A man named Bart

So I´m walking along today in the rain and for some reason I´m thinking about when I was camping in Death Valley last January, and that made me think of sitting in the car one night listening to a University of Minnesota football game, a minor bowl, and it was the last few minutes of the game and Minnesota had an insurmountable lead and then they somehow blew it and lost. That made me remember how a couple nights later, camped in Anza-Borrego, I was again sitting in the rental car after dark and listening to another football game, this one with Boise State, who were losing at the end, again hopelessly, but miraculously came back and won. That made me remember the scene after the game when one of the football players got down on one knee and proposed to one of the cheerleaders. This moment made all the papers, and I later saw the picture. And remembering that romantic tableaux, I thought, the marriage proposal has to be one of our most sexist cultural rites. I mean, why does the man get to decide when it´s time to ask? Or any one person, for that matter. Shouldn´t such a momentous decision be a topic for discussion rather than a yes or no question?

It would have been nice to have someone to hash this out with, but I was alone, and so I nursed my disapproval for a minute or two, and then I started thinking about other things.

I left Astorga in the dark this morning at six. A light rain fell for the first hour, and then once I was out in the open countryside the rain became heavier. I had all my rain gear on, but soon my feet were wet. This is only the second time on the walk there´s been enough rain to soak through my boots, but that´s little consolation when you´re feet are actually wet. The rain lightened, though, after not too long. I passed through a couple villages but didn´t stop to rest on any of the wet benches (and there is rarely any cover offered in the small plazas). The path today led slowly uphill, into hills, dotted with great bushes of yellow flowers and the occasional grove of small, unregimented trees. Clouds hung low over the hilltops. I walked only about four and a half fours, 22 kilometers, to Rabanal del Camino. A short stage, but the next likely albergue was some way off, and anyway I wanted to stop and take off my wet boots and choose a bunk. Then I could write, and eat, and read, and maybe nap. All appealing prospects.

Last night´s dinner at the Cafe Gaudi in Astorga was indeed worthy of praise. The room was fancier than I´m used to, with big uphlostered squares on the walls. That means class. I sat at a round table in a corner with four others, and while they all opened with gazpacho, I stuck with the ensalada mixta and was not disappointed. Segundo, I had a lovely piece of grilled salmon, with two small new potatoes on the side. It was very nice to have something other than a part of a pig. (The waiter tried to translate all the options into English, but he was stumped by Sajonia. I told him "ham steak," but after several attempts at pronunciation the best he could do was "home stay.")

Ben, the Australian, was again one of my dinner companions (third time in the last six nights). Next to me was a young Hungarian woman, Susanne. I´d met her earlier in the day at a small shrine on the Camino. When I´d walked up she´d held out a large and newly opened chocolate bar, offering me a piece. She spoke some English, but was quiet through most of the meal. Not so the other two people, both Americans. Mandy, in her mid-twenties and highly freckled, was both giggly and witty, an unusual combination. She had a degree in sociology from UC Santa Barbara (a city in which she still lives), but had been working for a number of years as a cake decorator. She had quit the job and come over to Spain to walk the Camino--a plan that her parents had not liked at all. Her father had presented her with a hypothetical situation in which she would be walking along a lonely portion of the Camino, when suddenly a man with a machete would jump out of the bushes. "What are you going to do? What´s going to happen then?" he'd demanded. She had answered, "I guess what happens then is my time is up."

The last person was a man in his mid-thirties, Bart. I´d been seeing him off and on for days, but we hadn't spoken until a few hours before dinner, outside Astorga´s cathedral. He made jokes (well, joke-like comments), then laughed uproariously, which required me to smile against my will. He was stocky, with a smooth shaved head and a goatee, and had the look of a man addicted to Sports Center (which admittedly I watch a lot of myself). I was guessing he delivered Anheuser-Busch products to bars and restaurants for a living (he's from St. Louis). Or maybe drove a UPS truck.

He told us a long story about the best pizza in Chicago. Later he was unhappy with his dinner. He thought he´d ordered clams, but due to waiter´s poor translation skills was instead presented with a platter of cangrejos (crayfish). I know from experience that these are a lot of work for little payoff, and Bart´s experience was the same. He was a little bitter. The rest of us had all chosen the excellent salmon

After Bart asked me what I did, I asked the same, and he said he was a Jesuit priest. Not that I´ve known too many priests, but still this was a surprise. He´s been in Spain for a year, living near Madrid and working on his dissertation at the Unversidad de Comias. He said that he was being groomed as a "Superior," and for that position one needed an advanced degree. (His degree would be a doctorate in sacred theology, for which the acronym in Spanish is "STD." Bart said that he´d been telling "everyone" that he´d come to Spain to get an std--then he guffawed loudly). He´s currently writing his dissertation, an investigation of the philosophical and theological meanings of perseverence in the teachings of St. Ignatius.

At one point during the meal Bart told a story about a long-ago monk, a teacher in a small village, who was accused of molesting children. The monk was removed from his position, but remained in the village, and for the rest of his long life he was cursed and reviled by the community. "But when he finally died," Bart said, "and they came to prepare him for burial, they discovered that he was actually a woman." He stressed the last word, to emphasize our amazement. "And so he--she--had been innocent all along." No one said anything, and Bart asked me, "have you heard of that story?"

"No," I said, "but--." Here I hesitated, but then thought, what the hell. "But that doesn´t mean she was necessarily innocent." Mandy piped in, "yeah."

Bart started to say something--maybe something about a penis?--but then stopped. "I suppose," he said, a little annoyed.

I changed the subject and he soon recovered his hearty demeanor.