Five Ferries - Prior Versions/Cut Scenes

Over forty years of writing and rewriting, Five Ferries has undergone substantial revision. I have combined chapters and spit chapters, added and deleted minor story lines, and embellished or removed characters. I also experimented with form, which was an interesting challenge but resulted in chapters that lacked continuity with each other and would, I concluded, tax the patience of my readers. While the earliest drafts are in paper form only, some early forms of chapters and cut scenes are preserved digitally, and I set them forth below—for what they’re worth:

Alternative Chapter I – Cousin of the Groom

Stephen Kylemore set aside his backpack and leaned into a phone booth with a broken door. Around him the train station was dark and almost empty. A black couple sat close together and laughed.  A man wrapped in dirty rags looked in a garbage can.

“Mom?” he said into the receiver. “Sorry to call so late.”

“So, the hitchhiker,” his mother said, wide-awake. “Where are you?”

“Newark Penn Station, about to get the train. Can Mikey get me at the station?” 

“If they’re home by then.”

“You mean they’ve still got Chuck out?”

She paused.  “It may be just what he needs.”

“Mother, he’s a big boy...”

“Yes, yes. But it’s your nickel: when should we meet you?”

Stephen caught one train to Manhattan and another to Long Island. There was a style to hitchhiking and it felt like defeat to finish his trip from Michigan this way, but it would be hard to hitchhike through the city this late. Anyway, he had to get home; he was to be an usher in Chuck’s wedding the next day. Chuck was Stephen’s cousin and lifelong neighbor and friend. Chuck was too young to marry, but Stephen was glad the wedding gave him, finally, a reason to begin his trip.

Ann Arbor had been hard to leave. It was mid-summer and the university was mostly closed, so everything was warm and relaxed. Rent was cheap. Waiting tables paid well and gave him days off to read and swim. And living with Pam for the last two months had been great, and a whole new experience.

Novels were Stephen’s first passion. As an English major, he had concentrated on American fiction, with considerable success. His senior honors thesis on “lost generation” writers had won an award as the best of the year, which opened a scarce place for him in the doctoral program, complete with a teaching assistant job. But Stephen unfortunately had taken the novels to heart; he didn’t want to study protagonists, he wanted to be one. He would forget about school for a time and travel into the unknown. His family and friends warned that he was making a mistake, but the honest among them were not really surprised; many had noticed his “Walter Mitty” tendencies since he was a young boy.

Stephen’s next passion was Pam. She was two years behind him in school and the best looking waitress where Stephen worked, at the Rusty Wheel. Actually, the Ann Arbor term was not “waitress,” but “wait-person,” as Pam would have been sure to point out. They had met in Stephen’s senior year and for two months after graduation lived together in a half-floor sublet in an old house. Pam was a qualitative improvement over Stephen’s former roommates. She not only slept with him every night and often in the afternoon, but she also cooked real meals. Once she even borrowed a vacuum cleaner to seep up! But then he sometimes missed living in a house full of guys, where everyone was easy and ready for a good time. He wondered what he really had with Pam, and sometimes questioned if it added up to love. At any rate, he knew he could not put off his getaway just because he was having regular sex and enjoying the summer. College was over; it was time to go. As if by fate, Chuck’s wedding ordained the start date. Once he had hitchhiked all the way to New York, it only made sense to continue on to London. Stephen also figured the separation would make clear if he belonged with Pam.

This trip would be the culmination of a dream that began when he had first hitchhiked to the beach. For years he had worked up to this, first to Boston, then to Michigan, and then overnight with a tent. Besides, this was his chance to top Michael’s legendary cross-country trip after high school. In fact, he thought this might be his one shot at life “on-the-road” with nothing holding him back and no limit in time or space.  On top of that, he needed inspiration for his great American novel.

Pam saw Stephen’s trip as abandonment, plain and simple. She had little patience for the time he spent reviewing German flash cards or his obsession with packing as light as possible. She said he confused authoring an adventure novel with being its hero. He conceded the point, as she knew him that well, but insisted he could write about adventure only after he had gotten a taste of it.

Soon enough Stephen knew he would take a teaching job and start his doctorate... get married, have kids, take out a mortgage, and never have another chance to break loose. He saw it, as he saw most things, in black and white. College was over. Grad school could wait. He needed to go and no one wanted to go along. If Pam could see this only as abandonment, maybe she was right, or maybe she had preordained their end.

Her tears had come much too often as his departure grew close, though on the last morning he cried with her and told her she was his home and he would chase himself around the world and back to her. She had given him a tiny stuffed animal she called “Ubit,” short for “Ubiquitous,” to watch over him as a traveling companion and little big brother.

At Merrick station, a little after three in the morning, Stephen’s father snored behind the wheel of his Buick. Before rapping on the window, Stephen watched his father. The old man looked all of his fifty years, deep creases in his face and short hair graying at the temples. Stephen woke him gently and then shook his hand. Stephen drove and they did not talk much.

They got home in time to see the groom-to-be lifted out of a car down the street.  Chuck looked up and saw Stephen, waved both arms and sang louder:

Hey hey, good lookin’, what ya got cookin’?
How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me?

Chuck’s brother, Ted, waved to Stephen, then slid under Chuck’s arm and helped him toward his house. Stephen’s brother, Michael, walked up the street, quietly humming Chuck’s finale, and shook Stephen’s hand.

“Good to see you, little brother. You missed a hell of a party.” 

“I can see,” Stephen laughed. “Did he dance on the table?”

Michael smiled until they both laughed, and then stammered: “And he’s such a terrible dancer.”

Stephen’s mother hugged him in the kitchen doorway. “Your father’s gone to bed,” she said and served Stephen a cold steak. Stephen ate and Michael drank several glasses of water. Their mother explained which black shoes had been borrowed for whom and who would drive which car and that they would lock Stephen’s pack in the trunk and how convenient it was that the reception was so close to the airline check-in office and that they should all go to bed so they could be up at nine. Then she took a breath, and said to Stephen: “You know your father’s not happy about this.”

Stephen grinned.  “He’s only the uncle...”

She slapped his arm playfully. “You know what I mean. Chuck’ll watch out for himself, may God protect him. Your father’s not wild about your passing up the doctoral program to traipse off to who knows where.”

“Europe, Ma; Dad knows where that is from the war.”

“Don’t talk about your father like that, young man,” she said and hugged his head as she patted Michael’s shoulder. “You’ll deal with your father tomorrow. Turn out the lights, boys.”

After she left, Michael laughed: “She’s a wonder.”

Stephen smiled. “It’s a wonder we ever learned to do anything.”

Michael paused, raising a questioning eyebrow, then said: “Oh, right: you learned to ‘traipse.’”

As he undressed for bed, Stephen thought about how fast everything was moving:  Pam six hundred miles behind; Chuck practically married; he virtually on his way. How odd it was that Chuck was tying down just when Stephen was cutting loose.

Before turning off the light, he looked at the bookshelf that displayed an encyclopedia and the paperback novels his brother, Edward, had left behind when he went away to school. When Edward later died in the war, Stephen would not let his parents get rid of those books. In the long sad time that followed, he had read them all, trying to feel close to his brother. He had not been old enough to discuss literature with Edward, but felt that they shared a love of Ernest Hemingway and James Fennimore Cooper.

Next morning Stephen showered and put on a pair of Michael’s shorts and a T-shirt. In the long-familiar way, his father spoke his mind while he cooked French toast for his son. “Steve, I know you think you’ve got to do this hobo thing, but I don’t see why you couldn’t spend a month in Europe, or even two, and then come back and take that job.”

“Dad, we’ve been all through his. I don’t want to see some train stations and old castles, send a few postcards and then continue on like nothing happened.”

“But the English Department might not want you next year; then where will you be?”

“I know it might not be easy to get into a program next year, but I’ve got the applications with me.” His father grew quiet and Stephen started to think about all the novels of travel and coming of age his professors had assigned him to read. He wondered if he should say it really wasn’t his choice and that the required reading had made this inevitable, but thought this argument would be lost on his father. He knew the response about how his parents had worked so hard to give him this opportunity. It seemed sometimes like his father wanted Stephen to have the life he had missed.

Stephen snapped back to the conversation, and heard: “...but what are you looking for that you can’t find in a couple of months?”

Stephen’s father had always wanted to be a professor, but World War II and then children had gotten in the way and he had to settle for a master’s degree and a high school teaching job. Stephen could see how it must eat his father up to see his son passing up this opportunity. He thought of Wilhelm Meister and Frodo Baggins. He knew his father would not find these references convincing or amusing, and he didn’t know where to go but fiction to try to explain. 

“I don’t really know what I’m looking for,” he said finally, “but I know I wouldn’t find it with a return ticket in my pocket. If I can just stay as long as it takes, then maybe I can come home content and ready to be respectable.”

“Respectable,” his father muttered and turned to wash the frying pan. “And why can’t you go with somebody? You’ll be a long way from a friendly face.”

Stephen rinsed his plate and put both wet hands on this father’s shoulders. “I tried, Dad, but nobody wants to take the time.”

His father mumbled something, but the deep lines in his face softened. “What about money? Could you use...”

“...No, Dad, but thanks. The flight over is real cheap and after that I’ll have six hundred bucks... and I think I’ve got a job lined up in Germany.”

“But you could...”

“No, Dad. If I need money, I’ll call or write. Anyway, if my money runs out, maybe it’ll be time to come home.”

Stephen’s backpack was ready to go, but he added a bag of peanuts and Edward’s Yankee cap before he put it in the trunk of the Buick and walked to Chuck’s. He hugged Aunt Marge, who was like Stephen’s second mother in a non-supercharged model, and Chuck’s little sister, Kelly, who was only slightly less homely than Chuck but a pretty good sport since she had grown up. He found Chuck jittery and staring out his window through a serious hangover.

Chuck and he had always talked over big life decisions, until their Christmas conversation when Chuck first spoke about his girlfriend and announced he was engaged.  It made no sense to Stephen. Chuck had gone out with too few girls to know one from another. This was probably Chuck’s first serious girlfriend. Her family was from old Puerto Rican money and sounded quite overbearing. Stephen could not determine if her goal was to escape her parents’ house or to thumb her nose at what they expected of her.

Because Chuck was his cousin, the wedding would bring many of Stephen’s relatives on his mother’s side. Stephen wondered if that had anything to do with his father’s sour mood. He also wondered if any of the relatives would notice his slipping off the day after the wedding but concluded that, if they even noticed he was gone, they would be glad he had cleared out a room for them.

Stephen dressed for the wedding at Chuck’s house. He was certain the bride had picked out the maroon tuxedos with satin lapels, probably to match her bridesmaids’ dresses. Anyway, he told himself, the clip-on bow tie will save a lot of time and the bell-bottoms will hide Uncle Jack’s shiny combat boots.

The church was actually the chapel at Fordham University, Chuck’s alma mater.  It was a beautiful gothic building on the Bronx campus nestled among larger, modern buildings. At the church, the priest took Chuck and Ted into a room off the chancel.   Memories from other cousins’ weddings made Stephen suggest to the other ushers, the bride’s two brothers and Chuck’s classmate, Patrick, that they all should escort ladies to their seats: friends of the bride; friends of the groom. The bride’s brothers thought they were required only to escort their mother and grandmother. Patrick focused on two unattached, blonde friends of the groom.

Stephen felt obliged to step up and carry this sorry lot for Chuck’s sake. He escorted several women, as well as his mother and father, Michael and a new girlfriend, Chuck’s parents and Stephen’s other two aunts. His father’s widowed brother, Uncle Charlie, smelled a bit of Scotch. An assortment of second cousins from New Jersey took up the whole third row.

It worried Stephen that the bride’s friends milled about out front even as the noon hour for the ceremony approached. He asked the bride’s brother what was usually done about this but got back only an incomprehensible grin. With just minutes to go, Stephen’s eye caught a long rope leading through the ceiling. He looked again at the half-filled chapel and at the milling guests, reached for the rope and pulled it. When deep bells pealed high in the steeple, the crowd outside rushed past the ushers to the seats. Stephen stepped aside in time to avoid injury and suppressed a laugh at this bizarre, foreign world.

During the ceremony Stephen struggled to keep a straight face. After the bride entered, three overweight girls sang a cappella in English and then in Spanish. The bride’s father circled the altar clinking gold jewelry and snapping pictures while his wife and her mother sobbed into their handkerchiefs. Patrick made a comment under his breath about one of the bridesmaids. Chuck still looked a bit pale.

In the course of things, Stephen got his cue to step to the lectern. He was supposed to read a sonnet, but he thought instead of taking advantage of the captive audience to say a few words. He could describe his impending adventure:  “I go now into the world so wide...” Then again, stage fright confined him simply to read:

 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom...

After the ceremony, a photographer and his assistants led the wedding party onto the hot campus lawn and made them pose for what seemed like hours. As a bit player, Stephen mostly listened and daydreamed. He wondered if he was sweating maroon and began to picture a squat tower across the lawn as a sweating-cold can of beer. He thought about what he had left to do before his trip. During the reception, he would walk to the check-in office, sign up for the flight and ask how long the wait would be. Freddie Laker’s “Skytrain” was the cheapest way to go but was strictly stand-by, and he had heard you might wait two hours or two days to get on a plane. Then he would return to the reception and eat enough to see him through a couple of days. When the reception was over, he would get his pack from the car, change clothes, return the tux, and say his farewells.

Finally, two maroon limousines pulled up, promising rescue from Stephen’s thirst and suggesting a logic to the color scheme. The wedding party piled in. Stephen found himself packed against a window beside one bridesmaid and across from another. The girls were nice enough but had spent too long in their big dresses in the hot sun to be ideal company at such close quarters. Even so, one was cute in a Latin kind of way and Stephen found it significant that he had little interest in her. “If I were noble,” he thought, “the explanation would be Pam, but the real reason is that I feel like I’m already gone from this place.” Stephen was sure a cold drink would make this explanation more convincing and concentrated on watching maroon street scenes pass through the tinted windows.

At the Parker Hotel on a busy boulevard in Queens, an officious director showed the wedding party to a private room for the pre-party. The room was small, with seats all around its sparkly, cushioned walls bathed in miniature dancing disco lights. Two waitresses appeared instantly. Stephen followed a beer with a double Jack Daniels on ice.  He noted without comment the bride’s glare as her groom downed two quick beers.

