ESPAÑA EN TRES PARTES. TRES; 6/5, Torreblanca/Sevilla “I can’t believe we had sex in this fucking heat.” —Kelley This morning I’m half awakened by the neighbor watering her plants on the roof next door. I have no idea what time it is, I never wear a watch, and being here in Spain I’m even farther removed from my normal concept of time—not having any sort of routine. Maybe it’s 9am. Anyhow, the woman is bantering loudly to another and her hose waters the marbel floor as much as the potted plants... the sound is very soothing in this sticky hot morning. I want her to come through the window and water me. Last night was the hottest yet. I literally sweat through the sheets laying on my back. I contemplated sleeping on the cool marble floor, but decided to turn the mattress over and swap sheets instead. I find myself checking out cielings a lot when I can’t sleep. In this room they are at least ten feet up and very smooth plaster. A nice molding fences in the perimeter. It is very clean and white and looks cool to the touch. I want to sleep floating up near it. Skin touching sheets in this weather is just not comfortable. We are awakened by the boy. He’s been up a couple hours playing with his abuela. “Get up sleepy heads!” We get up. 11:30. Jesus Christ, how are we going to get back into LA time? Parking in Sevilla is tough. Many people double park with flashers on—or not. The streets near the center are very narrow cobblestone (Roman era) and I’m sure quite a few rearview mirrors have ended their lives here. So, the idea today is to park on the perimeter and walk into El Centro. This is Sevilla, but we might as well be on the sun. We decide to catch a cab. “Do you have air conditioning?” we ask the driver. “Claro que si.” he answers. Of course. We pile in. Five of us into a tiny Renault cab, me in the front, knees against the dash. From the back, my aunt Lola tells him where we want to go. “WHAT? You wanted air conditioning for that? I thought you were going all the way to Madrid! You want air to go four blocks! Aye!” He’s old... I’d guess he’s pissed that he’s old and driving this cab. A heavily decorated icon of a popular virgin hangs from his rearview. Then Lola makes the mistake of telling him which way to go. “Lady, you are obviously not from Sevilla.” “Of course not...” she retorts with a popular dose of Spanish sarcasm. I’ve only lived here 40 years! You’re going the long way!” “First you want air, then you want to tell me which way to go! Lady you are loca. This is straight out of a movie.” His voice is gravel, but I’m unsure wether his tone is sarcastic or actually angry—like many Spaniards in this state of agitation. I’m actually chuckling in the front seat while the man goes on and on about his route... until we actually stop. “650 pesetas. I should charge you an extra hundred for the air! Dios mio!” We exit the car, no cooler after five minutes in the “air.” Wandering in El Centro is disorienting. It is a maze of cobblestone streets, mostly pedestrian traffic only. It’s old and speckled with shops. Lots of touristas. Every block or so there is a musician or a blind person selling lottory tickets. But the dominant sound here is hard heels clacking on the stones. Lots of shoe stores and lots of women shopping at them. Women. The women of Sevilla, I must say, are beautiful and stylish—in their own unique way. There is definitely a Sevilla, or maybe a Spanish “style” that is captured. I tell this to Kelley and it turns out she’s been watching them too. My observation is that the woman, generally, are way more stylish and cosmopolitan than the men, who seem to be very middle-of-the-road, shirt tucked in with loafers types. Again, short-term visitor, sweeping generalizations. Apologies. I find a Bukowski translation in a book store and buy it for my friend Mike. My primo tells me he is a studied author in the university literature courses here. I’ve been re-reading Postoffice in my spare time on the trip. 6/6, Sevilla Today kelley and I venture into Sevilla alone to roam and buy presents for our friends back home. It is a pleasure to finally travel without relatives chattering away and having to constantly translate. We find our way to our targets without problem. At El Corte Inglés, a large mall here, we actually split up and Kelley risks being alone with no language skill. No problem, except when it comes to trying to talk bra sizes with a saleswoman. But she managed. I spent my time alone mostly in the bar upstairs (again, there are bars everywhere). A cerveza and tortilla—pie-like egg omlette with potatos. The place is nice... even the nice places have cigarette burns everywhere around the bar stools. There are ashtrays every three feet.The bar tender is stern and un-smiling. Seems typical. It’s not offensive at all, it just is. From what I’ve heard, Americans are much easier to smile than most people, and to some this is concidered suspect. We return to Torreblanca by 5pm, refreshed and ready for another family venture into the city, this time to see my mother cousin Dominga. We venture into El Centro again before heading across the river to Dominga’s apartment—in a taxi. Lola is paranoid of not finding parking there so we park just outside of El Centro and cab it over. I enjoy the cab rides because it gives me a chance to really look around and not have to think about all the mosquito scooters buzzing in and out of traffic. There are hundreds of them with passengers of every type. Old men, Sevillana women in skirts and heels, dirty young boys in soccer shirts. I asked my tito Antonio while in Granada if he or any of his girls had one. No. Too dangerous, he told me, you hear too much about kids being paralysed after a scooter accident. We make it to Dominga’s without incident... Like Lola, Dominga is a single woman. She’s about 45 and lives alone in an apartment filled with artwork—most of it her own, but she also has a modest collect of other local artists. She goes through her watercolors for us, mostly still lifes. They have a nice quality. Some very meticulous in detail. Dominga is an art teacher for kids from four to six, so she instantly has a repore with Emmet—though he, of course, plays it shy for the first 15 minutes. She talks fast with very few gaps and it is tough for me to translate, much to Kelley’s annoyance. Sorry Kel. We walk to two different outdoor cafe/bars and eat tapas. Home by midnight. 