Les Criptes Sota Sagrada Familia

When Francis looked up at the gargoyle caught leaning out into the sky in stone, he thought to himself "fucking ass weasels. fucking butt ferrets." Gaudi pissed him off, even in death. I suppose that is the privelege of architects. They make men and women fall in love and perhaps even nauseate in the street long after their deaths. Their work stands and we stand in their work for centuries, even millenia after they die. So Francis hated the Apse gargoyles. They weren't even chimera. They were far from scary.

An African woman addressed him as Guapo, then Italian, French. She grabbed his arm and batted her fake black eyelashes. Her dress barely covered her ass, and she had a friend. The two of them invaded his personal space as they confronted him. Pulling back his arm, he re-created a safe zone between them. She was asking if he had a hotel room in spanish, or something about a room. He wasn't very good at Castillano and she surely had some sort of accent. All he understood was something about a room, that she was a prostitute, and as flattering it may be to be called handsome by a prostitute, his amusement was quickly exhausted by the wiley predation. They obviously profited from the weakness of tourists, young men, and their naivety, conceit, and appetites.

He told the woman that he'd surely love to fuck her but his mother would be very unhappy with him. To him, this was funny. It seemed that she wouldn't understand English, and that what he was saying to her was a bizarre statement. Her response was, "Comment? Qu'est-ce que c'est?" He repeated, "Jesus would be pissed off at me." She looked at her friend, who had a similarly scant dress, blue eyeshadow and black cleopatra whore eyes. They sort of laughed with big, african laughs that betrayed their coquettish characters they were playing. For prostitutes or anyone for that matter, they had shiny white teeth that were very healthy. Francis was struck that it seemed that these whores probably brushed their teeth more regularly than his own loathesome self.

Breakfast seemed like an unlikely meal here. Iberia was a magical terre, and he was foreign to it. Looking out down the street, he saw the warm mediterranean sun casting warm and seemingly eternal vernus over the edges of the roofs. The whole city was life and love. He smoked a lucky strike and thought to himself that trying to legitimize living here would be exceptionally difficult. Still, he had achieved more improbable and unlikely things, overcome more impossible challenges and he knew that he -could- if he committed to it. By the time he finished the cigarette, he mind had run along to contrive magical experiences that he could write about. He recalled the day before when he had gone swimming and seen butterfly wings floating on the surface of the sea. They were somehow one of the most beautiful things he would ever see. Childhood wishes, even demands that he should be allowed to breathe underwater like Jacques Cousteau, romanced the butterfly wings. He set about writing it, and was quickly perverted and the documentation was destroyed by his anxious restlessness.

There was an anxiety that pounced upon him from the pit of his stomach. It was almost persistent. He knew as soon as he was inspired or began to daydream something good that the chimera of his gut would spring into action. They would go for his eyes, his throat and his lungs. Often a voice told him, "Watch your lungs." Surely he was crazy, and yes he heard voices. They were his own. When the anxiety electrified him, he flung his hands around like trying to free them of egg. He was compelled to make a noise, a gutteral cry of agony. Unfortunately he had to stifle this cry, for socially it would alarm those who heard it. That would just compound the problem. He concluded his tale with abruptness and dischord and bought a bottle of water, two cokes, and a cafe con leche. Paradoxically, the coffee and water calmed his writhing. Now though, he had abandoned his documentation. The sun was up and the street seemed barometrically heavy.

Francis had nowhere to go. It was the day after his birthday and he was alone in a country far away from where he lived. He went to the shoestore and bought a pair of white leather shoes. Then he stopped at a strange little clothing store that seemed to be in a space designed for a cafe. The clothing cafe was on a corner in the old junkie ghetto side of the main drag, with glassed windows all around the space. Inside, two men tried in a language Francis didn't speak to sell him clothing he surely didn't want. In the end he bought a pair of off-white trousers to spruce himself up along with the new shoes, which were already scuffed and spoiled from the short walk from the zapateria. There was a man outside when he left the store. This man was unwashed, his hair matted, and his fingers black and dirty. It was apparent that the man was a tramp, but how he survived in such a state was a mystery. He asked Francis for change. This man almost seemed like a character, like he had come out of a theatre, like he couldn't possibly be that wrecked and free to roam the streets.

Reaching into his pocket, Francis pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered the man one. The man accepted. They both lit their cigarettes. Interestingly, the tramp didn't say anything. He wasn't trying to talk to him, wasn't trying to plea for or swindle money out of Francis. It was almost as if he had given up. The street seemed to be emptying, and the city seemed to be retreating. As the man looked up, for the first time Francis could see his eyes. Up to that point, his long and matted hair veiled his face as he hung his head. They were clear, and the cleanness of them stood out against the rest of him. He asked Francis in some strange language a question. He could very well have been wrong, but for some reason he felt like the man was asking where he was from. "Nueva York." The tramp nodded his head in acknowledgement.

Previous nights had been full of sangria and beer, and the morning and the coffee and the coke had rehydrated and settled him, but now everything began to take on a surreal tone. It could have been the cigarette. Something was making his stomach turn. The light began to take on a dreamlike way, his teeth became a great distractor, and his sweaty skin was again a suit he wished he could take off. Gravity became stronger and a pain in his back and neck saddened him. He contorted to try to relieve it. The tramp looked at him with curiousity. Something desperate struck Francis in a hide-and-seek way that defeated him. There would be no escaping it.