 
The Buddhist Coffee House

A Novel by Luther Hughes

©2010 by Luther Hughes.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy Conventions. Published in the United States by Waccamaw Press

Horry County, South Carolina

IBSN 0-9785857-0-5

IBSN for the eBook edition: 9780978585730

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Please e-mail me what you think of this book: waccamawpress@gmail.com

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To Deanne

(Thank you for putting up with me for two years.)

"All of this happened more or less."

– Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five, 1969)

Part I: Do Buddhists go to heaven?

"Coffee?" asked the flight attendant with a uncomfortably tight smile on her face and "Fran" on her blue plastic name tag. Although, all humans are beautiful in their individual ways, a casual eyewitness might have described Francis as somewhat attractive using our media's definition of attractiveness. A less than casual eyewitness might have described her as tired. She was tired, but not in the temporary state of tiredness that comes from not getting enough sleep. She possessed the more permanent state of tiredness that comes from doing something that one hates to do for far too long. Fran's blonde hair was somewhat frizzed and slightly disheveled, but pinned up in one of those "flight attendant buns" that the older flight attendants seem to always wear.

Our little story begins 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean on June 19, 2007. All of this happened more or less.

"Coffee?" This time her one word question had more emphasis on the "ee" part of the word. William, the passenger and object of her contempt, was daydreaming and did not hear her one-word question the first time. Fran's stiff smile became tighter. After the smile tightened, her eyes bugged out a little as if the tightness of her smile might cause permanent damage to Fran's tired face.

The airplane shook a little from some slight turbulence. Fran had been on hundreds of fights and appeared to not even notice.

William awoke from his daydream and answered the second one-word-question with a one-word-answer: "Sure."

Pause.

A few seconds passed with no coffee being poured.

"Oh. Where are my manners? May I please have some coffee?"

A few more seconds passed with no coffee being poured.

Fran looked at him and her smile became tauter and somehow did not rip a slash into her face. "You have to place the coffee cup on my tray so I can pour it," Fran said, carefully pronouncing each word. Moron, Fran probably thought.

William stood six feet and four inches when he stood up straight. Thus, the space between the seats was not big enough to accommodate his legs. In fact, his legs were tangled worse than the thin cords attached to the tiny earphones that he and other passengers used to listen to the ten channels of music and two channels of audio from the in-flight movie, Hairspray. Resting at an angle atop his tangled legs was the plastic seatback table. On the plastic seatback table was a small plastic tray where the chicken and rice formally rested in another small plastic tray. Now, however, atop the tray were only sticky, slimy and empty plastic wrappers. Somewhere below this both sticky and slimy mountain of empty plastic wrappers and plastic trays was a tiny blue plastic coffee cup that William had to place on a little blue plastic tray held by Fran in order to receive a cup of coffee.

He followed her directions, and Fran poured hot coffee from a blue plastic pitcher lined with a stainless steal interior.

"May I please have cream and sugar?" he asked.

His question hit Fran like a slap on her drowsy face. Her smile tightened to the point of popping, and she responded, "You already have both sir."

Besides the blue plastic pitcher lined with a stainless steal interior, Fran was also pushing a large heavy cart. What was in it? Why did it not contain cream and sugar? Where was William's cream and sugar?

Sure enough, one of the plastic wrappers, under his slimy pile of empty plastic wrappers, was not empty. Far from empty, in fact. He opened the clear plastic with his teeth. Inside he found smaller plastic wrappers containing not only the aforementioned cream and sugar (both in powder form) but also salt, pepper, a little straw for stirring and a Wet Nap.

A few steps behind Fran a younger flight attendant carried an identical blue plastic pitcher also lined with a stainless steal interior. The name engraved on her blue plastic name tag was "Carrie". "Tea?" she asked to the passenger seated behind William.

William took a sip from his coffee. Fran asked the woman seated in the next row, "Coffee?"

***

In the Jewish tradition both a schlemiel and a schlimazel is an unlucky person. The difference between the two is the following: A schlemiel is an unlucky person who brings the bad luck to himself; a schlimazel is an unlucky person whose bad luck comes without invitation. Thirty-seven year old William Charles Presley was neither Jewish nor a Yiddish speaker. Thus, he did not know the difference between the two, but, had he known, he would have understood that he was, in fact, a schlemiel. On the other hand, the vast majority of his luck- if luck truly exists- was neither good nor bad.

He rested his weary head against the padded headrest and thought how happy he was to be flying over the Atlantic Ocean with his two children: Savanna and Zoë, who sat next to him. Zoë sat beside the window, because Savanna had the window seat for the first four hours of the flight. In order to avoid arguing over the prized window seat, William had given his daughters the choice of either having the seat during the first half or the second half of the flight.

He was also happy that he had to only remember two dates: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 and Friday July 20, 2007. Those were the dates of his flights in and out of London's Heathrow Airport. Between those dates he did not have to keep track of time.

Thus, on Tuesday, June 19, 2007, William and his two children boarded an all-night flight bound for London. For the next 30 days, they saw stuff and did stuff that had little impact on the world as a whole, but made for a funny story. For this reason, he wrote a 157 page book called The Buddhist Coffee House. (The original version was 157 pages.)

It was no small coincidence that about 157 years earlier (probably on June 20) an eleven-year-old boy named Søren Kierkegaard fell out of a tree in Denmark. About thirty years later, he died from injuries sustained in that fall. However, during those thirty years he wrote 30 books, and is now known as the father of existentialism.

Existentialism is just a fancy word that means that things just happen because they happen for no reason. This is a simple philosophy, but with deep and complicated implications toward how one lives one's life. The book you are currently reading is about an American daddy taking his two daughters to the United Kingdom for a month. That daddy (as fathers are called in the southern United States) unplugged his headphones from his armrest and plugged them into his mp3 player where he had loaded many songs with lyrics that appeared to have random to no meaning, but may have had deep meanings.

As I have previously stated, William was happy to be on that airplane 30,000 feet above the Earth and several thousand miles from home. Two days prior to boarding this plane, his slightly untidy world unraveled a little more. As he rested, he returned to his daydream about these events. His daydream concerned the events from just two days prior to take off. His daydream concerned a girl named Matilda. The daydream he had begun daydreaming was about a terribly embarrassing event that started with the following question: "Do you think Buddhists go to heaven?" and ended with William being naked and alone in his future ex-wife's swimming pool. Later in this story, William will have another flashback and the readers of this silly little book can read what happened with Matilda and William on that fateful day back in South Carolina.

30,000 Feet above the Atlantic Ocean

"Daddy! Daddy! I have to pee!" William woke up from his flashback. Zoë was nearly buried under a pile of plastic wrappers, plastic cups, crayons, coloring books, and stickers. The aforementioned tray table and plastics had William nearly buried as well. "Daddy! I have to pee really bad," exclaimed little Zoë.

"More coffee?" asked the flight attendant to the man sitting in the chair in front of them. Her cart had the isle blocked from the front. "More tea?" asked the flight attendant to the man sitting behind them. Her cart had the isle blocked from the rear. Little Zoë could not have had to urinate at a worse time. However, this was no problem. In short order, both Zoë and Savanna would be skillfully excavated from beneath their debris, whisked around the obtrusive cart and taken to and fro the lavatory. The day-to-day parenting was no problem for William. Sure, he made mistakes, but he felt confident about his abilities as a parent. On the other hand, he lacked confidence with women including his future ex-wife and the other women who popped in and out of his life. Had he treated his wife as well as he treated his children, he would not be in the process of getting a divorce.

***

"Ladies and Gentleman, Welcome to London's Heathrow Airport..."

"Thank you for the coffee, seignor, I shall miss that when we leave Casablanca."

– Ingrid Bergmann (Casablanca, 1941)

Part II: Why is this prologue not at the very beginning of this book?

In 1974 Robert Pirsig published his classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He used the story of a motorcycle journey he took with his son and a couple of friends to explain his bizarre philosophy called Metaphysics of Quality that was neither Zen nor Motorcycle Maintenance, but included both. I remember reading the book and thinking, What a great idea. Consequently, in this book I plan to tell a story and explain my views on the much maligned philosophy of existentialism and how it applies to traveling and religion. On the other hand, I remember getting bogged down in the philosophical parts of Pirsig's book and enjoying the story parts. For this reason, this little novel contains much more story than philosophy- much more show than tell.

My views on existentialism have been influenced by other writers of existential philosophy and, ironically, my Christian upbringing. This book is not a scholarly writing, but a whimsical journey; however, we will lightly touch on the writings of the following writers: Jean-Paul Sartre, Søren Kierkegaard, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac and Dr. Theodor Seuss Geisel. The reader of this book should keep in mind that I am not intelligent enough to craft a scholarly work with perfect grammar. To the readers, I say, "Enjoy this story for what it is and don't make a big deal about anything."

Five years ago, I wrote another simi-true story about a trip to an island in South America called Isla Margarita. The title of that book was Isla Margaritaville. In many ways this book is part II of a trilogy of books that address similar issues. Actually, I do not plan to write a third book in the trilogy, but I like the sound of "trilogy". What could I call a two book series? A "Bilogy"? Perhaps I can just say that this book is a sequel to my previous attempt at writing?

Good stories begin with some kind of hook. If I, as the narrator and writer of this story, put a prologue in the beginning of the story that explained the following story will be told with anonymous-first-person-omniscient-narration from the third-person-point-of-view of the main character (William Presley), how many of you (the reader(s)) would still be reading? What kind of hook would that be?

On the other hand, there is a single word that has been proven to actually raise a person's heart rate as soon as that person thinks the word. That's right, one English word that can make a person more alert just by hearing it!

In view of this fact, what better way to begin and, for that matter, end a story than with that single word? Therefore, instead of beginning the story explaining that the following story will be told with anonymous-first-person-omniscient-narration from the third-person-point-of-view of the main character (William Presley), I will begin and end this account of a man and his two children's journey with the single word... Coffee.

In a university study on the effects of coffee in the morning using a heart rate monitor, it was determined that the effects of the caffeine start as soon as the coffee drinker thinks of the coffee. Imagine a substance so powerful that it begins to wake a person up with only a thought. A single cup of coffee contains 100 mg of caffeine; a thought of coffee contains 0 mg of caffeine- or so we think. What university studies? Look it up yourself.

Caffeine is, by far, the most used drug in the world. Caffeine wakes up the mind and body allowing a human who would normally need eight hours of sleep at night to function on five hours of sleep. By function, I mean go to work, go to class, clean the house or write a little novel.

Other drugs are snorted, smoked or injected in the dangerous back allies of our world. Caffeine, on the other hand, is often drunk in a warm drink while comfortably seated in a cozy cafe. Often, this drink is coffee.

Coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi. One day while tending his flock he noticed that some of his goats were eating beans and leaves from this bush and then jumping around like crazy. Kaldi tried some of the beans and, in short order, was jumping around like crazy himself.

