bright blue flowers! I wanted to roll in them . . . naked.

I got a hard-on.

It reminded me of what we used to call the old school bus boner.

I don’t think I ever missed a morning on the school bus without getting an erection. I spent the better part of my academic career holding my notebook over the front of my pants. Most of the guys I knew got school bus boners, but not everyday like I did.

Charley used to whack it with the backside of his hand whenever he caught me with one and he also used to wait for me just outside the bus door—I was always the last one off the bus, hoping it would go down before I had to walk—and then try to grab my notebook out of my clenched hands.

Charley was always doing horny stuff like that. Whenever I’d get aroused in the school library, he’d peak under the table and say, “Got the ol’ Tad-POLE again, huh?” Just like that. Out loud!

I got even with him, though. I shot all over his mother’s brand-new sofa. Scared the shit out of Charley! Our earlier play sessions had always been too short or too mild for me to get off, so he didn’t know I could shoot. He hadn’t started shooting yet himself. . . and he was almost a year older than I was.

It was a Sunday and his parents were at church. We had been so rambunctious at the breakfast table that morning that his father had refused to go to church if we went along. So we got to stay home, just as we’d planned.

The sofa had just been delivered the day before. It was covered in that plush, velvet-like stuff that stains so easily. All we knew was that it looked really soft and we were dying to see how it felt against our bare skin. We got naked before the car was even out of the driveway.

We guessed right—it felt terrific! We wrestled and bit each other and grabbed everything there was to grab and humped the cracks between the cushions. Then, for the first time in our relationship, we got hold of each other’s and really went to town. He got to his still-dry climax first and started making funny little noises. I thought he was getting sick or something so I stopped. I thought he was going to kill me! Then I came! All over the sofa! “Holy shit!” I think is what he said.

After he settled down a little and stopped screaming how I had pissed all over his mother’s brand-new couch, I told him how I had heard at school that different guys start shooting at different ages and that he had something really special to look forward to. In the near future, we hoped.

We made some toast and spread apple jelly on it and then dumped it on the sofa over my stuff and then wiped the whole thing up together. Charley was sure he’d get the death penalty, but it was only one week grounded and three months with no allowance. He made me buy his candy bars at school until he got his allowance reinstated.

“Hey!”

“What?” I jumped.

“What are you doing out here?” Günter asked as he stepped back out onto my private train terrace.

“Just thinking’

“What about?”

‘A couch:’

‘A what?”

“Nothing... just kidding:’

“Do you want something to eat?” he asked, handing me a sandwich and a carton of orange juice.

“Where’d you get the food?” I wondered.

“In the village back there,” he said.

“What village?” I asked.

“The little town we just stopped in’

“Oh...yeah’ Space cadet.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I was just thinking about the fight I had with my friends before I came to Spain’ Obviously it was a lie, but I couldn’t tell him the sofa story.

“Were they good friends?” he asked as he sat down on the balcony floor across from me.

“The best. We lived together, the three of us. Grant, Jeanie and me. . . I. We went to the same college together and then just sort of stayed together after that. They were going on vacation to Hawaii just before I left and I was supposed to take care of the house while they were gone. Then something came up about her mother wanting to visit and I wasn’t going to be able to stay there and then they talked about canceling their vacation and we all started fighting so I just got the hell out of there and came here:’

“How did you do that in one breath?”

“Funny”

“Have you written to them?” he asked.

“Not yet. I don’t know what to say:’ I didn’t.

“I know what you mean,” he said. “It is like that argument I had with Pamela that I told you about this morning:’

What argument with Pamela? What did I miss?

That night, I traded a pack of Marlboros to the French kid for a bottle of his wine and Gunter and I made ourselves at home in one of the empty compartments in second-class. The compartments with the padded cushions and the fold-up armrests and the sliding door that actually closes and the window that had been cleaned within the last year. He stretched out on one side and I sat by the window on the other. No one bothered us. Günter dozed off quickly and I was left to try and amuse myself again.

I watched him sleep. Ever watch anyone sleep? People look different when they’re asleep. Most people close their eyes when they sleep so that changes their looks somewhat. And they aren’t posing, which changes them a whole lot. That’s when I noticed that one of Günter’s ears was lower than the other. Then he rolled over and I couldn’t see his face any longer. He had a small mole behind his right ear.

I think the body is the only personal possession that should be taken

seriously. Everything else is too transient to even matter: cars get wrecked or stolen or sold; clothes get worn out or torn or lost or given away or pushed to the back of the closet; houses get ripped off or dilapidated or burned down or bulldozed; money. . . disappears. But your body really is yours—and only yours—for as long as you hang around in any one incarnation.

One of the little solitaire games I like to play sometimes is called Body Parts. The idea is to discover some part of your body that you’ve really never investigated before. You have to get right up on it and learn everything you can about it—every crease, hair, the shape of the bone or bones under the skin, etc. Before that night on the train, I had discovered my knees, elbows, big toes, navel and, of course, my penis. But my penis didn’t really count because, long before I ever played that game, I knew it like the back of my hand.

Hand! That’s one I hadn’t done before.

Very complicated, the hand. has a lot of bones, tendons, tiny muscles, blood vessels, a million creases, the fingernails and the shit under the fingernails, a dozen little scars and usually a few scratches or cuts that will someday be scars, fingers and finger games, the thumb, palm, heel and fist, hair, follicles without hair, pores, moles, freckles. . and memories.

I tried to remember what the dragon on the back of Günter’s hand looked like. I thought it was more of the variety that knights slew than the Oriental kind. He had the dragon tucked between his legs at that moment and I wanted to go over and get a better look at it, but decided I’d better do it by memory.

