Heads or Tails?

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs.

I was
sitting in a bar in the Calle Moret having a midday caña (little beer) when I heard the news.
One of the older regulars burst into the bar and said, ‘Have you heard? The old elephant matador has gone on safari for good!’ The volume on one the TVs that seem to be found
in the corner of every bar in Spain was quickly turned up and sure enough, his royal highness Don Juan Carlos had abdicated. At this time of the day, the clientel
varies between pensioners having a pitarra (young local wine) before lunch and civil servants who
work nearby taking late coffee breaks; not a tattoo, rasta or perroflauta (hippy) in
sight. Surprise quickly turned to irony as the conversation veered towards his
sexual conquests and their amazment that his wife hadn’t thrown him out long
ago. Another pitarra was poured and they moved on to the amount of Vega
Sicilias the ex-king had enjoyed on their tax dime. Thirty minutes passed by and
I realized that not a word had been mentioned that could have been construed as
positive, that is if you don’t count some of the admiration expressed for his
ability to dupe his wife. The next day and since then for that matter however,
the newspapers have spoken of a different Spain. One that doesn’t seem to coincide with the conversations I am overhearing in bars, at work, in the check out line
or waiting to pick up my daughter at daycare. It seems that you have to turn to
page twenty-six to find a line or two about the fact that no Spaniard under the
age of fifty-six has been able to vote on their model of government. Keep
reading and you get the impression that the dreaded r-word is only reserved for anti-establishment types and hoary bearded old Marxists. There’s also almost a complete black out
regarding those on the right of the political spectrum who share no love loss for the monarchy, in
particular those on the farther right who still view the ex-king as a traitor who
went back on his word with el generalissimo. The inability or perhaps
unwillingness to state that a republic is not necessarily the Republic and that
each and every citizen should be able to aspire to be head of state seemed so surreal
to me until my wife flipped a Canadian coin at me and said, “Heads or tails?” As
the coin landed in my hand, I looked down and saw the profile of England’s Queen Elizabeth staring
up at me and realized that yes, things could indeed get even more absurd.