After the previous two posts, sleepless and, as always, aware that one should employ every minute of vacation time rather than waste it, I went out at 3 am to Trailer, my favorite of the dance clubs here. It turns out that 3 is too early for Trailer, and it was virtually empty – I pantomimed dismay to the handsome, short Spaniard at the door, and he launched into an accomplished defense, claiming that vast hordes of amazing men would pour in at about 3:30. So I walked around a bit....
Friday night in an attractive beach town: tourists, clubs, beautiful little streets – a strange combination of a real, honestly beautiful and still fairly natural, Spanish town, combined with intermittent bursts of the trash and commercialization you can expect in a blowsily commercial resort. Only a few moments, however, of vandalism – a bottle breaking on the quay, and two tourist lads smashing in a door in a quayside shack; the Spanish clot of teenagers stares at the lads, but they seem to have little sense of having done anything wrong. The vandalism is sparse because, after all, this is not England, where a crude and sullen hooliganism is an acceptable rebellion against authorities who aren’t anywhere around; nor is it America, where crime and homelessness might devolve the dimmer corners of this little town into slums. (Query: is generalized sociopathy perhaps an Anglophone invention?)
I find my way back to the club, which is now, as promised, booming. I didn’t get my drink from either of my favorite bartenders, unfortunately – not the intensely hunky young Spanish stud with the tattoos and short beard, who reminds me so strongly of my old friend and roommate Paul P– (whose Italian name was almost startlingly similar to my own, at least by sound) that this could be his little brother; nor the sweet blonde girl who looks like your favorite reference librarian, after she has had a successful makeover (although she still looks like somebody’s sister, she has been made stylish with a feathered, stripped do, square clear plastic glasses, and a pale green cotton shift that goes down to there). Instead I have to deal with the black guy who seems to have the personality of this month’s fashion spread – attitude for days (though, to be fair, I later saw him greet someone he knew – an enthusiastic kiss, and he stopped pouting and actually seemed human for several minutes at a time, a reminder that practically everyone does indeed have a third dimension).
The customers are fun to look at: some puppylike, others horsey or intensely bullish, and even two camels in the corner, glaring arrogantly down hooked noses at representatives of a lesser humanity. There are more distinctive characters, too – a young guy with a rather chubby face and an unsuccessful beard stands in front of me, trying to get enough attention to get a drink; in what is perhaps a calculated move, he takes off his shirt, revealing a startlingly handsome torso and an amazing curve to his back. Just below the ribs, his spine cuts way in before it snaps back out in an opulent butt – it may sound strange when I describe it, but it is indeed so sexy that it makes the more normally straight backs on the other gym-built torsos in the room look distinctly boring.
I am startled away from looking at him by a dark face peering at me from behind – let’s call him the odalisque: a disorientingly sensual face, whose every feature is almost too exquisitely shaped, and all with a pearly sheen that models would pay a fortune to imitate. He is breathing in my ear as part of what I suspect is a sort of pan-erotic broadcasting system (PBS?), suggesting that perhaps he’s taken a pill; he introduces himself, and I am so struck by his looks that I ask if he’s Spanish or North African (his looks seem so intersexual, and interracial, as to suggest a lot of very attractive conquerors and conquerees somewhere in his background). He says no, he’s South African, from Cape Town – as I’m babbling at this point, and can only sputter what little I know about men from Cape Town (they’re very good-looking) along with the expletive “beautiful” at intervals, he sweeps off into the crowd. In the corner is the big, bulky, Hawaiian- or Samoan-looking guy whom I named the Henchman the other night, while talking to Nick – he somehow suggests the hapless role of the villain’s bodyguard in a Bond movie, the one who doesn’t release the sharks quite quickly enough. But when I called him that, he seemed goofier, more charmingly insecure for his bulk; tonight he has the set look of A Guy Who Can Get Laid Whenever He Wants – of course, that’s probably just another indicator that it is indeed Friday night.
The different curves of bodies: this particular club is about half gym-built – enough to be fun to look at, not quite so much as to be impossibly intimidating. (Admittedly, though, other nights are not quite so body-perfect, and I blend in a bit better.) But the gym produces such different effects on different physiques – next to me, an opulently curved, hairy guy wears a long chain that culminates in beads and a cross; it falls naturally into the deep valley between his pectorals. But he could be almost another species than the rigidly flat torso across the aisle – a man whose entirely planar muscles suggest a Mondrianesque abstract construction, but a remarkably sexy one, topped by one of those faces that refers simultaneously to Spain and Arabia.
And I think I’ll go home and go to bed: because I’ve had the break I needed, because my second glass of Arujo on ice is beginning to seem like too much to finish, because the unreality attack I was suffering (represented by the two previous posts) seems to have subsided, and because Susan will call at ten in the morning so we can take the train to Barcelona, where we will indulge in an orgy of aesthetic retail....
4 Sept. 2006
Oddly enough, I had been thinking about trying to find Paul on his world travels for some time now. It's been quite a few years since we'd talked by phone, and last time he was on his way to Hong Kong then Australia for teaching positions. Never far from my mind, I decided to at last 'google' him last evening, and to my delight, he popped up right away! I dropped a line and while checking my mail this morning, I was glad to see I'd already received a response from him - and there I was - mentioned in his blog as his 'old friend and roommate' (and compared to the "intensely hunky young Spanish stud with the tattoos and short beard" yet! I am flattered.)
More importantly, I am overjoyed to be back in contact with Paul A.- we had seperate phones when we were roommates - too much confusion! I am anxious to exchange the news of the past few years. So much to tell. I'm excited to be back in touch, my friend! Paul
Posted by: Paul Pentifallo | September 04, 2006 at 12:13 PM