Following Kaldi and his goats, religious Muslims who wanted to stay awake during long prayers ate coffee beans. In fact both words coffee and caffeine have Arabic roots.

Since they drink more tea in England then coffee, why not call this story The Buddhist Tea House? Here's the reason: I liked the other title better.

That was more than enough prologue. Let us get back to our story of William, Zoë, and Savanna.

"...for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

– Jesus (First Century AD)

"The light of the sun and the moon illuminates the whole world, both him who does well and him who does ill, both him who stands high and him who stands low."

– Buddha (fifth Century BC)

Part III: Why do these people drive on the wrong side of the road?

As with many American men his age, William had watched his share of James Bond movies. The thought of driving on the left side of the road became a romantic notion in his brain. Just like James Bond, he was about to drive on the "wrong" side of the road while steering from the "wrong" side of the car.

(Instruction to readers: Start playing the theme to James Bond in your head now.)

However, $26 a day is not enough to rent a red Aston Martin with an ejection seat and rocket launchers. Actually, for $26 a day, he and his children left Heathrow Airport in a tiny fuel efficient Fiat Punto.

(Instruction to readers: Replace the James Bond theme with the sound of a record scratching to a halt.)

A young voice from the back of the car asked the following: "Where are we going Daddy?"

"We have no map and no itinerary. So, we'll just go where we go." So, he randomly steered the car west in the direction of the setting sun and away from London. The freedom of the soon to be open road brought a euphoric feeling to him. This euphoria, however, was soon to be replaced with trepidation. Five minutes after leaving the EuroCar parking lot, an object of foreboding sat 100 yards away and was getting closer at a rate of 25 miles per hour.

Europeans love them...

Americans don't know what to do with them...

No readers, I am not talking about bidets. The fear-provoking object was what Americans call "traffic circles" and British people call "roundabouts". These cursed roundabouts are plopped in the middle of a perfectly good street prompting all hell to break loose as roads and cars go in all directions.

With fifty yards until impact, the effects of an all night flight on four-year-old Zoë and nine-year-old Savanna began to become manifest. "Daddy! Daddy! Zoë won't stop singing!" "Daddy! Daddy! Savanna won't let me lay down!" Wine. Cry. Yell. Repeat. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" William searched for the button for the ejection seat, but could not find it. Instinctively he stopped the car where the road ended and the roundabout began. Evidently, this was against the whole philosophy of roundabouts, which, evidently, is to keep traffic moving. The inoffensive little parked Fiat was assaulted with a barrage of toots and beeps from the angry cars behind her. William really wanted to press the gas and go, but cars and trucks quickly whizzed around the circle seemingly blocking him from entering the mayhem. Beep. Beep. Toot. Toot. Repeat. William searched for the rocket launcher button, but could not find it. What he did find, however, was a gap between a truck and a three-wheeled car, of which he entered. Over the next two weeks, these demonic circles became less and less freighting. In fact, by the end of the driving portion of the trip, William had become a master of the roundabout.

American intersections are shaped like a plus sign. Thus, when an American comes to an interception, the driver can choice to go right, left, or straight. These crazy roundabouts are circles with any number of choices emanating from the center like spokes coming off a wheel.

To our American traveler these roundabouts looked like a tangible metaphor of traveling. Traveling is simply leaving ones home and going somewhere else. When one travels, he or she is faced with many choices. Dr.Theodor Seuss Geisel addressed this issue in Oh, The Places You'll Go:

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.

About some you will say, 'I don't choose to go there.'

This sounds very simple, but most of the world actually does not believe in the afore-written statement, because most people on this planet believe that their choices are controlled by either some metaphysical force or some chemicals in their bodies. Are we free to make our own choices? Dr. Seuss believed that we were free to make our own choices because we have "brains in your head" and "feet in your shoes".

I wonder if Dr. Seuss was describing roundabouts when he wrote the following:

And if you go in, should you turn left or right...

Or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?

Or go around back and sneak in from behind...

At any rate, the Fiat Punto came to a roundabout and William, the mind-maker-upper, had to make up his mind...

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Six roads diverge in a roundabout, and a Fiat—

A tiny Fiat took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

Stonehenge

Britain's major roads are called Motorways and are identified with an M followed by a number. For an example, there is M1, M2, M3, and so on. The trio road away from London on a motorway called the M4, which is the road to South Wales. From the back seat little Zoë said, "Daddy, I want to listen to music."

"Can you ask a little more nicely?"

"May I pleeeeease listen to music," her response sounded more sarcastic than polite due to the stress she placed on the ē sound in "please".

"You know what? Great idea. If I turn on the radio, I cannot hear all these cars beeping at me." Most American cars honk. Most British cars beep. William, Savanna, and Zoë were hearing many beeps on the M4 due to this American's inability to stay in his lane and his slow overly cautious form of driving.

British radio is organized just like British Motorways: There is Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3 and so on with a few commercial stations such as Virgin Radio. William turned on Radio 1, which happened to be playing a very upbeat song by the Holloways called Generator. This sounded much better than "beep, beep, toot, toot".

...I can get a record player, and a generator. Generate the music that makes you feel better.

I don't live in poverty, I got a little bit of money and I've got a healthy body. I'm not going to let stuff get me upset, and I won't let all the little things get me depressed....

The song put a smile on his formally frightened face and a Yeah. That's right! in his thoughts.

...When I was a young boy I got a stereo and I taped all the songs straight off the radio.

The sounds that the bands made, and the melodies is all I need to make me feel free.

Sometimes you get so low, you don't know why, or a little upset all inside. May I remind you? That you don't live in poverty, you got your youth, and you got food in your belly....

After an hour of driving, William started getting the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road and he switched to Radio 2 which played a song that he thought was called Salisbury Hill. Precisely at that very moment, he noticed a road sign stating that Salisbury, England was the very next exit off the M4. Actually, this was less coincidental than he thought because the song that played on Radio 2 at that moment was not called Salisbury Hill; but was, in fact, Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill.

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill

I could see the city lights

Wind was blowing, time stood still

Eagle flew out of the night

He was something to observe

Came in close, I heard a voice

Standing, stretching every nerve

I had to listen had no choice

I did not believe the information

Just had to trust imagination

My heart going boom boom boom...

William took this as some kind of fateful signal to visit Salisbury, England. What William did not know was the song was not about Salisbury, England; the song was about Solsbury Hill in Somerset, England. Therefore, if Peter Gabriel's ethereal voice was, in fact, trying to tell him something with this song he wrote in 1976 (and reached number 68 on the American pop charts in 1977), he would have been telling him to go to Somerset not Salisbury.

Nonetheless, before Peter Gabriel's disembodied heart could go "boom, boom, boom" once more, the exit immediately put William Presley on another roundabout sitting like a spider in the middle of a web of roads. The tiny black Fiat circled the roundabout two times until William, with heart going boom, boom, boom, chose the road that looked the prettiest. That road led straight to Stonehenge.

Somewhere in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago, mankind started writing. Thus, for the past 5000 years we have been writing history. Stonehenge was first built 5100 years ago. This makes Stonehenge prehistoric. So, who built Stonehenge? Despite all the stories of Druids, pagans and aliens, nobody has a clue who built Stonehenge or why. William did have a clue that Stonehenge was in Southern England, but did not bother to check where. Despite the fact that he did not believe in fate, this journey was left to fate, and fate delivered him and his two daughters and their diminutive Fiat to a signpost that proclaimed the message that Stonehenge was on the left.

The location of Stonehenge could not have been more picturesque in a vast green tenderly rolling meadow. Taking a beautiful picture of such a location was like shooting fish in a barrel. As William looked at the site, he wished he was a painter. If I were a painter, I would paint this with Stone Age looking people standing around, and hang it up in my classroom, he thought. His job back in South Carolina was as a teacher.

Stonehenge was not free. In order to gain admission, they had to purchase a ticket from a kind gentleman at the gift shop.

"How much does it cost for my girls and I to visit Stonehenge?" William asked.

"Are you in England for a long time?" asked the kind gentleman.

"Yes, sir."

"In that case it would be less expensive for you to purchase an English Heritage Card. With this card, you and your children can get into all the English Heritage sites for free for one year and get big discounts in Wales and Scotland. This card is £50 or £25 if you are a student."

"I'm a teacher. Here's my teacher ID. Will this give me some sort of discount?"

After he showed him his teacher ID, the man said, "We love to help out teachers here in England. So, I will give you the card at the student rate of £25." Later this would turn out to be very auspicious for that English Heritage card with "student" on it gave him and his two girls entrance into many places for free or at a major discount.

"Daddy, I learned about this place in school!" Savanna excitedly exclaimed as the three viewed the ubiquitous rocks rising out of the green English countryside. Both Savanna and Zoë drew pictures of the large rocks in their journals. Savanna's journal had a date at the top of each page followed by the day's narrative. Zoë's journal had random drawings scattered through the pages in no particular order.

Stonehenge was "protected" from the tourist by a small rope fence that was six inches high. I suppose this was to keep people from climbing on the rocks. Zoë sat on the ground behind these ropes with her journal in her lap. She focused intensely as she drew her version of what she saw. Every minute or so, she paused, looked up at Stonehenge and then back to her paper for more intense drawing.

William could not have picked a more auspicious time to arrive at Stonehenge for they arrived a day before the summer solstice. According to the textbook that he used as somewhat a guide to teach his Global Studies class, Stonehenge is supposed to be somehow aimed precisely toward the summer solstice. Being a teacher, William thought he should explain this to his children.

"Do you know that June 21 will be the longest day of the year? It's called the summer solstice and this circle of big rocks is aimed right toward the rising of the sun on the summer solstice," he said to both Savanna and Zoë.

Zoë smiled and held up her little notebook and said, "Daddy, look. I drew rocks!" Sure enough, she drew her own version of Stonehenge with oddly shaped ovals stacked in a circle. Priceless.

Savanna asked, "How many hours are in June 21? 25?"

"No baby, there is just more daylight on that day than the others because the sun is more above us than normal."

Savanna, then, asked, "How can you aim a circle of rocks at the sunrise?"

William answered, "You know what baby? I have no idea." This prompted him to look at the stones again and, sure enough, the circle of rocks did not appear to be aimed at anything.

Meanwhile, an upper middle-aged man with a long gray and red ponytail and a long gray and red beard wearing a brownish green neo-pagan style robe with a woven hemp waist band was having a conversation with a younger man with a Keilty backpack on his back. His backpack was full of so much stuff that the seams on the side of the back appeared ready to bust open. An upside down Canadian flag was sewn to the bottom right side of the pack. He held a Lonely Planet's Guide to the British Isles in his left hand. He had both a didgeridoo and a guitar strapped to his huge backpack. However, this apparently Canadian backpacker could play neither the didgeridoo nor the guitar. He had dreadlocks, but he wasn't a real Canadian. The earphones from his Ipod were draped down his shoulders, but the music coming from the earpieces was still audible from 10 feet away. The song coming from the tiny white headphones was the White Stripes' brilliant version of Bob Dylan's One More Cup of Coffee for the Road.

