EVERYBODY’S BARCELONA

Chapter 4 from the R.M. Dolin novel, “The Dangling Conversation.”

Chapter 4: Everybody’s Barcelona

KYLE: “I am but in a good way. Its long-ride day; eighty-miles of mostly flat seldom traveled tree-lined country roads with occasional tractors and uber smart cows skilled at escape. When the sun shines through and wind’s mostly at your back, you melodically peddle past all those conflicts clouding your mind. It’s the only place that happens, at least for me, which isn’t always good mind you, sometimes thoughts have a way of running off the rails leaving a wake of unintended consequences. Today’s a rare day when it all came together, legs strong, deeply focused, hardly any negotiation between mind and body. The weird thing about cycling is you beat yourself silly, you’re tired as shit, but feel good in ways nothing comes close to.

“I rode a bunch in Europe back in the day, big trips lasting weeks and covering thousands of kilometers; up the coast of Portugal, down the Italian peninsula, along the Spanish Atlantic to Normandy, and all along the Mediterranean coast. My goal is to circumnavigate Europe. I’m close; can’t say why I stop, guess too many troubles took over too much of my life. Spain, France, and Portugal are conquered, but the Adriatic side of Italy and the Atlantic north of France remain elusive. The thrill’s not gone, nor my need for adventure, it’s just hard finding ways to break away.

“I have a special touring bike, built myself, it can carry eighty pounds of gear and comfortably cruises a hundred miles a day. I take it out every once in a while, to relive the freedom of being on the open road with everything necessary to survive. Don’t bike camp much anymore; when the road calls, I take my camper, can’t get around the pampered touch of air conditioning or late-night toilets. I still go to Europe when I can and still use my tent when there; a tent feels right when trekking about Europe but here not so much; kind of sad really, you don’t see many tents at campgrounds here but in Europe they’re everywhere, not sure what that says about us or them.

“I tour alone, which is a problem for most, but how God made me; seems no matter what I do or where I go, I eventually wind up alone. I rode the Paris-Roubaix once; greatest single-day cycling event in the world, notorious for the grueling way bouncing over cobblestones just wears riders out. It’s treacherous too; if you don’t finish covered in mud and blood you didn’t do it right. I decide for the first and only time in my life I’ll join a tour group; I hook up with a bunch of Brits who share my bizarre desire to abuse our bodies just to prove we can endure seven hours of hell for no other reason than to say we did. So, we do; a hundred and six miles across wind-swept fields of northern France along the Belgium border. It’s cold, wet, and miserable, but we finish; then we hit the pubs to relive our glorious adventure. That’s how it is with cyclers, suffer all day in the saddle for the stories we can tell at pubs. Mark that down as a tactical tag line; a complete metaphor for why men do the stupid shit we do.

“I was way too focused on surviving the cobbles to get lost in thought, but today for reasons I’d rather not explain, I got to thinking about something you said; in fact, I spent most of six hours on it; even managed to build my own story around your story. So, tell me about Paolo who wasn’t really from Barcelona, I’m curious to see how our two stories comport.”

ISABELLE: “Odd you’d think about Paolo, don’t know if I should be flattered, worried, or impressed. Guess as you say, we’ll find out as we go along. We met in college but not at college; he works at a restaurant my friends and I hit up after hours. I call him Chef, but he won’t let it stick, says chef’s create signature cuisine and all he does is slap stuff together same as any other short-order cook. Becoming a chef’s his dream, a passion really. He practices nonstop and boy can that boy cook. He’s not the most educated person I know, but certainly the most profound. He can unravel the world making sense of things so seemingly senseless using food as a metaphor to describe everything from the brutality of geopolitical turmoil to the sweeping passions of romance. I’m not sure he even sees a distinction, just different ways of plating conflict and compatibility.

