Streaker in Sevilla

            This anecdote was inspired by a near-altercation I witnessed on the train platform in Salt Lake City when we took the kids to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square.  It involved one, if not two inebriated individuals getting in each other’s business.  Nothing happened tonight, but it sparked a memory that I had repressed until it spilled out as I talked to Amy.

            One afternoon, as a missionary in Spain, my companion and I were waiting in the bus station for the sisters.  We were going to take them to see a single sister in our area that wanted the missionaries to start coming by.  As usual, these two were running behind, and my companion—I don’t remember off the top of my head if it was Aaron Straw or Richard Hawkes—and I grew a little impatient and began people watching.  Hundreds or even thousands of bus passengers passed through that busy east terminal.

I was staring out the large windows that faced the busy street, watching the traffic droning on, the people going about their monotonous lives.  And then one dude walked, or should I say stumbled in who caught my eye.

He wore an olive drab jacket with some nondescript pants and a gray stocking cap—nothing flashy.  If I remember correctly, he had a rough beard, and he was somewhat younger--perhaps in his late 20s or early 30s.  He fit in with the usually crowds that poured through every day.  But the way he staggered and lurched made me point him out to my companion.  He shook and trembled across the terminal and disappeared down the hallway toward the bathrooms.  I though he was going to hurl before he made it anywhere, but he got to the can…I guess.

A few minutes later he came stumbling back…without the green coat or his hat or his pants…or anything else for that matter.  He was stark naked in the bus terminal.

A woman screamed.

He straightened up, started talking to people; even from across the lobby, there was no doubt this birthday-suited bloke was flying higher than the Giralda on the top of the Torre de Sevilla (which was just down the river from where we were).

Kids laughed; teens pointed; old Marias scowled; but Señor Sin Ropa (Mr. Without Clothes) kept smiling as he paraded back and forth along the front of the terminal by the windows.  Apparently, he wasn’t too concerned about where he had left his clothes or when he would get them back.

Eventually a police wagon rolled up and escorted the nude dude somewhere that wasn’t the bus terminal.  I’m not even sure they retrieved his clothes before he was forced into the back seat under the flashing blue lights.  Whoever I was with, though, it was his first experience with public nudity.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last.  By this point of my time in Spain, nothing really shocked me about Spaniards any more, especially those whose functions were temporarily incapacitated.

The sisters didn’t show up for another thirty minutes.