The pre-party took them all the way to amplified introductions in the main hall.  Then, finally, Stephen was free to roam. Two adjoining rooms opening onto an interior courtyard were filled with hot and cold appetizers and busy bartenders and more relatives than he had seen in one place since his grandmother’s funeral. The tuxedo made him an easy mark for hugs and handshakes from relatives near and far, but after the heat and the alcohol he thought he had better get some food. Stationary, with his mouth full, he was an easy mark for Uncle Charlie.

“Stephen, m’lad,” Uncle Charlie rumbled in the brogue that showed he was not one to waste an open bar, “you read that verse like a true son of Erin.”

“Thanks, Uncle Charlie,” Stephen said, guiding a jumbo shrimp into his mouth.

“You know, it reminded me, your readin’ about love not being time’s fool, of one time when old Tommy Geronni, a wop-mick friend of mine, had to give a speech at the college on...”

“Stephen!” Aunt June burst in and hugged him. Uncle Charlie’s siblings had heard his stories for so many years that they assumed everyone was tired of listening.  In fact, Stephen usually found them more interesting than family small talk. But there was no resisting the “Abbott girls,” as they called themselves. Stephen shrugged his shoulders from within Aunt June’s bear hug and Uncle Charlie laughed and turned to start the story over for one of the other guests.

“You look so handsome in your tuxedo,” Aunt June said and wet a handkerchief to wipe her lipstick from his cheek. “And wasn’t Chuck a sight!”

Stephen was not sure if she was referring to Chuck’s obvious hangover or the fact that he was actually wearing a suit. “Yeah,” he said in answer to either reference, “quite the married man.”

“And I bet you’ll be next.”

“Oh, no, Aunt June, he stuttered, “I don’t think so.” Stephen found he had only ice in his glass and tried to back out of this conversation and toward the bar.

“Your mother says you have a nice little girlfriend at school; what’s her name?”

“Pam,” he said.

“That’s right, Pam,” she said and looked suddenly thoughtful. “And what type of name is that?”

“Do you mean ‘where did it come from’? I don’t know; I think her parents just liked some actress with that name.”

Aunt June nodded and waited. Stephen wondered if her she was just curious or if her defenses were up because Chuck had just married a Puerto Rican girl.

Rejoining the conversation he said: “I think she’s Austrian,” he said, “and Scottish. Anyway, we’re not planning to get married.”

Aunt June pinched his cheek and turned to tell one of her kids not to eat so many appetizers. Stephen wondered if he had denied planning to marry to get rid of his aunt, or because he really didn’t expect to ever marry Pam. He had never discussed marriage with her, maybe because he saw that they differed on long-term commitment. To him their fights about so many petty things were a reason not to commit permanently, while she thought they argued because there was no commitment. It was a chicken and egg thing that Stephen felt resigned to think might never be resolved.

Stephen retreated to one of the bars for a beer and found himself elbow-to-elbow with Ted.

“To the best of men,” Stephen toasted with his bottle.

“You’re kind, Stevie, after I botched that toast.”

“Ah, well, your toast wasn’t so bad. You got a big laugh each time you forgot a line and started over from the beginning.”

“Anyway, that’s over and now I can concentrate on drinking.” Ted drained a glass and put it back on the bar for a refill. Ted was three years older than Stephen and had famously spent a month in Europe during college.

“So what advice for my trip?” Stephen asked.

“Well, you’ve got Let’s Go: Europe?”

“I do.”

“Well, all the hostels and museums and stuff are in there. And you’ve got a student ID and a hostel card and a Eurail pass?”

“I’ve got the ID, but I’m gonna hitchhike and I thought you really didn’t really need a hostel card.”

“I guess you could always get fixed up in London, but the only way to go is to get a rail pass, then you can pick your destination and sleep on the train. As to hostels: you might get into some without a hostel card but I’m not sure; I didn’t know anyone without a card. Anyway, the hostels are the best places to party; there and on the train is where you meet people.”

Stephen had heard all this before, but the rail pass cost money. He was sure he could get by with his guidebook and could pick up a train pass after he had found a job and saved some money. He tilted his beer at Ted again and went to find the men’s room.

In a lobby common to four reception halls, Stephen caught sight of Dennis, the drummer for his and Chuck’s garage band. Everyone in the neighborhood had played in that band and they all had sworn to devote themselves to music. In fact, someone once figured out that they spent more time coming up with a “serious” name for the band than they ever did rehearsing. Dennis, though, had talent and worked hard, and had succeeded in making a music career. Of course, everyone else in “Gravity’s Rainbow” had known from the beginning that he was too good to play with them, but he was younger than the rest and happy they let him hang around. It had taken several years and their first serious gig to convince Dennis that the band stunk and he should move on to something more serious.

Dennis wore tails and a top hat. He walked arm-in-arm with a pretty, Asian woman in a long, red gown. Stephen stopped to watch, a broad smile covering his face.

Dennis seemed not to see Stephen and, just as he passed, he stumbled and dropped his hat. Stephen lunged to catch the hat, but Dennis kicked it high into the air and caught it on his head, cocked like his smile, with his hand outstretched to Stephen.

Dennis introduced his girlfriend and apologized for missing the service. They spoke for a few minutes, and then Stephen promised to find them in the reception hall and continued to the bathroom.

As Stephen returned past the dance floor, the bride’s mother made him dance with a bridesmaid, unfortunately not the cute one, while the photographer shot “candid” pictures. The next song, Sinatra’s The Way You Look Tonight, was his mother’s favorite, so he found her and asked to dance. She beamed and his father smiled and the band didn’t butcher the song too badly. Stephen smiled too, feeling that he had grown quite mature at college.

His mother tried to teach Stephen to dance with the music and he succeeded in not stepping on her feet. Once they got into a rhythm, she said, “Your father finally seems resigned to your trip. He said you would submit applications for next year?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got the forms for a few schools; I’ll send them in sometime in the fall.”

“You know he’s just concerned; we both are.”

Stephen looked down at her and saw her wide smile. “Actually,” she said, in a playful whisper he had heard only on the rare occasions when she had more than a couple of drinks, “you’d better never tell your father, but I’m proud of my son: taking off on his own and not afraid of anything.”

“Well,” he said and hesitated. He wanted to tell her he was scared of being alone and not having money and not knowing the languages, but instead he added: “that means a lot to me, Mom.” After the dance he kissed her and she gave him her “goodbye hug,” nearly taking his breath away.

Stephen looked up to see Dennis gesturing and so grabbed a drink and ducked out a doorway. He found Dennis alone in the courtyard. Dennis hugged him and patted his back and explained that his girlfriend was inside talking with an old friend.

“You old hound dog,” Dennis said. “What have you been up to?” 

“Oh, my life is dull,” Stephen said, “but yours!”

“Well, I got a break, and then it’s just been passing from one person to another and they’re all super-talented.”

They both talked at once, then both laughed and Stephen nodded for Dennis to continue.

“I was going to say,” said Dennis, “that last week I could’ve gotten you in to see the Newport Jazz Festival.”

“No! At Lincoln Center?”

“Yeah. It was really great playing with Chick Corea and Herbie Mann...”

“And did they leave you the stage for one of your famous drum solos?” 

“You bet; it’s in my contract.”

Stephen said he had just arrived and was off the next day for Europe. Dennis talked about two European tours and how he had loved every minute. The stories shifted from the neighborhood to jazz to the Yankees.

When it was time for another drink, they found Chuck and recapped some of the same stories with more amplified laughter until dinner was served. They had to take assigned seats and this time Stephen got to sit by the cute bridesmaid. After many toasts, Stephen escaped again and found Dennis and his girlfriend at a table with Chuck’s cousins. He could not stop marveling at how Dennis had succeeded at his art. He recalled Dennis pulling him aside one afternoon to ask how to get up the nerve to kiss a girl, yet he was the same kid who could win over a crowd with whatever it took: a tumble or a drum solo or a Marx Brothers routine.

He thought of a particular Saturday toward the end of high school when he and Chuck had let Dennis tag along on a trip to the city. They had visited the Museum of Modern Art and sat for an hour in the circular room that housed Monet’s Water Lilies.  Stephen loved that room.

He drifted from the festivities and thought: Monet and Dennis; pre-flight and something felt significant that concerned art but had nothing to do with name-dropping from Art History 101. It was an impression of wonder, an incredible volume of wonder, from the wise eyes of the gray-bearded painter to the laughing eyes of the musical prodigy. He felt propelled by Dennis’s energy and inspired by Monet’s vision. The adventure unfolds, he thought, crowds pass by and cheer; life goes out and comes through. He felt in his limbs the strength to break free. He thought of water lilies, floating and awaiting description.

After dinner, Michael walked Stephen to the Skytrain office. The traffic seemed quieter than the bustle of the reception hall and the air was almost clean. Michael laughed when three young black girls pointed at Stephen in his tuxedo. They found the check-in office three blocks up the boulevard.

The office was full of kids with packs and sleeping bags. They were drinking wine, playing cards or sleeping in odd positions. A few looked up, amused at the wedding clothes. Stephen was glad no one would recognize him when he returned alone and dressed for travel.

He showed his passport and signed his name at the check-in window and the attendant said busses would leave for the airport at six AM and Stephen might make that list. If not, the next set of busses would leave around noon and he certainly would make that list if he stayed to keep his place.

When they got back to the hotel, Michael took Stephen into the bar to buy him a drink.

“I’d hate to think I sound like a big brother,” Michael said, “but you’re sure you’re ready for this?”

Stephen just rolled his eyes.

“Well, how are you going to get around over there; did you get one of those train passes?”

“You mean Eurail?”

“Whatever: the kind that lets you go anywhere for a certain time.”

“No, that wouldn’t make any sense. I’m gonna get a job as soon as I get to Germany, so I wouldn’t use the trains until later. Anyway, I want to meet local people and how better to do that than to hitchhike?”

“If you want to hitchhike and meet people, why don’t you just go out west?”

“No, America has gotten too familiar. You stick out your thumb and somebody stops and it’s like you already know him.”

“Which is why you missed the bachelor party?”

“Well it’s not always quick, but the hours by the dark roadside are part of it too: sometimes you take knocks and sometimes you get stranded, but in the end somebody always picks you up.”

Michael sipped his drink. “But you can’t talk to anybody who picks you up if you don’t speak his language.”

Stephen put down his glass and grinned. “I don’t know; I guess you say ‘guten Tag’ and point to a map.”

“I just hope you told Dad you’d be taking trains.” Michael finished his drink and stared at his glass and grew quiet. “You know why this bugs Dad so much?”

Stephen started to respond, but Michael held up his hand to wait. It was strange to hear him speak so solemnly. “I’m older than you and I understood it a little better about Edward.” He paused and looked up at Stephen. “He put all his hopes on Edward breaking out of a regular life and making it big in the world, and afterwards he kind of sank into himself. He didn’t ever put as much into you and me; maybe he was afraid of losing it all again or maybe he just didn’t have anything left. Still, he’s scared to death of losing another one of us.”

Stephen took Michael’s hand. “Listen, man,” he said, “he’s not losing anyone; it’s just a detour I’ve got to take.”

Michael called to the bartender for a glass of seltzer and turned a smile at Stephen, as if he had suddenly had another thought. “And why Germany?”

“Oh, you remember Victor, who ran the machine shop where I worked in high school?”

“That guy with the crew cut who wanted you to cut metal instead of going to college?”

Stephen laughed. “Well, over Christmas I stopped in and told him I was thinking of going to Europe and he said he would be there too and I should look him up in Germany and he’d get me a job with some relative.”

Michael contemplated ordering another drink, then reached in his wallet and slapped some bills on the bar. “So what will you do for sleeping, I mean before you get this great job?”

“I’ve got a tent and a sleeping bag.”

Michael shook his head.

“Hey, man, they got me across Canada and down to the Keys.” 

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So I can always sleep in the woods unless I find something else.” 

“Like a youth hostel?”

“More or less. I didn’t get a hostel card, but I’ve got this book that lists cheap places to stay.”

Michael clapped his hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “Little brother, I think I’d have felt more at ease without this heart-to-heart. But, you’re smart and relatively strong (though unfortunately not as good-looking as me); I guess you’ll be alright.”

Stephen felt dizzy from the bourbon. His thoughts blurred between trying to remember a clever farewell toast and hoping he would find a place to sleep at the Skytrain office. This is no time for the mundane, he concluded, and toasted Michael with a nearly empty glass:

Welcome, Oh life! I go to encounter for the millionth time
the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of
my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

Michael shook his head again, sadly.

“It’s Steinbeck,” Stephen said, “The World So Wide.”

“Yeah, right. We all know you read way too much; maybe you could use a dose of reality.”

They returned to the emptying reception rooms. Michael rescued his girlfriend from Uncle Charlie’s story about ushering at the Zigfield Follies. The bride and groom were gone. Stephen’s parents and Aunt June’s family were gathering themselves to drive to Stephen’s house. Stephen got his pack from the car and returned to the men’s room.  He changed into a pair of jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt.

He tried to swing the pack onto his shoulders and stumbled back through the stall door to end up seated on a toilet. Relieved that no one had seen this inauspicious beginning, he let out a deep breath and stood up to try again. Finally, strapped in, he returned to the reception rooms, hoping to say goodbye all at once and then make a dramatic exit.

The goodbyes, it turned out, did not feel real. His family didn’t act like he was really going anywhere, and to Stephen they already seemed to have faded behind. His mother lingered in his new world by pushing a bag of leftovers on him and Michael offered a ride to the check-in office. Stephen took the food and declined the ride and then waved and turned with thumbs under his pack straps, and stepped out to the street.

The air had cooled and it cleared his head a bit. The pack was heavy but his feet felt light. He sang quietly, trying to remember the words to a song from an old television show:

Going down that long lonesome highway,
Gonna, live life my way.

Chapter VI – Toccata & Fugue (Alternative Form, Annotted)

Fugue

Section I

First Section: voice 1 - structure: 3 wd sent. 3 wd, 2 wd, 1 wd sent; repeat;  3 x 3-sent P,  subtext: 

Voice 1

"You look lost." I turned around, snapped out, stared. He looked kind, repeated himself, smiled. 

Wolfgang was a student and an Antimilitarischer, which meant he had avoided national service as a conscientious objector. He thought I was American because of my pack and sneakers. He was glad for the chance to practice his English.

Peter was Wolfgang's friend and a fellow student at the university. He spoke little English, but smiled to my smile. Together they led him into another Strassenbahn and Wolfgang said he should not worry about a ticket because the inspectors were on dinner break.