“Barcelona’s the most interesting place he’s ever been, says it’s where he fell in love; not just with cooking, but life in all its wonderfully divergent facets. He talks about the deeper meaning of things; those elements of existence that elude most. For him, everything we strive to find, whether it be a cooking style, your quest for happiness, or the passions of romance, can be brushed in shades of Barcelona. “Everybody has a Barcelona, Isabelle,” he’ll say whether we’re assessing the quality of an omelet he’s made for the hundredth time or holding each other late at night, “a place they go to escape life sucking the life from their soul; a place you can be anything you need, feel anything you desire.” I never find my Barcelona, at least not on his level; it remains the elusive door prize. You’re lucky to have bike riding like he has cooking, to have Nadia just as I’m sure he has someone who inspires his passions; someone obviously not me.”

KYLE: “Some buddies in high school start this band; doesn’t have much to do with Barcelona but contained within the same Venn diagram. They play all our dances back before DJ’s are a thing. An eclectic bunch for sure; the lead singer’s the bank President’s kid while on base is a guy whose family can’t avoid troubles. It’s interesting how these hard living rockers playing country guitars to 70’s love songs wind up. By most standards they’re unsuccessful, but the illusive question we’re reluctant to ask for fear of what it might mean is, are they happy? Only the drummer goes to college, pretty sure for not anything interesting, the others find different ways through life but that doesn’t diminish their probability for being happy.”

ISABELLE: “Can’t really say why Paolo and I stop seeing each other. The mechanics of how it goes down are crystal clear; why we allow those mechanics to push us to the edge or allow ourselves to jump once we get there remains buried in the abyss. The night things start to cascade is vivid in my mind, like it’s even right now happening. I’m sitting in the courtyard of a mostly empty college bar right around sunset. For some odd reason the bar’s playing Chopin, guess they figure bourbon drinkers like piano music. I don’t drink bourbon, but the mood of the moment demands an extra bit of something unfamiliar. My friends are off on spring break, but I stay to finish a senior project; at least that’s what I tell them. It’s quickly growing dark and snow that’s been falling all day turns to rain. I’m under a metal portico with the sound of drops smashing against a cold uncaring roof syncopating to Chopin’s melancholy. I don’t realize it but it’s the first time since November I’ve been alone, between that and melting ice in my bourbon, I begin reflecting on things probably better left alone.

“I start wondering about graduation and what it means this phase of my life is drawing to an end, about what stepping out into the real-world entails. My chef’s a huge part of what comes next, but I find myself questioning whether I’m part of his next step. The longer I sit in the cold alongside rain and Chopin the more I put our relationship on replay. So much of my life’s been lived since we met and yet, so much remains unexplored. I fell out of a shallow relationship never destined to last before Paolo and I fall in love. Since leaving for college, I’ve had more adventures than most women dare to dream, yet always, I came home, to the place I most belong; the place I wish I still belonged.

“Paolo talks about Barcelona as if it was real but here, I am, alone in this courtyard with bourbon I don’t drink, wondering why it seems such an impossible destination. I should have said to hell with school and gone to Barcelona for spring break, or at least, I should go after graduation. There’s always a reason for things we do though, or should we more correctly say for the things we don’t do? The longer I sit there thinking about the ‘this’ and ‘that’s’ of what comes next, the more this unsettledness hovers over me and I start to see how things really are between us. Like any good accountant, I’m adding up all our pluses in one column and that’s not helping.”

KYLE: I tried to ledger life after Nadia left DC and you’re right, it’s not helpful. I eventually meet someone, and we date for a bit. I try to love her, actually think I do but I keep coming back to this mental ledger; one column containing the ways she’s the same as Nadia, another for the ways she can’t possibly ever measure up. Each summation having an equal result; Nadia, and what she means to me, can’t be reduced to a ledger. No matter how much I convince myself my someone new is better, no matter how many well-reasoned reasons I contrive to argue my new reality is optimum, it always gets tossed. At the end of the day, it is of course possible to find someone new, perhaps even someone better, but Nadia’s the one I want; no amount of accounting magic can alter that.