...One more cup of coffee for the road; One more cup of coffee 'fore I go (pause) to the valley below... (dun, dun, dun)

The apparently neo-pagan guy told the continuously nodding apparently Canadian guy, "This temple was built by the Druids many thousand years ago to mark the holy day when the sun shines the longest." Of course, if the Druids built Stonehenge they would have first had to build a time machine and go back in time 3000 years. On the other hand, who am I as the narrator of this story to question this man's facts since he stated it with such certainty and authority?

The apparently Canadian guy was respectfully nodding his head when he answered, "Wow. Stonehenge is truly a unique site."

Stonehenge is not exactly unique either. Those Stone Age people, whoever they were, loved putting rocks and sticks in circles and, I guess, aiming them to the summer solstice. For example, there is a site just 20 miles from Stonehenge called Woodhenge. In fact, there is even an underwater circle of waterlogged logs near Norfolk, England called Seahenge. British people, both ancient and contemporary enjoy the art of making circles out of objects. Come to think of it, maybe that is why the British love roundabouts so much. Instead of roundabouts, they could call each of them Roadhenge.

After viewing enough prehistoric lithic wonder for a single day, our American traveler loaded his tired children in his tiny fuel-efficient rental car and drove off on the wrong side of the road. Three miles past Stonehenge the universal illustration of a tent with an arrow heralded the location of a campground down a narrow winding road.

The campground looked as if it were the backyard of a tiny store surrounded by pretty red flowers. Traveling in Britain with two kids on a teacher's pay and a plummeting US dollar was challenging. Staying in hotels for five weeks would have been cost prohibitive. Thus, camping was the best option for William, Zoë, and Savanna.

"Good afternoon ma'am. How much would it cost my daughters and me to camp here?"

Behind the counter of the tiny store stood a chubby smiling middle-aged woman wearing a bright pink and yellow sundress and a too small green jacket. She was dressed so brightly and smiled so big that she looked as if she was the Earthly manifestation of the sun. She answered, "Just 10 quid a night for you and your lovely children."

"That sounds great."

"Lovely."

William reached into his pocket and pulled out a heaping helping of coins. He looked at the odd shapes. Some of the bigger coins were worth less than some of the smaller ones. In what seemed like an hour, but was actually 39 seconds, he counted out £10 worth and handed it to the bright smiling woman.

She used the word lovely a third time. "Lovely."

During their month of days in Britain, it rained every one of those days. On the other hand, there was not a day without long intermittent periods of sunshine and the little rain showers were short. The three walked out of the little store and into one of these sunny periods sandwiched between rainy periods.

He drove the Fiat into the field and parked next to a tall thin brown A-framed tent with a homemade Wicca star over the entrance. Next to the tent a folding wooden table with a green table cloth was flanked by wooden barrels of wine with silver spickets. Seated at this table were some familiar faces from Stonehenge: The neo-pagan guy with his wife and the same young apparently Canadian backpacker, whose Northface tent was the next one down. William purposely parked here thinking, I could have some interesting conversations with those folks.

Zoë and Savanna took out their little travel journals, but were too sleepy and cranky to write or draw much. Zoë grabbed her "blanky", sucked her thumb and fell asleep. By seven o'clock both children were sleeping, but had not brushed their teeth. William pulled Zoë's thumb out of her mouth so he could brush her teeth. This task was more difficult than one might think. The thumb being forcefully extracted from her mouth made a pop sound. Then, he brushed both girls' teeth with a dry toothbrush while they slept. Next, he put warm clothes on them and tucked them into their sleeping bags to protect them against the surprisingly cold June night. Neither child woke up while all of this was happening.

Later that night, the neo-pagan couple were drinking wine and having what sounded to William like a deep conversation in German. He had studied German for four of his five years of college, because of this he could say in German, "Please excuse me. What time is it?"

"Entschuldigen Sie bitte. Wie speit ist es?" he asked as he walked toward the couple using the only German phrase he really knew.

"10 past 10," the robe wearing German answered in English. Ostensibly, Please excuse me. What time is it? is a great ice breaker for the conversational flood gates to open, and the man told William many things. Among them he said, "We came here for the Solstice ceremonies. We will have one ceremony with just 80 people actually inside the circle, but then there will be 21,000 of us the next day."

William wondered who "us" was, but did not ask. "Wow. That's a lot of people."

Seeing that the American was not sufficiently impressed by the first statement, he stated the following: "The best part is the night before when the 80 of us will be inside the circle." He emphasized the word "inside" to make it sound very special.

"That sounds special, because I noticed when we were there today that there were cords around the stone circle to keep people out."

At this the apparently Canadian guy, sans Ipod, emerged from his tent. "Join us for some wine, Ricky," said Paul.

Paul's wife, Hannah, said something in German and went into the tent. Despite the four years of German, William could not understand the German she spoke, but he thought she must have said something like, "Paul, I'm going into our tent to sacrifice a goat."

"What part of Canada are you from?" asked William to Ricky.

"Canada? I'm from Ohio. Oh, you thought I was from Canada, because you saw my pack? Yeah. I put that flag patch on there because I didn't want people to know I am an American. You know- terrorists." After this statement Ricky raised his eyebrows and shook his head and paused as if waiting for confirmation from William. After not hearing a response (How does a person respond to this?), Ricky reemphasized his point, "You know what I mean, those Moslems that want to kill Americans."

"Do you know you have the flag upside down?" William asked.

"Shit. Are you shitting me?"

"The maple leaf is supposed to point up."

"How do you know that? Are you Canadian?"

William Presley had never been mistaken for a Canadian by anyone, "No. I'm from Tennessee." Had either William or Ricky actually been from Canada, they might have known that Canadians are the world's largest consumer of coffee. The average Canadian drinks 2.6 cups of coffee a day.

For the next hour, Paul spoke to Ricky and William using words such as "positive energy", "healing", "herbs", and "extraterrestrials". Paul took on the role of teacher to his two younger students and, thus, did nearly all the talking. William and Ricky nodded occasionally and intermittently said, "Yeah" or "um" or "uh ah".

"Did you know that the Great Wall is the largest structure ever made by man?" Paul asked.

William, a history teacher, knew this, but Paul asked the question in such a way that he did not want an answer.

"Did you know that the same people who built the Great Wall also built Stonehenge? They also built the Great Pyramids in Egypt and the ones in Mexico too."

Even if Paul wanted an answer, William did not want to respond to this bit of craziness.

Paul continued, "However, these ancient people might have been great, but they were not the greatest builders in the world. The greatest builders in the world built the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest object ever built and the only creature made object that can be seen from Space. The tiny coral polyps built this massive structure. Many of these creatures live in a great space ship that is orbiting our planet. They are originally from another planet, but some of them live among us in our tropical seas. We are unwittingly killing them, and they are angry. You see, coral is by far the most intelligent of creatures that inhabit our Earth."

Paul looked at the two younger men and seemed to expect some kind of response.

Ricky responded with the following: "Wow. Dude. Heavy."

William responded with the following: "Do you think Buddhist go to heaven?"

"There is only one way to find out, but I do not recommend it," Paul replied.

"Really? How?" is what William asked, but This ought to be good is what he actually thought.

"You could ask the dead, but it is dangerous."

"You speak with dead people?" asked William.

Paul leaned in close enough to his face to make him feel uncomfortable and said, "I once spent an entire night talking with Robert Burns."

William did not know who Robert Burns was, but assumed he was a dead man. "What did ya'll talk about?"

"Many things. He is such a wonderful conversationalist. So very witty. However, the most important thing he told me was this: Time spent talking with the dead is subtracted from your life."

William had never heard anyone speak of something so mad, but he loved listening. "How long did ya'll talk?"

"Nineteen minutes."

"So?"

"So, I will be dead 19 minutes before I would have regularly died. I will never speak to a dead person again. Sometimes Mr. Burns comes back, but I ignore him."

"How did this 'Mr. Burns' know the rule about time speaking with the dead is subtracted from your life?"

Paul again moved his face uncomfortably close to Williams and said, in a whisper, "I don't know, because as soon as he told me about it, I quit speaking with him. You see, I did not wish to lose any more of my life."

By 11:30, a combo of an all night flight and several glasses of wine made an "early" exit to the conversation necessary, and William retired to his tent where the sounds of Zoë and Savanna breathing put him to sleep faster than rain on a tin roof.

***

The following morning, in order to prevent his children from sleeping all day, he had to wake them up at 10:00 AM. Neither child wanted to wake up, but this had to be done to start a sleeping and getting up routine six time zones from their home on the coast of Carolina.

"What are we going to do today?" asked Zoë.

"Instead of planning what we are going to do today, let's see what today will do to us!" This response summed up the existentialist's travel philosophy.

More than 2000 years ago the Chinese philosopher Laozi wrote that humans should live life like the water in a river. Laozi called this type of living Wu Wei which means "without action". His philosophy is called Taoism. Other Taoist philosophers called this wei wu wei which means "action without action". The water in the river isn't trying to do anything, but that water definitely is doing something by flowing down the river. This effortless action is creating dynamic beauty in the form of rapids, ripples, a mirror for the sky and a home for fish and plants. If humans live like water in a river they would simply go with the flow and life would be easier and people would be happier. Instead, most humans live like ants scurrying around rather than like water flowing.

Benjamin Hoff described this accurately in his book The Tao of Pooh:

There was a man who disliked seeing his footprints and his shadow. He decided to escape from them, and began to run. But as he ran along, more footprints appeared, while his shadow easily kept up with him. Thinking he was going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without stopping, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and died. If he had stood still, there would have been no footprints. If he would have rested in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared.

William believed in just getting to a place and seeing what happened. This was in stark contrast to the prevailing forms of travel at the time with every step planned to the point that the traveler knew what was going to happen on the trip prior to the trip. At this point I must point out that I do not feel that the way William traveled was superior to any other form of travel. My goal is simply to describe his form of travel in relation to the philosophy of existentialism.

William had no specific goals to accomplish by the end of his trip. He had no specific sights to see and no specific experiences to experience. The mantra of the existentialist might be "just be", and, if this is applied to travel: "just go and see what happens". So before William and his children could flow like a river and go and see what happens, they needed showers.

So, speaking of living like water, showers were in a separate building behind the camp store. After giving his daughters instructions, William sent both girls into the shower to brush teeth, and wash. Savanna was too big to go into the men's showers, but too little to do a good job washing Zoë, but there were no other options. William sat on a bench outside the women's shower while the girls took showers.

