Where does your father do his barnacles? Part 12

Four hours in a humming, vibrating stasis-tube, a Eurorail engine coddled us in and out of sleep. No one had come by to check our tickets. None of us bothered with the view from the window probably because the view from Madrid to Barcelona had all the luster of southern Idaho. A few minutes from our stop and Steve shook us awake and put black coffee in our hands.

When we finally came to we were somewhere that looked not unlike Barcelona, but everything was French. The people seemed to speak through their teeth at us as they passed us on the street or maybe that was in our heads. No one seemed to be looking at us, but everyone seemed to be in on it. That being said, we were taking turns snorting allergy medicine on the street while we waited for a gyro. Steve swore it would act like a stimulant once our blood was a bit thinner. Burger and Soroush took turns killing a bottle of wine. The hostel we booked was dry so we had to kill it before we could drop our shit off at the hostel and go to a bar or atleast that’s what Soroush told everybody.

“Let’s find a pub,” said Burger between pulls. “An Irish pub. I’ve never been to an Irish pub where they weren’t friendly to Americans.” Soroush put his hand on the bottle, but Burger pulled it away. “Wait your turn you damn spic.”

Soroush laughed, “My mom’s black you fuckin’ bigot.”

“That’s just the shit she tells your dad while he’s choking her off the edge of the bed.” Burger passed the bottle and found a gyro had appeared in his hand. The gyro was placed there by Steve, who knew that Burger hadn’t saved enough money to feed himself during the trip, but would have proudly remained hungry the whole time, just never sober.

“Shit, you might be right. Bahram’s racist as fuck. He told me once he named me after the sound of brown turds being flushed away.”

Steve took a bite of his gyro. Cucumber sauce shot down his chin. “You think your mom throws out the N-word when she wants him to nut?”

“Nah, she’s a nurse. She’d just check his oil and go to sleep. Hand sanitizer was a staple in my house.” Soroush dropped his knees to the sidewalk and lay his passport open on the ground “They did always have a bottle next to the bed.” He pulled out a pill bottle and popped out two little blue pearls.

“Would he get mad if she used her right hand for that?”

“Hell no, we used T.P. and silverware in our house.” He crushed the pills with the bottle against the inside of his passport and put his face to the ground to snort.

“Hey, Mecca’s that way you fuckin’ infidel.” Burger pointed east.

“Fuck you, Burger boy. Frank, you good?” Soroush handed me the bottle and his open passport with some blue powder around his smiling face.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to smile in these?” I snorted what was left and chased it with the merlot.

“The photographer was some ol’ menopausal white lady. She wasn’t about to tell a black man not to smile.”

We all threw our bags at our assigned cots and found a pub called Mac’s to drink in. The band was covering American music, mostly from the eighties, big rock ballads, nothing obscure. The place was dark and wooden. It glowed with the gold light that filled old ships in a warm way. Baskets of yellow, brown foods nested in green were picked at between full glasses of amber ales and beers as black as coal. The smell of fried food wafted in the street, but only beer held the nose here. Wherever we sat it was like being near a fire without smoke or the surrounding darkness.