At his apartment, Wolfgang introduced me to his roommate,

 Olfred, and showed me to a couch by a large open          I washed

window where he could sleep. Olfred was             and tried to help,  

busy cooking dinner for all.       but Olfred made me sit...

Voice 2

4 wd sent; 4+4 wd sent; repeat; 2 x 4 sent P; subtext: music as alternate language.

They were so kind. After we started eating, Wolfgang asked my plan. I laughed and replied: to eat and sleep.

The stew of sausage, green peppers and noodles was wonderful. We found (through Wolfgang's translation) that we shared a hate of war machines and a love of music. After dinner and Schnaps, Frederick said goodbye. I insisted on doing the dishes.

With more Schnaps, Olfred and I played guitars. My jazz 

training (unfruitful as it had been) complemented his natural

ear. Our conversation suffered the limits of his English and my

German, but we saw each Along the way

other through the                   I explained through 

blues in G.                         Wolfgang where I had been

                                        and how I needed to find work...

Voice 3

[5 wd sent; 3 wd, 4 wd, 3 wd sent; repeat; 2 x 5-sent subtext:  photo images surpass language and solitude]

Wolfgang found me a pillow. In my bag, with this luxurious headrest, I slept instantly.  I awoke slowly, late in the morning, to bird songs.

wed 7/19

Everyone was gone, I supposed to classes. By the coffee pot was a note and a key.  Wolfgang wrote that I should let myself in and out and help myself to what was in the refrigerator. He suggested I see the cathedral, called der Dom, and join them for dinner.  He also wrote that they would ask around for me about work. 

I took Wolfgang's advice and even paid the mark and forty Pfennig to mount the stairs in the Dom's north spire. The climb was long but easy with no pack. My reward was a panoramic view of dark slate rooftops and bridges of different styles spanning the Rhine. Although I had brought my camera, I lacked the wide-angle lens to do the scene justice, so just recorded another imagined photo image.  

After the up-and-down I was  content to buy some groceries for the I wondered how long three-hundred road then and sit by the eternal fifty dollars and a few marks Rhine with Don Quixote. marks would last if I didn't find work...

Voice 4
6 wd sent; 6+6 wd sent; repeat; 2 x 6-sent P; subtext: promises to write

Wolfgang brought home pasta and vegetables. This time I helped to cook; I washed and pealed and chopped. Olfred bought a bottle of wine:  we would toast meeting and parting.

Over dinner I tried in German to say how I'd spent my day. They thought it terribly funny I'd climbed the Dom's stairs. I wanted to say but was unable to translate that I could understand their amusement because I had never been to the top of the Empire State Building. After dinner, Olfred played rock tapes while we sipped the last of the Schnaps. Olfred was disappointed I couldn't teach him the guitar parts in Johnny Winter's Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo. He noticed my mouthing the words, though, and asked me to explain them through Wolfgang.  

Wolfgang and Olfred said they had turned up no work for me in Köln.  I thanked them for trying and said I'd be off in the morning. Wolfgang offered to show on my map the best route to Würzburg. I said I had no map; they rolled their eyes.  In the morning I was off Wolfgang drew in my pad a map   

      to the Autobahn. We                          to find work, promising to

all went to bed.            send a postcard from down the road...

Chapter VI – Toccata & Fugue (Cut Scene)

I descended and walked, sticking out my thumb. This seemed low-percentage, given the speed of traffic, but I saw no other option. Before long a man pulled over, mumbled something I couldn't understand, and drove me to an exit outside Olpe, a wooded resort town on a string of lakes. 

Looking down from the exit ramp, I decided not to explore town until I found accommodations and ate. With an hour left of daylight I ducked into the woods by the road and hiked a short way. It turned out I had entered a wooded hillside, and couldn’t find level ground. Setting up camp was comical. I had to pitch the tent against a large tree so I wouldn't roll downhill during the night. 

I photographed the set-up tent up to prove I had camped sideways. Then I sat by my front door and laid out bread, cheese and fruit. I set an apple by my knee, but it immediately tumbled into the woods below. I couldn't see through the trees but hoped it wouldn't hit a hiker.

After dinner I took my pad and flashlight back toward the ramp, marking where I left the woods with a handful of daisies. Down the hill was the “American Pub,” complete with jukebox and pinball machine. The locals were young and curious but I made no contact. I concentrated on my pad, sketching my slanted campsite. I signed the sketch: “a beer in front of me, and a walk to a sideways tent ahead of me.”

It felt good to have my own place for the night. No one else knew or had a thing to say about it. If I could sweep up the pub for my meals, I could stay for a week and explore the lakes.  

 I thought of the Channel crossing and Olfred's blues smile, and then how the Strassenbahn inspectors stood out in the crowd. It didn’t seem hard to ride public transportation for free, which could stretch my money until I found work. I determined to try that when the opportunity arose. 

I was full of good feeling, sensing a developing rhythm to the traveling. I wasn't a tourist checking my watch and timetable; I was discovering the world and, in it, myself. I figured I probably wouldn't be able to explain this to Pam or anyone else, but part of what made it inexplicable was the point. If you could understand without doing it, it would be in the guidebook.

* * *

The sun woke me. I had rolled onto my side with my back against the tree.  Focused on the knot in my back, I quickly sat up, dousing myself with dew. Why there was so much dew in the deep forest I could not fathom. I seemed incapable of remembering to get up slowly in the morning, and so would have to get used to waking up to cold showers.

The woods smelled deep and old. I took down the tent and laid it and the poncho across low branches to dry while I ate an orange and stretched.

Chapter VII – The Big Tent (Cut Scene)

I needed to change scenes and so decided to find the hostel-castle in Pullach. Fully paid connections got me through the city center and south along the River Isar. The tram was packed. I stood with my pack on the floor swaying with the others. We passengers became familiar through jostling and I found myself face-to-face with a dark-skinned girl from Turkey. She spoke good English and, seeing my pack and surmising I might be looking for work, said there was an “international youth camp” to the west, in a town called Biberach. She said you work four hours a day for room and board. I wrote down the name of the town and continued toward my castle.

Once in Pullach, it was easy to find the castle, which was of course on the highest ground by the river. The structure was a mishmash of different colored bricks, oddly spaced windows, and crenelated towers, which made it look like it had been built to combine medieval and renaissance styles. The hostel was overpriced and filled with children ten or twelve years old but it was majestic and clean, and the manager let me stay the night without a hostel card.

The castle crowned a hill surrounded by trees. Once settled into a small room with bunk beds, I explored the galleries and tower, like the children underfoot trying every door and staircase. I thought of a friend from home who could have picked the locks on the more interesting doors; there was no telling when a talent might prove useful. On my own, I couldn’t get very high in the tower and had to settle for an oblong river view through an arrowslit on a circular stair.

In the evening I walked down the dirt road from the castle. The young kids I passed looked only at the trees or the ground when they passed me. I didn’t understand this, as I wasn’t carrying the pack that intimidated some people. Perhaps they were just shy of strangers. I supposed that, as hostlers, they were likely to be timid.

As the sun disappeared behind the trees, I sat by the river and wrote in my pad: 

Pam, I’m staying in a castle in Pullach. I’ve been exploring the various halls and stairways and it all makes me think of Ivanhoe. I wish you were with me. I just dropped a little yellow flower into the river and watched it swirl and then catch the current and disappear—to float round the world and down the stream behind your parents’ house. 

When I read this over, it sounded corny. It was a bit pitiful that I was writing imaginary letters to someone disinterested in reading them. 

Next morning it looked as though the sun would burn off the early haze, so I rented a bicycle at the castle. It was exhilarating to rush down the hill, so light and free without my pack. Along the river I saw naked people on the rocks on the west side, bringing to mind the women in Munich, but I saw no way to cross. I settled for a path in the woods along the river’s east side. 

In a field at the top of a small hill was a red and blue striped tent overflowing with people. Banners told me it was a festival for the village of Baierbonn. Thinking I should immerse myself in local culture, I laid the bike against a fence and went in for a beer.

Everyone wore black and white tops. The men also wore hats with feathers and green, leather pants that looked a little kinky. A buxom waitress with ruddy cheeks astoundingly carried armfuls of mugs under the Festzelt sign. I grabbed the end of a bench and exchanged smiles all around as I nursed my beer.

Well lubricated, I rode a path to the water and carried the bike across sunny rocks toward the river. Stripped to my shorts, I dunked in the cold water, which cleared my head. I lay on the warm rocks, touching my heels in the water. Pam and I sometimes dangled our feet like this in Huron River in Ann Arbor, talking about the exotic places we would visit together but now I lay without her, missing the part of the dream that mattered most. 

Half asleep, I heard a distant bass line; it was a band approaching on a separate river branch barely visible through the woods. A sound of drums, horns, and accordions mixed with laughter. Finally, a raft came into view, actually three platforms lashed to huge logs covered with people drinking and musicians playing. The sound reached a crescendo as the raft passed and then receded, parting at last with the bass line. The interlude well represented the way art sometimes accented my trip, rising from nowhere to occupy the center of my attention and then fading from view.

The sun was warm and the water cool. With my eyes closed, it felt like Jones Beach on Long Island and then one after another all the beaches of my life. The locations and situations varied but coming out of the cool water to lie in the warm sun was always the same. I felt as if I were simultaneously on all my beaches and the universal sunshine seeped into my limbs.

A family arrived, laughing and chattering, twenty meters up river. They all removed their clothes with no apparent self-consciousness. The attractive young daughter made me stare, which embarrassed me. I lay on my stomach and pretended to close my eyes. I couldn’t imagine this scene in my own country, yet it seemed natural for these people.

Not wanting to pay for another night at the hostel, I returned the bike and checked out. Then, down by the river, I scouted for a place to camp. Upstream all the likely spots were on the far side, and the Isar looked to be fifty shallow meters across. The sun was dipping behind the trees and I wanted to set up camp before dark, so I turned back downriver to look for a place to cross. 

I chose a bend in the river slightly narrower than the main channel and changed into gym shorts. I removed my socks but put my sneakers back on, apprehensive about what might lurk at the bottom of the river. I hiked up the pack and strapped it tight and then stepped in and started to wade. 

The water was cold and deepened gradually. I focused on my footing and gauging the depth and distance to the far side. 

Near mid-stream ripples reached my waist. I paused to roll up my shirt and held the pack as high as I could. A few steps farther on, the current picked up and water lapped against the pack. I stopped and set my feet against the current. It would be disastrous if I fell, but I was half way across so there was no sense retreating. All I could do was keep walking, hoping the water would get no deeper. Concentrating on each short, cautious step left no time to consider the folly of this crossing to an unknown shore. 

The water finally began to become shallower. I stopped when it was knee-high to take in the wide, green river with trees overhanging each side and laugh out loud at my escape. 

“Stick that in your current!” I barked at the flowing water and turned toward shore. But stepping gingerly on my injured leg, my sneaker caught on a rock. I lunged to keep balance, but the pack swung across my back. I landed on my good knee with a big splash and the pack partly submerged.

I struggled to not tumble any farther and jerked my feet downstream to solid footing. I lifted the pack from the water and centered it on my back so I could rise to my feet. I was barely ten yards from shore but thoroughly wet and humiliated.

I spotted a flat spot in the woods and stepped out of the river. Removing my pack and laying it against some bushes, I could see I was bleeding from my knee and my right elbow. Thoughts rushed through my head as I debated whether I should first check the water damage or bandage myself. But since both actions called for opening the big flap, I did so and grabbed the bag with my bathroom stuff, noticing as I did that most of my packed clothes felt reasonably dry. 

I found bandages in my bag and was surprised also to find with them a tube of antiseptic that only could have been stuck there by Pam—showing once again how she was smarter than me. The cuts weren’t so bad; I washed them with canteen water and applied pressure with my bandana until I could dry off enough to apply the antiseptic and bandages.

Once ambulatory, I took stock of my situation. I still needed to set up the tent before it got dark and so cleared branches to make room. The sleeping bag cover was soaked, but the bag only partly wet. I turned it inside out and hung it over branches and then changed out of my clothes and sneakers and hung them on bushes as well. The tent was easy to set up in the fading light, and then I unpacked everything that was wet and hung it all around, making my campsite an eyesore that fortunately only I could see. By that time I was worn out. With only the remains from my canteen for refreshment, I sat and sipped water on a flat stone by the river, watching mist roll in as high as the treetops. I tried to remember the story line of A Bridge Too Far and laughed at myself for botching my invasion of a clump of trees.

Just after dark I heard voices and saw the flicker of a campfire downstream. I put the soggy shoes back on and picked my way along the river’s edge until I came upon two couples drinking beer around an inviting fire. Their long, unkempt hair made me hopeful of a kind reception. They were a bit startled to see me emerge from up river but immediately offered me a beer and the last of the sausages they had cooked on sticks over the fire. Once I had devoured the sausage—which took maybe thirty seconds—they started asking questions. Through the one girl who spoke English, I talked about my trip, leaving out my ignominious arrival on their riverbank. 

Later, back at my tent, I gathered the wet clothes and piled them all in the tent so they wouldn’t get even wetter with the dew. I slept in dry socks inside a damp sleeping bag and wondered what had given me the stupid idea of crossing the river.

After packing up my soggy belongings in the morning and beginning to hike upstream, I found seven empty beer bottles at an old campsite. I remembered how Gita had saved the bottles in Würzburg for Emil and decided this could be lucrative. I carried the empties up the long hill along the river. At a shop in a tiny village, the bottle deposit paid for a Snickers bar and half-liter of milk. I sat in front of the store eating and considering my options. The Big Tent was beat, and time was running out. I had the youth camp name in my pad but only a vague idea of what it was and how to find Biberach. So, before I headed west, I would try pleading for a job at the American base. I also hoped to find somewhere to dry out.

Chapter  VII  - The Big Tent (Cut Scene)

I circled a couple of times past the church where Reg and I had “performed” before I found him opening his guitar case. “Strike me down if it ain’t Neil bloomin’ Young,” he said loudly, turning a few heads on the street.

“Nice try,” I responded, smiling. “Are we really gonna try this again?”

“You got somepin’ else on tap?”

I admitted I hadn’t and found a seat on the sidewalk while he tuned his guitar.

“This’ll be just an hour or so,” he said. “I found me mate. We’ll meet him later to bring this stuff to the house.” 

This was good news and I wondered if I’d been unfair thinking Reg wasn’t likely to do me any good. He’d introduced me to the circus, he was promoting my musical career, and now he’d arranged lodgings. With enthusiasm I took a turn at a couple of Neil Young songs—though I’m pretty sure I didn’t fool anyone.

