THE RABID DOG SINKS HIS RANCID FANGS into my face as I stare into its bright yellow eyes, and I find myself screaming, sitting bolt upright in a cold sweat, and there before me stands yet another empty bottle of Belgian premium lager. “Oh Jesus.” My fecking head is wrecking. I wish I’d have saved it till now! Hair of the rabid dog would be just the ticket out of here!
My legs feel like concrete poles—with each thudding step a new agony.
Judas, Judas, Judassssss. I hear the whispers again, hissing loud and clear. On the way out of town I stop for a much-needed coffee in a crowded bar, and an odd-looking girl in the corner keeps staring at me and giving me the eye. She looks strangely familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it. As the song Bette Davis eyes by Kim Cairns plays on the radio, the girl looks over again.
That’s it. I’ve got it. She’s got Johnny Vegas eyes!
Eyes, face, the full fucking monty. It cheers me up for a millisecond as I laugh to myself. Then I cry as I wonder how much longer I can keep going. I’ll crawl on my hands and knees or roll like the Indian yogi, but no taxis like Günter or Flanders—no fucking way.
If I could get my hands on some quality marching powder, that might help. But where will I get some? Maybe I can ask Johnny Vegas eyes over there, but she looks more like a cake-head than a cokehead!
* * * *
The only thing I can do is carry on painfully until I can finally go no farther. It’s boiling hot and I’m out of water and delusional. If I can just make it to the bus shelter up ahead so I can get out of this heat. But with every painful step it seems to get farther and farther away, like a desert mirage, and Judas laughs in my ear once again. I finally make it to the glass shelter and find the body of Dr. Andreas and his wife, Greta, lying motionless in the buzzing heat.
“Hola, doctor! Are you OK?” I ask him.
He gradually opens one eye, then another.
“Buen camino, Eddie Rock!” He laughs and, barely alive, Greta just nods. “It is her circulation,” says the doctor, “and this heat.”
I explain everything to the good Dr. Andreas, who then gives my legs a quick going over with a worried look on his face.
His diagnosis is acute tendonitis, a condition where the muscles swell up around the ligaments and stop them from working properly. The only known cure for it is good-old R and R.
To help me get to the next hostel, the good doctor gives me two of his special painkillers. I don’t even ask what they are and neck them down with a gulp of water from the fountain. I rest in the scorching heat, drifting in and out of consciousness.
A magpie settles in the tree close by.
“One for sorrow,” I murmur dreamily.
“What is that?” asks Greta, opening her eyes.
“Oh, it’s just a saying. When you see a magpie, it’s one for sorrow, two for joy.”
“And for three?” she asks.
“Three for a girl and four for a boy,” I tell her.
Greta is in hysterics. It seems laughter is the best medicine after all, and we seize this moment of joviality and hit the road.
Up ahead is the familiar sight of Eric smoking a roll-up by the side of the trail. I pat him on the back and sit down beside him, and then we both jump back in amazement as I stare into the face of a complete stranger! The man looks bewildered. I’m bewildered, so I wish him a “Buen camino” and hit the road. I put the case of mistaken identity down to the heat and the miraculous painkilling tablets, or maybe it was the devil tricking me once again? Before long, Greta has to rest, so I bid them a farewell for now and hope to see them later in the medieval town of Villafranca del Bierzo. Luckily the hostel is the first building I come to, and an overly aggressive German woman with a mustache and a man’s voice tells me I’m number twelve in her queue.
“Do I look like I give a fuck?” I snarl in true anti-pilgrim style.
Her frog-like eyes almost pop out of her stupid face as I limp away before she can inflict anymore psychological damage on me.
The hostelera returns from her lunch, and all hell breaks loose as a new hard-core group of Polish pilgrims swarm the check-in, intent on total hostel monopolization without mercy!
The German woman stands with her hands on her hips, outraged, as a kindly old English pilgrim turns to me and quietly says that the Poles have their packs taken by minibus each day. They are phony pilgrims. “Bogus,” he whispers with a wink.
* * * *
I limp down to the telephone booth to phone Steve in San Fran. I need a bit of cheering up, but his wife answers and says that Steve is in Alameda County jail again . . . and won’t be out for quite some time.
“What!”
“They took him away wrapped in a Velcro blanket,” she says.
“What the fuck!”
“Yep, he never learns.” She laughs
I can’t believe it. No more land of the free! My hopes cruelly dashed yet again. I hang up in total disbelief and hobble back in a state of mental, physical, and spiritual pain.