5.12.06

Spain Story: What I Learned About Coleoptera By Having a Few Climb Up My Shorts

Castiñeiras, Spain
By Mike Riley

This story appears in the new book, Spain From a Backpack.

We pulled off of the cobblestone road near Castiñeiras, and drove between the sand dunes onto a wood-chip road that cut through a field of knee-high weeds down to the beach. As Alberto drove, I planned out how I’d shoot my photographs. “The sun is setting fast and I want some good shots from the top of the dunes,” I told him. “We gotta hurry. Real rapido like.”

Alberto grunted, more concerned about not breaking the two chilled bottles of wine clinking against each other in the back. Tins of anchovies, crumbly cheese and a long loaf of bread would complete our dinner, which we planned to enjoy on the beach. They filled the car with a dry and peasant-like odor.

“As soon as we stop, I’m gonna run up the dunes, take some shots. I’ll meet you at the beach. You bring the food.”

The car slowed. I jumped out before it stopped and ran through the field of weeds toward the dunes. Clods of sand and wood chips flipped up and hit me on the back and chest.
“Oiiii!” I heard Alberto yell behind me. I ignored him, which I usually do whenever he talks. “Aiiii!!!” Alberto yelled. His voice was faint through the loud waves and humid air.

I ignored him again as I reached the dunes, huffing and puffing. I draped my shirt on my back and began climbing on all fours. The sun slid behind the sand mountain; I started to panic and climbed harder. My muscles yelled, my lungs stretched, my heart pounded. I slipped, got a mouthful of sand, continued climbing. Sand scraped between my teeth as I tried to breathe. It coated my tongue and irritated my mouth. My girlfriend came to mind. “I gotta get rid of her,” I thought.

Heaving and gasping, I reached the top of the dune. The sun was dim, beautiful, imposing. I pulled my camera from my sweaty side and shot my photographs as the sun dropped. I took some photos of the Atlantic with the sun in the right corner of the frame, then turned to shoot more and stopped. “What the…?” I mumbled.

Fact #1: Absurdity of cursing is directly proportional to the number of Coleoptera up your shorts.

I lowered my camera and watched Alberto. He was by the car, at the bottom of the dunes, running in tight circles in the middle of the wood-chip lane, his arms flailing like a Michael Jackson video in fast-forward, ripping his shirt off and swinging it over his head like a poorly trained stripper. He cursed—partly censored by the wind and waves—in Spanish: “… Crap on you and the milk of the mother of all dogs … !”

“Odd!” I thought.

I lifted the camera and continued snapping. I heard more cursing and looked down; Alberto was rolling on the ground frantically, kicking up tufts of sand, swatting at something.
“Holy virgin and thirty muddied hosts!” Alberto yelled.
“Strange!” I thought.

I decided I had taken enough pictures, so I turned and ran down the dunes in long, careless bounds.

Alberto yelled. He was running through the knee-high weeds, the sun setting over the dunes, casting a red glow over the beach toward me. If Alberto were a girl, it would have seemed romantic, but it was Alberto, and he was sweaty and chunky and cursing like a Folsom Prison inmate in a foul mood—and so it was, frankly, a bit gross.

“¡¿Qué pasa?!” I yelled. “What’s up?!”

Alberto ran, his face turning left and right frantically, his eyes terror-wide, his arms swinging high. He reached the edge of the weeds and ran off the wood-chip path onto the beach. His gaze changed from terror to confusion. He looked back at where the reeds ended and the sand began. Then he walked toward me, shaking out his shirt. He put his shirt back on, then reached up his shorts and began feeling around his underwear.

“Yikes! Pervert!” I mumbled. I noticed he had not brought the food, and it angered me. The sun was low, and if we wanted to eat on the beach, we did not have much time. “Where’s the food?!” I yelled.

“O, just-a sut up! Just-a sut up!” he yelled back, obviously distressed.

“¿Qué pasa?” I asked. Alberto shook his head and clarified in Spanish. “¡Plaga!”

“Plague?”

“Back dere!” Alberto pointed to the car.

“What’s back there?!”

“Plague!”

I stomped off to let Alberto know what I thought of his plague, of his love handles, of his not bringing the wine so I could wash the sand out of my mouth.

“I tell you!” Alberto warned.

I grunted and stepped off the beach, onto the wood chips and into the weeds. Then I heard them. It started as a light hum, gentle like a harmonica. The hum grew into a buzz—louder, angrier, edgier—as black dots shot up from the sand, darting left and right.

Fact #2: Intensity of yelling is directly proportional to the number of Coleoptera on your body.

“I tell you!” Alberto yelled. “That just-a them!”

We were surrounded. One of the dots zigged left and zagged right, fumbled in the air, and crash-landed on my arm with a small thud.

“What the—!” I yelled. A shiny black beetle, an inch long, with thick pincers and thin legs pushed its way up my arm. I tried to say something witty and memorable, like, “Alberto, your girlfriend just dropped in!” but managed only, “Uhhh…”

Alberto gasped and screamed, “Uuuuu-aaah, one in my shirt!” He cursed in Spanish, “Confound the mind of the mother of everything born in this holy town!”

