On the Way to Madrid

Yesterday I went to Madrid again in order to attend a Church of Christ that meets there. Mass is good and all, but no one talks to each other and they only sing one or two songs that people are supposed to just know. And of course I don't. So for the second time this weekend I awoke before the sun after a largely sleepless night. The bus was only late by fifteen minutes, and thus was on time.

While waiting, a man came over to a group of young men and shouted while gesturing wildly. He laughed a hysterical, exaggerated guffaw that brought stares from both sides of the street. In response to his histrionics, the boys laughed hard and exchanged knowing looks among themselves to say what couldn't be spoken in front of the man. Gradually they calmed down and I saw concern grow in their eyes.

The bus came and the man began chanting what sounded like "Royal Road," and I think that was his desired destination that the bus didn't serve. Or it was a drinking song. Whatever the case, the older folks crowded even more closely to the open bus door than normal, anxious to get away from the loud man before they were forced to interact with him. He stopped jumping and stood next to me, making obvious the smell of alcohol on his visible breath.

The boys he had entertained boarded the bus and I hung back to get on last, watching the man's eyes tear up as he said goodbye to us and apologized in slurred Romanian-Spanish for being "just a worthless old drunk." The boys reproached him for saying this and said, "we'll see you soon." He and I shared no words but I did not run from him or avert my eyes, and he gave me a loving clap on the shoulder as we nodded our goodbyes.

As the sun rose, fog from the River Tagus obscured Toledo and gave only faint glimpses of the empty cathedral and cranes anxious to make corrections and cover cracks. We have all got problems to hide, don't we?

This is a wonderful world. But it is a wounded world.