In the late afternoon I followed Reg onto an Strassenbahn. I used my ticket from the morning to avoid any further abuse. We got off at München-Feldmoching and walked to a street lined with low commercial buildings that looked mostly deserted. Reg checked an address and then led me down an alley to a side door of a four-story factory building, which he opened with a shove of his shoulder. This led to a stairwell fairly well lighted from a skylight. As we walked up we could hear faint music, which grew louder as we ascended. 

When we opened the door to the hallway on the third floor I recognized a Rolling Stones tune played on harmonica and a young man stuck his head out a doorway along the hall.

“Blimey o'reilly! If it ain’t radgie Reggie!” he shouted, and then called back into the room. “Lloyd, look what the tide’s washed up.”

Reg laughed and stepped up to shake the man’s hand and introduce me.

“Stephen the American Neil Young, meet one of me bezzy mates, Charlie the Tuna.”

“Any friend of Reggie’s,” Charlie said, “s’like to run off with the silver.”  He laughed and added, “Course we ain’t got no silver, so you’se welcome.”

Charlie was about my height with a ruddy complexion that seemed odd for an Englishman and a pronounced scar down the left side of his face. He introduced me to another Englishman slumped on a beaten-up sofa who was either named “Lloyd” or he was some kind of lord, I couldn’t tell which. Next was “Robert from Scotland,” a burly man in boxer shorts who was heating water on a hot plate, and Jules, a cute Belgian girl with huge brown eyes hugging her knees within an oversized gray sweater.

“Toss your sacks in a room, laddies,” Robert said as he handed me a cup of tea. “Sorry we haven’t milk but there’re sugar packets by the heater.”

Lloyd sensed my interest in the hot plate and explained: “We’re not ‘official’ tenants exactly, but the Great München Printing & Engraving Company, or some such, seems to have left the electric on. We just try not to use enough to be noticed.”

“And in all events,” added Lloyd, “we haven’t got more than the hotplate and one old lamp to plug in.

The group occupied a suite of several rooms, which seemed to have served as a dormitory for workers at the printing company. Reg and I dropped our bags in a room with a couple of bunk beds with no mattresses over the springs. We then joined the residents for tea and discussed the evening’s plans. We agreed to dine in and everyone threw money into a hat. I contributed ten marks to the fund and Robert and Jules went out shopping. Charlie then showed Reg and me where there was running water in a bathroom in the basement and I washed off some of the grime of the past days.

Upstairs we all relaxed while Reg filled in his friends about his split from his Polish wife. “Always thought she was a bit staid for you,” Lloyd commented, his highbrow accent comical in the setting.

“Aye, she’d a’ been a silly cow to stay with the likes of you,” Charlie concluded.

Reg looked offended.

“Ah, no offense, mate,” Charlie said. “You’re better off without her.” 

Reg turned to unpack his guitar, but Charlie howled, “Ah, we love ya and all, but none of your caterwauln’ just now.” Reg dropped the case and sat back down.

I sat on a chair with the legs broken off—in the sunshine coming through a window—and thought about my next move. This was at least temporary shelter but there would still be expenses and my cash was running out. I asked Charlie and Lloyd about work but they had no suggestions beyond picking up bottles for the deposit or wading through the tourist fountains for good luck coins. I thought about my peseta, which my friends wouldn’t bother picking up out of a fountain. The most promising seemed to be the US Army. I hoped they wouldn’t make me cut my hair.

Robert and Jules returned before long with sausages, bread and schnapps and two more members of the tribe, a short round-faced girl named Lotte from Holland, and a Moroccan boy who, humorously I thought, called himself “Sandy.” 

Charlie looked at the groceries piled on the wooden floor and raised a questioning eyebrow at Robert. “And you didn’t find our friend the ganja man?” he asked.

“Aye, did I not say,” Robert responded with a sly smile, adding to the pile a small wad of foil.

This got everyone’s attention, and Charlie retrieved a pipe from his bag while Sandy, our resident Moroccan, sliced the hashish on a piece of cardboard. 

Thus began a night that remained hazy in my memory. We smoked hash, drank schnapps, ate food, drank more schnapps, smoked more hash, and finally Charlie displayed his leadership qualities in rousing us all to venture out to a pub. 

I recalled singing songs together as we walked, and getting no comprehensible explanation as to how they all knew each other. We landed in a noisy pub and drank beer, singing along with the music from a jukebox, mostly in English, although sometimes in German—which none of us spoke very well. 

Shouted conversations and toasts overlapped. Before I finished one beer someone handed me another. I stood to reach for the new mug and while I was up drained the first mug to mounting chants of support. It reminded me of the fans in Michigan Stadium turning their backs on the football game to cheer for some guy chugging a bottle of cheap wine. 

Sometime during the evening I took to calling the Scot “Rob’t” after Rob’t Burns and taking ineffectual instruction on mimicking a Scottish accent. At another point I dug into my pocket for another ten marks for beer. When Lotte reached her limit she headed quickly for the WC, abandoning her mug. 

“I fear she’s what you’d call ‘arseholed,’” said Lloyd, sliding her mostly full mug across the table to me. 

“Sporting of you, Lord Lloyd,” I said, taking a gulp. 

 “Twouldn’t do, you know. Waste and want that, not, and all that.”

When we finally emerged into the night, I was lost and simply followed the crowd. Still, it occurred to me that we were going the wrong direction. In a small deserted park Sandy jumped deftly onto a bench and walked across its back. Reg followed onto the back of the bench but, as he couldn’t even walk straight, he tumbled to the grass. Throughout this aerial display, Lord Lloyd was curled up and apparently sleeping at the end of the bench. We lifted Reg and roused Lloyd and continued along a wooded path. 

When we left the park Rob’t spotted a Strassenbahn on a side street. This propelled us all down the cobblestones and onto the tram. I collapsed into a seat and the others spread out through the first car. I felt woozy and focused on a spot on the window to avoid getting sick. It came to me that my head was spinning but the tram wasn’t moving. It also seemed like we were alone, which I couldn’t understand. Sandy and Rob’t went to the front of the car.

“There’s nobody bloody here!” Sandy shouted, sounding ever so British.

“Not to worry,” said Rob’t, lowering himself into the driver’s seat. “This can’t be too hard to master.”

I wondered if I was hearing right, and then felt the tram jolt and start to roll forward. This set me off and I threw up on the floor.

I don’t know how long we rode or why we weren’t arrested. I remember only getting off, with Jules and I helping each other walk.

I woke in deepest night on top of my sleeping bag on a bunk bed in my shirt but no pants or shoes. Next to me slept Jules beneath a blanket. I made my way down the hallway, but wasn’t ready to navigate the stairs to the basement toilet in the dark so I relieved myself in the corner of an empty room and went back to bunk to sleep. 

Sometime after dawn I woke again. My head throbbed. I found my canteen and drank as much as I could. Everyone was still asleep. From another room someone snored loudly. Jules was nestled onto my shoulder, which had made my arm go to sleep. 

I disentangled myself without waking her and shuffled to the common room.  Things were becoming visible in the early morning light. I went back for my shoes and flashlight and found my way down to the WC. When I returned everything was still quite but for the snoring. 

I sat with my canteen and decided I couldn’t keep up this pace, either its drain on my money or the toll on my head. The evening had been wild and fun, I thought, though my memories were disjointed. I had to limit myself in future to consuming no more than a gallon of beer at a time.  My stomach rumbled assent to this, and then I got a whiff of an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and almost got sick—which reminded me of losing it on the tram. “Damn,” I said out loud, trying to remember where we had taken the Straseenbahn and where we had left it, and being sure only that it was time to move on from Munich. 

After everyone but Rob’t was up I got directions to the Army base from Charlie, packed up my bag, and wished them all farewell. No one seemed surprised at my leaving and Lloyd mentioned he would be heading back to England the next day. Reg gave me a firm handshake and said we’d meet again at the top of the pops.

Chapter VIII  - Meine Reise (Cut Scene)

In the evening I decide to celebrate getting paid and pack a wad of marks into my pocket for the pub. I sit behind a Pils in a pub off the Marktplatz and look around for a connection. A large group of high school students fill the rest of my table. I spy two young men sitting by themselves. Both have hair to their shoulders. One wears what looks like an American army coat and the other a heavy, woolen sweater.

  I take Flaubert and my Pils to their table and ask if I may sit down. They nod and return to their conversation, watching me from the corners of their eyes.

  After a while, I interrupt to ask quietly if they can point me toward some hashish.  They both laugh nervously and sit back in their chairs. The one in the army coat glances around the pub. I anticipate their questions by telling them where I come from and what I am doing in Biberach and that I certainly am no policeman. 

     They grant that a police connection is indeed the question and the one in the sweater asks me to prove I am not a cop. I repeat my story, finding it less convincing myself as I cannot translate the details or properly pronounce the name of Rudi's church.  Finally, I show them my book.

     They are not convinced I am American simply because I read English. Then I remember I have written a poem of sorts inside the back cover of the book. They each inspect it and ask if I really wrote it. I assure them I did but they insist I read it, which somehow may prove I wrote it.  Thus comes my first and, if there be justice in the world, my only public poetry reading:

And sometimes
The night is too long
Too filled with sounds
Of life strange,
Life foreign.

Sometimes I need a voice
In something,
Someone
Telling me I skim a lonely surface
With reality safe
And so very deep
Below.

My examiners nod at each other and commend my epic. The one in the coat suggests I finish my Bier and come with them.

We leave the pub together and cut down a dark side street. I do my best to radiate innocence but also consider routes of escape. Within a block my sweatered guide ducks into a doorway. While the other keeps watch in the street he fills a pipe and offers it for me to taste. I am off balance at their manner of doing business but try it and nod that I want to buy some.

We continue down another street and the one in the sweater asks for ten marks for their last gram. The price sounds fair and I show him the money. We step to the shadows again and exchange. Quickly, then, they both shake my hand and walk off.

I take the fastest way back to the Marktplatz. In the light from shops and the moon I can see a good distance around me. No one follows or even appears to notice me.  I head toward Herr Klemperer's and climb down to the Riß. I sit against a bridge with a wide view and a thick branch over me. I take out a Bic pen and some aluminum foil I packed for cooking. I pull the inside of the pen out but hold the thick cap over the point.  I roll the foil around the arched, pliant, inner tube of the pen, remove the cap and mold a wider bowl at the upturned end. Withdrawing the inner tube, I hold the end product up to the moonlight. It strikes me how things sometimes just seem to fall into place.

I open my purchase and find I have been dealt with fairly. I crumble a bit of the block of blonde hashish and light it in my new pipe.

I inhale and time slows. The strength of my perceptions, or maybe my awareness of perceiving is magnified. The bridge is lonely and dark, yet is also storied and ancient.  The habits of the mighty Riß are well known, it seems, after these many years. Now it trickles along a cobblestone channel a meter wide and a half-meter deep. But the channel is set in cobblestones five meters wide and three or four meters deep, which must hold the high water when it comes. This spot when dry must have been a refuge for hundreds of years.

Chapter XIII – Mise-en-Cadre (Alternate Form – Silent Movie Screenplay)

AN ACCORDION AND A TUBA PLAY A QUIET DANCE TUNE; FADE IN, WIDE SHOT:

Summer sun bathes a village of twenty cottages clustered on a vineyard road. Two chickens circle and peck gravel from the road’s shoulder. A sign on a wall in faded white-on-black reads "Saint-Loubes."

From the center of the village a road winds into the hills. A beat-up Citroën careens down this road, raising a commotion of dust. The car turns onto the main road and stops. Stephen Kylemore gets out of the car and retrieves his backpack from the trunk. Mick Mulroney and Wally Findley stay in the car and laugh out their windows. The backpack is large. Stephen is thin and dirty. He swings the pack easily onto his shoulders, salutes and speaks:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Nine days, then..."

CONTINUOUS:

Mick leans out the window with a wide smile. Long, wavy hair splashes his handsome, sun-tanned face. When Wally taps his horn and begins to pull off, Mick calls out:

CUT TO CAPTION:   "Nine days, Stephen. And I'll give your regards to la Maison."

CONTINUOUS; WHISTLED THEME TO THEN CAME BRONSON:

The car disappears north. Stephen walks south, whistling. In two minutes he is beyond the village and stops to stick out his thumb. A car speeds by, kicking up dust and pebbles. He turns away and coughs. The dust sparkles in shafts of sunlight filtering through an ancient oak tree.  

AN ACCORDIAN AND TUBA DUET BUILDS, THEN FADES. CROSS-CUT TO BRIGHT SUN ON CREAM-COLORED STONE OF THE BASILICA IN TOULOUSE, THE CHANT OF VESPERS CARRYING ON THE BREEZE:

Stephen stares at the church and listens, and then walks a narrow road paved in cobblestones. His worn jeans, sneakers and T-shirt would allow him to blend into the crowd, but passersby exchange glances at his oversized pack. Smudges on his good-natured face show he has not bathed recently. Whiskers concentrated on his upper lip and chin show his beard to be light but weeks old. His deep-set eyes are sponges sucking up the scene around him.

He walks a road closed to traffic. Leaning against a post he wipes an arm across his brow. The buildings lining the street rise three or four stories in stately, old stone, but many ground floor shops have gaudy retail façades of glass and aluminum. Men and women in business clothes rush by the Saturday shoppers and over the more static layers of life. An old woman carries overflowing shopping bags from a fancy store. Two men in suits smoke cigarettes in a doorway, quietly conspiring. A young mother struggles to carry one child and lead another by the hand.  Stephen navigates his pack in a difficult retreat.  

CONTINUOUS:

At a fountain beyond the rush of people, Stephen takes off his pack and sits beside it.  He pulls out a map.

CONTINUOUS, CLOSE UP:

He folds the large map of Western Europe to show only southwest France and eastern Spain. His finger traces a line from Paris to Tours, Libourne, Bordeaux and Toulouse.  

CONTINUOUS, MARACAS INTRODUCE A SPANISH GUITAR:

Stephen’s finger turns slowly toward the Pyrénées Mountains and Spain. He lifts his finger when it covers Andorra and holds the map close to see the tiny principality, then shrugs and refolds the map and stows it in his pack.  

