Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
When we checked out of the hotel the next morning I got directions from the clerk about finding the nearest Tourist Information Centre; it turned out to be only about two blocks away. We headed up there and were offered a plethora of bulletins and brochures but managed to convince them that we required only a readable map of the roads between Madrid and Paris. On the way out I grabbed a general brochure on Spain and shoved it into my pocket for later perusal. The lady at the Tourist Bureau had told us which bus to take to get as far north in Madrid as possible and still be within walking distance of the main north highway. Following her instructions we were able to ride to within fifty yards of the N1 highway and settle on our backpacks for what we hoped wouldn't be too long a wait. It was obviously our lucky day; a sedan pulled over within about fifteen minutes and we rode with a French drygoods salesman all the way to Burgos. All of my attempts to get him to modify his speech to a slow trot were unheeded, as a result I was able to understand what he spoke only every fifteen or twenty words. But the price was right. He dropped us off near the centre of Burgos and pointed to the north.
'Piece of cake, Billy me lad,' I said happily after we had bade farewell to the Frenchman, 'at this rate we'll be back in 'Blighty' in no time at all!' Silly me! We trudged along toward the north end of town ignoring the magnificent medieval churches and palaces of the Old City. Making sure we were still on the N1 we walked until the buildings thinned out and we were sure the main town was behind us. We found an inexpensive pension, dumped our packs and went looking for a convenient bar, in that order. As we sat sipping glasses of the local vintage I glanced at the brochure I had picked up at the tourist bureau in Madrid. I was astonished by what I read.
'Did you enjoy our little visit to the Prado museum yesterday?' I asked.
'Yeah, it was very educational. Why?'
'I just wondered if you had begun to feel tired, that's all.'
'Matter of fact, my feet were getting a bit sore by the time we left. Funny you'd ask!'
'We were there only about an hour, right?'
'Right, why?'
'Well, I guess I never mentioned my guidelines about museum visiting to you but just in case you feel as though you've seen it all, I thought you might find it edifying to know how far you've proceeded.'
'Whatta you mean?'
'I mean do you know how many museums there are in Madrid?'
'I couldn't hazard a guess--how many?'
'Twenty!'
'Bullshit! Surely that's impossible!'
'Nope, look, it's right here in the brochure,' I handed him the brochure.
'I'll be buggered!' Bill said as he read down the list.
'That's only Madrid; think of all the other large, antique city museums we never even visited in Spain,--Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Granada and so on and on, including right here in Burgos.'
'The place is a huge bloody antique museum and archeological stockpile in my opinion.'
'Right, and we're only talking about Spain; imagine how many of these bloody places there are if you include Italy and France and Central Europe!'
'And Russia and China, migawd!' Bill added.
'Maybe that's one of the forms of Hell---you're committed to walk around looking at museums till the end of time, there are certainly enough museums.'
'That really would be Hell, wouldn't it?' Bill said. 'You'd probably end up with little short legs like one of those German sausage hounds!'
'Very funny,' I said. 'Half a dog high and a dog and a half long, half a dog high and a dog and a half long!'
'That's it; if I hear that one more time I think I'll bite somebody!' Bill said. We both had a good laugh.
We had no intention of trying to get another ride that day so we agreed to walk back down the street and inspect one of the medieval churches we had heard so much about. We entered one and were struck by its size and intricate beauty, but I could never go into one without speculating on its genesis. When was it started? How long did it take to build it? What were the workers paid? How many were killed? What did it cost? Notwithstanding these gloomy speculations and the obvious fact that we hadn't genuflected at the stations of the cross we nevertheless emerged none the worse for wear, in fact, felt moderately more tranquil, if possible.
'Gee, I feel moderately more tranquil,' I said.
'Yeah, so do I,' Bill said.
'Maybe if we have a drink it will go away,' I said.
'A splendid idea,' he said. So we went into the first bar we came to and had a couple of belts of Fundador Domeq. Strangely enough, we felt even more tranquil so decided to return to our room for a nap.
It was darkening when we arose and decided to venture out in search of food.
