Los Vagabundos
The Bottles | Part 1
Lisbon Art Weekend
@duplexair in Lisbon, Portugal
About
The bottles represent the beginning part of a bigger installation that is in work. They hold the memory of a six day freight train ride in the 1990’s, a ride taken with my sister, Charlotte, who is still with us today and Anthony, Damian, Rob the World, Champ and Aaron, who now travel with us only in spirit. Named in order of passing. There are no journals left, a handful of pictures and a scattering of minds to combine memories into a story.
We didn’t know it would be a six day train ride end to end, taking us from one unknown place to another without knowing where we were headed. No cell phones. All surprises and wonder, full surrender to the adventure of not knowing.
Eventually, we ran out of food and water, again. Though there were a couple of opportunities to jumped off the train to collect ourselves and touch ground, we ultimately had to find our way back to the track headed east, and without a train map.
On this particular leg, we were in a junker car with no top. We could see the stars in a way people only dream of, and the night was so black you could not see your hand in front of your face. Time passed in the daylight with laughter and shit talking, baking us for hours. The car was filled with long heavy pipes not tied down and we slid around on them making pockets to nestle into. Looking back any one of us could have been crushed if the train had slammed on its brakes.
As the train chugged up the mountain, “the where the hell are we” thought crept in and the taste of panic became more bitter.
The train began to slow its pace slightly and we started looking around wondering if we were about to get stranded in the mountains … we passed a well pump nestled in tall dead yellow weeds and the body of a mutilated cow that looked like it very recently been struck by the train. We looked at each other and collectively acknowledged, “what the fuck.” Yet with this group there was always the love of standing with your toes at the edge of a cliff and that “life is a joke”, we knew we were in for an adventure.
About twenty minutes later the train slowed again and came to a stop beside multiple abandoned and dilapidated wood and metal sheds. Looking around from the top rim of the train car, just below our eyes, was a sea of empty engineer water bottles. Sparks were lit in all of us, maybe water was near.
Damian and Anthony climbed out. Anthony picking up the bottles seeing if there was water in them and Damian ran and disappeared amongst the sheds soon yelled from the background, “I found water!” Anthony made his shirt like a bucket and filled it with empty bottles and ran to the background. They both came running from behind the shed with full water bottles and Damian dragging a hose towards us but not yet reaching us and shooting water like a fountain into the car.
Anthony tossing full bottles into the car. We screamed with joy, arms in the air, catching the water. It was glorious. The train car jerked and began its creep into high speed. Damian and Anthony let go of getting more water and got into the car asap.
It felt like being seen by something bigger than we could imagine. Experiencing wonder from the fringes of time.
Being included in a world that we didn’t feel like we belonged in. We were outsiders who genuinely wanted to experience a world that could hold us, and we felt that.
These bottles carry that memory. More stories from this ride to come.