After 10 minutes, the same plump smiling woman who was working at the store emerged from the shower building wearing a polka dotted bathrobe. She walked straight to William. I bet this woman thinks I am a pervert setting outside the showers trying to look in at the women showering, he thought. William thought this due to the fact that every time the door flung open, he could, in fact, see half naked women brushing their teeth and so forth.

The woman, however, said to him, "It's just lovely to see a man watching after his kids. Just lovely."

He thought, Wow. These Brits sure use the word "lovely" a lot. However, he said, "Thank you. By the way, how are my girls doing in there?"

"Lovely."

Would that lovely woman say the same thing to a woman waiting outside a shower for her sons? She probably would not say a word, because it seems natural for a woman to tend to her children. Men are often too busy scurrying around like ants to care for their children. However, nothing is more natural than a parent to tend to her or his children.

Salisbury, England

Due to the fact that William pretended to believe that Peter Gabriel's disembodied voice spoke to William through Radio 2 on the previous day, he felt obliged to stop in Salisbury and do some sightseeing. He and his girls took a gander at a map hanging on the wall in the camp store and were off in the general direction of Salisbury, England. With-in fifteen minutes of departing the Stonehenge Campground, however, they stopped on a pull off beside the road to eat. A mobile kitchen connected to a loud generator was parked in the middle of the turn-off. A line of trucks and cars were parked on either end of the mobile kitchen with their occupants seated on flimsy plastic chairs around flimsy little cardboard tables along the perimeter of the mobile kitchen eating English breakfasts. The scene was very loud with car motors humming, and the generator noise.

While the French, Germans and Spanish eat their little continental breakfasts of bread, jam and coffee, Americans from the southern states are known to start the day with a big fat laden breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, grits, biscuits and other greasy (pronounced gree-zee) dripping (albeit delicious!) beauties designed to clog the arteries first thing in the morning. However, in the world of big fatty breakfasts, England is the king. Despite growing up in Tennessee, William was not prepared for the magnanimous monstrosity known as "The English Breakfast".

"How much for one of those English breakfasts?" asked William.

The woman in the white apron had to speak very loudly to be heard over the roar of the generator: "Two quid fifty!"

"OK. We'll just split one between the three of us for now. If we are still hungry, I'll order another one."

"Lovely!"

Savanna noticed that the woman had a pink cell phone next to two black cell phones on the counter and asked, "Ma'am, are all those cell phones yours?"

"Actually, I have five," she responded. "I have a different phone for each of my businesses and a couple for family. This one here is for the blokes. I don't want them to have the other numbers, you know."

For £2.50, the breakfast was more than enough for all three. Shockingly, the breakfast included the following: Eggs, baked beans, two types of bread, bacon ("bacon" in England looks like what Americans call "ham"), two types of sausages (one made of blood), some fried potatoes and plenty of potential heart disease. This breakfast rested on a paper plate that was not sturdy enough to hold the weight of all the food without putting both hands underneath for support. The warm goo from all the food soaked through the paper plate. The mixed up gobbet of food looked like the entrails of some horror movie victim in a low budget film. William took a photo of this monster before the three dug in.

As the three devoured this atrocious breakfast, both children continued to ask their daddy the following question: "What is this?" Their daddy responded over-and-over with the following reply: "Don't worry about it. Just eat it. Anyway, you wouldn't want to know."

***

Following breakfast, and feeling like he had a rock in his gut, William parked the little Fiat in a "Park-n-Ride" place called "Wilton". At Wilton, he paid £4.00 and a bus quickly took them to the center of Salisbury outside a lively market.

As he and his children stepped off the bus in Salisbury, England, Peter Gabriel and Paul, the German pagan guy with the robe, waited for William and his children on a green windswept hill in Somerset ready to explain the meaning of life. However, instead a Pseudo-Canadian named Ricky walked up Solsbury Hill thinking he was in Salisbury, England.

"I'm hungry!" wined little Zoë.

"How can you possibly be hungry?"

"I'm hungry too!" whined Savanna.

"Would ya'll like some cheese with your wine?" he asked his daughters.

"Would you like some wine with your cheese?" asked Savanna. Unbeknownst to her nine-year-old brain, her statement was very witty.

The market was lively and loud. Venders loudly promoted what they were selling. This market was established in 1227, and has been in existence ever since. Around 500 years ago, stone gazebos with iron crosses on the top marked the various sections of the market. Of these stone gazebos only one called the "Poultry Cross" remains. The Poultry Cross marked the section of the market dedicated to selling poultry. The three travelers ate a lunch of avocados, cheese, olives, and tomatoes under the shadow of the Poultry Cross.

"Daddy, what is this?" asked Savanna looking at the funny looking gazebo with the cross on top.

"It says here it's the 'Poultry Cross'," replied her daddy reading the tourist information he had obtained from the tourist information center.

"What's a 'poultry cross'?" asked Savanna.

Her daddy responded with an "I don't know", because, at the time, he had no idea. For all he knew, the Poultry Cross could have marked the grave of a famous chicken. "Maybe it's the grave of a famous chicken?"

"Actually, there are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better."

– Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker, 1980)

Part IV: Are there Whales in Wales?

On the English side of the River Exe, a light rain fell from a bright sky. On the Wales side of the River Exe, a light rain fell from a dark sky. The change was sudden and abrupt. Besides the change in weather, signs were posted in both English and Welsh. To William, Welsh looked like a difficult language with far too many consonants in each word. The Welsh must find it difficult as well due to the fact that only one in five people speak their native tongue.

Wales

Zoë, thumb in mouth, mumbled the following question: "Are there whales in Wales?"

"No baby. Not on the land, but there may be whales in the ocean along the coast of Wales," answered her father.

With her voice still garbled from the still inserted thumb, Zoë stated, "I really want to see whales. Please, please can we see whales?" She paused. "I'm hungry."

Savanna chimed in, "Why is Wales called Wales if there are no Whales there? I'm hungry too."

"The name of Wales has nothing to do with whales. It's called Wales, because of the old Germanic word 'Walha' which means 'foreigners'. You see the people outside of Wales called these people foreigners. The Welch people call themselves 'Cymru'." Since he was a history teacher, William had a plethora of useless, but interesting knowledge about places.

This little bit of knowledge went right over Savanna and Zoë's little heads. Indeed, after her father's history homily, Zoë smiled big and said, "I want to see whales!" Also, Savanna followed with the following: "Why did they call the country Wales if there are no whales in Wales?"

The aforesaid conversation took place in a tent in a campground near Porthcawl, Wales while a light rain tapped, tipped, tapped on the rain-fly covering the three person tent. A few hours earlier, William had paid a hefty £5.20 to cross the River Exe into Wales. At the time of their journey the pound (£) was worth $2.00.

"Daddy, I hear something outside the tent," said Zoë with big eyes.

"Do you want me to go have a look?"

"No, I'll do it," little Zoë responded bravely. She swallowed hard and tried to unzip the tent, but the zipper became stuck in the material. Then, a strange animal sound came from outside the tent prompting him to have a look.

A fox?

A dog?

A deer?

No. Outside the tent stood a skinny redheaded Welsh woman and a not so skinny blonde headed welsh woman. An ocean of cleavage poured out of the bigger girl's tight sweater. The two young women held plastic bags over their heads in order to shield themselves from the spitting rain. The sound they were making was uncontrolled laughter.

"Hello sir. We saw your little girls. They are so cute. Perhaps they want to play?" said the redhead.

"Let me ask... Savanna? Zoë? There are two girls out here that want to play?"

"Yeah! Yeah!" they yelled in unison.

Both girls appeared to be in their early 20's, but played with Savanna and Zoë like they were all schoolmates. First they made scary faces at each other and laughed. Then, they ran around playing a version of Hide-n-Seek. Finally, all four just rolled around ecstatically in the wet grass. Meanwhile, William read Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker in a dry tent until it became dark. Chapter 25 of Still Life with Woodpecker started with these words:

In the world according to the positivist, the inspiring thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they're sunny side up. In the world according to the existentialist, the hopeless thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they're scrambled.

The following morning, the two young women, Francis and Chelsea, came to the tent and invited William and his girls to breakfast in their motor home. The motor home, people in Britain call them "caravans", was parked next to where they had pitched his tent the night before.

Once inside the tiny caravan, Chelsea, the skinny redhead, said, "I want you to meet Larry, my man."

Larry looked to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 years older than Chelsea. After introductions, Larry told William that he drives a lorry. "What's a lorry?" asked William.

"You have them in America. We use them to transport goods about the country. You know."

"Oh. Now I know what a lorry is! It's a big truck, right? Yeah, we call them 'semis' or 'semi trucks'."

"Right."

As Chelsea cooked a lighter version of the previous day's English breakfast, she asked, "Do the children want some biscuits?"

"Don't go through any trouble. It was just so kind of ya'll to invite us for breakfast." William did not realize that in Britain a "biscuit" is a cookie. He thought that she meant to actually make biscuits in her tiny oven.

"It's no trouble. They are right here," she said as she pulled out a plastic bag of cookies.

"Larry, are ya'll actually Welsh?"

"That's right," responded Larry the lorry driver.

"Here's what I'm curious about: Do you consider Wales a separate country?" asked William.

Larry smiled and responded, "Of course. We have our own language and everything."

"Yeah. I saw the signs in Welsh. It looks like a difficult language. Do ya'll speak it?"

"No. If you go to northern Wales, you'll hear them speaking it everywhere. There are shops out there where Wales is all that is spoken. By the way, I'm going to Cardiff to pick up my children. I have a little girl and a little boy who would love to play with your girls."

Savanna and Zoë smiled big, and their father responded, "That'll be great. We're going to the waterfront in Porthcawl to have a look around. I'll bring some food back with us."

***

Porthcawl was down a hill from the campground. William parked the little Fiat Punto beside the Porthcawl Lifeboat Station near the lighthouse at Porthcawl Point. Several sets of concrete stairs led to a mostly pebble beach where waves crashed on flat limestone. Little Zoë and Savanna investigated each of the watery cracks in the limestone at the intertidal zone. They marveled at the tiny fish and mollusk that made their homes in these rocky tide pools. Both girls filled the pockets of their "Frog Tog" raingear with stones until their pants were sagging like a couple gansta rappers.

"They're presents," explained Savanna.

Zoë pulled out enough little stones to fill her tiny hand and began telling her father about each one: "The purple one is for Mommy. The black one with the little bump on it is for Grandma..."

There is a word that is spoken only by children that means "no way". That word is "nu-uh". Savanna looked at the rocks and said to her sister, "Nu uh! You said the green one is for grandma and the black one with the bump is for grandpa!"

"Nu uh!" yelled Zoë in response. Following this both children were screaming at each other. Only children could have such an argument. William felt like he had to put a stop to this.