“So, there I am, alone in DC with someone new, who at best, is locked in a battle they can’t win against a ghost they don’t even know exists; and that’s unfair. The only thing to do is be alone, I can’t burden the responsibility of causing someone else to feel the emptiness I carry. I’m not being noble, mostly taking the cowards way out; a courageous man would see his cause is lost and move on, but I can’t. A brave heart would abandon the field, but I can’t muster the fortitude, not as long as there’s hope; a razor’s edge that’s difficult to dance along without getting cut to your core. It’s like how cold wind cuts through layers of clothes when you’re on the road alone wondering what it means to hold on to something already lost.”

ISABELLE: “That’s how I feel, like cold courtyard air is cutting right through whatever’s left holding Paolo and I together, leaving a numbness I can’t describe but is nonetheless real. The rain slowly tapping unsympathetic echoes on the cold uncaring roof agrees, challenging every simple answer I concoct in ways that make clear I’m a woman without answers. “In what ways do I matter?” An equally weird question, but based on bourbon, I start wondering if anyone attends my funeral, does anyone really miss me if I just disappear; walk into the woods and never walk out? I imagine going somewhere deep in the mountains to contemplate life, wondering how living there makes any difference. Not physically or geographically, but spiritually and metaphorically. I’m not in crisis, just curious; that’s the beauty of being in college about to graduate into the real world, I’m allowed to ask questions without expecting answers.

“It’s almost our one-year anniversary, such an unexpectedly amazing year it scares me. When we met, Paolo’s a cook struggling to become a chef and I’m trudging toward graduation, today we’re both still struggling and trudging and it scares me to think how precarious our situation’s become. Life has a way of getting lived while we wait for it to start; nothing’s changed, except for discovering we have in fact been changing all along. If this were a novel, one of us must be the protagonist, but who? Would it be the boy from Barcelona who passionately looks at life for what it provides right now, or me who thinks long-term with grave uncertainty? Our story can go either way as it portrays two sides of life as it’s really lived and as I said, the hard rain amplifying Chopin tends to agree.”

KYLE: “I look at houses; seems absurd given all my uncertain chaos but a house locks me out of the reality I can’t bring myself to accept; Nadia’s not coming back. Buying a house forces me to acknowledge all those things I’ve become quite skilled at denying. It’s stupid I know, but there’s nothing to overcome a mind set on creating its own reality any more than trying to use logic to counter the illogical nature of love. It’s a bold move for sure; but one suddenly necessary. I need a place to escape my world where I’m free from all the stuff strangling my soul. That’s how I end up with a cabin in New Mexico; I take a leave of absence from State to teach graduate math classes at the University in Albuquerque and wind up living high in the Jemez wilderness. It’s a remote place with no neighbors that I only leave to teach two afternoons a week. Not only is it a far cry from the intensity of DC, it provides a needed sanctuary. My cabin’s surrounded by giant Ponderosas that stretch high into the sky providing a canopy above the forest floor that keeps things cool in summer and protected in winter. It’s mostly flat on my little piece of the mountain but tails off sharply to the valley below; the only thing missing is a river, or at least a small stream. The cabin itself is way too big for just one person, but I still hope for that day when there’s a particular plus one. The cabin costs more than I can afford but how do you put a price on sanctuary? I don’t get there much these days; it’s a long story for another night but I’m not entirely certain I’m any more welcome in New Mexico than a dust devil dancing down an arroyo; interesting to consider from afar but a bit to awkward to touch. But, like I said, that’s a story for another night.”

ISABELLE: “I sit in the courtyard long past everyone; don’t want to go inside but can’t bring myself to go to Paolo. It’s not that I’m not in love; you know how it is; right guy, wrong time and all that stuff we spend the rest of our life second guessing. It’s cliché, especially in the moment. I can bore you with reasons we’re brilliantly right for each other, but I’d then be compelled to sadden you with concerns that can’t be ignored any better than they can be explained; in the end, none of it comes close to unraveling how I get from there to here with all the stuff that happens in between. You already know the in between so, there’s no point re-dissecting that private piece of hell.”