'Contradictory though it may seem on the occasion of what may be our last night in Spain, I feel a hankering for a different type of foreign cuisine, Italian perhaps, or Chinese. What say you to that?'
'Fine by me,' Bill replied in his customary argumentative way. We finished up by eating Chinese food and drinking Chinese tea, a major catharsis in my opinion.
Traffic was in short supply the following morning, bearing in mind that it was the main highway north to France, so we became engaged in a desultory reminiscent discussion of our recollections of home. Since our importunities with respect to the occasional passing car were being ignored, we eventually tired of standing up and smiling brightly with our thumbs extended as each car approached and simply remained seated and extended our hands in a half-hearted manner to the speeding automobiles. There were sustained periods of time when very litttle transpired. There was a military barracks across the road from us but an intervening wall prevented us from seeing any meaningful activity and muffled the sound of the orders being shouted at unfortunate recruits.
'I wonder how the Xmas party at Riley's went over this year' I said.
The party in question had been talked about for months following the Yuletide. There seemed to be two prime causes for the riot. Many of the so-called 'guests' were in fact party crashers who took full advantage of the generous portions of liquor being served. Secondly, the food being served was kept covered until the attendees were well into their cups and, as a result, ravenously hungry. When the food was eventually made available there was a drunken rush toward the tables with consequent disordered grabbing and shoving for the victuals. The main food table finally collapsed and sandwiches, shrimps, oysters, dips for same, cakes and tarts and assorted other good things were scattered about on the floor and ulttimately trampled into a disgusting melange by the drunken participants.
'I think they announced that Xmas parties were cancelled in future until further notice.' Bill was knowledgeable about the party scene in the Calgary oilpatch because of his employ as an account executive with one of the leading advertising agencies in the city.
'Everybody is making lots of money for the first time in years and they feel like they need to celebrate. If they ever do it again they should get the food out from the start instead of getting everyone pissed out of their minds before they bring on the food.'
'Amen to that,' I said. 'Some of the oilfield service boys I know decided to have a similar affair one year. It was held in the basement of the old Caravan Motel at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Fourth Street West. There was only about a foot of headroom
available; everyone got drunk, of course, and although I paid my share of the cost there was no indication of that to the guests. The next year we moved it to the basement of the circular hotel at the corner of Fourth Avenue and First Street West. Everyone was supposed to invite three or four secretaries from their office. As it turned out, I was the only one of the sponsors to bring three attractive girls from my office. Oops! here comes a car--you stand up this time! Don't forget to smile!
Bill was soon sitting again after we had watched the car shoot by without slackening speed. 'Well, anyway,' I said, 'after watching our guests pour drinks into the girls for an hour or so they started grabbing and clutching the young ladies. Some of them started out giving them a 'friendly' Merry Christmas kiss and ended up in attempted prolonged gum sucking. I chose not to participate the following year.'
'I suppose you heard what happened,' Bill said. 'They had it at the top of the hotel the next year, in the Sun Room. I know this sounds incredible but some car company was having a social event the following day and had a late model car they were going to showcase in the main ballroom. The delivery boy parked it just outside while he went into the desk for instructions; in the meantime one of the drunks on the top floor thought it would be a cute prank to throw the television set through the window.'
'Good Lord!' I said, ' I don't think I knew about that--it's a miracle that no one was injured or even killed!
'It was, in fact the television set landed on the roof of the car just above the driver's seat.'
'I trust the boys in blue were notified.'
'Oh yeah, they tried to identify the drunk in question but there were too many to choose from, plus the fact that they all clammed up so the hotel had to sort it out with the
insurance company. Needless to say, the hotel management reviewed their arrangements with oilpatch service organizations.'
About this time, an aged Spanish farmer came by us leading a huge ox hitched to a time-worn two-wheeled oxcart. It was about 12:30 midday and he was the traffic highlight for about an hour. Things seemed to have settled down across the road in the military barracks so we assumed they were having a traditional Spanish siesta.