"One more word about the rocks from either of you, and you'll have to put the rocks back on the beach. Nobody will get a rock!" He said the first sentence in a stern fatherly voice, but yelled at his children when he stated: "Nobody will get a rock!" He did not intend to sound so harsh.

At this Zoë's eyes became big and wet; she dropped her rocks, and peed on herself. Enormous pangs of guilt hit William in his gut as he picked her up. He could not believe that his yelling scared his daughter to the point that she peed on herself. He felt like a bad parent. He carried a daypack on his back with snacks, water, raingear, sweaters, and a change of cloths for each girl.

An elderly woman in a brown sweater leaned against the railing along the promenade looking at the sea. "Excuse me ma'am. Please tell me where the nearest bathroom is?" William asked her.

"There is a loo in the p

avilion over there," said the pointing woman.

William had no idea why the lady would tell him where to find the "loo" when he was looking for a bathroom. Nevertheless, they walked in the direction of the pavilion in search of this so-called loo.

"What a loo Daddy?" asked little wet Zoë, who forgot all about the yelling and was feeling bright again.

"I have no idea," responded William. He, then, thought, Lorry? Loo? Quid? I used to think England and America both spoke English! Since they obviously spoke English in England and all over Britain, what language do Americans speak? American?

"Let's go see the loo!" yelled Savanna.

At this Zoë smiled big yelling, "Yeah! The loo!" Both girls imagined a magical mysterious place called the loo. They were off to see the loo as if they were skipping down a yellow brick road.

They followed the woman's directions to the pavilion. He must have looked peculiar carrying a four-year-old smiling child smelling of urine, but he sounded even more unusual asking, "I have two questions: Where is your bathroom? And, where is this loo everyone's talking about?"

A man wearing a red hat and standing in a kiosk in the pavilion did not at all look puzzled as he pointed and responded, "The toilet is there, and so is the loo. They [pause] are one in the same."

***

From North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina south to Surfside Beach, South Carolina is a stretch of coastline known as the Grand Stand. There were two pavilions along the Grand Strand. (As I write this book, there is just one.) Both pavilions were the heart and soul of The Strand. The pavilion in Myrtle Beach looked remarkably similar to the one in Porthcawl- an aged grand building with wide, open entrances. The pavilion of Myrtle Beach was built in 1948 making it 18 years newer than the one in Porthcawl. The pavilion of North Myrtle Beach is called the OD (Ocean Drive) Pavilion and is famous throughout the southern United States for being the epicenter of a dance called the Shag.

The Shag is the official state dance of both North and South Carolina and the inspiration for the 1989 movie Shag, staring Bridget Fonda and Phoebe Cates. The film, incidentally, was filmed along the Grand Strand. In the late 1930's and the early 1940's, teenagers slowed down the jitterbug so they could have a decelerated sexy dance to bop to rhythm and blues music. During these racially segregated days, shag pioneers like "Chicken" Hicks and Billy Jeffers would sneak to black dance halls to learn to dance. They took the music and dance to the beach and started a blending of black and white music and dance that became known as "Beach Music" and the "Shag".

In the American south, the shag is a dance. In Britain shag means to have sex. (Note to Readers: Think of Austin Powers: "Shall we shag now or shag later, baby?") Had William known that shag had a different meaning in the UK, he could have saved himself some embarrassment.

After exiting the loo, they found the same elderly woman in the brown sweater leaning against the counter of the kiosk speaking with the man with the red hat. The woman, upon seeing William, said, "I see you found the loo."

"Yes we did and thanks for the directions. By the way, I live near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and we have a pavilion just like this one. In fact, it is a very historical place, because the shag was invented there."

At this both Welsh people perked up with a surprised look on their face. "What was invented in South Carolina?" asked the brown sweater wearing woman.

"The shag. Do ya'll shag here in Britain?"

Neither person quite knew how to answer the question. Both just looked at William with a puzzled expression.

He continued, "Yeah. I guess ya'll have never heard of shagging out here in Wales. Anyway, it is very famous in South Carolina. For example, twice a year about 15,000 people come to North Myrtle Beach to shag and have shag contests. I've never gone to any of these shag gatherings, because I am not very good at shagging, but I plan to take lessons when I return. My kids here don't know how to shag yet either, but I hope they learn since we live in South Carolina."

The last statement was too much for the woman in the brown sweater for she made a strange face and walked away without saying another word.

"Oops. I'm sorry. I'm just talking about South Carolina. Since I am here in Wales, I should be learning about your culture. Tell me about Porthcawl."

There was a long pause before the man wearing the red hat said anything. Finally he flatly asked, "Have you visited the Lifeboat Museum?"

***

On the end of the concrete pier that lead to the lighthouse was a small gift shop and museum called the Lifeboat Museum. A man in his late fifties or early sixties manned the lifeboat station/museum/gift shop. "Hello sir. I'm William and these are my girls: Savanna and Zoë. Could you please tell me about the lifeboat station?" The man was delighted to hear these words and spoke to the three for close to an hour explaining that the boats were very expensive and the crews were all volunteers who went through extensive training. He shared stories of perilous rescues. At first Zoë became bored and Savanna asked to go back to the beach, but the kind man allowed the children to climb all over one of his expensive lifeboats. This, of course, delighted the children.

On the way out, the man, Jerry, followed them out the door and said, "Are you going to buy anything from my gift shop?"

"No sir. Due to the fact that I am a teacher, I have no money for such luxuries," William answered with a laugh and a smile. At this, the man reached into this plastic bucket on his counter and pulled out two identical miniature wooden lifeboats and handed them to Savanna and Zoë who beamed with enchantment.

"A gift for your girls," he said.

***

Meanwhile, back at the campsite, Larry the lorry driver returned later than expected with his children. Savanna and Zoë were excited to have playmates. The children stared silently at each other and clung to their respective fathers until some mysterious force that only children possess was unleashed and they played relentlessly for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

Larry, Chelsea, and William sat on chairs outside as it became dark. Chelsea asked Larry, "Why are you so late?"

Larry responded with, "My ex and I had a row."

This prompted William to respond, "Oh, does she cook good rolls?" In Britain a "row" is a fight. In America a roll is something like a biscuit (the American version of the biscuit).

"Not that kind of roll," responded Larry.

"Sushi roll?"

"No. A fight."

"Oh. By the way, I bought us some beer." Back in Porthcawl, William had purchased some beer with two dragons on each bottle. The beer was appropriately called Double Dragon. Zoë saw the bottle and told her daddy, "Buy that one!" She also loved the Welsh flag since it had a dragon on it, as well.

"Cheers. You bought some Double Dragon," replied Larry as he opened a bottle.

"Yeah. I like this place. Where else in the world is there a dragon on your flag and on your beer." At this, Chelsea went inside the caravan.

Conversation began light and shallow, but became deeper with each beer. As it turned out Larry the lorry driver was an amateur philosopher as well as a truck driver. Larry told William that he and Chelsea were staying in the Caravan until they could afford a "proper home". He told him the struggles of going through a divorce and dating a girl half his age.

For some reason William responded, "Things will get better, eh?"

"Probably not. I like to look at life as a pessimist. I believe that the pessimist is the true optimist."

"I don't get it. What do you mean?"

Larry the lorry driver and amateur philosopher responded, "The pessimist normally believes that the worst is yet to come. That everything is just going to get worse. Of course, this is not the way things normally happen. So, when things start going well, the pessimist is pleasantly surprised and happy with the way things turn out. On the other hand, the optimist always thinks everything is going to go great. Of course, this never happens. For this reason the optimist is always disappointed. A true optimist is a very unhappy person."

William realized that Larry was correct, "That makes sennse. I guess I never looked at it that way. It's like hoping for the best, but planning for the worst."

"Exactly."

"Hey, let me read you something from a novel I'm reading." At this, he went back into his tent and retrieved Still Life with Woodpecker and read Larry the passage about the scrambled eggs, the optimist, and the existentialist. Then he told Larry, "I think I'm more of an existentialist than either an optimist or a pessimist. I try not to even worry about what will happen, because what ever happens will happen. I believe in just being."

"So, you don't make plans?"

"Not much, I plan when I have to plan or should plan, but for the most part I just go with the flow. For example, I'm here in the UK, but I'm just randomly going here and there and seeing what happens. So far, this has made for a more interesting trip."

Larry smiled and said, "You know what I think is important? To live each day like it's your last."

William responded, "You know what? I have a different way of looking at that, as well. Maybe it would be better to live each day like it is everybody else's last day. That way we would treat everyone else better because we think they're going to die tomorrow."

"Actually, Will, anyone could die tomorrow or tonight for that matter."

"Right on. Could you imagine how nice a world we'd have if everyone treated others like they had just one more day to live?"

"Back at Stonehenge, I met this guy who claimed to have spoken with dead people. He told me that time spent with the dead is subtracted from the end of your life."

Larry responded, "That is true. I know this from experience."

This answer surprised William, who decided to just change the subject. He, then, told Larry the story about the reaction he received from the people at the pavilion when he talked about shagging. Larry laughed, "Shag means to- well- to- ah-"

He was interrupted by Chelsea, who just walked over to them from the caravan, "Shag means to fuck."

Margam County Park, Wales

The world is full of those who recklessly believe in fate and make the following kind of statements:

Everything happens for a reason...

I believe that was a sign...

It was meant to be...

It just wasn't meant to be...

These hopeless romantics hop through life thinking they are part of some grand conspiracy that plays out because it has to play out.

Tom Robbins wrote (Still Life with Woodpecker, 1980):

Actually, there are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better." William was not yet smart enough to know that there was not, in fact, two kinds of people in this world. He believed that there are two kinds of people in the world: Romantics and realists.

William was a member of the later. He believed neither in fate nor destiny. For the most part he believed things just sort of happen because they happen with no big metaphysical plan. One might call him an existentialist. On the other hand, there is something that is very ironic about him. William noticed that these believers in fate, these ignorant dreamers, these hopeless romantics are living their lives in ignorant bliss. For this reason (despite his existential leanings), he chose to sarcastically live as they live. Despite not believing in fate, he leaves many of his choices to fate.

Earlier in this book (the original longer version), I quoted Dr.Theodor Seuss Geisel's passage about choices and stated that most people do not believe that they are free to make their own choices. William Presley was not one of these people. He believed that he was the one responsible for his choices. He could choice to "turn left or right... or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe not quite?"", but he was too lazy to make these decisions. For that reason, he pretended to follow fate (all the while not believing in it).

During the 37 years that William had spent in this world, he had learned that, despite their ignorance, these hopeless romantics have much more fun than the realists. For that reason, he traveled as they live. For that reason, he chose to listen to "signs" such as a song on the radio or the words of a stranger. Despite knowledge that it was silly, he followed "signs" anyway. In spite of his disbelief in fate, he chose to blindly follow fate. Most philosophers and those in the know about the types of philosophy might agree with the following summation of existentialism: "Since there is no meaning of life, why do anything?" On the other hand, William's unlikely juxtaposition of existentialism and a fake belief in fate and signs could sum up his brand of existential philosophy like this: "Since there is no meaning of life, why not?"