KYLE: “Soon after buying the cabin, I run into this wilderness-rugged guy who’s apparently my neighbor though it’s never quite clear where he lives. He’s just the sort of person you expect in the wild, drives a beat-up Ranger Rover and mostly hunts and fishes for food believing nature and not the government should decide how he’s to survive; pretty much how everything breaks for him. Until you come across someone like that you don’t really believe they exist, but once you do, you realize movies don’t go far enough explaining them or their crazy conspiracy theories.

“My first winter he gives me a pair of skis, says he can’t have it on his conscience he allowed a novice like me to die trapped in snow. I try buying them because I’m uncomfortable with folks giving me stuff; reminds me of growing up poor and my mom rummaging through thrift stores so I can have the same crap as my friends while she tries convincing me someone’s discarded junk is just as good. Anyway, this mountain man gets all insulted, says I have a lot to learn about friendship. I didn’t realize we’re friends, so, I now need to find some way to do something nice for him in return. Isn’t that what friendship boils down to; being nice to each other while making sure the balance sheet stays neutral? I like giving gifts expecting nothing in return, just not sure how the reverse is supposed to work. As weird as he can be, it’s comforting to know we’re friends; there’s a value in having someone in your life even if they enter and exit on a rhythm that can’t be deciphered.”

ISABELLE: “Sometimes, all of life plays out as one unrehearsed sonata drawing structure from one disastrous decision that plays on a fatal flaw in our logic, one mistake we wish over and over again came with a redo. That’s what I’m thinking about alone in the courtyard. It’s cold, dark, and calmly quiet; my fingers are numb and while the steam from my breath blocks the view to my laptop, my last bourbon’s only half gone so I must keep typing. I’m thinking about the trip Paolo, and I were supposed to take over spring break before I canceled. I imagine the many wonderful things he talked about doing and want so much to be as excited as I know he was.

“After canceling, he wants to know if something’s off, says he senses it and thinks I do too. I have no answer, which only deepens the darker scenarios his imagination can’t control. I regret fueling that frenzy but at the same time can’t bring myself to talk about unsettled feelings. He admits to feeling unsettled, even a little sad and a lot scared; wants to know if it’s just him or if we’ve gotten off track. I don’t appreciate then how much I’ll come to appreciate a man who shares his worries and concerns. He says he senses me nervous around him, especially after everything blows up at his restaurant the night Margo gets a little out of control and insults him. He’s up front telling me how hurt he is I don’t come to his defense; not that he needs me to handle the situation, just wants me to pitch a loyalty flag. He talks about how things between us suddenly seem forced and wants to know why. How can I possibly respond when everything he’s saying is spot on, yet I have no answers; at least not ones he’ll accept.

“A weirdness grows when we’re together, each time more different, more distant. As we approach our one-year anniversary Paolo insists on knowing if I feel the same right now as I did when we first connected. He’s brutally honest saying his feelings increasingly grow stronger. He understands I’m under a lot of stress with school and he in no way wants to add to it; says he hopes he doesn’t but worries he does. He asks me not to give up on us or the hurdles of a future accountant being with a cook whose passion is to become a chef. “

KYLE: “The year I ride the Paris-Roubaix my group starts at seven; the race is an individual effort to be sure, which means once things get rolling, everyone’s on their own. It is, however, nice having mates along the way should anything go wrong, like getting a pinch flat, which happens to me about two-hundred meters in on my practice ride through the infamous Arenburg Trench the day before the race. Scotty, who’s ironically from Scotland, stops to help me get a new tube in. Paris-Roubaix is a race of attrition and before we even start, one rider is killed in a crash after being hit by a car in London; then, two of his mates bail, I don’t know if its fear or out of respect but hearing that story causes me to appreciate how lucky I am not only to have survived being hit by a car two months prior, but that I’m able to return to training in time to properly prepare. With those three out, we’re now down to four before the first flag even drops.