'You know, one tends to forget it, but now that I think about it I guess I've been thrown out of hotels on a regular basis for years, twice in one night from the Banff Springs Hotel for drunken misbehaviour, also the Cascade and the Mount Royal Annex in Banff, although not always directly my fault. When some of my old buddies were getting married after the war they were asked on a regular basis to depart the premises at the Royal, the Wales and the Palliser. You would have remembered some of those blowouts.'
'Indeed I do,'
'The sucker that signed for the room, usually the best man, got stuck for the cost of repairs to the room after the stag. I remember the boys each used to bring a case of beer and unload it into the bathtub, then the cold water tap was turned on and left running. Eventually the labels started to float off the bottles; that was when some clever lad discovered that if he put a label face down on his wallet he could throw it up against the ceiling and it would stick there. I remember coming into Stan's stag room at the Wales and seeing the ceiling festooned with beer labels from the Calgary, Lethbridge and Edmonton breweries.
'Tell me about it, I got stuck for that once, I forget whose stag, but I never made the mistake again.'
'I'll tell you about the classic I was involved with but never attended, thank God!'
'Just wait till you hear, oh, it's your turn to wave at this car passing at high speed.' As soon as Bill had made his ritual unredemptive attempt to hitch a ride he sat down again.
'I just remembered while you were standing there the prenuptial party Neil had at the Palliser; you were there weren't you?'
'I was, as a matter of fact,' Bill said.
'Neil was less chauvinistic than most and invited both men and women to the event. When I arrived the room was packed and after I had been greeted by Neil and his future bride he directed me to the bathroom. 'Have a beer,' he said, 'it's all in the bathtub getting cool.' I went into the bathroom and was astonished by what I saw; there was lots of beer but there was a fully clothed man lying on top of it all, sleeping peacefully with his arms crossed on his chest as in a funeral presentation. It was old 'Curly'!'
'Maybe he was dead,' Bill observed.
'Naw, he was snoring like a drunken sailor, even though he had sunk down amongst the beer bottles and water and his clothes were half soaked.'
'Curly always did enjoy a bit of a beer fight,' Bill said with a laugh.
'Do you remember the good looking, big-chested girl stranger from Edmonton?'
'Of course I do, why?'
'I fucked her!' I said matter of factly.
'Say again,' Bill said incredulously.
'I fucked her!' I repeated.
'That's gotta be bullshit!' he said. 'She left the party about five minutes after you arrived-- I don't see how that could be possible.'
'I'll tell you; she was the first person I talked to as soon as I came out of the bathroom. When she told me she was from Edmonton I asked her if she was familiar with Calgary. When she said she wasn't I asked her if she would be interested in a short drive around the city. 'I'd love it,' she said . 'Let's go!' I said, and that's when we left the party. My car was parked halfway down the block across fom CJCJ; I turned left on First Street West and drove straight north to the big vacant lot next to the old trolley bus garage, and parked. After a few preliminary grapples we climbed into the back seat and stripped off all our clothes.
'Jayzuz! Weren't you worried about the cops?'
'I should have been, I know, but it was already dark so I just threw caution to the winds; bear in mind that my blood was rather hot at this time.'
'Was that chest all hers?'
'All hers; in fact she had magnificent breasts.'
'Did you go at it again?
'Jesus, is there no limit to your concupiscence?'
'My what?'
'Never mind, no, we only did it once if I remember correctly, then we got dressed and returned to the party.'
'Christ, I think I've heard everything now,' Bill said.
'It all seems a bit surreal, doesn't it?
'Amen to that! Did you ever see her again?'
'She used to phone me when she was in town, but I usually had something else to do. I remember I picked her up one time with one thing in mind but she said she had the curse.'
'So what did you do?'
'She gave me a hand job; it was her idea, I'd never had one before.'
'Good Lord! Are you making this all up?'
'No, it's all true--she even asked me if I had a handkerchief she could borrow,'
'Some people have all the luck,' Bill said.
'You were making out all right,' I said. 'I must say I didn't appreciate the comments of your little pal Jackie very much.'
'Really? What did he say? '
'I ran into him on Ninth Avenue on the following Monday and he gave me a sly smile and asked me if my back had been itchy. "Whatta you mean?" I said.'
'Well, they still give the lash to guys who do what you did to minors!' he said.