I was the White Knight. Günter was the Black Knight. I think he was the Black Knight. I never got to actually see under his helmet, so I can’t be sure. We were about to joust. For real. In a tournament with thousands of spectators, including a king, a queen and a prince. I was the popular knight and got all the applause. The prince even threw me a white rose which I tucked into my helmet for luck. The Black Knight got all the boos. He looked evil. He was in black armor, of course, and he was bigger and stronger and meaner and he had a horse that was also bigger and stronger and meaner. But I was sure to win. The good guys always win. I had Right on my side. And the prince.

We rode out to the center of the arena, lances held high in salute to their majesties and, for protocol, to each other. As we passed each other on the way to our starting points, I could’ve sworn he winked at me. I don’t know how I thought I saw him wink since he had his helmet on, but I knew it all the same. I thought maybe he wanted a tryst after our joust. Sounded fine to me. I made up my mind not to hurt him too much in the joust so he’d be in better condition later. I needn’t have concerned myself. He clobbered me on the first pass. I was out cold and he went off with their majesties . . . all three of them!

Just once, I’d like to win one of these things!

The dragon never did show up.

Next thing I remember, the conductor was shaking me and asking for the billetas. I got mine out and woke up Günter to get his. It was still dark outside.

“Is anything wrong?” I asked in English, still too groggy to know where I was or what language we were doing at the moment. I had a slight feeling that we were someplace we weren’t supposed to be.

“Oh, do you speak English, señor?” the conductor asked me.

“Yes. Do you?” I told you I wasn’t awake yet.

“Oh yes, sir. I spent four years in the United States of America working on a very big water dam and I was even younger than you are now. I was not allowed to take my wife with me because of the difficult working conditions and the shortages of living spaces, so I

“Why are you checking our tickets in the middle of the night?” Gunter asked.

“I’ll bet you think it is because you are in the second-class car with only third-class tickets. Don’t you? This is not it at all. I thought you might be on the wrong train and. .

“Wrong train?” I was starting to wake up.

“You see, I saw you sneak in here to sleep earlier tonight and I told myself at that time that I should be sure to wake you up when we left the other cars behind in Zaragoza, but I forgot to wake you up then so I thought I better do it now so that if you are on the wrong train, then you could.

“Did you say that you left part of the train back in ... did you say...?”

“Zaragoza. Si.’

“Which part?”

“The part of the train that goes to the south. These cars go to the west:’

“We wanted to go south,” I mumbled.

“I see. Yes, it says that right here on your tickets. You wanted to go south:’

“We have to go back to Zaragoza then,” Günter said.

“SI señor.., at nueve, nine in the morning:’

“What time is it now?”

“One o’clock minus five minutes in the morning:’

“Terrific,” I said.

“Where are we?” Günter asked.

“We will arrive in Bobadilla in about five minutes. You can wait there for the morning train. . .at no additional charge to yourselves I am very pleased to say:’

“Where are ... thank you . . . uh, where can we stay in Bobadilla?” I asked.

“There is a wonderful little inn there where you will be very warm and comfortable, I am very sure. Now, I want to say good luck to you and I wish for you to have a safe and pleasant journey tomorrow. Bye-bye:’ And out he went.

Bobadilla has got to be the most charming mountain village anywhere. We’re talking cobblestone streets, hand-carved stone buildings with heavy timber trim and thatched roofs, greenery everywhere and no signs on anything, except for the little sign on the inn which we didn’t see anyway.

The whole town was there to meet the train. They probably don’t get many visitors there except for jerks who take the wrong train and maybe an occasional mourner coming to grieve for a dead relative. Exactly. We were the jerks and the couple who were in our third-class

compartment the first night on the train were the mourners. They got off the train right behind us. Well, she was doing the mourning. He looked pretty happy. It was her mother that croaked. The whole town greeted them. And ignored us.

We looked around for the inn. Couldn’t see it. The woman whose mother died saw us and took us under her wing. So to speak. She escorted us to the inn. The whole town escorted us to the inn. And introduced us. And had a round of drinks in the bar downstairs. I was afraid they were going to come up to our room with us and tuck us in.

So there we were, Gunter and I, stranded in some remote little village way up in the mountains, in the one-and-only inn, in their one-and-only room with the one-and-only bed!

Just great! I have a history of molesting bed-partners. I’ve lost several friends that way over the years. I don’t do it on purpose. It’s just that I get passionate in my sleep, which is fine if I’m in bed with a lover. It is not fine when the other person is just a friend. And this boy had made it very clear that he was just a friend. What the hell was I supposed to do? Sleep on the goddamn floor? Forget it. Oh well, what was I so worried about? I was too tired for anything to happen anyway.

Günter didn’t say a word. He just started taking off his clothes. So I did too. Then we were standing there on either side of the bed in our underwear, still not saying anything. I felt like I should say something, but I couldn’t imagine what.

I was embarrassed about my underpants. They were the old standard jockey shorts, white with a tinge of gray from washing. Sagging with age. Embarrassing. He had on those spiffy European jobs you wear both for swimming and as underpants. They were red. I jumped into the bed quickly, hoping he hadn’t noticed mine.

He turned out the light on the dresser and climbed in on the other side of the double bed. I could hear my heart pounding.

“Good night,” he said.

“Oh. Yeah. G’night,” I sort of half-gasped and then quickly rolledover on my side, facing away from him. I grabbed the side of the mattress, praying it would keep me there all night.

Even from the other side of the bed, I was aware how clean he smelled. How could anyone smell clean after that train ride? I didn’t. I had noticed his smell before, just from standing next to him on the hill that night and then again when we slept on the Santa Maria. Before I went into a coma, that is. There was a real freshness about him that I couldn’t identify. I didn’t smell any of the colognes or deodorants or any of the usual crap people foul up the air with. But he had no real body odor either. Just clean. It was intoxicating.

It lulled me to sleep.

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