LITMIR.BIZ

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nine-seat getups—five seats in the center and two at the windows. I sat at a window seat and nobody sat down next to me.

      After everybody settled into their seats, a stern-faced stewardess appeared, walking this old obese lady my way. They scanned the rows for an open seat. I turned and waved the French girl over and she hurried to sit next to me. We got to talking and giggling. It was a ten-hour flight. We drank a couple of those little bottles of red wine and then things got interesting.

      Somewhere over the Atlantic we joined the Mile High Club, but this mean stewardess put a stop to it and threatened to separate us. She was just jealous. We gave up and snuggled the rest of the way. I actually started to fall for her. She had a real nice scent and got kinda sweet after it all. I invited her to the wedding. Then she ditched my ass at the Dublin airport. I walked around the terminal for an hour lovesick before I gave up on the tramp.

      Ran around Dublin with Irvine and met his best man, Johny Brown, a radio host, poet, and lead singer of The Band of Holy Joy. I spilled some Guinness on his shirt. He told me to get a rag. I brought him one, but he held a pint in both hands and told me to wipe his shirt. I laughed and did it. We became quick friends. He told me I had to come read some of my stories on his radio show in London. I didn’t believe him but said sure.

      Irvine’s wedding was a blast. They held it at the governor’s house or something. It was a big, high-ceilinged ballroom with a balcony terrace. I met a bunch of the characters straight out of Irvine’s books, a couple of legendary Edinburgh hooligans; one guy was about 300 pounds of bulk with an enormous head and a big scar on his face. He wore a glass eye in place of one he’d lost in a little underworld misunderstanding involving a samurai sword.

      I gave Irvine a draft of my book as a wedding present: a pretty stupid-ass, cocky thing to do. The book was complete garbage. I trashed it a few months later and apologized.

      I’ll never forget seeing my friend dancing with his new wife Beth well into the night. At one point, everyone crowded around in a big circle. Irvine and a few friends held hands and just leaped up and down. Irvine’s Bic’d scalp radiated wild joy; a huge grin streaked across his face. Everybody clapped and cheered around them. That man has a way of experiencing pure joy like no other individual I’ve ever come across.

      I’d been making eyes with one of Beth’s friends; she was the hottest one of the bunch. This slimy guy with long, straight, dirty-blond hair started hitting on her and her friends. I didn’t sweat it ’cause he was Irvine’s age and these girls were in their twenties and he wasn’t Irvine Welsh. He bickered back and forth with them a little as I walked off to the bathroom. Next thing you know there he is beside me as I’m washing my hands. He calls me a poof. I knew what it meant.

      Didn’t want to start no trouble with one of Irvine’s mates, but I was thinking about cracking him when he starts telling me about all the beautiful women he’s fucked in his lifetime. Models, millionaires, celebrities, royalty, you name it. That’s when I realize, looking into his weathered good looks and greasy hair, he’s got to be fuckin’ Sick Boy, or one of the main inspirations for him anyway. It was like he was trying to intimidate me away from the girls. I just grinned, maybe he was fucking princesses back in the eighties, but there was no way this British guido was gonna bag a chick who was making eyes with me all night. I ended up heading to a bar with her and a few friends. Sick Boy showed up but he stopped with all the competitive crap. He was actually a cool, friendly guy once that stuff ended. I really liked him. I took the girl back to my hostel as Sick Boy was hitting it off with her friends. I wished him luck and he winked at me as I headed out.

      Said goodbye to the girl with a kiss early the next morning and jumped on a Madrid-bound plane.