'Minors? What the hell are you talking about?'
'I'm talking about that little girl from Edmonton; she's only fifteen you know.'
'Fifteen? Bullshit! She told me she was eighteen! Anyway, how come you know so much about it?'
'I have my sources,' he said with a smile.
'Sources, schmources, I'm getting a bit tired of you and your fucking sources, Jackie. The next time you have a hot tip for me I may just thank you with a fist in the mouth,' I said angrily.
'Jeez, I'm only trying to help,' he said defensively.
'Help someone else next time,' I said indignantly and walked off. Nevertheless, I must admit he had aroused my curiosity with his intrusive remarks.
'Never mind, Jackie was always a bit of a shit disturber; maybe he brought her to the party in the first place and was suffering a bit of jealousy. You were going to tell me about a classic foulup you were involved with but didn't attend.'
'No, no, I just remembered something else about prenuptial stag parties, I'll tell you the other one later'' I said. 'I was going to be best man at Dutch's wedding so I decided that it was time someone departed from the traditional beer fight at some hotel room and stage a proper gentleman's Stag Dinner. I rented one of the mezzanine floor private dining rooms at the Palliser and invited about a dozen guests.
'I'm guessing there were Dutch and me, Dave and Howie Freeze, Bill Love, Jackie Miller, Donnie Baldwin, Jock Innes , Pete Egan,--- maybe that's all there were. Everything was extremely couth, place settings, seafood cocktails waiting in place; all was in readiness. As soon as Dave Freeze walked in he took one look at the side bar and said 'We're going to need more booze from the look of it!'
'Bullshit,' I said, 'there's lots of booze!' I lost that argument and Dave walked around getting money from everyone to fund the purchase of additional booze. I can't remember what I'd ordered for the main course but I assume that it was either roast beef or steak. Regrettably, everyone kept getting up to pour themselves stiff drinks during the dinner. By the time we got to the speeches buns were flying back and forth across the table and I realized that things were getting out of hand. Dave, in the meantime, had been leaning out of one of the windows, staring down the airwell and waving at a couple of girls he had spotted in a room on the next floor down. The next thing I knew he had gone down to seek out further acquaintanceship with the young ladies. Dutch, scheduled to be married the next day, decided to accompany him. I subsequently learned that, in a show of drunken bravado, Dutch had chinned himself up to look into the room through the open transom. The girls promptly slammed the transom shut, trapping Dutch's fingers in the join between fhe transom and the door frame.
'Did he lose a few fingernails in that deal?' Bill asked.
'I don't really remember,' I said, 'Although I imagine he had some pretty sore fingertips for his honeymoon! In the meantime I had other problems to deal with; one of the boys had become sick from too much booze or too much food and had made a dash for the washroom. He never made it, of course, he had his hand over his mouth but managed to leave little mounds of vomit on the rug en route to the men's room. Petey, always preoccupied with neatness, had returned to the dining room and gathered up all the napkins he could lay his hands on and returned to the hallway. There he got down on hands and knees and proceeded to cover the offending puke with napkins. He had completed three procedures when he reached out and encountered a pair of black Size 12 shoes. He looked up with a 'Mickey Mouse' smile and looked into the stern face of the house detective.
'I'm afraid you're going to have to leave,' the house man said.
'I can't do that,' Petey said fatuously, 'I'm at a dinner party!'
'Don't look like no dinner party to me,' the man said.
'Wait here, I'll be right back ,' Petey said and scurried back to the dining room.
'It's the house detective,' he exclaimed plaintively. By this time the house detective had reached the doorway.
'I'll handle it,' I said. I went over to the house detective to explain the situationto him. I was still trying to think of something reasonable to say to him when Bill decided to insert himself into the situation.
'You can't legally eject us,' he said, 'this dining room has been paid for in advance,' he stated.
'I can do anything I want,' the house detective said defensively.
'We insist on seeing the manager,' Bill said pompously, 'my father is Gordon Love, owner of radio station CFCN, I'm sure you've heard of it!'
'I'll call the manager,' the house detective said.
