Chapter 12: It isn't pretty but it's a fresh start

This is gonna be ruff. The truth is I don’t remember much of what’s happened to me since last I wrote. It’s like looking at a penny thru a whirlwind and trying to decide if it’s counterfeit or to see the date. The things I can relate here are just the cold hard facts and a couple paragraphs I wrote somewhere along the way mixed with random quotes from held tight strangers. It’s going to be disconnected. Lets just imagine a cut-up piece from the Burroughs era and call what we don’t understand art. Works in my favor.

She says “You cant come in here like that covered in hotels and houses. That’s not our culture.” We scrapped something awful and she sent up the coppers. This fucker in full regal uniform looks at me and all these dirty dogs who’ve made a boxing ring in the middle of the place and says, “who’s the leader.” So I tell him take off your shirt and trousers, get in the fucking ring and you’ll find out right quick who the leader is. Tuck tail then didn’t he, after we rang him out a few.”

That’s the story I’m waking up to. Three kids from London I’ve met like a head on collision a few good days before have busted into my room and are telling me to get “lifted” I think its about 8am and its more than obvious they haven’t slept. We knock down beers at the pool till we’re good and fit and somewhere along the way I end up at the World Cup/ Argentina vs. England in a sold out stadium of 45,000 South Americans and about 6 Londoners and New Mexico kids, standing next to Joss whose almost naked and covered in a giant cross of red war-paint. Songs are sung into the night. I think someone is crying.

A few of these days I can barely remember because I’m passed out on pain pills for 30 hours at a time and Bens moved on to Santa Fe or out I don’t know where. I had thrown out my back and it left me facedown on the floor in a pile. The other I had caught a fever that practically burned thru the sheets. I get a massage from two women on the second floor of the hostel and it almost puts me right. Thanks to Maria.

A fist, when thrown by the arm of a sober man rarely makes its pace at a crawl and this one is no exception. It’s a Saturday afternoon and the streets are slick crowded with the fast licks of commerce. My attention split as many directions as my opinions. I don’t notice it till it’s almost to my face. Hackles raised too late, suspicion of ambush in place. Passed me it flies, passed Benjarmin, a wild wide hook that finally descends directly into the mouth of a man walking straight for the heat of it. A total catcher’s mitt. A sound emerges akin to heavy dice being thrown against a thick oak table, clattering and bouncing back into a small pool of spilt whiskey. Blood splatters and big spits against the pavement. A police officer watches from a few feet away with mild thinly veiled amusement at what appears to be a previously agreed upon attack. The man amazingly continues to stand and pour blood and bewilderment while the other assures him that next time he sees him he will engage in the time-tested land-owner approved act of murder. In Spanish it sounds tougher and cooler. The police officer uses slight baton sign language to convey his alliance and assures the limbed bloodstain he should continue quickly about his way. I in a good faith act of desensitization see passed him to a brown leather hat I would like to purchase and do. I guess its what I always thought shopping would be like, or at least what it always reminded me of.

I’m on the Metro Line to a part of town I haven’t explored at night before. The street meat here is savory and cooked by a woman whose not just cooked it for 16 of her own kids for the passed 30 years but probably 16 more that weren’t hers as well. We find a bar where all the waitresses are dressed like nuns and a ranchero 6-piece plays the truest cuts from the ceiling. Thick well-versed paintings line the walls of nuns trying to get a quick peek down Jesus’ skimpy loincloth and other assorted similar debauchery.  For a heavily devout catholic country this place is pretty fucking cool.

A horse parade appears out of nowhere and 10,000 horses begin to do the tango. A private party along one of the edges tells us we can’t come in. I bat my lashes and Ben winks his words and they’ve handed us sandwiches and our own bottle of Aguardiente (some of this shit can actually make you go blind, and I thought it was a myth.) I see a real life advertisement of the fact. 

I’m on the mic playing a show at Kasa Kiwi. I’m at a bar where a shot of whiskey costs 20 bucks. I’m in line at the movies before I realize it, panic and leave. I win money at the casino, I loose money at the casino. Im dancing more than I ever have in this life or any past one. I'm smoking a joint on the roof. Someone says "I'm in" but I know I'm out. I eat fish and avocados everyday. I watch an entire season of Ancient Aliens while sick and then believe in ancient aliens. I swim laps in the biggest pool I've ever seen. I cross-train. I feel good, I look ruff. I cant wait to buy a suit. 

I have a dream about the origin of the wolf and before I know it I wake up 2 hours away from Medillin in Guatape. Here I am today. We’ve just ridden these shit mountain bikes with no breaks 16 kilometers up and down ruff terrain to a monolith in the middle of a chain of lakes in the mountains. It’s beautiful, there’s a ship graveyard here and the air is thin. Suicide showers and slower death buses. We have to get back to Medillin to get our big bags. Then it’s off to the Amazon. I love Colombia but I am looking forward to Peru. This is what its like when I don’t take notes and I show up to a party in The Thick, but sometimes this is just what its like and everything feels like this picture.