Despite the negative reputation of existentialism, this philosophy could actually be about freedom. If we humans do not have to live by a metaphysical grand scheme then we are free to determine our own destiny. Furthermore, to travel the world without a grand plan is the ultimate expression of human freedom. Once we break out of our daily routine and step out the door, we are world travelers. In other words, when we walk out our doors and head in the general direction of Timbuktu, we sometimes end up down the street or in Wales; but things will start happening. Suddenly, life is more interesting and fun.

Dr.Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) wrote about this in one of his masterpieces where he very precisely described this existential philosophy of travel The masterpiece I am writing about is the world's greatest travel guide: Oh, the Places You'll Go! . Of course the existentialist traveler would never use a guide book or do research on the Internet prior to leaving. Lonely Planet's guide to the UK would take all the fun and adventure out of the trip. Thus, Oh, the Places You'll Go! is smartly disguised as a children's book, and a ubiquitous graduation gift.

Out there things can happen

and frequently do

to people as brainy

and footsy as you

And when things start to happen,

Don't' worry. Don't stew.

Just go right along.

You'll start happening too.

The word existentialism brings to most minds a picture of lazy, chain smoking, beret wearing beatniks from the 1940's and 1950's talking about Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and using words like "angst", "dread", or "drift". Most people who have even heard of this probably associate cynicalism, negativity, agnosticism, fear of death, and atheism with this philosophy.

Much of this negative attitude about existentialism comes from those who read the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, a smug chain smoking French communist who probably didn't believe Buddhists went to heaven. Actually, he didn't believe anyone went to heaven because he didn't believe in God. He could not reconcile the idea that God could be a pour-soi (a French word meaning being-for-itself like a conscious) and an en-soi (another French word meaning a being-in-itself like a thing). Besides being a God hater, he also hated people. For example, in 1937 he published The Transcendence of Ego with the now famous statement: "L'enfer, c'est les autres." (Which is French for "Hell is other people.")

On the other hand, Kierkegaard criticized Christianity as a religion, but believed in God. He did not say this word for word, but having read Kierkegaard's journals, here's how I some up his beliefs: The organized Christian Church is a sham, religion is personal, and no one can truly believe until they can doubt.

William's take on existentialism was more Kierkegaard than Sartre, but, ultimately it was mostly Dr. Seuss. He felt like there probably was no big meaning or master plan for each person, but, instead of causing angst and pessimism, this simply took off some of the pressure and allowed him to feel free. Now there was no reason to worry or judge others. So, why worry when you have brains in your head and feet at the end of your legs?

Thus, each day, he simply started walking and what ever happened just happened. Come to think of it, perhaps blindly following an insincere belief in fate might be existentialism coming full circle.

***

They left the campground near Porthcawl on a cold misty morning and, within 30 minutes, found themselves parked in Margam County Park. William showed his English Heritage card to a pimply faced guy in his late teens working inside a gazebo next to a grassy parking lot. "What is this?" he asked him.

"This is an English Heritage Card. It gets me into sites in England for free. I was just wondering what it could do for me here in Wales."

"I've never heard of it, but go on. I will not charge you."

"Wow. Thank you. That is very kind of you. What is there to do here?"

The pimply teen responded, "Take the train up to the castle. Your children will love it. The castle is lovely."

At first the fog covered park appeared deserted. Beyond the parking area was a grassy field, a pond and rolling tree-covered hills. Almost on cue, a tiny red train rode out of the mist and parked in front of the pond. A gray-haired man in a conductor suit sat upon the miniature train looking like a giant. He asked, "Need a ride to the castle?"

"Sure." Zoë jumped up and down smiling saying, "Yippy! A train! A train!" At this point in her young life, Zoë was enamored with trains.

The conductor, then, said, "£13 please."

William thought, Wow. That's $26! "How far is the castle?" He asked. As it turned out, the castle was directly behind them standing like a sentinel above the wooded hills. Then, much to the chagrin of both children, the train ride idea was chucked. "No thank you, sir. We'll walk to the castle."

The conductor smiled and said, "Lovely. The walk through our forest to the castle is just lovely." At this (chooooo! choooooo!) the conductor drove his diminutive train off into the fog seemly disappearing never to be seen again by those three again. William and his children seemed utterly alone in the large park.

Rain did not fall from the sky, but liquid hung in the mist and dampened the soft grass. Thus, they donned rain gear. The sky was every shade of grey possible swirled and stirred into a jumble of cloud pudding that covered nearly every inch of the sky's neon blue canvas. The sun was nowhere to be found. Fog roamed the astonishingly green landscape like a team of colossal ghosts spitting the light mist in no single perceivable direction.

A little wooden sign, with "Fairytale Land" carved into it, marked the trailhead at the beginning of the little forest. "What does that sign say, Daddy?" asked Zoë.

Before Daddy could answer, Savanna chimed in, "It's a Fairytale Land!"

Off in the distance nearly invisible due to the fog, an old man in a purple wizard suit complete with a pointy hat and funky shoes walked in and out of view. "Was that a wizard?" asked William.

"I saw him too," replied Savanna.

"First the conductor on the tiny train, and now a wizard with a pointy hat. Kids, this is a bizarre little park." Little did he know, however, that everything was about to get even more odd.

The trio stepped out of a foggy and soggy meadow and into a foggy and soggy forest. Some of the tree stumps that poked out of the green undergrowth in the forest were carved into dragons, elves, and other creatures. "Wow!" the children kept saying as they passed each one. Just as they thought they were alone in the foggy forest, two sexy slender six-foot-tall ballerinas wearing pink tutus, ballerina slippers, and heavy make-up walked out of the fog holding hands and laughing. One girl had dark hair and dark skin, and the other girl had blonde hair and light skin.

Little Zoë was not at all surprised to see ballerinas in a forest in Wales. Four-year-olds have such beautiful and vivid imaginations that the sight of a wizard and two six-foot tall pretty ballerinas was not a surprise.

The soggy trail through the forest ended in another meadow covered with the gothic style ruins of a 1000 year old monastery. Roofless stone archways reached out of electric green grass to the cloud-covered sky above. In some places giant trees grew over, through and around the ruins making sheltered leaf-covered walkways and rooms. Tame black and brown deer grazed everywhere. Zoë looked underneath the many mushrooms that covered much of the damp earth for the tiny people she thought lived underneath. Then, out of the ruins walked three men with long white tunics and Arab style head-cloth. The two men carried on talking as they walked off and out of sight.

"Children, something is going on here," William said to his children.

Next to the ruins is a 300 year old orangery with all kinds of subtropical plants. The subtropical plants looked completely out of place in cold wet Britain. As the trio made their way to the entrance to the orangery, the strange dream of "Fairytale Land" would turn into William's worst nightmare.

The sounds of perhaps 100 feet quickly thumping on the ground along with a surplus giggles and words rapidly closed in on William. Implausibly, twenty jovial women of all ages wearing white wedding gowns, carrying flowers and followed by an army of bridesmaids left the orangey and walked and jogged straight to William. The ocean of brides and brides' maids parted like a Red Sea around a very stunned Moses. Everything seemed normal to little Zoë.

The ruins became empty again. Wind blew the leaves across the stone walkways, and a very light rain fell from the cloud covered sky above like it had been sprayed from a bottle of Windex set to "mist". William looked around at the ancient stone ruins with their gothic archways rising out of the impossibly green ground. He looked up the hill at the seemingly empty castle. There was not even a ripple in the lily pad covered pond in front of the grand orangery. He saw no Sheiks, wizards, ballerinas, brides or bridesmaids. Where did they all go?

"Is there a wedding going on?" asked Savanna.

"I'm going to find out. Let's see if we can find someone to ask."

Finally, behind the orangery, he spotted a solitary man putting away photographic equipment into large green canvas bags and boxes. The man wore a tan leather vest and donned a fedora on top of his shoulder-length brown hair. He looked almost like he was hiding behind the orangery.

"Excuse me sir. Could you tell me what is going on here today?"

"Ah. No English." responded the photographer looking guy.

William sarcastically thought, Of course, why would he be able to speak English? After all, we are in England! Of course, they were not in England; they were in Wales, but that would be less ironic. Then, he non-sarcastically asked in German, "Do you speak German?" Of course, if the man responded with a "Ya" then all he could ask him would be, "Excuse me, what time is it?"

The man did respond in German with, "A little." Therefore, he, too, could ask William, "Excuse me, what time is it?" This, nonetheless, would not allow them to solve the mystery of the brides, ballerinas, Arabs, and the wizard.

Being from America, William could, however, speak Spanish. So, he took a stab into a Latin darkness: "¿Habla español?"

"¡Si!" responded the now smiling tan vested man.

As it turned out, he was a photographer from Brazil who could speak Spanish as well as his native Portuguese (and a little German). What was he doing? He was filming a rock music video. The brides, the ballerinas, the Arab guys, and the wizard were there for a music video. Mystery solved.

***

The following events took place over the next few hours:

 A lunch of turkey sandwiches, tomatoes and spinach was eaten near the castle.

 Zoë threw up (all the aforementioned food) in the castle at the base of the stairs.

 William, Zoë and Savanna toured an old church and cemetery and went to the pub outside Margam County Park.

I was Patrolling a Pachinko Nude Noodle Model Parlor in the Nefarious Zone

Every table in the pub was filled with brides, bridesmaids, men in Arab garb, and photographer looking people; a tall wizard, holding his purple pointed hat, stood at the edge of the bar talking with a short girl in an elf suit. A small CD player rested next to the bottles of spirits behind the bar. The song coming out of the radio was from the late Joe Strummer and his last band called the Mescaleros. The song was Mondo Bongo.

William ordered two ice creams for his kids and a Double Dragon beer for himself and went to find a seat. A woman wearing a puffy white wedding dress sat alone in a table for four. Her pint of beer was half empty (or half full depending on your point of view or, maybe, it just didn't matter?). Her eyes were surrounded by thick black makeup, which was in stunning contrast to her pale colored face, but matched her black as coal hair.

"May we join you?" asked William.

"Of course."

Savanna nudged her father and whispered something in his ear. William said to the girl in the wedding dress, who turned out to be named Fatima, "My daughter wants to know if you are the singer."

"No. I work in a restaurant and do a little modeling on the side. Actually, I'm a friend of a friend." Fatima then asked him, "Do you have a fag?"

"A what? A fag? Like a gay guy?"

"No. A cigarette."

Wishing he had one (a cigarette that is), he responded, "No. Sorry."