CONTINUOUS, PAN TO FOLLOW PASSERSBY AS TWO BASSOONS TAKE UP A LIVELY MARCH:

Stephen watches a pretty girl with black hair peeking from under a checkered scarf as she bicycles by with perfect posture and two baguettes in her front basket. His gaze shifts to a police officer stooping to stroke a cat in an open shop door. The cat suddenly darts into an alley and the officer laughs and continues up the block past an elderly man with a cane tottering toward Stephen. Stephen ducks down to see the man's face under his floppy hat. When the man acknowledges him, Stephen lowers his eyes respectfully and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:   "Pardon, monsieur.  Où est l’Andorre?"

CONTINUOUS:

A grin creeps across the man's face. The grin becomes a squint when he holds up two fingers on one hand and three on the other. The man repeats this gesture three times while he mutters and Stephen nods that he understands. Stephen finally points to the east and the man salutes and turns away, muttering still. Stephen watches the old man pass around a corner, then swings the pack onto his shoulders.  

FADE OUT, WITH THE CITY’S HUM AND THE BASSOONS.

FADE IN TO TWILIGHT ON A COUNTRY ROAD:

Stephen walks from relative darkness into the light of a single bulb hanging on a pole by a country road. He wears the hood of his sweatshirt over a baseball cap. Singing softly to himself he passes out of the light.

He walks beyond a small village and waits at an empty crossroads by a stream.  After a few minutes he leans his pack against a tree. More time passes and a car’s headlights rise into the sky like spotlights, then flood the trees across the road with light.  When the light reaches him, Stephen points his thumb over his shoulder.

The car passes. Darkness returns, moonless and ominous.

In twenty minutes two more cars pass. Stephen rocks on his heels and shakes his head, then takes out a flashlight and puts on his pack. He crosses the road and makes his way along the stream, shining his light into the narrow border of trees. Shortly he returns and stands at the crest of the road looking into darkness. Another car approaches. He steps off the road and puts out his thumb. The car passes.

Stephen follows the small crossing road between a wall and a field. A hundred feet from the main road, he steps across the wide grass shoulder. After looking around and listening intently, he lays down his pack and searches its pockets. Finally he pauses to consider the sky. The night is clear, the dark interrupted only by brilliant stars.  

He unrolls his tent on the ground. He lays his sleeping bag on the tent and unpacks a poncho. After sitting and eating bread and cheese and yogurt, he drops his pants and shoes into the fold of the tent and climbs into the sleeping bag. He reaches into the pack again to find a sweater, then stuffs it into a pillowcase and lays this beneath his head. He pulls the tent and poncho over the sleeping bag.

He lays wide-eyed, staring up. A shooting star describes an arc in the sky.  

ORCHESTRAL FLOURISH BUILDS TO SERIES OF MINOR CRESCENDOS:

Other lights streak in other directions. His eyes dart from one part of the sky to another, lips mouthing the cymbal crashes. 

EXTREME CLOSE-UP:

His eyes reflect streaking points of white on black.  

FADE OUT – FADE IN. ROADSIDE; EARLY MORNING; A DOG BARKS IN THE DISTANCE:

Stephen wakes and squints at the sky, then aside at the grass soaked with dew. He stretches his arms out to his sides, but pulls back when he feels the wet ground. He yanks the poncho from over him, spaying water that has settled on it. He lays the poncho wet-side down on the grass, and then sits up slowly. Unfolding the wet tent from his legs he finds his sleeping bag fairly dry. He unzips the bag and lies back smiling at the light blue sky.

CONTINUOUS – THE DOG BARKS AGAIN:  

Stephen sits up and looks over a planted field toward the nearest farmhouse. He closes his eyes again for one moment, and then stands on the sleeping bag to put on his pants and sneakers. He rolls and packs the sleeping bag, then shakes some of the moisture out of the poncho and tent and packs them too.

With everything stowed, he takes only a canteen onto the dirt road, which seems to lead only to two farms. Across the road is a masonry wall topped by a row of concrete that glistens at the top. Stephen crosses the road and, on closer examination, sees that the glistening comes from shards of colored glass embedded on the top of the concrete. He returns to his pack for his camera, finds a toehold in the wall to raise himself and photographs the sun through the broken glass.

ZOOM IN TO GLASS, SPARKLE BECOMING BRIGHTER TO WASH OUT THE SCENE.  INTERCUT TO GLARE OF LATE MORNING SUN AND SMALL VAN ON WINDING ROAD: 

The van passes a sign for Andorra.  

CUT TO VAN INTERIOR. THE RADIO ALTERNATES FROM STATIC TO FAST GUITAR:

An old, leather-skinned man drives with a cigarette in his mouth and a dirty, straw hat on his head. Stephen rides next to the man, looking out the window; his fair skin also shows the effects of living in the sun, though for weeks rather than decades. They both tap their fingers to the music.

CUT TO LONG SHOT OF VAN DRIVING UP A MOUNTAIN AND BROAD MOUNTAIN VIEWS THROUGH THE CLEAR AIR AS IT ROUNDS A CURVE.  CUT TO VAN INTERIOR:

The old man points a bony knuckle at the first wide spot in the road. The bit of level ground is filled with shops advertising duty-free liquor, appliances and cigarettes. Stephen nods and looks back at the view. In time they pass three more level spots, each covered with shops.  Stephen pulls a road map from his pack.  

CUT TO CLOSE-UP OF MAP, SHOWING ONLY TWO ROADS IN TINY ANDORRA, WEDGED BETWEEN FRANCE AND SPAIN. INTERCUT TO ANDORRA CITY AND VAN PULLING OVER AT A WIDE SPOT IN THE ROAD:

Stephen gets out with his pack. He waves as the van pulls off, and then he looks around. All the flat ground by the road is taken up by a duty-free store and parking.  A young couple emerges from the store laden with shopping bags and three identically dressed children.  A man with dark, curly hair and olive skin slams his car door and enters the store quickly and Stephen follows.  

DISSOLVE TO STEPHEN REEMERGING WITH A LITER OF JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK IN HAND WHICH, ONCE OUTSIDE, HE STASHES IN HIS PACK.  INTERCUT TO STEPHEN WALKING ALONG A WIDER PORTION OF ROAD INTO ANDORRA CITY. TINY HOTELS ABUT DUTY-FREE STORES STANDING AGAINST RESTAURANTS, WITH NO ROOM TO SPARE.  MOUNTAINS RISE BEHIND THE SHOPS ON ONE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND A WIDE VALLEY OPENS BEHIND THE BUILDINGS ON THE OTHER:

The sidewalks are narrow. Stephen stops several times to avoid colliding with people. A short way into the city he takes one step aside to a grocer's door, but finds he will not fit inside. He takes off his pack and leans it by the door. Looking over his shoulder at his pack, he enters the shop.

INTERCUT TO STEPHEN REAPPEARING ON THE SIDEWALK:

Stephen carries a small loaf of bread, cheese wrapped in paper and two apples, packs these away and rejoins the flow of tourists on the sidewalk.

Again he is jostled or jostles at every step. Several times he steps into the road to pass pedestrian bottlenecks.  In a short time he finds himself leaving the far end of the city. He pauses by the open doors of a stucco barn built against a mountain, a stack of long leaves piled within. Across from the barn a steep dirt road descends to a river running between big stones. He squints to see a border of level grass by flat rocks jutting into the water.

He crosses to the valley side of the road and descends the dirt road to the river's edge, then walks upstream toward the grass. The sun is still high, but the mountains cast long shadows.  

CONTINUOUS:

He lays down his pack and steps a short way onto the rocks with a package of food, his canteen and the scotch bottle. He finds a comfortable seat, unscrews the bottle and toasts the mountain or maybe the scene and then sets to the food. 

FRANTIC GYPSEY GUITAR SOUNDS LIKE A KEYSTONE COPS CHASE SCENE AS HE DEVOURS ALL THE FOOD BUT ONE APPLE.  FADE OUT – FADE IN TO MEDIUM SHOT WITH SUN DROPPED BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS:

He unrolls his tent and shakes out the morning's moisture before setting it up on the grass. He puts on a sweater, takes out a sweatshirt, flashlight and pad, and then puts his sleeping bag and pack into the tent.  He steps over the rocks and finds a place to sit on the sweatshirt.  He sips at the water and the scotch alternately and writes.  Soon the light fades and he sets his pad aside and begins to eat his apple.

Suddenly a black, angular shape swoops close to his shoulder.  He jerks back, glancing around to see what it was. Another shadow crosses his vision, irregular and darker than the night. A third shape flits by.

STRINGS OF WAGNER'S FLIGHT OF THE WALKERIE OPEN AND BUILD:

More and more shapes knife through the air. Silhouettes outlined against the last lightness of sky reveal that the shapes are bats.

IN THE LAST LIGHT OF DAY, THE MUSIC CLIMAXES:

Stephen's face shows trepidation turning to childlike delight and finally speaks applause. He looks up and toasts the bats, and the starry sky.

FADE TO BLACK. FADE IN TO EXTERIOR, MOUNTAINS IN MORNING SUNLIGHT. CUT TO TENT:

The morning is cool, but promises a warm day. Stephen takes his time laying his poncho and tent over a bush. With a cloth sack and towel, he steps onto a flat rock in the river, pulls off two shirts at once and kneels over the water. He splashes and rubs his lean arms and shoulders, breathing hard against the cold. He brushes his teeth, rinses his mouth with canteen water then takes a long drink. Before he leaves, he stands on the rock, swinging his head back and forth and smiling as if he were watching the bats again.

INTERCUT – EXTERIOR – ROADSIDE:

Stephen walks a bit. Soon, a compact station wagon pulls over.  

INTERCUT - CAR INTERIOR. A PORTABLE CASSETTE PLAYER FASTENED TO THE DASHBOARD WITH ELECTRICAL TAPE PLAYS A QUIET CUMBIA:  

The two men in the front seat are tanned and dressed in soiled shirts with wild flower prints. The driver has curly, dark hair and a handsome three-day beard.  He looks over his shoulder and speaks:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Mi nombre Mack...  Where?" 

Mack adds a raised eyebrow question mark. Stephen shrugs his shoulders as he shakes hands with both men. The second man slurs an introduction, laughing and bowing to the extent he is able from his seat. Stephen pulls out his map, folded to parts of France and Spain. He holds it over the front seat, draws a broad arc beyond the Pyrénées and speaks earnestly:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Mi nombre Stephen, from the USA; I go to España." 

The two men laugh and shake their heads in agreement. Stephen settles into his seat and stares. The second man looks back at Stephen and smiles. Stephen returns the smile with his eyebrows. The second man mumbles to the driver, who nods, understanding, and speaks:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "We go a Barcelona.  ?Vendrás?" 

Stephen shakes his head yes and smiles. He settles back in his seat serenely looking out the window.  

CONTINUOUS - CAR SNAKING ALONG A ROAD WINDING THROUGH BLEACHED AND BARREN MOUNTAINS. INTERCUT TO MAN IN PASSENGER SEAT DOZING.

CUT TO STEPHEN LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW. DISOLVE TO MOUNTAINS FLATTENING TO PLAINS AND BARREN PLAINS TURNING TO SUBURBS. 

DISSOLVE TO CAR PARKING BEHIND A HOUSE OVERLOOKING A CITY AND HARBOR BUILT UP FROM A GULF IN THE SEA:  

The men get out of the car and stretch. Mack leads Stephen into a simple house with a large central room. Mack shows Stephen a couch and gestures that this is where Stephen should leave his backpack. Mack then brings Stephen out onto the patio overlooking the harbor.  

FADE OUT - FADE IN TO MACK AND STEPHEN ON FOLDING CHAIRS BY A TABLE ON THE PATIO, SIPPING A DENSE RED GARNACHA WITH GOBS OF FRUIT FROM LARGE GOBLETS. FLOWERS SPILL OVER THE RAIL IN SHADES OF VIOLET. 

INTERCUT TO THE CITY AND DISSOLVE INTO THE GLARE OF THE SUN.  

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR - BRIGHT MORNING IN THE HOUSE:

Stephen reclines on his sleeping bag on the couch reading Anna Karenina. He wears only red gym shorts. Hair falls almost to his eyes.  From where he lies, he looks over his book to the sunrise over the sea, flooding the city with light.    

He finishes a chapter, rises slowly and goes to the WC. When he returns, running hands through his hair, he finds a woman dressed only in a towel making coffee. She is tiny and pretty with wild, black hair tied in a ribbon. She looks up and giggles. She points at him and then herself and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Stephano... y Mara. Please thank you."  

Nodding and smiling, Stephen returns to the living room to roll his sleeping bag. He has found a tee shirt by the time Mara brings two bowls of coffee to the table. She returns to the kitchen for bread and jam and they begin to eat, smiling at each other. 

Mack emerges from a back room in shorts and sandals. He nods a greeting at Stephen and looks longingly at the jam, then picks up a portable radio and carries it onto the patio. Mara laughs quietly, doubles the amount of jam she has lathered on her bread and eats with melodramatic relish.

FAST ROCK AND ROLL IN AN UNIDENTIFIABLE LANGUAGE WAFTS THROUGH THE DOORWAY.  

Stephen chuckles watching Mack limber up for calisthenics. When Stephen’s gaze returns to his plate, he catches Mara smiling at his amusement.

FADE OUT - FADE IN TO CAR INTERIOR:

Stephen catches a ride with Mack and Mara down the hillside into the center of the city. They pull over in the Gothic Quarter and Mack gets out with Stephen and hands him a city map with a pen line showing the bus route home.  

CONTINUOUS – THE CAR PULLS OFF INTO TRAFFIC. CUT TO CLOSE UP OF THE MAP AND ITS BUS ROUTS AND BIT OF SUBWAY LINE. CUT TO STEPHEN’S SMILE AS HE SPEAKS:

CUT TO CAPTION: "Gotta' scam mass transit to feel at home."

DISSOLVE TO LONG SHOT OF CITY, OLD AND SOMEWHAT RUNDOWN.   MONTAGE OF STEPHEN WATCHING MEN PLAY BOCCE IN THE PARK, SITTING ON A BENCH NEAR THE SEA SKETCHING, AN OLD WOMAN SELLING FLOWERS. STEPHEN SITTING ON THE SEAWALL READING HIS NOVEL, BUYING A PASTRY AND A BOTTLE OF WATER AND EATING WHILE HE WALKS, WANDERING INTO THE FLEA MARKET IN THE CALLAS DE URGEL IN LATE AFTERNOON SUNLIGHT WHERE MANY VENDORS' TABLES ARE EMPTY:

He looks at the rings offered for sale by a dark gypsy woman who seems to be dozing on her feet. His interest snaps the woman to life. She rushes around the table to show how a ring looks on his finger. She speaks quickly, then slows to ask a pointed question and pauses for the reply.  He nods to show he does not understand and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Two; a girl and me."