“Two days out from race start, me and the remaining group arrive in Roubaix to ride four of the thirty cobblestone sections. Scotty’s done the race multiple times, and since it’s my first go at the cobbles, I lock onto his rear wheel each time we enter a section to learn how best to navigate the tricky terrain. Cobblestone sections are rated 1- to 5-stars depending on how treacherous and long they are. The first section in our pre-race practice ride is 4-stars, which for me is truly baptism under fire. It’s impossible to describe how wicked the cobbles are; first, you bounce about so violently you literally can’t see; all you have is this vague notion of where you’re going but no clear vision of obstacles needing to be avoided, which leads to plowing through potholes and dangerous divots.

“Scotty offers prescient advice before attacking the cobbles, “go as fast as I can mate,” he says with a patented Scottish grin, “no matter what happens, just keep peddling; nothing good happens when ya slow down.” With that he accelerates into the cobbles unaware I’ll do whatever’s required to stay locked onto his rear wheel; and me of course not knowing the hell that kind of fearless commitment requires. Nothing I’ve ever done has so abused my entire body all at once; my legs feel as if their muscles are being torn from bones bouncing about so violently, they ache; my shoulders and arms are numb within the first minute and I get a headache from my brain slamming around the inside of my head. Once we exit the first sector and are back on smooth pavement, my internal organs feel as though they’ve been re-arranged; it’s a bizarrely uncomfortable feeling having organs sort themselves out.

“On the good news side, I keep pace with Scotty through each of our practice sectors as the others fall far behind; plus, my body feels far from finished, which means my months of high mountain training are paying off. Of course, we only practice four out of thirty sectors and my only go at a five-star leaves me with a punctured tire. I no longer worry I lack the strength or endurance to finish the race, what remains a risk is getting caught up in crashes or having a mechanical but there’s no sense worrying about crap I can’t control.

“The strategy is simple, keep to the center of the pave as best as possible. It rains both days we practice and the cobbles are slippery like ice on glass. My bike keeps sliding toward the shoulders no matter how hard I try to hold a center line, which is dangerous because the shoulders are lined with soft mud that’ll cause a certain crash if a tire sinks in. It’s virtually impossible to keep from slipping around and if you don’t peddle properly, the back tire sputters about unable to gain traction. All you can really do is just what Scotty said, keep peddling and hope for the best. One section contains a steep descent with a ninety-degree turn at the bottom; a brutal piece that has its share of crashes on race day so I’m damn glad we have the chance to practice.

“Our last training ride is through the Arenburg Trench; a two-and-a-half kilometer, five-star mess of uneven cobbles representing the most brutal and treacherous part of the race. The previous year they stop counting broken bones carried out and locals still retell the tale of the guy whose front tire gets jammed between cobbles causing him to flip over the top of his bike planting his face so hard on the rocks he busts all his teeth. The boys and me agree on race day, we’ll text each other on the other side of the trench just to know who makes it out. As one might imagine in a hundred-and six-mile race, there’s a lot of talk about nutrition and hydration, with everyone having a strategy sure to provide an edge. I’m no different, I research how the body consumes energy and water during an endurance event and how important both are to preventing muscle breakdown. The challenge is consuming the required six thousand calories to reach the velodrome in seven hours.

“The fun part of hanging with the Brits is going out for beers after our rides; they of course speak English, but I understand less than half of what they say, which makes for some rather comical moments. One of the boys has a girlfriend who owns a hotel and restaurant on the French side of the Pyrenees. The way he talks about her and her efforts to establish a restaurant of farm-to-table cuisine reminds me Paolo; so even I have a Barcelona connection, although it’s based on cuisine not romance, but you see the link, right?”

ISABELLE: “I still hear Paolo’s desperation, “Everyone has a Barcelona, Isabelle, don’t you see that?” It’s painfully terrorizing how his words echo with reoccurring resonance on endless nights of regret; times when it’s crystal clear, he’s wrong, not everyone is so lucky. The horrible truth is, “I had a Barcelona,” but let it slip through my fingers for reasons that long ago escape reason.”