'I'm sure Bill's comments cut a lot of ice with the manager,' Bill remarked.
'You'll find out,' I said. 'When the manager arrived he had obviously been briefed by the house detective.'
'My name's Deyell, I'm the hotel manager. What seems to be the problem here?'
Bill was at it again---he pointed out who his father was and what the legalities involved were. Mr. Deyell listened patiently.'
'That's all very interesting,' he said 'but I should point out that the arrangement was simply for a dinner party. Your behaviour seems to have gone considerably beyond that; we certainly don't approve of vomiting on the hall rug.'
'That was unfortunate,' I said, elbowing Bill out of the way, 'I'll try to steady the boys down.'
'I'm afraid it may be too late for that,' he said, 'we've just had a complaint from two residents on the next floor, I'm hoping it's not two of your lot that are involved.'
'I'd be most surprised,' Bill interjected huffily. Unfortunately, almost simultaneously, Dave and Dutch chose that moment to walk down the hall toward us.
'What's going on?' Dave asked, attempting to look innocent.
'We've just been talking about your behaviour,' Deyell said. 'What happened to your hands, lad?' he asked, looking at Dutch accusingly.
'Um, nothing serious,' Dutch said, looking at his swollen fingertips, 'just a bit of arthritis, actually.'
'Well, I'm sorry, boys, but you seem to have outlived your welcome here, I'm going to have to ask you all to leave.' Bill presumably decided that Mr. Deyell was not interested in his family tree so headed toward the elevators with an indignant look on his face. Two or three others left at the same time. There were a few heels of liquor left in the dining room and Jock went in to check it out. Knowing him I found it hard to believe that he wouldn't have had a swig or two before he left. More about that in a moment. I finally managed to shepherd the rest of the drunk and moderately drunk down to the lobby and out onto the street, as Dutch made a continuous series of loud, vulgar comments about Mr. Deyell.
When we started across the street we saw Jock hunched over near the street car tracks and it became obvious what he had been doing in the dining room while he was alone. He had acquired a thirteen ounce 'mickey' bottle, perhaps he had brought it with him, and filled it up with the remaining whiskey from the bottles in the dining room. Ironically, he had dropped it while crossing the street and it had broken when it hit the street car tracks. Jock had retrieved the bottom half of the bottle and was dipping his hankerchief in the puddle of whiskey that had collected in the recess next to the tracks. Then he would wring the handkerchief out over the bottle and repeat the process. There were bits of horseshit, glass and assorted other debris in the whiskey he was soaking up. The sharp bits of glass had cut his hands when he wrung out the handkerchief and there were drops of blood falling into the broken half bottle.
'Jesus, Jock, why don't you just leave it, there's all kinds of foreign crap mixed in with it!'
'I can strain it back through my handkerchief ,' he said; he was nearly in tears.
'That sounds appetizing!' said Howie, who had been standing watching the spectacle with a look of contempt.
'Did he actually drink it?' Bill said.
'Who knows?'
'You were going to tell me about another classic that you were involved in but never attended.'
'Oh, yeah! I had a guy called Fred doing sales work for me on a commission basis a few years ago. This was going to be another of those extremely couth events for a few of his favoured oilpatch clients and he had rented a room in what was then called the Calgary Inn. His wife had gone to a lot of trouble to roast a turkey and I believe there was also a roast of beef plus all the necessary condiments plus lots of beer and booze. I guess I forgot to tell you that this was intended to be a polite poker game for Art and five others. I wasn't included because I was scheduled to leave shortly after the game began and go up to Red Deer for a golf tournament.
'So what was the problem?'
'There was no problem then; all the lads showed up on time, I watched the game
for a few hands and then took off. I never got back to Calgary until three nights later. I was lying in bed reading the back issues of the newspaper when I saw a headline that nearly blasted me out of bed.'
'So what was the headline?'
'CALGARY OILMAN ARRESTED FOR DRUNKEN ASSAULT!' Jesus Christ, I thought, that sounds like our party. I picked up the phone and phoned Fred. 'I'm almost afraid to ask' I said.