She squints, shrugs her shoulders, and then returns to speed hawking and pushing rings at him. He backs off, bows to her and walks away. He weaves through the crowd, and then pauses to buy a Moroccan shoulder bag, rough woven in tan and green.

FADE OUT - FADE IN:

The clock by Stephen's couch shows nine o'clock when Mack bursts into the room.  Mack whisks Stephen out to the car. They drive a maze of dark, tiny streets.  Twice Mack runs two wheels on the cobblestone sidewalk to pass parked cars. They finally pull up by a storefront with a steel security door open only a meter above the sidewalk.  

Mack jumps out and raps on the door. The door jerks upward with a metallic screech.

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR - SMALL SHOP STACKED HIGH WITH POTTERY, TOOLS AND OVENS:

The woman who opened the door says something to Mack and smiles at Stephen.  She is heavy, with curly black hair tied back and smudges of clay on her face. Mara turns from a large kiln to greet them. She speaks with the other woman, gesturing in the shape of a large vase. She removes a cream-colored apron to reveal blue jeans and a loose shirt of bright aqua. Mack pretends to squint at her shirt and pulls out his sunglasses. She squeals with laughter and loudly defends her attire while washing her hands. After she has thrown a silk scarf of matching aqua around her neck she squeezes by them, pausing to offer the scarf for Stephen's approval. His thumbs-up gesture makes her squeal again before she passes under the steel door.

CONTINUOUS – STREET IN FRONT OF THE SHOP:

Mara dances into the tiny street. The men join her and then Mack leads them all around the corner and down a few steps to a doorway.  

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR OF A BIG ROOM THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOME, BUT IS FILLED WITH SIX OR SEVEN LONG TABLES OF OLD, DARK WOOD, MOST OF WHICH ARE FILLED WITH LIVELY PEOPLE EATING WITH GUSTO:

Mack gets a kiss from an old woman in an apron and leads them to the empty table against the back wall. Mack holds a chair for Mara, waves Stephen to sit beside her and sits across from them.  

The woman in the apron quickly returns, trades jests with Mack, turns a knowing smile at Stephen and walks off. People fill the other seats at their table. The waitress returns shortly with a bowl of mussels and an oddly shaped wine bottle.

Mack pokes Stephen's arm and points to the second neck angling from the side of the wine bottle. With some fanfare, Mack spreads his elbows, lifts the bottle and quickly tilts it so a stream of wine crosses several inches of air into his mouth. After a long draft, Mack rights the bottle without losing a drop.  He projects a self-satisfied sigh and wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

Mack smiles broadly and hands the bottle to Stephen. Mara quietly moves her chair away from Stephen's. Their neighbors look over curiously. A large, bearded man asks Stephen something. Mara responds for him and the whole table now pays close attention.  Stephen pauses, notices that the whole table is watching him, tilts back the bottle and shoots a line of wine across his cheek and mouth and down his shirt.

The table roars as one. The laughter then flows into several conversations. Stephen dries his face and concentrates on eating mussels until the waitress brings a great bowl of seafood and rice for Mack, Mara and Stephen and a large plate of roasted chicken for the neighbors. Both plate and bowl are passed around the table, along with several more bottles of wine. With some fanfare, the waitress brings Stephen a wine glass, like the women at the table.

CONTINUOUS – EXTERIOR - STREET IN FRONT OF THE RESTAURANT:

Both dinner parties emerge together to the street. Mara and one of the women strut arm-in-arm singing bits of songs to each other until the rest join in a song and they all march down a side street. For blocks they walk and sing and laugh with passersby.  A few strangers join the parade. With much encouragement, Stephen tries to hum along as melodies rise above the cacophony.

FADE OUT - FADE IN; EXTERIOR – LATE MORNING:

Stephen walks in great zigzags from Mack's house down to the city. He appears well rested. His relatively light hair and camera mark him as a visitor in the quiet, residential neighborhoods.  

CONTINUOUS TO A LIVELY SPANISH GUITAR:

Once he reaches Ramblas in the center city, Stephen blends into the montage:  tourists window shop; locals stroll or sit on chairs in the square; buses and cars fill the streets.     

CONTINUOUS – ACORDIAN MUSIC WAFTS FROM AROUND A CORNER:

Stephen is walking down Moncada and stops at the door of the Picasso Museum, closed for siesta. Crossing into a square, he sits on one of the folding chairs scattered under the trees. He begins reading Anna Karenina, but is interrupted by a fat old man in suspenders and a straw hat, who mumbles something and holds out his hand.  Stephen stands and motions that he does not understand. The old man points to the chair, holds up two fingers then holds out his hand again.  Stephen shakes his head side-to-side and walks off.  The old man continues to wave his arm up and down. 

DISOLVE:

Siesta done, Stephen walks slowly through the small Picasso museum. The paintings are starkly realistic, almost photographic.  Before one wall, Stephen turns back and forth between portraits of a man and a woman, as if imagining their dialogue.

FADE OUT - FADE IN - INTERIOR OF CAR, THE CASSETTE PLAYER ON THE DASHBOARD PLAYS A LOUD, FAST PAGODE:

Mack's car stops at the end of a pedestrian way. Stephen steps out the back door in a crumpled, suede jacket and blue jeans. Mack and Mara are still sitting in the front seat laughing when Stephen opens Mara's door for her. She looks up at Stephen and beams, then steps out and curtseys. Mack turns off the car and puts the cassette player under the seat.

Mara is laughing. She pulls each man by the hand and into a trot. Mack and Stephen roll their eyes at each other and try to keep up. At the far end of the pedestrian way is a movie theater. They buy tickets under a marquee where Easy Rider appears in white letters but for two red "R's." They join a small line along the front of the theater where posters say the movie is subtitled in Spanish. Mack smiles to see Stephen’s relief that the soundtrack will be in English. The line moves slowly into the theater.

CONTINUOUS - BELLS OF AN ANCIENT CHURCH TOLL MIDNIGHT:

The patrons emerge from the theater laughing and talking. Amid the after-show crowd, Mara plays air guitar and sings a rendition of Born to Be Wild with unintelligible words, then leads Stephen and Mack toward a street festival. By the harbor the streets are full of people dancing and singing. A red flatbed truck carries a band in traditional Catalan dress; it rolls slowly along the harbor road. As the truck approaches, the music becomes louder and the red of the truck gradually fills the entire scene.

CONTINUOUS – A RED PICKUP TRUCK RATTLES THROUGH A BRIGHT MORNING: 

Over the edge of the truck bed, Stephen leans against his pack. He looks over the rail to the sea and a sign advertising the "best" of something on the Costa Brava.

In Tossa de Mar, Stephen knocks on the cab and the truck leaves him by the road.  The sun is bright and the countryside dry. He swings on his pack and walks along the seaside road to a beach.  He turns into the old part of the city, the “Via Vella,” consisting largely of medieval stone buildings. Towers punctuate the Via Vella with tourist signs translating to names like "Tower of the Hours" and "Tower of Homage." An elaborate villa stands on a cliff overlooking the sea.

Emerging from the Via Vella into a more modern part of the city, Stephen makes his way past shops selling food and trinkets to beach visitors. On the coarse sand he removes his shoes. Further on he finds a place to take off his shirt and sit. Three naked four-year-olds, a girl and two boys, hold hands by the edge of the gentle waves. Stephen watches them against the deep blue of the sea and a small round island off the coast. When they run squealing along the beach, Stephen smiles, lays back and closes his eyes.

FADE OUT – FADE IN A HALF-HOUR LATER:

Something blocks the sun from Stephen's face. He looks up at a young man partially shading his face with a thin hand. Stephen props himself on an elbow and gestures to ask what the man wants.  In the glare, it is hard to make out more than that the young man is almost emaciated and wears a smile almost too winning. The man says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Ay, mate. American, is it? Birmingham, m'self, on holiday. Say, could you do w' a bit a lunch?"

Stephen sits up and rubs his eyes. The man sits down with his shabby bedroll and continues talking. Stephen seems to listen both to the man and his own stomach and soon they rise and together walk toward the shops.

INTERCUT TO MONTAGE AS IF IN A KALEDOSCOPE – THE TWO MEN WANDER THROUGH TOWN LOOKING IN SHOP WINDOWS AT THE FOOD ON DISPLAY:

The two finally stop and buy from a whiskered, bald man a roasted chicken hanging in a shop window and a bottle of wine. They return to large stones by the beach and eat greedily, then they lounge on the beach while the Englishman plays pub songs on his harmonica. As the sun begins to fall, the Englishman falls asleep and Stephen reads Anna Karenina.

CONTINUOUS:

In the early evening they walk through town. They find a restaurant offering paella for five hundred pesetas and split a large pot and a bottle of wine.

CONTINUOUS:

After dark they walk north from town to a curve in the road overlooking a small beach. They contemplate the absence of any shoulder ahead, and then step off the road.  Stephen stops at the first foothold to tighten his pack straps and shoe laces. Then they scramble down a steep path through scrubby trees, ending at a tiny, secluded beach of pebbles and brown sand, tropical-looking water lapping at the shore.

The Englishman plays an old sailing song on his harmonica while Stephen sets up the tent. In turn, they relieve themselves in the bushes. Saying little, they retire into the tent.

FADE OUT – FADE IN - LONG SHOT OF THE GREEN TENT:

The tent looks badly misplaced in the morning light. A hand unzips the flap from within.  Stephen appears, leaning on an elbow, and his eyes suddenly spring wide open.  The tide ripples within his reach. Stephen and the Englishman step out and laugh to find themselves standing in the water. Their laughter turns to looks of disgust when they must step over trash floating at the water's edge.

Stephen later wades out to the tent door and pulls out his pack and sleeping bag and the Englishman's bedroll.  Then he removes the stakes and pulls the tent up the tiny beach from behind. The Englishman sits on a stump smoking a cigarette and watching Stephen roll and stow the tent. When Stephen has put on his pack, the Englishman rises and gestures with his hand along the shore toward Tossa de Mar. Stephen shakes his head "no" and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "You go back to Tossa. I'm headed north." 

As they scale the steep hillside to the road, the Englishman pouts and seems to talk to himself. Stephen only shakes his head. When they reach the narrow road skirting the coast, the Englishman makes a gesture of invitation, but sees Stephen's resolute expression and walks off with a salute.

Stephen leans his pack against a tree and watches the Englishman walk out of sight around the road tracing the large gorge to the south. From this height the cliffs seem to fall into pristine, deep-blue water. When a car starts toward him around the gorge, Stephen wipes his mouth on his arm and limbers up his thumb. In the minute it takes the car to reach him, Stephen's expression goes from wholesome and harmless to pained. As soon as the car passes, his eyes grow large and his hand goes to his mouth. He retreats behind the narrow strip of trees at the top of the hill and just makes it to his knees before retching violently.

When the convulsions subside, he wipes his forehead with a bandanna. Suddenly he looks up at the sound of a car at the far side of the gorge. He rises, steps from the trees and extends his thumb. As the car passes, his mouth shuts tight and his cheeks blow out.  He hurries behind the trees again and falls to his knees. 

Some time later another car passes and his forced smile becomes a laugh. To the disco tune Rock the Boat, he sings:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Sick as a dog (on the food of Tossa)
Sick as a dog  (On the Costa Brava...)"

The sound of a car catches his attention. He brushes back a wet strand of hair and looks at a shiny, white Mercedes rounding the road in the distance. He extends his thumb, trying not to look ill, and is stunned when the car stops and the back door is thrown open.  The driver and passenger are blond and tanned. Stephen lifts his pack into the seat before him and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Thank you... ah, danke sehr."

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR OF IMMACULATELY CLEAN SEDAN:

  The air conditioner blasts, as does Al Stewart over the car’s four big speakers:

"When you were just a kid

You loved to go to movies in the afternoon,

So you left the factory

And got a job in the projection room..."

DISSOLVE TO LONG SHOT OF A ROAD CRESTING A HILL BETWEEN BILLBOARDS ADVERTISING BULL FIGHTS AND HOTELS:

The roar of a powerful engine approaches over the crest of a hill. In a moment the white Mercedes tops the hill and drives into a beach parking lot in San Feliu' de Guixols.  The city is large for the Costa Brava, though the sparse crowd at the beach suggests it is past high season.

After they park, the driver nods toward the beach in invitation to Stephen. Stephen looks longingly toward the sea, but shakes his head, holding two fingers flat on his mouth and inflating his cheeks to sign that he does not feel well. They shrug and help him with his pack before getting towels from the trunk and locking the car. 

Stephen watches the Germans walk toward the water. He waves feebly when they turn, then carefully swings the pack to his shoulders and crosses the coast road into the city.  

CONTINUOUS:

Stephen lies on top of the covers of a narrow bed in a small pension room. The air is still. Behind him on the wall are two framed pictures of bullfights cut from magazines.  A thin, gauze curtain covers the single window. On the nightstand are a small lamp, a bottle of sparkling Vichy Catalan and a thick paperback Anna Karenina folded open near the end.

Stephen stares at the ceiling. His hair is matted, his breathing short and congested.  Suddenly his eyes open wide and his cheeks puff out.  He holds his mouth with one hand and feels his way with the other to the toilet behind a partition.

When he reappears, he removes all his clothes but his tee shirt. He takes a long drink of water and sits on the bed, propping up his head to read.  His face is flushed and beaded with sweat, but he looks relieved.

He slowly turns pages of his book and the afternoon light fades. When it is nearly dark outside, he turns on the light, then turns it off again and lies quietly, looking toward the faintly stirring curtain.  Quite soon, he jumps up again, knocking his book to the floor, and disappears behind the partition.

Some time later he returns again toward the bed. This time he stops where his pack leans against the wall and retrieves a pad and pen.  He switches on the light, turns to a new page and writes:

"On the problems of translating Russian literature:

 Dostoyevsky makes his hero sweating in bed come

 alive for sixty pages; reading sixty pages of Tolstoy 

while sweating in bed nearly kills our 'hero.'"

THROUGH A SERIES OF DISSOLVES, THE LAMP TURNS ON AND OFF AND STEPHEN MOVES BACK AND FORTH TO THE TOILET.  BY THE TIME THE SUN HAS RISEN, THE WATER AND THE BOOK ARE FINISHED AND STEPHEN SLEEPS QUIETLY:

Stephen awakens. He rises and removes his soaked shirt. His eyes have returned to life. He washes as well as he can in the tiny sink and dresses. Last thing before he leaves the room, he grabs Anna Karenina from the night table, then pauses. With a smile, he leaves the book on the table, lifts his pack and locks the door behind him.

