Mishaps And Memoirs, from Madrid!
I’ll tell you now that on my first trip to Spain, the best part happened by accident. Picture a night train from Leon to Pamplona, 2006. Me, blond as ever, ink on my high school diploma still wet. My friend Jake and I believed running with the bulls after marathon Sangria tastings was the “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” story we needed to tell. And after a week in France with my sister and extended family, we boarded the train with an already stressed debit card and just enough Spanish to misunderstand everything.
I smelled it as soon as I entered the dining car. Those who’ve ridden a bullet train know — those shakey, in-between spaces that connect two cars, where your feet vibrate from the tracks beneath, passengers love to light up. Two were French Canadian. One South African. And when I opened the door with a California grin, they passed the hash cigarette graciously. Sometimes, you just have to ask.
This wasn’t the best part, but it’s where I’ll begin.
These travelers were headed for San Sebastian (Basque country, look it up). They said Bob Dylan was playing a free concert on the beach and that my friend and I would have to be a couple of American Idiots not to get off the train with them. “The bulls can wait,” one said, smoke pouring out his nostrils.
I’ll tell you now that I did know of Bob Dylan’s existence. American Folk Hero. But back then, there was only one song I might have recognized. Still, I filled my lungs with a long drag and marched back through the train to tell Jake the news in one cloudy exhale.
Skip ahead a hundred songs on my iPod Mini and the bell rang for San Sabastian. The other travelers were gone (which still confuses me), but Jake and I got off the train, ready to see the folk hero we didn’t really know in a city we’d never heard of.
The first hotel we entered, she couldn’t believe our luck. “The whole city has been sold out for months because of the concert. But just before you walk in, I get a cancellation.” Sometimes, you just have to ask.
As I mentioned, this was 2006. Money wasn’t as invisible as it is today. To pay for things (beer) we had to pry colorful currency out of the ATM. The issue here was that the printed receipts never gave us a resting balance. Jake and I saved up a few grand throughout the year and combined it into a single checking account. My fingers shook with nervous glee each time I entered a number and money actually poured out (until it didn’t).
One thing I’ll never forget: The concert was sponsored by Heineken. There must have been twenty green tents with 50 kegs of beer each. And while the concert was gratis for all, the beer was not. We didn’t need to see our balance sheet to know our euros wouldn’t make it through the night. That’s when the ever-crafty Jake had an idea.
As the beer-tenders tapped fresh kegs, they released the foamy beginnings into empty cups and spread them out on a back table. Those who’ve tapped a keg know — the cups of foam eventually dissolve into somewhat flat, yet still alcoholic beer. The beer-tender rolled her eyes but said the foamy treasures were ours.
Now armed with unlimited drink tickets and floor seats to Bob Dylan, we walked toward the front of the stage. When the opening band started to play, the crowd went bananas. Picture a hundred bullet trains worth of people, a dozen languages firing. Heineken’s and hash cigarettes raised high.
In the opening act, the frontman was dressed as a Matador. Black and silver. A thin mustache and an acoustic guitar. He sang in Spanish. The entire beach, it seemed, was singing along. “This must be,” I said to me, “a Spanish folk hero.”
There are some places you go that you never really leave. I can time travel back there now, dancing with bare feet in the cold sand. There’s a New Zealand girl. Blonder than I, even.
Skip ahead a dozen cups of foam and the opening band was still playing. I turned toward New Zealand, “When is Bob Dylan coming out?” Sometimes, you just have to ask.
She laughed at first. But then her face folded into a new shape. A shape that might be on your face right now, if you’ve already guessed the punch line. One that says, “Oh, you poor, silly soul…”
At that moment, watching her face turn, I recognized the melody of the only song I knew. “Like a Rolling Stone.” It was the final song of the night.
There was no opening act. The thin mustached matador was Dylan. And he wasn’t singing in Spanish. He was just mumbling.
Skip ahead twenty pages on a calendar and I’m working at a cafe in South Lake Tahoe. My manager plays Bob Dylan each night when we close. I grow to love him. Really love him. From ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ to ‘Blood on Tracks,’ I drink the cool-aid. My American Folk Hero. I tell my manager about the concert, but I don’t have the heart to tell him how I missed it.
The travelers from the train were right: When we got to Pamplona, the bulls were waiting. Along with more misunderstandings, wild nights, and an empty checking account. But when people ask me if I’ve ever been to Spain, I tell them about the concert. The chance encounter that brought us to San Sabastian. I tell them about the time I almost saw Bob Dylan on the beach.
Skip ahead enough years to become your own Folk Hero, and I’m back in Spain. Writing to you now from a coffee shop in Madrid. I wonder what’s looking right at me that I don’t recognize yet. What cosmic jokes are waiting to unfold? What mishaps will soon become memoir?
I can’t say for now. But by the last song, I’m sure it will all make sense.