6/7, Sevilla Leisurely morning and early afternoon at the house playing parcheesy (sp?). Emmet has become quite the player—seems to amaze every one here that he can actually sit and concentrate for so long, much less know all the rules. It’s fun. At 7pm Antonio and Santiago come over and we head into Sevilla again (it’s only 10 minutes away) to ride a river boat. My thought was that Em would love it. He did for about 10 minutes, then he spotted the omni-present ice-cream/popsickle sign which is everywhere in Spain and decided he needed to have one while on the boat. He's had one every day so far and is moving his way down the list one-by-one. Vacation mode has made me a bit of a sucker for his demands, so we go to get one. They don’t have any. Heaven forbid. Emmet lets the huge tears drop onto his light blue shirt for the rest of the ride. My theory is that he really needs 3 and 4 year-old companionship... he’s had absolutely none for almost three weeks, and though he is faring incredibly well, I can see it is chipping away at his patience. Who wants to spend all their time with people twice your height who are always telling you, “Not right now,” or “In a little while.”? I believe he’ll be happy to get home. EL FINAL 6/7, Sevilla After the boat trip, we split up for the evening—Emmet in a taxi home with Lola and his abuela, Santi, Antonio, Kel and I head downtown for dinner and a night out. Dinner is Italian. Kind of nice to have something different. We’ve been eating the local foods for weeks, and though it is usually very good, it’s nice to have variety. Something we’ve learned about Spain is that you can get decent food just about anywhere you turn... from a small corner bar to a regular restaurant—just about the same. Consistent. The waitress is excited to serve Americans as she is learning English. We order and watch an elderly woman hobble in with assistance from a waiter. She sits two tables away though the restaurant is virtually empty (it’s only 9pm). Her hair is snow, face wet with moisture, mouth mumbling something. The waitress tends to her. “Are you tired, señora?” “Yes... I’m tired.” Her answer seems all-encompassing. “Did you walk a long way?” “Yes... I walked a long way.” Again, I sense there is much more to her answer... she looks very depressed. She orders a bottle of vino and asks to use a phone to call her children. The waitstaff are very helpful. Later, in El Centro, I get over confident with the mini-van and almost get us wedged into a tight cobble-stone street. There is no way this van will make the tight 90 degree corner ahead. I quickly back out and on the way, slam into an ancient marble cube that sits awaiting idiots like me, in a tiny, make-shift parking lot (already stuffed with tiny cars). No damage. These bumpers must be make specially for Sevilla. We decide to park in an underground lot a few kilometers away and taxi into El Centro. It’s about 10pm when we make our way into Santa Cruz, an old downtown neighborhood. No cars in here, only the cobblestone “streets,” 12 feet wide at the most, separate the buildings—mostly residential. Antonio informs us that they were built this close to create shade most of the day, keeping the homes cooler in the hot summers. Above, there are wires that run across from rooftop to rooftop. In the day, these hold up large, colorful tarps to provide even more shade over the streets—which are very quiet tonight, it’s early yet. We wind through the maze which opens up slightly into a stone courtyard guarded by no less than three churches. Around another tight corner we find a large, crusty wooden door which leads into an ancient coal distributing center, La Carboneriá, now a bar/nightclub/gallery. It’s dark inside and the first thing I notice is the floor which is anything but level—bricks and rocks worn down by a million feet in all variety of shoe and sandle. For some reason, I feel instantly comfortable here and I sense Kelley feels the same. We relax in the cool air. The walls arch up into a vaulted ceiling and dark wooden benches (pews?) face a sort of make-shift stage or pulpit—this entry room almost looks like a small church, except modern paintings line the walls and a guitarist is tuning up where the crucifix would be. We wind further into this labyrinth and exit into a large courtyard filled with tables and lined by a long bar. Above our heads is a sprawl of pergola crawling with bright bugenvilia (sp?). We order drinks and begin melting into the scene. By 11:30 live music starts and the place begins to fill. A Flamenco duo takes the stage; singer and guitaista. They are amazing. My skin crawls with goose pimples. This is the traditional music of Southern Spain. There are many styles, which are called palos, and come from the many small regions. Usually, the better players know all the palos and ask the audience for requests—as these two do. There are a group of enthusiastic girls in the back from Huelva, who ask for their region’s Flamenco and the musicians bust into it enthusiastically. Though the tempos are usually upbeat, the sound and general vibe of the music is mournful and meloncholic... It is the Spanish blues. I tell my primos I think this is the Spanish blues and they inform me that many Spaniard’s call American blues the American Flamenco. They sing of pain, lost loves and general dispair; The truth is