CONTINUOUS:

A young couple pulls to the side of the road in a dirty, white Peugeot. Driving is a man with greasy, black hair and an American cigarette behind one ear. Beside him rides a woman whose hair is also black and drawn into a tight ponytail; she has thin lips that make her smile look insincere.

The woman pushes open the back door. The man reaches across to pull in Stephen's pack. When Stephen has settled and they have confirmed they share no language, the woman points on a Catalan road map to Figueres, thirty kilometers north of Gerona. She hands Stephen a brochure for Teatre-Museu Dalí. Stephen nods in agreement and looks more closely at the brochure. He can make little sense of the Spanish text, but one photograph shows a building that looks to be part theater and part museum and another that shows Salvador Dalí as if he currently lives there.

CONTINUOUS:

In Figueres they park across the street from the Dali museum. The small town is dusty and filled with terra-cotta colored houses. Stephen leaves his pack in the car and agrees with a slight bow to let the man pay his admission fee. 

Their tickets are taken and torn by an old man in a shabby dress military uniform with gold braid and a naval officer’s hat worn "amidships." He smiles through spiky white whiskers, then cackles to himself as they pass.

AN ACCORDION BEGINS A BOUNCY TUNE SPICED WITH COMICAL NOTES OF DISSONANCE.  SERIES OF DISSOLVES IN MUSEUM INTERIOR:  

At a right angle to the entrance hallway a rope dangles just within reach.  Stephen's eyes follow the rope up six or seven meters to where it is tied to the leg of a table, off of which a pitcher seems about to topple. He jumps back, then laughs, and then watches as both the man and woman repeat his routine... 

Stephen and the woman exchange smiles before Dalí's personal rock collection...

The man turns the woman to face a lobster sculpted to bask on a telephone receiver...

Stephen passes through an extra-terrestrial landscape to a painting of a huge dog collar that doubles as a viaduct...

The man leads the others up a staircase, where they find themselves standing under a camel...

The woman waves the others to look through a keyhole at a giant nose on the floor...

Stephen laughs out loud at a living room designed as the face of Mae West, a red padded sofa for her mouth...

They all grin looking up at a baroque ceiling painting in a perspective that shows only the soles of the subjects' feet,

CLOSE-UP OF FEET DISSOLVES INTO A ROADSIDE OF SCRUB GROWTH BURNT BY THE SUN:

On a stretch of quiet highway out of sight of Figueres, Stephen walks beneath his pack. Traffic is sparse. The sunlight is the golden color of late afternoon. He watches his shadow, his face revealing weariness and frustration. He treads heavily with one hand hooked in a pack strap and the other holding a cardboard sign reading "France."

At the end of a long climb, a large vehicle chugs and sputters behind him. He keeps walking but turns his head to see a school bus covered with psychedelic paintings of clouds and angels.  

The bus pulls over just ahead.  Stephen breaks into the loping trot that is his top speed carrying sixty pounds and climbs directly into the open door. The driver is a heavy woman in overalls who nods with a smile toward the back and wrenches the bus into gear.

The rear third of the bus is piled high with luggage and camping gear. Up front, nine or ten young people sing a Spanish song.  Stephen lays his pack in an empty seat and looks around. A boy with yellow teeth and a hypnotized look accompanies the singing with simple guitar chords. A girl with long braids and the same dazed look keeps time with maracas.  

  The singing continues until the bus approaches a large roadside restaurant, where the driver yells something over her shoulder. A man with a thick mustache and wire-rimmed glasses cranes his head to look out the window.  Through the side of his mouth he barks directions. As the bus pulls into the parking lot, the mustached man puts his hand on Stephen's shoulder and speaks quickly in Spanish. Stephen shrugs his shoulders to show he does not understand. The man tries French, then Italian, and then raises his eyebrows and calls to a heavy girl in a flannel shirt.

All the passengers gather musical instruments and start out the door. The heavy girl pulls Stephen by the hand and says over her shoulder.

CUT TO CAPTION:  "You know the busking? We play and the peoples they give the pesetas, si?  You, here, hold these bucket.

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR OF LARGE ROADSIDE RESTAURANT WITH FEW DINERS:

When several of the buskers have infiltrated the restaurant, they all clap in rhythm to start a lively song. Stephen disengages from the heavy girl and hovers by the door, blushing but still holding the bucket. The buskers' hoots and hand clapping fill the two large rooms. Some fifty people eating or working remain motionless, looking apprehensive.  By the time the buskers weave to the back and return to the center, a short fat man in a jacket and vest has led a charge of waiters to herd them toward the door.  Stephen watches until a waiter waves angrily in his direction, then backs out the door. The buskers file out, some laughing and some still singing, and all re-board the bus.

DISOLVE:

Stephen watches the painted bus disappear down the road to Marseille, then turns to follow a sign for the road to Carcassonne.  

CONTINUOUS:

A short ride has left him within sight of Lé Cité, a walled city on a hill. His long gaze at the medieval stone battlements suggests he considers stopping the night. But his thumb still twitches at his side, as he gazes at the city, and a brown Peugeot stops. He snaps to attention and moves quickly toward the car.

CONTINUOUS:

He gets into the back of the Peugeot with a smile and a nod. The driver simply returns the smile and speaks in French to the passenger in the front seat. The passenger turns a smile of gleaming, white teeth on Stephen, nods toward the driver and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "I am called Charles.  He wishes to know where you will go..."

Stephen returns the smile and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "I am Stephen. I go to work in the vendanges near Libourne in two days."

Charles speaks briefly with the driver, then turns again to Stephen and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "But where will you plan to sleep tonight?"

Stephen shrugs his shoulders. Charles speaks with the driver, then turns and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "I too hitchhike.  I hope to come together with you tonight.  But in the place of this, you will come with me to the house of my friend near Bordeaux."

Stephen nods agreement. When Charles has turned to conclude arrangements with the driver, Stephen's mouth curls in a cocky smile.

CONTINUOUS – NIGHT HAS FALLEN:

Charles and Stephen share the back seat of a large sedan. In front is a middle-aged couple with whom Charles converses in French. At Charles' instruction, the car slows and pulls off the road onto a narrow side road.  Viewed from above, the moonlight reflecting from the car roof traces a winding path through dark vineyards. 

The car pulls into the yard of a cottage surrounded by fields. At the sound of closing car doors, the door of the cottage opens and a young man is silhouetted in the intermittent blue light from a television screen. The car drives off, and another man steps forward to join the young man by the door. When the travelers approach, the two young men squint and recognize Charles.  Charles drops his bag and hugs each, then waves his arm toward Stephen and seems to explain his appearance. Stephen joins them and Charles says:

CUT TO CAPTION: "This is Marcel and he welcomes you to his house, and this is Arnault."

Marcel is tall and thin with brown hair reaching down his back. He shakes Stephen's hand and gestures silently toward the house in welcome. Arnault also shakes Stephen's hand and prattles enthusiastically to Charles in French.

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR OF COTTAGE BUILT OF WHITEWASHED STONE:

Only the television and a small flame in the fireplace light a front sitting room.  Two girls and another young man nod in greeting to Charles and Stephen and respond to Marcel's question apparently about what has happened in the movie while he was gone.

Stephen and Charles leave their bags by the door. Arnault offers Stephen an overstuffed chair. One of the girls explains something to Charles. Stephen sits and sees they are watching Felini's Satyricon in its original Italian with French subtitles. The movie scene is of a Roman orgy in a palace teaming with soldiers drinking and cavorting with wenches, cheered on by a dwarf and a hunchbacked gypsy. Stephen watches and laughs with his companions at the chaos on the screen.

While the movie continues, Marcel leaves the room.  Shortly he returns wearing a long, woman's nightgown and hands around a ceramic bowl full of peanuts.  Stephen appears to strain to stifle a smile at his host's attire.  He looks cautiously around the room, particularly at Charles, but sees no surprise on anyone’s face.  In the flashes of blue light, Stephen's eyes turn thoughtfully to his various hosts, showing controlled concern.

FADE OUT – FADE IN:

The morning sun enters through a crack in a closed wooden shutter. Stephen lies against a wall on a narrow bed. He raises himself on an elbow, a Michigan tee shirt shows above the sheet. He brushes the hair back from his eyes and looks at Charles sleeping across the room.  

Quietly he climbs to the bottom of the bed and the floor. He pulls his pants over his underwear and looks out through the shutter at rolling hillsides covered with vines. He picks up his frayed sneakers from the floor and carries them into the hall.

In the kitchen Marcel looks up from a newspaper and waves Stephen to a chair.  One of the girls has just made a pot of coffee and pours some into a bowl and places this before Stephen with a small bottle of milk and sugar bowl. Stephen thanks them both in French, puts on his shoes and begins to sip coffee with two hands.

After Charles has risen, Stephen returns to the bedroom for a towel and toothbrush.  A few minutes later, and somewhat more presentable, he takes his Frisbee into the yard in front of the cottage, where Charles and Arnault sit with one of the girls. The yard is almost twenty meters square and covered by low, scrubby grass. Charles comments on the Frisbee and they all get up and spread around the yard.  

Charles is able to throw and catch fairly well. Arnault also can catch and learns quickly from Stephen's instructions on throwing. The girl cannot manage a straight throw and so sits to watch. When the other girl joins her they applaud each time someone catches the disk.

When Marcel calls, they stop playing and Charles says to Stephen:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "We go the Bordeaux. Arnault must answer a summons to the magistrate's court."

CONTINUOUS:

Marcel parks across from a sandstone courthouse. The girls wander off arm-in-arm and the nameless boy walks in another direction. Marcel and Charles try to make Arnault presentable, helping him tuck in his shirt and smoothing his hair.

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR OF NEARLY SQUARE COURTROOM, HEAVY WOODEN BENCHES TAKING UP HALF THE ROOM

Arnault and his friends sit in one of ten rows of benches. A sunny courtyard lies beyond large windows lining one wall. The ceiling molding is intricately carved wood painted red and black. As a clerk sitting below the judge's high bench calls each case a new defendant rises to a lectern facing the lawyer at the other lectern. The clerk then reads again and the judge directs an exchange between the lawyer and the defendant. None of the accused have lawyers.

The arguments are lengthy and passionate. Listening to the music of the language, Stephen closes his eyes.  He soon starts, though, catching himself before falling asleep. He sits straight and, for a moment, opens wide his eyes that otherwise display amused ease.  As the cases proceed, Marcel confides with Arnault and Stephen sketches in a pad. His rough sketch of the jurists is barely representative enough to position their general shapes. Somewhat more accurate are the architectural elements of his sketch. Charles leans toward Stephen's pad and his expression says he approves. By pointing, Charles suggests he particularly likes the caption:  "Deaf Justice."

CONTINUOUS:

The companions emerge into the afternoon glare, squinting and congratulating each other. Arnault, particularly, looks relieved. They put some things in the car and walk up a narrow street.  Charles turns to Stephen and says:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "We will eat at a friend's flat."

Passing through a crowded marketplace, they must walk single file. Stephen falls behind, watching people exchange money for squawking chickens and pigs' feet. In wooden stalls, flayed rabbits hang with fur and claws intact. They pass into the shadow of a cathedral and Stephen looks through the open doors at the cool darkness.  As if on cue, an organ fantasia crashes out of the doorway against the din of the market. Stephen scratches his head and says to himself:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Art holding the filth at bay." 

CONTINUOUS – INTERIOR OF A STATION WAGON:

As twilight fades, the companions are packed tightly into the car. Marcel drives over partially lighted roads back to the vineyards. Everyone but Stephen smokes cigarettes.  At earsplitting volume, the stereo wails Lou Reed:

I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna' try for the kingdom, if I can

FADE OUT – FADE IN – INTERIOR OF THE COTTAGE

Stephen's pack leans by the screen door of the cottage that lets in the sunlight.  In the living room kept dark by curtains stand many empty bottles and glasses. At the kitchen table Stephen sits with Marcel and Charles, drinking coffee from ceramic bowls. The girl with the tousled brown hair watches them and smokes a cigarette. Marcel drains his bowl, wipes his mouth on his sleeve and continues drawing a rough map showing the cottage, Libourne and Saint-Loubes.

When Marcel hands Stephen the map, he speaks to Charles, who stands by the girl lighting his cigarette from hers.  Charles says to Stephen:

CUT TO CAPTION:  "Marcel will drive you on his scooter to the Libourne road."

FADE OUT – FADE IN – EXTERIOR OF COTTAGE:

Everyone has gathered to say good-bye. They stand about until Marcel makes his appearance from the house wearing a leather pilot’s helmet and a white silk scarf. He throws the scarf around his neck theatrically and mounts a little, red scooter.  He starts the tiny engine with a key and kicks the scooter off its stand.

Stephen swings his pack onto his shoulders, and then Charles and Arnault help him step over the seat behind Marcel. The two riders and Stephen's pack dwarf the scooter beneath them.  Marcel rocks slightly from side-to-side the test their balance and Charles must grab Stephen's arm to hold them upright.  

A TUBA AND AN ACCORDAIN BEGIN A SLOW BUT JAUNTY TUNE, AS IF ON AN OLD RECORD:

Marcel holds up a thumb, looking very much the World War One fighter pilot, and Charles pushes. When the scooter reaches the road and turns without toppling, the others cheer and wave and laugh. The scooter backfires before gaining the speed of a slow run.  Almost out of sight of the cottage, Marcel and Stephen reach a slight incline. Marcel weaves back and forth to enable the scooter to climb. Over the top of the hill, the scooter backfires again, and then begins to pick up speed. When they circle to their last view of the cottage, Marcel taps his horn.  Only Charles now stands outside waving.

DISSOLVE TO STATIC, IMPRESSIONIST VIEW OF COUNTRYSIDE – ROLL CREDITS.

Chapter XIII - Mise-en-Cadre (Cut Scene)

It was dark. Charles and I shared the back seat of a large sedan. In front was a middle-aged couple with whom he conversed in French. At Charles' instruction, the car slowed and pulled onto a narrow side road. Moonlight reflected from the road that wound through dark rolling hills. 

We pulled into the yard of a cottage surrounded by fields. At the sound of closing car doors, the front door of the cottage opened and a young man appeared, silhouetted in the intermittent blue light of a television. The car drove off, and a second man came out the door. As we approached, the men squinted and then recognized Charles, who dropped his bag and hugged them both, then waved his arm toward me and explained my appearance. I joined them and Charles said: "This is Henri and he welcomes you to his house, and this is Arnault."

