Day 25: Memories of David

Talking to Andrew from the start reminded me of David. David was a Spaniard I met when I “worked” on a volunteer camp restoring a fort on an island in the south of France in Agde. It was a very odd setting; we were literally on an island with no plumping or electricity for three weeks. There was about 12 of us total working on the project and we slept in what cells that used to hold prisoners. There were no doors, no windows. It was July but the breeze of the sea made it feel like October. David and I got along immediately and he too was basically addicted to Hashish, much better quality however. He would chain smoke it all day even first thing in the morning before breakfast, during breaks between work and all evening after. I was there to keep him company and to help him consume the massive block of the brown stuff he had. It was in these bizarre conditions and unusual situation that I had my most serious and intimate male bonding experience. Not sexual, but in every other way. If it weren’t for these circumstances the two of us would have never met and if we did we probably would not think much of it. But there on the island everything was different and in the course of our first week there we had already gone though intense debate, arguments, love, hate kind of relationship. We were inseparable. We would talk about everything under the sun. Every couple of days I would go back to shore on a little boat (I was given responsibility for the boat. The first day when the group leaders asked who has experience with motor boats I raised my hand; I was the only one so I got the job. Truth is I had never had experience but it is that natural impulse to say “I know, I know” that got me to raise my hand thinking that someone else will get it). I would take the boat a kilometer to shore to buy food for everyone and some personal requests like batteries or tampons. When the end of our time on the island approached I panicked, what am I to do without David around all the time? He was to go back to the north of Spain, his small town where he hated his life. I was to continue traveling and was also heading to Spain. We met in Barcelona and had a couple of days of partying with his friends, he was already different. I cried when I put him on the bus in Barcelona thinking I will probably never see him again. After a few days I decided to take a train trip (5 hours) and go to his home town. He picked me up at the station and I was happy to be reunited. This was a different David. His hometown friends were there and there was some bizarre festival where everyone was dressed in Roman costumes and there were beer gardens everywhere and everyone was drunk. It was a very odd place, almost off the radar and everyone was in these ridiculous costumes. Of course David wasn’t in a costume; he has to be on the outside. It was one of the strangest nights of my life and by morning I realized that the David I was so attached to was on the island. It isn’t just about the person but also how and where we meet and the circumstances. We kept in touch over the phone for a year or so but then it all died out.

Andrew was no David. But our meeting and the way we connected reminded me of him in the sense that we would have probably never met if it wasn’t for the circumstances we were in: in a little desert town in India with only a couple of rooftop cafes open and not much to do. I always make these connections with people when I am traveling. Maybe it has to do with the fact that when I know there is a click I also know that time isn’t on our side so we make the best out of it.