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83 shook the house and then derailed from a misplaced penny; Juanito laughed and Jack told stories; men threw cards and tossed rocks; and pool tables filled with an infinite number of balls. My dreams morphed night after night, reflecting my very little world. A year later, Dad and Mom bought a sheep farm up a crooked road on Elko’s outskirts. It became the place I remember most and where I learned to dream anew. 11 The high-altitude romp through Los Picos de Europa had drained Dad. After arriving in Palencia, we ate an early dinner while watching Barcelona trounce a foreign team 4–0 in a televised soccer match. The meal took three hours as we waited for the cook, dishwasher, and waiter to get their fill of highlights throughout the evening. Afterward, Dad limped to the room on a bad hip and turned in by 8 pm. He slept the night, not waking for the bathroom or to check his surroundings. “When you getting up?” Dad poked and roused me from sleep. I had slept through his early-morning nose blowing. “What time is it?” “Eight o’clock.” A dim light pierced the curtains. Looking at my watch, I saw 6:15 am. Dad often exaggerated the lateness of the hour whenever he wanted to go somewhere. He had already dressed in one of his two pairs of jeans and a shirt he had worn two days before. “Your belly’s getting big,” I said, noticing the waistband turned outward. “No. Dis damn belt getting too small.” “Yeah, that’s the problem.” I pulled clothes from my bag and showered as he clicked through channels on the television. He didn’t stop two seconds in any one place. In the car, I arranged the gps and scanned a map from the front desk. “Where we goin’ today?” he asked. “Is there any place you want to go?” “Don’ care. I don’ know noding here.” “I thought we’d see a couple places.” “Dat’s good.” The city of Palencia, lying in the central lowlands away from the northern coast, had more than 80,000 people. Through the center, the Carrion River 84 carved the city in half—on the left side were old structures dating to the city’s origin, demonstrating stone and architecture centuries old, and on the other side were residential neighborhoods. The town melded old and new without appearing disjointed or sacrificing a rich heritage of ecclesiastical tradition and medieval architecture. Unlike the crowded towns smashed between ocean and mountain along the coast, here the roads opened wider, on flatter land, and breathing felt easier and claustrophobia less a concern. The British female gps voice took us straight away without hairpin turns or single-lane avenues fitting two lanes of cars. “What de hell is dat?” “They call that El Cristo del Otero, Dad.” “Dat’s one statue of Jesus Christ?” “Yes, but probably not an exact replica.” I smirked sarcastically. “How dey build dat?” “With a lot of patience and a great deal of cement.” We wound the Subaru around, drawing closer to the base where Christ’s big toe protruded from under a long robe. El Cristo stood nearly a hundred feet high, with arms outstretched, open palms in front blessing the town. A similar statue in Rio de Janeiro inched out Palencia’s as the world’s tallest replica of Christ. As we rose higher and higher, Dad gripped the seat belt and the handhold where he had left a permanent imprint from our trek through Los Picos de Europa. “Dis high enough,” he said. “Just a little more, Dad. We’re not going to fall.” “How you know?” “Because I’m driving. Have a little faith. I’m not Amy.” My younger sister had wrecked nearly every car she had driven. “Your sister, she a good driver,” he said in defense. “She go a little fast, but you don’ tell her I say dat.” At the base, Dad and I snapped pictures vertically to capture the grandiosity of El Cristo. The elongated facial features atop a lengthy robe added illusion to the statue’s true height. A blue sky of wispy clouds surrounded the stone with a heavenly impression. From the platform, we viewed Palencia, a panorama of savannah grasses, a river through the middle, and churches that dwarfed all other human or natural creations. “Look at that,” I said with a gasp. [3.17.128.129] Project MUSE...
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