The wizard, it turned out, had a fag (a cigarette that is). He gave it to Fatima and lit it for her. Then, she smoked it like she was one of those women in an old movie who looked like they would live forever. Fatima and William had the normal conversation that two strangers have when they meet for the first time. They learned each other's names, where each other was from and what each other did for a living and so forth. Savanna and Zoë joined in the conversation from time to time to reveal little tidbits about theirs and their daddy's lives back in South Carolina. Eventually, they learned that Fatima was not British, like the photographer, she too was from Brazil. She spoke near perfect English due to the fact that she had lived in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

"I'm bored," said Fatima.

"Am I boring you?" asked William.

"Yes."

"Sorry."

"Actually, I am bored with this conversation. Can't we talk about anything else?"

Fatima's comments both surprised and amused William who responded, "What would you like to talk about?"

"Anything, but the same-old-same-old. Every time I meet a fellow traveler we talk and find out where we are from and boring facts like that. Then we exchanged e-mails, Facebooks and never make meaningful contact again."

"OK. I have an idea. Let's have a deep conversation, but let's not exchange e-mails or anything. That way, we'll never see each other again. If we never see each other again then it will not matter what we say, right?"

Fatima smiled an evil smile, "I love that idea. Where should we start?"

Both Savanna and Zoë chimed in, "I'm hungry."

Food was ordered, served and ate. Conversation flowed while the children fell asleep one on each of their daddy's legs. Eventually, he placed two chairs together and fashioned a makeshift bed for his daughters, but both girls would eventually craw back into his lap.

"What are you afraid of?" Fatima asked William.

"I would like to say that I am afraid of nothing because I am a man, but I have one fear that is above any fear. I'm scared of losing my girls." He went on to explain that he was afraid that his soon-to-be ex-wife was planning to take him to court and take away his children. He talked for far too long and shared far too many details. However, Fatima was a wonderful listener and her eyes became red and wet because she felt his pain.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked her.

Fatima took a drag from her fag and said, "When I was a little girl I was afraid of the dark."

"Are you still afraid of the dark?"

"No. The darkness is a blank canvas that we paint with our fears. When I was a child all my fears lived in the dark. I thought there were ghosts and death hiding in the darkness. Now I fear nothing. Not even death. For this reason, I love the darkness. I paint the darkness with fantasies."

"What kind of fantasies?"

"All you men are alike. I know you are thinking about sexual fantasies, right? Are you going to ask me if I've ever shagged a girl?" She rolled her eyes.

"That's not what I meant. I was just asking a follow up question. OK. I'm going to try something else. Tell me a secret."

Fatima leaned in close to his face. William thought that she might kiss him. She seemed unpredictable enough to perform such a deed. However, much to his disappointment, she only wanted to whisper to him. Her breath smelled of cigarettes and coffee. Her voice was a raspy whisper, "I was married for two years to a very bad man named Paolo. I was just 16. I married him after I found out I was pregnant.

"I lost the baby. Paulo sold drugs for a living and did some very bad things to people. He was very controlling and I was scared of him.

"Paolo took over my life. He forbade me from seeing my friends. I was not even allowed to call my parents." Fatima paused and smoked and paused some more. "I had to leave him. So, I came to the UK and stayed passed my time. In order to stay here, I married a brother of one of my girlfriends. I never divorced Paulo. So, I was - how do you say it?...a polygamist."

The silence lingered like the smoke from Fatima's cigarette. Finally, William could not handle the silence and asked, "What happened to Paolo?"

"He is dead now." She stopped, raised her eyebrows and did not say anything else about it. Her expression made William think that she might have had something to do with his death. Next, she wiped her eyes and smeared some of the thick black makeup surrounding them. She sniffled and took a drag from her fag. (Or, was it her fag in drag?) "Your turn. Tell me a secret."

He had plenty of secrets he could have shared. Since Fatima shared such a deep secret with him, he knew that he owed it to her to share something deeply personal. However, he lost his nerve. He could not share such secrets. Instead he said to Fatima, "I write little books about some of my trips, and sale them on the Internet. I use a fake name, and I don't tell people that I write."

"So are you a best selling author?" asked Fatima.

"No. If I am lucky, I might sell one or two books a month. It's only my hobby. I guess I'm a 'worse selling author'."

"Are you going to write a book about this trip?" she asked.

"I don't think so, but if I did I would change your name. What would you like your fake name to be?"

"Fatima," she answered.

Llanthony Priory

As William ever so lightly pressed the gas on the accelerator his legs still tingled from the hours his children spent sleeping on them. Spitting rain fell from the sky on that cold Welch summer night and landed on the Fiat's tiny windshield. The slick slender road he drove on was flanked by high bushes. His thoughts were back at the pub. He could not get Fatima's wet make-up smeared eyes out of his head. Her story haunted him like a ghost in that ghostly night. He wished he could have told her something that would have made her not feel so badly about herself, but he knew that all Fatima wanted to do was to tell someone of the pain she felt inside.

A single light grew closer from behind the Fiat. William looked in the rearview mirror and the lone light reflected from the mirror onto his face revealing a black smear on his left cheek from Fatima's thick make-up. This is where she lightly kissed him on the cheek when they said good bye. For the following thirty minutes William was in love with her. The motorcycle passed him on the right side of the wet road and disappeared in the night.

Too tired to set up a tent in the night rain, he saw a sign for a youth hostel and turned off the narrow road to a village called Pandy. The road he turned on was even more ridiculously narrow than the previous narrow road. His current path had tall hedges on the right side and trees on the left that reached over the road and connected with the hedges forming a tunnel. On this small wet road it did not matter which side of the road he drove on, because the road was far too narrow for two cars to pass. In fact, the tiny Fiat barely fit.

As it turned out, the youth hostel was on the side of a mountain and, had it been daytime, would have had an amazing view. Had the hostel not been fully booked, William would not have paid the $80.00 to stay there.

"We're fully booked; however, you can camp at the priory," said the elderly woman that looked as if she ran the place.

"Priory? Is that like a monastery?"

"No. It's like a priory."

"Oh."

***

In 1100, thirty-four years after William the Duke of Normandy became William the Conqueror by conquering England, a Norman relative, with the much less masculine name of William de Lacy, came upon a little dilapidated chapel called St. David's Chapel. He was so inspired by the beauty of the Black Hills of Wales as a backdrop to the decaying church that he decided to devote his life to prayer and solitude and build a suitable church on the spot of the old chapel. The Church he built would eventually turn into the Llanthony Priory and would become home to forty Augustinian monks.

907 years later a tiny Fiat, with two sleeping children in the backseat and driven by a man of average intelligence also named William, parked in a field across from the ruins of the priory and pitched a tent. Rain lightly fell on the rain-fly all night long. The tap, tip, tap of the rain ended at 10 o'clock in the morning. The termination of falling rain might have been the reason the two children woke from their long night of sleep, or it could have been the chorus of "red rover, red rover... come on over".

Outside ten children aged four to ten stood in two opposing lines twenty yards from each other yelling, "Red rover, red rover Madison come on over!" Seven-year-old Madison made a mad dash for the opposing line only to be stopped abruptly by a chain of children. With-in minutes both Savanna and Zoë had joined in the fun.

The ten children had four fathers who were in the process of setting up a large camp next to William's small camp. The four men were all married, but had an annual tradition of spending one week camping at this priory with all their children. Actually, the tradition started before they had children when they were in college twenty years ago. Two of the men worked in the business world, while one was a sports writer, and the other taught filmmaking at a college. William's children became fast friends with all their children.

A little stone farm house sat next to the ruins. This is where William paid a middle-aged farmer named Cordelia £6 for the first night of camping. Cordelia wore shoulder length grey and brown hair, a flannel shirt and jeans. "Do you have showers?"

"No," replied Cordelia, "but we do have toilets."

"How many nights?"

"Just one." he thought that he would stay just one night since there were no showers. However, the three ending up staying for a week due to the fact that Savanna and Zoë loved this place filled with horses, sheep, goats, hiking trails, ruins to climb on, and loads of children their ages to play with. What four or nine year old would worry about a shower when she has all of the aforementioned? "Do you own this old monastery?"

Cordelia corrected him, "Actually, it's a priory. You have to be correct with that here in Wales. Yes, my family and I own it. This farm is called Court Farm."

"It's beautiful. In fact, this is such a beautiful place." The little stone farm next to the tall expansive stone ruins was encircled by green hills where sheep, horses and hikers roamed. Thick trees and the occasional bolder dotted the green hills which are known as the Black Hills.

"Thank you," replied Cordelia.

Zoë chimed in, "Ask her about the horses?"

"How much is it to ride the horses?"

"£42 for adults and £35 for children."

William thought, that would be like $220 for all of us to ride. For this reason, riding horses would be out of the question.

***

A few days later, he leaned against one of the stone walls that surround the lush, wet green pastures. Both Savanna and Zoë sat atop the wall calling for the horses to come. Since they were not permitted to ride the horses, the next best thing would be to touch them. Zoë looked sad.

"What's wrong baby?" asked her daddy.

"I want to touch the horses, but they won't come. I keep trying to touch them, but they won't let me!"

"Be patient baby. Maybe before we leave you'll get to touch one."

Zoë's frown turned into a smile as she pointed up the green hill. "They're here! They're here," she chanted.

"Who? The horses?"

"No! Our friends. Here they come!"

Sure enough, four daddies and their ten children were making their way down the hill behind the farm. The hills around the priory were covered with marked footpaths.

Once all five daddies were standing amongst the ruins, one of them, a sports writer, asked William, "Would you like to join us for tea?"

William had always thought of British people as avid tea drinkers, and he wanted to learn more about British culture. "Sure."

Back at the campsite, the men cooked spaghetti. William came over and asked, "Are we having tea after dinner?"

The men laughed. "No, what you call 'dinner' we call 'tea'. I know it sounds funny, but when we say, 'It's time for tea' what we mean is it is time to eat a small meal." I wonder what these people call supper?

After dinner they did, in fact, drink some tea as the children, again, played "Red Rover". The five men, all drinking tea, sat on folding chairs and talked.

William said, "So, far I've learned the meaning of "lorry", "row", "tea" and much more. There are a few other things that confuse me about this place."

"What's that?" one of the men asked.

"OK. First. Is the UK part of Europe?"

The sports writer guy, Jack, answered, "Well, that depends who you ask. I say no. Europe is France, Germany, Spain, and all those places. We're part of the EU and all that, but I wouldn't call this Europe. But, many people would."

The other three nodded, but one man said, "We're not Europe!"

"Alright. Here's another one. Do you consider Wales and Scotland to be their own countries?"

Jack answered again, "Again it depends on who you ask. I say they are. Wales has its own language, and Scotland has its own Parliament. I think most Welch people and Scottish people would tell you that they live in their own country."

Later, William would ask these questions of other people on the trip. Inevitably, the answers varied considerably.