I turned, pointed and began laughing at Alberto’s predicament: “Ha, ha! You got a beetle crawling into your love handles! You better watch it isn’t crushed by your…uh, ah, oh. …” A beetle crawling into my shirt interrupted me. “Ah … aaaaah … AAAAAH!” I yelled.

The swarm of beetles thickened into a cloud, then a billow, then a plague. They buzzed around us, curiously landing, exploring. They flew erratically, colliding into us constantly, irritated we had stepped on their breeding ground.

Fact #3: Coleoptera live and breed among wood chips. Side facts: Coleoptera do not mind sweaty underwear. Also, they are perverts.

“Whoa, whoa, wait! Hey, don’t go there!” I yelled at the beetle crawling up my leg. He went there. I felt tickling and crawling where there should be no tickling and crawling. My yelling reached notes higher than I knew existed. The beetle and his friends scampered, romped, scuttled in my shorts.

“Ai! Ai! Ai!” Alberto yelled. “AIIIII!!!!” He screamed like a plaid-skirted schoolgirl.
We ran. Running kept them out of our shorts; we ran as fast as we could. Alberto ripped his shirt off and swiped it above his head as he ran. I did the same. We yelled more.

“Aaagh!” Alberto cursed in Spanish. “May your insect mothers find out their husbands are virgins!”

We weighed our options; running kept the bugs off, but running away from the car seemed counterproductive. So we ran around the car. Our legs burned and our lungs stretched. Our love handles jiggled, our man-boobs bounced; sweat drops dangled from our noses. We slowed. The beetles landed on our heads and chests. They rappelled into our shorts.

“What we do?!” Alberto yelled.

“I don’t know!” I yelled back, scraping a beetle off my head. “What’s the car like?”
“¡Muchos! ¡Muchisimos!”

I looked in the window. A large group of disoriented beetles had flown in through the open passenger-side window and were bouncing into glass and seats, unable to find their way back out. I groaned.

“Open door!” Alberto yelled.

“Good idea!” I said. More beetles, attracted to the dome light, swarmed in.

“Holy Mother of Spain and hater of all beetles!” Alberto yelled in Spanish.

I slammed the door shut before more could get in and looked at Alberto. We were tired, and our distress was obvious on our faces. The beetles grew bolder as we slowed down.
“We gotta get out of here!” I wheezed. “¡Vamonos!”

Alberto nodded his head emphatically. We opened the car doors and jumped in, onto seats crawling with beetles, shuddering as Alberto jammed the key toward the ignition, missed, missed, and missed again.

“Come on!” I yelled.

I felt the beetles crawling underneath me and in my shorts; I pinched my butt cheeks. Alberto yelled and grew a sudden inch in height; I guessed an exceptionally curious Coleoptera had found a new path.

“¡Vamos!” I yelled again.

Alberto found the ignition, slammed the gears into reverse, backed up, slammed on the brakes, shot forward. We sped down the wood-chip road, swatting at beetles, digging them out of our shorts and chest hair, yelling and shivering.

We rolled down the front windows and watched the whipping wind toss the beetles in its current, twirling them until they hit the rear windshield of the hatchback, where they were pinned against the glass.

Fact #4: Coleoptera in your shorts will drive you to violence and unexplained crying.

Alberto and I recognized our chance. I bunched up my shirt and threw it behind me so it hit the back window. “Ha! Ha!” I laughed a crazed and evil laugh, like a villain in a B movie. Alberto caught on and his eyes narrowed. “Killem!” he shouted, his voice laced with insanity and excitement.

I pulled off a shoe and threw it against the pinned beetles. It felt good. I pulled off the second shoe and threw it, too.

“Ha! Ha!” Alberto laughed. He handed me more to throw: CD cases, a book, his shirt. “Ha ha!” he screeched.

I lunged back over the passenger seat, reached over the backseat and pushed open the hatchback; the wind drew through the car and cleansed the back window of the beetles—disappeared, gone, adios.

The next few days of our Spanish road trip were nervous ones. Whenever we saw a leftover beetle in the car, we slammed it with a shoe until it became pulp. The back seat was a beetle battlefield. We shivered at odd times, for no reason. Whenever we saw the other shiver, we reached into our pants and made sure Coleoptera had not nested in a new warm and cozy home.
One time, I reached behind Alberto’s driver seat, and my sleeve accidentally brushed his ear. He jumped, yelled, swatted at me and insulted me. I thought he was going to cry, shake and crawl into the fetal position.

He should have. I would have. It happens to people who know too much about Coleoptera.

Mike Riley is a magnet for awkward situations. Do not travel with him. He now lives in Central Asia, where awkward situations have become a part of daily life. He is busy learning the local languages and hopes to study a bit of the literature. Mike loves international soccer, hiking and literature. However, he loves his wife more. Isn’t he a great guy?


This story appears in Spain From a Backpack.

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