broken to pieces and noone will listen I love it. There are two singers tonight with very different vocal styles. One is an older man with pepper grey hair. He’s pot-bellied and always accompanied by a tall glass of vino (no “wine” glasses here). The other is younger and a real singer in every sense of the word—he puts his whole body into the mournful lyrics. His voice fills the place and demands attention. Both are accompinied by the same guitarista, a much younger man named Antonio. The guitar playing is very stacato and percusive—sometimes they even beat the body of the guitar. The singer rhythmically claps, as does the audience at times—taking the music, and everyone present, on improvisational adventures. This music requires no microphones, no PA and brings out many shouts of OLE! tonight. Fantastic. Inbetween Flamenco sets a young duo—guitar and violin—takes the stage to play a unique mixture of sounds. The guitar is somewhat Spanish in sound, occassionaly borrowing from Flamenco, while the violinist plays around him, switching from improvised solos, to jazz licks to pop melodies. We stay until late, drinking, listening and talking. 6/8, Sevilla Up fairly early—10am. Another hot night... but we’ve finally figured a sort of formula for keeping the room cooler. Window slightly open, shade up (until early morning when one of us gets up to pull it down) and an electric fan in the doorway, make the night tolerable. We leave tomorrow. Today we hit the contemporary art museum, though all my relatives try to stear us towards a more antiquated or historical one, with paitings by Velasquez. Nothing against Velasquez, we just wanted something a little more modern. The Western side of Sevilla is where the 1992 World Expo (Exposición Universal de Sevilla) took place, just over one of the many bridges that span the river Gaudalquivir—this particular one is very modern and was built specifically for the expo. The expo area is filled with an ecclectic multitude of buildings, and all of them look vacant. There are very few cars or people and weeds spring up wherever there are cracks. We find the museum, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, and enter from the back, through one of the old buildings it inhabits—a former ceramics factory, La Fábrica de Cerámica Pickman. The other original building is La Cartuja, a defunct 450 year-old monestary. Around these antequated structures was built the modern, streamlined and simple walls that now house the museum. The contrast is startling, and amazingly beautiful. It works, creating interesting shapes against the bright blue sky—stark, clean horizontals broken by 200 foot tall chimneys, and four massive “horno de botella,” or conical brick “bottle” kilns. Inside is an amazing collection of mostly Spanish contemporary art, including a salon of Antoni Tápies originals and a long gallery filled with Analuzian industrial design. Once again I am blown away by the mixture of ancient and modern. And the lack of people. We are, literally, the only patrons in the museum this day—and the space only opened two weeks earlier. There are more security guards then our group of four, one being Emmet—whom they’re really keeping an eye on. The boy makes me nervous in here, I’m just afraid he might knock something over. Kelley stays close to him and explains all the work... he’s intrigued, but he’s just under four—meaning our time in here is limited. But I’m glad to have him with us. Modern Spanish art seeping in? Who knows. Anyhow, I tell Antonio tht this place would be packed if it were in LA. I’m also amazed at how clean it is. Pristine. We’ve had a good visit and as we leave, we find two couples making out in the nice shade of the hot parking lot. One of the men decides to take a minute to piss in the weeds directly in front of our car as we leave. Art lovers? We reach the house in Torreblanca by 8pm and are greeted by a throng of family that have shown up to say their goodbyes. We play parcheesey with Em and chat. Drink. Eat. A neighborhood lady named Juanita stops in to say adios and reminice. Turns out she worked in the hospital and was there the night I was born 36 years ago. She remembers me as a baby and tells me that an old childhood friend, Juaquin, owns a motorcycle shop only a few blocks away. There was a time in my life when I was consumed by motorcycles—we would have been close buddies if I’d stayed here, I’m sure of it... but there is no time to see him. In the morning we leave. We say our goodbyes and begin packing. It is customary in Spain, when greeting or leaving someone, to kiss both cheeks instead of shaking hands or even hugging. I find it interesting to feel all the cheek textures. From my uncle Antonio Medina’s bristling beard, to my elderly abuela’s peach-soft skin. It makes me sad to be leaving. Later than night, I come back downstairs for a drink of water and I spend some time looking around the rooms. The main living room in my grandmother’s house—where we eat and talk and just sit—is filled with family photographs... of relatives both alive and passed. I gaze at them all the time. Tonight I look at my grandfather, who died in ‘82. His sitting portrait as a young man, stands on the VCR. It is sepia with age. Above him, on the shelf, is my own father, also passed, in his America military blues... with that slight smile of his. I catch my shadow on the wall near it and see my father’s bent-neck profile in it. He is the man who brought Spain into our lives years and years ago as a teenager when he met my mother on a double date with his friend Wallace and his girlfriend—my aunt Lola. My mother carried Spain home with us to the US a few years later. Thanks mom, for keeping it alive. I hope you know how much it means to me. And thank you too dad, wish you were here. Signing off, La Famila Jenkins. Adios. for PART UNO click here for PART DOS click here