'That was our party all right,' he said with a chuckle. 'Everything was very orderly, as a matter of fact. Shortly after midnight I called for one more hand; I didn't think about it till later but Dave had gone very silent for the last hour and had been drinking straight whiskey fairly steadily. The breakup was very orderly and I assumed the party had been a great success. I asked Dave if he would bring one of the unopened cases of beer and he picked it up without complaint.'
'When we got into the elevator I held the door open for Dave, but he just stood in the hallway. 'You comin' Dave?'' I said. 'I'm goin' up,' he said, with a sly look on his face. I just assumed he'd lined up some strange tail so I never questioned him. We went down and went home. I never learned about Dave's behaviour until I read the paper.'
'So what'd he do?'
'Apparently he went up one floor, set the case of beer on the floor, then went to the fire hose rack and peeled off ten or fifteen feet for starters. Then he turned on the water full blast and started watering down the hallway. There was a fat little drygoods salesman from Montreal lying in bed watching television when he heard a knock on the door. Being an 'easterner' he wasn't about to be caught dead in his striped silk pajamas so he took the time to put on a dressing gown before opening the door. Imagine his astonishment when he saw a fully dressed civilian standing in the hallway directing a strong jet of water down the hall. Assuming there must be a fire, he stepped into the doorway and craned his neck around to see if he could spot the problem. At this point, John simply swung around and directed the full force of the jet into the rotund little gentleman's belly. 'Christ almighty!' the little man cried as he was blown back four or five feet and landed on his fat liitle bum. He was able to get up and lock the door because Dave had moved on to further adventures. The salesman shucked off his wet clothes and phoned an excited complaint down to the desk. Within minutes Dave was confronted by two bellmen who soon figured out that they could better deal with Dave if the water valve was turned off. Dave grasped the limp hose three or four feet back of the heavy brass nozzle and swung it around his head like a deadly weapon. The bellmen knew better than to approach the demented hose wielder so they took the staircase down one flight and rode the elevator the rest of the way. By the time the policemen arrived Dave had turned the water on again and was back at play.'
'Dave was swinging the nozzle again and one of the policemen took a solid blow to the head that knocked his hat off and left him with a blue 'mouse' to his forehead. It was only after the reinforcements arrived that Dave agreed to be taken in to custody.'
'I agree ,' Bill said, 'That really is a classic; what ever happened to darlin' Dave, anyway?'
'We were all convinced that he would be fired as soon as management heard about the escapade but he kept his job. He wasn't seen socially for a long time and there was a story going around that one of the conditions of his continued employment was regular attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.'
'Chrissake, is that the old boy with the bullock cart coming back? He must have forgotten something!'
'Afraid not, dear boy; his day is done. He's on his way home.'
'Really, what time is it?'
I glanced at my watch. 'Five thirty...we've been there since we saw the old bugger go by at twelve thirty. That's five hours we sat here without getting a ride; I'm getting the impression there's something wrong with our technique.'
'Five hours, I find that hard to believe!'
'What? That we could thumb for five hours without getting a ride?'
'No, that you could babble on that way for five hours!'
'You're very kind, but I take your point.' I said pensively.
We would have had to be either dumb or stubborn to go back out there the following day--maybe we were both, but in retrospect I think we just had no appetite for an option that was going to cost us money. In this case persistence paid off and a farm truck stopped and offered to take us a few miles down the road. This was an excellent option as long as it didn't start to rain. Sunshine and fresh air aplenty!
It finally dawned on us that we were getting rides on farm vehicles for short distances that featured us sitting on the floors of farm pickups while being passed by small cars travelling at high speed.
'I'm beginning to feel like produce being carted into town.' I said. 'It's only a matter of time before one of these lads forgets his mission and tries to flog us off at a pig market.' But the weather held out and we had a chance to view Northern Spain at a leisurely pace. I counted five separate truck rides between Burgos and Bayonne. Eventually we were picked up by an apologetic farmer who was able to speak a little English.
'I'm sorry, I'm only going as far as Puebla,' he said.
'No problem, every little bit helps, as the old lady said when she peed in the ocean,' I said as we clambered in.
— The End —