Abroad With Billy Brylcreem

Back to the Billy Brylcreem days.

When we'd been together for maybe all of six months, we took a trip to Spain. Actually, I was already in Spain for work, and Billy Brylcreem flew over to join me on a month-long lovers' tour of the country.

The first thing we really wanted to do was get out into the countryside - I had been living in Seville, and while the city is pretty neat, in a cathedrals and flamenco and adventures-in-public-transit-that-leave-you-stranded-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-effing-Río-Guadalquivir-at-midnight-with-no-bridge-for-miles sort of way, we wanted to see toros and burros and real live wild chorizos and stuff. 

Unfortunately, our first stab at it involved absolutely no geographic research and, being Americans, we just assumed that in this (relative to the States) tiny little country, we could probably get wherever we needed to go on scooters. And, because we were touring on-the-cheap, we went with just one scooter between the two of us. Or, more technically, just one scooter beneath the two of us, wheezing like a 56 year old man in the middle of a massive infarction, struggling up cobblestone streets under our collective American weight and wobbling perilously in the tailwinds of passing trucks on the Spanish equivalent of freeways, which made me claw frantically at Billy Brylcreem from behind and shout helpful co-piloting tips such as "Oh fuck be careful!" and "Have you ever even DONE this before?" and "If we crash I will physically murder you, Billy!" directly into his ear.

(Pretty accurate.)

We endured a few harrowing segments of travel, including a brutal, neverending rainstorm sweeping up on us as we teetered along the shoulder of a superhighway, which blinded Billy Brylcreem and basically froze us both into likenesses of Pompeii casts, complete with huddled scooter-posture and twisted facial expressions of horror and dismay. After this ordeal, we stood shivering in the doorway of a half-demolished industrial building - the only available shelter from the fabled rain on the goddamn plain (they weren't kidding!) - both of us trying to regain some range of motion in our limbs while regrouping mentally. 

(Also entirely accurate.)

I may have said one or two very minorly critical things about Billy Brylcreem's scooting technique, because at some point Billy Brylcreem suggested that maybe I would like to fucking drive the fucking scooter. Of course I would have liked to. This was slightly complicated by the fact I had no idea how to operate the thing, but this did not stop me from snatching the keys defiantly from Billy and firing it up, intuitively revving it up to max throttle and then deftly releasing the clutch like a pro, if pros had no clue what they were doing, sending me on a short-lived, one-wheeled zig-zag path of terror and destruction directly into a ditch. So it was going to be Billy Brylcreem at the handlebars, or we were going to have to come up with a plan-B.

Plan-B was to trade the scooter up for a car. Thusly re-outfitted in a shiny blue Citroën, we decided to readjust our sights - now we could go anywhere! - and head through the mighty Pyrenees into France. Why not? What could go wrong?

(If only we'd had a cat-chauffeur. If only.)

I believe I mentioned earlier that we were traveling on a low-dollar budget, which is no small feat when you're fueling an automobile in Europe. So, because we were savvy travelers, we sighted in on Andorra - yeah, you know, that tiny little microstate in the mountains between Spain and France whose entire <200-square-mile economy exists because they are a tax haven. In terms of European petrol prices, this is kind of a big deal. So, a couple hours out, we evaluated where we were with our remaining tank and estimated we'd hit Andorra just as the needle hit "E."

And, pushing midnight and two notches below "E," we did finally roll into the icy mountaintop hamlet that is Andorra! It was all dimmed-down and adorable - warm little gingerbread lights in little frosty gingerbread windows in little hillside gingerbread cottages twinkling through the frigid fog, frosty cobbled streets glowing cold blue and empty and echo-ey under a huge Pyrenean moon. It was actually, and I am not being at all snarky, pretty magical, in a Narnia-on-sleep-deprivation way - and a huge relief, after a rather tense final hour of winding at a snail's-pace up a Tim Burton-esquely misty one-lane high-alpine highway sans guard rails, during which we had seen not one single other car, but Billy Brylcreem kept insisting he had seen such things as a wild boar and an old man in coveralls without a face at the edges of our headlights' reach, both things I refused to believe but by which I was a little creeped out nonetheless (because have you ever been stuck on a road-trip with someone who was possibly losing their shit? Creepy). And mostly, I was worried we were going to run out of gas, at which point Billy Brylcreem would blame me, solely because earlier, I'd pushed and campaigned stalwartly for us to just quit being pussies and make the run for Andorra, when Billy Brylcreem had suggested we stop and get maybe just a little gas at the last available station. (I mean jeesh, some people will go to great lengths to lay blame, I guess.)

The problem was, by the time we got to town, the one gas station in the country (actually, we were told, a couple miles outside of town) was closed, and there wasn't a single little gingerbread motel vacancy. There was one little gingerbread bar that let us hang out and drink hot tea until they closed, but then we were out on our asses in the freezing-cold, cruelly-damp gingerbread streets. 

(We're totally gingerscrewed!)

We had no choice: we skulked back to the rental car and prepared ourselves for a ruggedly miserable night. Mind you, we didn't have sleeping bags, or blankets, or anything practical for a night at altitude, because RainSpainPlainSpringtimeScooterTour. So we did what we could - which included putting on every last scrap of clothing, down to layering extra pairs of socks on our hands, and huddled together, and waited for the morning. We only had six dark hours we needed to survive, and then, by daylight, we would be able to find this mythical gas station. We could do this.

Sleep: fitful. Shivering: violent. Cursing: plentiful. Night: LONG.

Somewhere around the halfway mark, we both hit a breaking point. Brief negotiations ensued, after which we started up the car to blow just a little heat because otherwise we might fucking die, or at least lose toes, right here. After maybe ten minutes of idling, the ambient temperature had risen to a livable level. Being frugal, we shut off the ignition and huddled closer.

But an hour later, shit got unsurvivably cold again. As in, I wouldn't have thought too hard and long about pulling a Jack London move like cutting Billy Brylcreem open just to warm up my hands. So we started up the Citroën again, and this time we both fell asleep in the lulling temperature spike. At some point, Billy Brylcreem awoke with a jolt of panic, killed the engine again, and we curled into each other for a few more minutes of merciful sleep, slowly resurfacing to our hypothermic Andorran nightmare as the last vestiges of heat dissipated.

One LAST time, we promised ourselves. One last time, we promised each other. We have to make it to the gas station tomorrow. Fuck, we just have to make it to tomorrow. We fired up the Citroën. 

That shiny blue sonofabitch apparently overheard our bargaining and jumped in on the promise, because on startup number three, it purred and huffed marginally-engine-block-warmed-air for two whole minutes before choking. Coughing. Sneezing. Hacking. Death-rattling. And then silence. Silence in the darkness.

So this is how we die, we joked - freezing to death with dirty socks on our hands while parked right outside a tax-free outdoor gear shop?

(So wait... I thought Hell was supposed to be hot?)

***

The first rays of sun that morning were like the floating feathers of angels. The first cafe sign to light up was like a brilliant flash at the end of a tunnel. The first cup of hot coffee in my hands was like holding an enchanted kitten made of joy and caffeine and pure love. We had conquered the unconquerable! We were alive! We were such idiots, sure, but good stories aren't born of good judgment, so you're welcome for this one for your grandkids, Billy Brylcreem.

And while we still had to tackle the new issue of how to fuel the now-immobile Citroën (the gas station was a tiny operation that of course did not sell any sort of container in which we could transport gas back to the empty tank of the car), you know what? We were invincible. 

Everest? The South Pole? K2? Annapurna? Child's play. Survive a night in a subcompact on the harsh streets of Andorra, son, then talk to me.

I suggest you bring extra socks.