Henri was tall and thin with brown hair down his back. He shook my hand and gestured toward the house in welcome. Arnault also shook my hand and also clearly spoke no English, but he prattled on to Charles.

The cottage was built of whitewashed stone. Only the television and a small flame in the fireplace lit a front sitting room. Two girls and another young man nodded greetings to Charles and me and responded to Henri's question, apparently about what had happened in the movie while he was gone.

Charles and I left our bags by the door. One of the girls explained something to Charles. Arnault gestured to an overstuffed chair and I sat. The movie was Fellini’s Satyricon, in Italian with French subtitles. The scene was a Roman orgy in a palace teaming with soldiers drinking and cavorting with wenches, cheered on by a dwarf and a hunchbacked gypsy: typical Fellini. I watched the chaos on the screen and laughed with my companions. I’d seen the film in Ann Arbor, dubbed into English, although the dialog seemed superfluous then and now.

While the movie continued, Henri left the room and returned wearing a long, woman's nightgown and handed around a ceramic bowl of peanuts. I stifled any smiles at my host's attire, but looked cautiously around the room, particularly at Charles. There was no surprise on anyone’s face. This concerned me, but I sat quietly, watching the film and eating peanuts.

*  *  *

The morning sun entered through a crack in a closed wooden shutter. I laid against a wall in a double bed. Raising myself on an elbow in my Michigan tee shirt, I brushed the hair back from my eyes and looked at Charles sleeping beside me. I hardly remembered falling asleep, I’d been so tired. 

Quietly I climbed to the bottom of the bed and onto the floor and pulled on my clothes. Through the shutter I saw hills covered with vines. I retrieved my frayed sneakers from the floor and carried them into the hall.

In the kitchen, Henri looked up from a newspaper and waved me to a chair. One of the girls had just made a pot of coffee and poured some into a bowl and placed it before me with a small bottle of milk and sugar bowl. I thanked them both in French and sipped the coffee with two hands.

After Charles got up, I returned to the bedroom for a towel and toothbrush. A few minutes later, and somewhat more presentable, I took my Frisbee into the yard in front of the cottage, where Charles and Arnault sat with one of the girls. The space was almost twenty meters square, covered by low, scrubby grass, and bordered by vines in all directions. Charles commented on the Frisbee and they all got up and spread around the yard.  

Charles was able to throw and catch fairly well. Arnault also could catch and learned quickly from my throwing instructions. The girl couldn’t manage a straight throw and so sat to watch.  When the other girl joined her they applauded each catch. A Django Reinhardt guitar beat picked up, joined by a playful accordion melody, as the shot backed out to take in hills covered with vines.

When Henri called, we stopped playing and Charles told me: "We go the Bordeaux.  Arnault must answer a summons to the magistrate's court."

*  *  *

Henri parked across from a sandstone courthouse in Bordeaux. The girls wandered off arm-in-arm, as French girls do. The nameless boy walked in another direction. Henri and Charles tried to make Arnault presentable, smoothing down his cowlick and helping him tuck in his shirt.

The courtroom was nearly square, benches taking up almost half the room. We sat on one of the heavy wooden benches. A sunny courtyard lay beyond large windows lining one wall. Carved molding painted red and black outlined the ceiling. The clerk sitting below the judge's high bench called each case, and a new defendant rose to a lectern to face the prosecutor lectern to lectern. The judge directed an exchange between the lawyer and the defendant. None of the accused seemed to have lawyers.

The arguments were lengthy and impassioned. Listening to the music of the language, without getting much of the sense, I closed my eyes and caught myself nodding off. I didn’t want to prejudice the judge against Arnault, though, so I sat up straight and opened my eyes wide. As one case succeeded another, Henri conferred with Arnault and I sketched a storyboard of the jurists. The people were blurry but the room was fairly realistic. (I did better with straight lines.) Charles leaned toward my pad and approved. By pointing, he suggested he particularly liked my caption: "Deaf Justice."

*  *  *

We emerged squinting into the afternoon glare. Arnault had gotten off with a stern warning so we shook hands all around. Arnault smiled for the first time all day, while I still hadn’t figured out the charge against him. We put some things in the car and walked up a narrow street. Charles turned to me and said: "We will eat at a friend's flat."

Passing through a marketplace, we had to walk single file because of the crowds. I fell behind, watching people exchange money for squawking chickens and pigs' feet. In wooden stalls, flayed rabbits hung with fur and claws intact. We passed into the shadow of a cathedral and I looked through the open doors to the cool darkness inside. As if on cue, an organ fantasia crashed from within upon the din of the market. I marveled at how the sacred music held the filth at bay. 

We visited the flat of Philippe, where we all prepared a meal of pasta and vegetables. I chopped garlic.

As twilight faded, we packed into the station wagon. Henri drove over partially lighted roads back to the vineyards. Everyone but I smoked marijuana rolled with tobacco into a large cigarette. At ear-splitting volume, Lou Reed wailed: “I don't know just where I'm going, but I'm gonna' try for the kingdom, if I can.” I stuck my head out the window for relief from the tobacco smoke. 

*  *  *

My pack leaned next to the screen door of the cottage, which let in the full morning sunlight. In the living room kept dark by curtains stood empty bottles and glasses. The patterned wallpaper covered the ceiling as well as the walls. A china cabinet filled with glasses and pewter pots almost reached the ceiling. At the kitchen table I sat with Henri and Charles, drinking coffee from ceramic bowls. The girl with tousled brown hair watched us and smoked a cigarette. Henri drained his bowl, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and continued drawing a rough map showing the cottage, Libourne and Saint-Loubes.

Henri handed me the map and spoke to Charles, who stood by the girl lighting his cigarette from hers. Charles said to me: "Henri will drive you on his scooter to the Libourne road."

Soon, in front of the cottage, everyone gathered to say farewell. We stood about until Henri made his appearance wearing a leather pilot’s helmet and white silk scarf. He threw the scarf around his neck theatrically and mounted a little, red scooter, started the tiny engine, and kicked the scooter off its stand.

I swung my pack onto my shoulders, and Charles and Arnault helped me step over the seat behind Henri. We two and my pack dwarfed the scooter beneath us. Henri rocked slightly from side-to-side the test our balance and Charles grabbed my arm to hold us upright.  

Henri gave the thumbs up, looking very much the World War One fighter pilot. A tuba and an accordion began a slow, jaunty tune. Charles pushed until the scooter picked up speed. When we reached the road and turned without toppling, our friends cheered. 

The scooter backfired before gaining the speed of a slow run. Almost out of sight of the cottage, Henri weaved back and forth to climb a slight incline. Over the top of the hill, the scooter backfired again, and began to pick up speed. When we circled to our last view of the cottage amid the vines, Henri tapped his horn. Only Charles stood outside waving.

Chapter  XXI – Times Removed (Cut Scene)

In the next three days I explored County Galway, first Galway City, where I changed fifty dollars worth of travelers checks as my cash was running low, then the Connemara to the west. The weather was too blustery to camp, so I had to pay for a bed and breakfast. My room was cold but at least dry and comforting with the smell of burning turf. 

Connemara was full of breathtaking mountains and loughs, coastline and bogs. Dreadlocked sheep dotted the mountainsides, stood on stone walls and warmed themselves on the road. The larger ones looked to weigh as much as I did and their long curled horns made me glad they were shy of me. I hitchhiked to the grounds of Kylemore Abbey, to see if this would shed any light on my family name. 

The abbey housed Benedictine nuns and occupied the grounds and walled gardens of the white granite Kylemore Castle, nestled on the shore of Pollacapall Lough. I didn’t pay for the guided tour but wandered the grounds. In the gift shop I couldn’t find anyone impressed with my surname or with any idea where the castle name had originated. So much for etymology, I thought, and bought a postcard to send my father.

Chapter XXII – Tale of Two Cities (Cut Scene)

One day Aunt Mary said a cousin Patrick had a boat in the harbor and had invited Brendan and me for a sail on Saturday. Brendan was no seaman, he said pronouncedly, but he was game. I was eager. I’d sailed in a few boats, always as a passenger, and found it exhilarating. 

Patrick came from Dún Laoghaire on Friday night to meet Brendan and me at the World Cup. He was ruddy and strong and looked like he could handle a boat, or anything else. "The forecast's for rain and a wee blow," he said, eyeing me closely.

Brendan turned to me as well. This felt like a test. I looked at Brendan, and then Patrick, and said: "What time do we go?"

Patrick met Brendan's eye and they both smiled, sadly I thought. They were pleased their American cousin didn’t back out, but resigned to sailing in foul weather.

The next day we rose early. Aunt Mary filled us with oatmeal and tea. She gave me a kelly-green wool hat she had knitted, which looked mostly like a tea cozy, and a set of her husband’s rain slickers and overalls.

We drove to the pier through steady rain. The thirty-foot sloop looked to be sound, bobbing in choppy water. Patrick shook my hand, I think to give me one more chance to spare us all, then stepped onto the boat. Two of his friends were already aboard preparing to launch. I got quick introductions to the crew and the cabin before we dipped to starboard and shot off on the wind.

I dove for the mast and held tight until I mastered the rise and fall. “Mastered” was an overstatement, though. My best chance of keeping my breakfast down was to get out into the air. I pulled down my cozy and climbed with both hands through the hatch.

We had tacked to port. To starboard, white water splashed over the forward deck. Beyond the jagged waves were dim outlines of wharves and low buildings. I stayed securely wedged into the cabin, only my shoulders and head in the salt spray.

In a half-hour, I was relieved to hear that the “dirty” weather would force us to turn for home. I didn’t know then that the return would take two hours of hard sailing. I did understand clearly, though, that my contribution was to be not fall overboard or throw up below. I alternated between the cabin and halfway through the hatch, which was better than Brendan could manage; he stayed below, a shade of green I hadn’t yet seen in Ireland. 

The end result was that I proved my manhood (by clinging to the mast while others sailed the boat). I also showed the flag, as an American, and was surprised how good and natural that felt. I ached to get past the war, and back to being proud of my country.

The cousins also succeeded in their significant effort to ride the weather and not go down with the boat and the American cousin, and in proving their hospitality had no bounds. 

Chapter XXIII- Walthamstow Central  (Alternate Ending)

You never:  did the Kenosha kid?

The Pynchon line repeats in my head. Maybe it’s Joyce that recalls Pynchon to me, or maybe I identify with the hero of Gravity’s Rainbow: an American in London haunted by patterns. Slocum’s patterns were V-2 parabolas; mine seem to be circles, everything returning to its starting point.

* * *

Stars and planets.  Loops from London to London to London and London.  Odd place to center: cold, rainy London. Then again it is quite familiar. Dickens’ tenements crowded with personalities; Hardy’s brooding soot in the air and upper crust in the boxes; Shakespeare’s swirl of characters with super-human elocution; Monty Python’s silliness; Malcolm McDowell’s wasteland.

Across the room, Diamond’s profile is etched against the faded curtains.  She is paying close attention to Leo, who is speaking with passion and gesturing with his hands.  At the other side of the room Jane enters and sits on the arm of Mick’s chair playing with his curls.  Mick continues to amuse the crowd and ignore Jane, which seems to arouse her all the more.  I walk over and comment on the “domesticism” of the scene.  Mick smiles in recognition of my joke and Jane half chuckles, showing she has no idea she is the butt, and making Mick and I burst into laughter.

Jane begins to sense an insult and looks to me as the cause.  I opt for the diplomatic response and drift away, toward the window.  Leo and Diamond welcome me with contented smiles.  Diamond mentions New York, which reminds me that I have missed the end of the baseball season.

Kylemore Kid (to Leo):  Hey, how did the Yankees end up?

Leo:  Oh man, you don’t know?  It was the most amazing thing.  The Yanks were down fourteen games to Boston in mid-August and then surged to tie for the pennant.  Then they took a one-game playoff at Fenway…

Kylemore Kid:  Fantastic!  And then?

Leo:  Spotted the Dodgers two in the World Series, then beat ‘em in six.

Kylemore Kid (grinning maniacally):  Unbelievable!  World champs two years in a row!

Bruce makes a cynical remark about the American concept of a “world” series. I disregard him and slap hands with Leo. This is great news and I’m sorry to have missed the excitement. I wonder if I still have my ball cap.

When the sitting room groups shift again, I find my way, almost unconsciously, to the public phone by the kitchen. There is no one about to see me lay out my coins in and then straighten them into stacks. I stare at the phone and gulp a great breath before lifting the receiver.  After navigating through various operators, I listen with eyes closed tightly.  

Operator (with an accent almost too British): I have a collect overseas call from London from Stephen.

Mr. Kylemore:  I, uh, what’s that?  Stephen?  Yes, yes, of course we’ll accept the charges.  Stephen?  Stephen?

Kylemore Kid:  Dad, hi!  It’s me.  I’m in England.

Mr. Kylemore (loudly):  Wait, I’ll get your mother.  Lucille!

Kylemore Kid:  Okay, so Dad, listen:  I’m coming home! 

Mr. Kylemore (loudly):  Well that’s good news.  Here’s you mother.  Don’t talk long, now; it's expensive.

Kylemore Kid (with exasperation):  Dad!

Mrs. Kylemore:  Stephen, is it you?!

Kylemore Kid:  Yes, Mom, I’m in England.  I’ll be home in a couple of days.

Mrs. Kylemore:  We’ve missed you, my own baby boy.  But tell me: have you had your fill?

Kylemore Kid:  I think so, Mom, or at least I’ve had an education. 

Mrs. Kylemore:  And here I thought we sent you to Ann Arbor for that.

Mr. Kylemore (loudly from the background):  Lucille, you’re running up the charge!

Mrs. Kylemore:  Well no mind, your father’s right; stop spending your money...

Kylemore Kid:  It’s your nickel.

Mrs. Kylemore:  All the same.  So we’ll wait for your call and send Michael to the airport.  He’s got a new girlfriend; he’ll probably bring her along to show her off.

Kylemore Kid:  It will be strange to arrive in a city where someone is waiting for me.  I love you, Mom.  See you soon.

Mrs. Kylemore:  Take care of yourself and have a safe trip home.  We love you too.

I hang up and wipe my hand hard over my face.  I can’t believe my father hears from me for the first time in six months and is worried about the cost of the call. More importantly, though, the die is now cast. Snow on the Dart Moor. Loops and orbits… the Kylemore Kid.