The Usher Wore Spantz

Spantz: A cross between tight-fitting trousers and cargo shorts... ie: crop pants for men.

He was a young man with a name tag. The usher greeted me at the door and I shook his hand and looked him in the eye. Very good thing to do on my part because he hissed at all of the women and children when they began to get loud. It was not a "sshhhhhhh" or a "Shush" it was more like a HHHSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT HHHHSSSSSTTTTTTTTTTT!! HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTT!!!! Whenever the rules of silencio were not being observed in the iglesia, Senor Usher corrected them. One does not chat idly in church here. Chat is for after the service.

Yesterday I began to have cultural overload. It culminated with a mad dash to the train station to buy two tickets to Atoche station in Madrid (where the March bombings occured) to get on the train to Alcala to be at the polizia station by Monday morning to register our faces. After I bought the tickets on the fast "Altira" train, we ran outside to the stick-shift Chrysler van that our new Missionary friend Sandy was driving, circling the crowded round-a-bout as the taxis honked at each other and bumped into each other to "make room." Sandy leapt out of the driver's seat and I took her place, because we had to go up a long windy hill on a narrow road crowded with traffic. The van liked to die on the hills when one depressed the clutch, causing a firestorm of honking horns behind. I did not kill the van. I did find the sweet-spot on the clutch and even held it for an extended period as a family dashed across the road.

My stomach had been feeling upset ever since I took a sip of water at the Christian Ministry Center. After I tasted the water I realized my mistake. The water at the Center is stored in a large sealed room that projects from underground and shares a wall with the garage. You can see the water level of the water-storing room next door because there is a transparent tube with a fishing bobber in it that gurgles and bounces whenever someone turns on a tap. The room probably housed a large snail colony. You can harvest snails here and cook them in oil. If you are hardcore, you can just drizzle vinagrette on them.

After the train station, we ran inside our hot apartment, pulled open the metal shutters and raced through many pages of confusing Spanish homework while water from a potted plant dripped on us from the patio three floors above us. I decided to stop and make dinner with ingredients my wife and bought at the CarreFour Store (Spanish Wal-Mart crowded with muchos gentes!) She was very tired yesterday and it was hard to put together meals from unfamiliar food items in a mad rush through the grocery. I soon realized: I was not hungry. I was completing tasks "mucho rapido", for no other reason than to complete them. Mentally, I have been loading my brain like a container for many days. I was sprinting through cultural overload and I just ran out ot breath. I told mi esposa who sent me outside for a long walk so I would not lapse into permanent grumpiness for the rest of the evening.

So I put on my Nike sandals and walked fast and hard. First I went Under the narrow train bridege and out to the beach. I turned right this time instead of left, because last night I had to shield my wife's eyes from two men bumping and grinding in the bushes just a little ways down the left-hand side. The two seconds I saw of them were very horrifying and I never want to see it again. I should have thrown rocks and made a loud HHHSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTT!!!!! like any good usher, but them scrambling could have been worse and THANK the LORD the my wife did not see before I shoved her the other direction. Anway, I turned right this time and it made all the difference.

The sea was azul - a deep hue of blue. The waves were steady and strong. I walked a powdery section of sand to a small rocky hill. The rocks were jagged and treacherous as I scaled them around a large abandoned school that had been built many decades before and was now surrounded by a rusty fence and inhabited by tiny goats. The path was narrow - fence on one side and rocks falling off to water on the other. I climbed to the next beach and removed my shirt. I have discovered that I have more tattoos than anyone on the entire Spanish coast. So when I walk this extremely crowded beach and try not to stare at breasts of all shapes, sizes, and ages, I am being scrutinzed by many more people who wonder if I am a circus freak or a Russian HitMan. I opt for the latter and try to clench my jaw and not walk between the young mothers and their naked babies that are having the time of their life hopping in the sea. It is hard to be serious when you see the naked babies having so much fun. They never stare at anyone, and if they do look at you, its straight into the eyes with a little piece of God protecting them.

I walked past the crowds into the next set of rocks. They sharp=edged rusty colored stones began to tower 50 feet over the sea and the waves crashed and thrummed into the sea-caves eroded out below. Oil tankers and container ships rested way out on the horizon waiting for space in the Tarragona port. I began to descend, a encountered the occasional fisherman. I soon huffed my way across narrow over-hangs and along crumbling walls and iron gates into more fishermen on a large stretch of elevated dock surrounded by scrabbly palm trees. All ages of men were whipping the fishing poles out into the sea and waiting for something to bite. I could only guess as to what manner of catch they were hoping to acquire.... flouder? Hake? Eels?

I soon made it to a large modernest sculpture of Jesus holding his arm out above the coast. It was welded together in 1957 and was now dark-brown with rust and covered with graffitti in all languages. The halo must have weighed 30 lbs. I began to sense the age of the place. I walked on, reaching a Roman wall jutting out from the old Roman amphitheater. This city has been around for awhile. The street just up the hill has been a road for over 2,000 years. I took just a moment to breathe, and then headed back to the apartment. I took the road and braved the cars instead of the rocks, guzzling a liter and a half bottle of water con gas along the way.

Later at home we found classical music on the radio and ate a dinner of cured thinly sliced ham, freshly chopped vegetables simmered on the gas stove and a salad drizzled with the new garlic infused olive oil we purchased.... We both needed a rest.

Today it begins anew. I just received a call asking me to be ready in six minutes in order to pick up the husband of our profesora on our way to class..... Good night to all of you in Kansas and states beyond.