      Got lucky on the sixth of July and I boarded the last seat on a Pamplona-bound bus. As we entered Navarra, a police roadblock halted us. A cop with a black M16 hanging from his neck boarded the bus. Everybody’d been singing before and now they fell silent. The cop walked slowly down the aisle in his blue uniform, eyeballing everybody behind his dark glasses. All the passengers looked down and away. He had the face of a sadist. I decided to stare him down. He walked right up to me and asked for my passport. I felt around for it and realized it was in my bag stored underneath the bus. Somebody asked him something and he turned. I went to tell him about my passport and a Spanish guy hushed me urgently. The officer walked off the bus. The ETA, an acronym roughly translated to Basque Homeland and Freedom, is still very active in Navarra. This Basque separatist militant movement believes Navarra is a sovereign nation. The ETA has a long history of terrorist activity and are firmly aligned with other separatist militants like the Irish Republican Army and the Zapatistas. The ETA historically uses the fiesta de San Fermín as a staging ground for small revolts, none more infamous than the riots in 1979 that put an end to fiesta that year. The singing kicked back up as the bus eased out of the roadblock. Everybody cheered as we rolled into the old Pamplona bus station.

      The entire city pulsed electric. It was a few hours after the Chupinazo, the fiesta’s raucous opening ceremony. I wandered the narrow cobblestone streets. Balconies rose up five and six stories on either side. I’d been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans a few times. Pamplona during fiesta is ten times wilder than Mardi Gras, and the old section is five times bigger, older, and more beautiful than the French Quarter. There’s much less of the stale “been there, done that” spring break vibe. There’s also a tenth of the violence. Fiesta is a peaceful insanity. There’s a sense that the culture of this ancient city is alive and intact. Impromptu Peña marching bands parade down busy streets. They don’t expect you to step aside and observe; they want to encompass you and swallow you into them. They will feast on you and you become one with them, marching and dancing through the garbage-strewn streets.

      Searched the town for a place to stay, which is hopeless. Every room in the city is booked six months in advance, unless you know people. I didn’t know a soul in the entire country.

      I found out about a college that would lock and store your bag for five euros. Chose to keep all my cash on me, figuring that the guys checking the bags might rob me. I took to the street and immersed. Bought a plastic jug of sangria and I wandered the avenues. The epically beautiful northern Spanish women dumbfounded me—their porcelain skin and dark eyes floated through the madness like crystalline ghosts. Pushed and squeezed my way through a tight-packed street that opened onto the immense courtyard called Plaza de Castillo. Thousands of revelers clad in sharp-red scarves and waist sashes filled the plaza. Hazy sangria-red clouds soaked into their bright white shirts and pants from the raucous Chupinazo.

      I got lost—like you should in fiesta that first time. Sink into that dark circular maze of streets. Let the music carry you. Follow it and bright eyes and laughter. Enjoy the splash of sangria on your drunken head. Take drinks from anyone who’s giving. Kiss and dance with any girl who’s willing. Don’t fear loud booms and glass bursts; they are not sounds of violence. Here they are background noise pollution, punctuations on joyful sentences. The only foul you can commit at fiesta is to get angry for any reason, and the only repercussion is shameful ohhhhhs and being ignored and left behind. But it’s only momentary, ’cause when you smile you are welcomed back into fiesta without hesitation. Over the years I’d learn that you must give and give and give to fiesta and that it will never take from you. But that would be later. Then, I drank for ten hours straight. Realized I should sleep for a while so I could run, but I was afraid of pickpockets, so I tried to sleep up in a tree but a scuffle below woke me. I met an American who was going to school in Pamplona. He told me he’d help me get to the run. We walked across the city to the ayuntamiento, (town hall). The city workers began setting up the barricades. I tried to help them. Hoisted up a plank but a cop ran me off. Then I waited on the street, wobbly and dreary. Someone said the run started in two. I took a nap.

      Fell asleep on the side of a building and I didn’t wake up for a very long time. I arose to an enormous cheer and three guys pissing on the wall way too close to me. Morning light peered down at me over the roofs of the buildings. I ran toward the packed barricades, knifed through the people, and climbed them in time to see four sweeper steers thrust past. I remember saying “those are just cows” disgustedly as I tried to climb over the top plank. A female police officer reeled back and rapped her nightstick with all her might an inch from where my hand gripped the

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