Richard, one of the fathers, suggested, "Let's go to the pub."

At first William thought he was kidding. All he could see were the ruins of the priory, the farmhouse, sheep, horses, and green mountains. "Where is there a pub around here?"

"It's beneath the ruins."

"Really like in a cave or something?"

Sure enough, past a thick wooden door and down a diminutive set of concrete stairs in a darkened space the size of a rich woman's closet was the Half Moon pub. The pub was actually underground. All the men wanted beer and all the kids wanted lemonade.

"Let me pay for this since ya'll did the tea thing for us," said William. The rest of the men and children went outside amongst the ruins of the priory and waited for the drinks.

"May I please have twelve lemonades and five pints of beer? On second thought, I think I just want half a pint of beer."

The bartender laughed, "Are you serious? Half pint? Only girls drink half pints."

"OK. In that case, I'll have a pint! And, make it your hardest tasting manliest beer! Oh yeah, and a fork so I can eat it!"

The barkeep laughed and loaded the drinks, all in glasses, onto a thin warped tray with the cork filling pealing. William had worked as a waiter for five years as he completed his degree from Alderson-Broaddus College in West Virginia. Thus, he was skilled at carrying trays filled with glasses. However, this warped tray with five pints of beer and twelve little glasses of lemonade would be his greatest test.

He carried the tray high above his head delivering the drinks with flair. "I'll get the next round," said Richard, "But you'll carry the tray!" The concurrence of the fragile glasses and the stone ruins appeared dangerous; however, no glasses were shattered against the 1000 year old ruins. The children happily climbed all over the ruins of the priory until a young man came out of the farm and said, "Please tell your children not to climb on the ruins."

***

The rest of the week would be without showers, but with many slippery hikes through the sheep and horse covered hills of Brecon Beacons National Park that surrounds the farm. They could have stayed longer, but two facts meant it was time to leave. First, after one week without showers, and several accidental slides down a hill in horse shit, it was time for a shower. Second, the daddies and their ten children were leaving, as well.

"Will, do you have time for a game of football before you leave?" The sports writing daddy was not asking William to play the "football" game that he was familiar with. In England, "football" is what Americans call "soccer".

Wooden stakes had been put in the muddy ground to mark goals and teams were chosen. Richard said laughing, "Why don't you take the Yank for your team. They don't really play football over there!" He played timidly at first, but was surprised at how aggressively everyone else played. William's team was down 10 to 9 and everyone was covered in mud when one of the fathers made a brilliant pass to a teenaged camper who scored a tying goal. "Next goal wins!" somebody yelled. William intercepted the ball at midfield and weaved around until kicking the ball into the corner of the goal. "Goal!"

"Fun game, Thanks for letting me play," the American said. Who said Yanks can't play football? he thought.

"OK, kids, we have to get out of here."

Zoë looked sad, "But I never touched the horses."

William looked into her big heartbreakingly brown eyes, and could not say no. The children calmly sat on the stone fence and waited, as they did every previous day. A brown and white horse passed nearby and little Zoë held out her hand and touched the horse. The horse stayed and she fed him grass and stroked his neck. Astonishingly, one-by-one, horse-after-horse came until five horses stood at the fence and allowed both girls to pet them. Zoë beamed.

"Did you kids like Breaking Bacon National Forest?" he asked using the wrong name for the Brecon Beacons National Park.

"Yeah!"

From there the three showered at a pub with a campground in Pandy called the Sunrise Pub. Then, they shared an English breakfast for £2.50, and toured a castle called Raglan Castle. Finally, it was off to Scotland.

"You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen."

– Paulo Coelho (By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, 2006)

Part V: Who the hell is Robert Burns?

On a cloudy June morning in 2007 a tiny fiat with two happy children and a man (who does not believe in fate, but lives like he does believe in fate) crossed the boarder into Scotland. As they drove past the sign along the motorway that stated they were in Scotland, William tried his best Scottish accent, "Children, we're in Scotland!"

Scotland

"What are we going to do in Scotland?" asked Savanna.

"I don't know. Let's just see what happens."

Eventually what happened was Savanna read a sign along the motorway that read, "Dumfries, Scotland - Home of Robert Burns". This caused her to laugh, "That town is called Dumb Fries! Do they have dumb fries there?"

"No, but they do have Robert Burns!" William answered. Dumfries did, in fact, have Robert Burns. However, he was six feet under the ground having died more than 200 years before at the young age of 37. William was also 37 years old and was very happy to be six feet above Burns and with his children.

"Who is Robert Burns?"

"I don't know, but let's find out," he answered with exuberance.

***

A chubby lady with poofy grey hair and a big smile greeted the three Americans at the tourist information center. She looked like the older sister of the woman at the campground near Stonehenge. "Is this your first time here in Dumfries?" she asked.

"Yes Ma'am. What is there to do and see here?"

"I bet your children would enjoy seeing castles, right?"

After hearing this, both Savanna and Zoë yelled, "Yeah!"

The poofy haired woman grabbed a map and gave directions to Caerlaverock Castle and a few others nearby. (Incidentally, Caerlaverock Castle would turn out to be their favorite castle.) She spoke like she was repeating lines that she had said over and over. The way she gave the directions sounded like someone had pressed "Play" and a recording started. Behind her on the wall was a large circular sticker that read, "Take the Robert Burns' Trail!"

William read the sticker, and, then, said to the woman, "The castles sound lovely, but can you tell me about the Robert Burns' Trail?"

It was as if some internal light was turned on. The woman's smile became larger and brighter than even her hair. "Are you fans of Robert Burns?"

William had never really heard much of Robert Burns, (except that he recently had a conversation that cost time off the life of a neo-pagan guy) but he did not want to diminish this woman's excitement. Thus, he could not bring himself to tell this to her; instead, he went overboard: "Yes! Yes, we are. Big fans. Big fans."

With excitement that approached glee, the woman grabbed brochures and maps. One brochure contained a map of the Robert Burns' Trail with no less than sixteen Robert Burns' stops on the trail. These stops included a pub, a secret bedroom, his house, his grave, his museum, and much more. With the smiling woman watching, William made an important announcement: "Children, I have an important announcement to make. We are going to visit every stop on the Robert Burns' Trail today! By the time we leave Dumfries, we will know all there is to know about this great man."

Pause.

Savanna, then, said, "After we leave Dumfries, will we be smart fries?"

Nine-year-old Savanna laughed at her own joke along with her sister, but her daddy just responded, "You're killing me."

So, with map and biographical information in hand, they set out to find Robert Burns. As they left the tourist information center, the smiling woman with the big hair yelled, "If you eat at the Globe, ask about the bedroom!"

***

The first stop on the trail was a majestic looking statue of Robert Burns at the top of High Street. (Does every town in the UK have a High Street?) Both Savanna and Zoë stood next to the statue and mimicked the regal pose for the standard cliché statue photo that many tourists take standing next to statues. Next to a café, past the statue, there was a dull yellowish stain on the pedestrian walkway. William paused and magnanimously proclaimed to his children, "Robert Burns peed here!"

"Really?"

"No." Thirty-seven-year-old William laughed at his own joke, but each child simply responded, "You're killing me."

"Can I get a latte?" asked Savanna.

"You can have a decaf latte, if you say please."

"May I please have a decaf latte daddy?"

"Let's go. I can use a coffee too."

Situated just passed the statue at 148 High Street was the Dumfries Coffee Company, a medium sized coffee house with WiFi and lattes. A handwritten paper sign was taped to the door with the following words: "OPEN MIC NIGHT TONIGHT!". William wondered why the sign was printed all in CAPS with an exclamation mark added. At any rate, as the three drank their "coffees", he read all the material he had about Robert Burns. As it turned out, he is the most famous Scottish poet in the world. He should have heard about him. In fact, he wrote the words for Auld Lang Syne. Actually, Robert said that he overheard an old man singing it, and wrote it down claiming that the song was an old traditional song. This was probably him just being modest.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

The café had two computers for checking e-mail and such. William checked his e-mail account and his Facebook account as Savanna and Zoë talked with a man named Garth, who was seated in the next table. William had five new e-mails. Four of these e-mails promised him a larger penis. The other e-mail was from a "Canadian" pharmacy advertising low cost prescription drugs. On Facebook a girl from his high school that he barely knew had sent him a request to "hug a cat". What is this silly shit? he thought. Nonetheless, he added the application and gave this imaginary cyber cat an imaginary cyber hug and wished he had the 30 seconds back that he wasted doing it. In fact, he wished he had the 10 minutes back he spent checking his e-mail and Facebook.

A man named Garth, on the other hand, was drinking some funky coffee drink and reading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry by Nikki Moustaki. The cover of the book claimed "Valuable Tips, Fun Exercises and Idiot Proof Advice!". Garth did not seem bothered by the conversation initiated by the two children. In fact, he was smiling and telling them that he was trying to write a poem for "OPEN MIKE NIGHT!".

"Why do you want to write a poem?" asked Savanna.

"You see the girl serving the coffee over there?" He pointed over to a barista with jet black hair.

"Yes sir."

"I want to impress her."

Both children then said, "Oooooooooooooh!"

Besides the computers and coffee, one could purchase a phone card at this café. William purchased a phone card for £5 in order to call home. Phone cards turned out to be one of the few bargains in Britain. Nearly two weeks into the trip and nightly phone calls to his mother and brother (and one phone call to Matilda), he had purchased just one other card.

Methodically, the nonbeliever in fate and his two children made their way from stop to stop on the Robert Burns' Trail tour collecting stickers, pens, brochures and post cards, and getting to know the late Robert Burns. Many stops on the tour had "treasure hunts" for children where the kids were given colorful pads and pencils and asked to find things such as a name scratched in a window. At the conclusion of the treasure hunt, the children would receive a sticker proclaiming that they had completed the hunt. After a number of stops their hands were full of the pens and brochures and the girls were covered in stickers.

As the tour progressed, William realized that, despite being dead for two and a half centuries, Robert Burns was very much alive in the hearts, minds and geography of this small Scottish town. This was due to the life he led. He was both a man's man and a lady's man. He was both intelligent and down-to-earth. Despite the fact he had been dead for 211 years; people spoke about him like they knew him. William was not a big fan of poetry. He felt that most poetry was just pretentious trash, but the poems of Robert Burns seemed simple, matter-of-fact yet... lovely.

For example, taped to the wall of a little shop was a post card elegantly decorated with a single red rose and had the words of a Robert Burns poem on it:

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,

That's newly sprung in June:

O my Luve's like the melodie,

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

Nowhere in Dumfries did the persona of Robert Burns seem more vivacious than at his favorite pub: The Globe Inn. The sign outside The Globe proudly proclaims that it was established in 1610. On the wall of the bar is a handwritten letter by none other than Robert Burns himself stating: "...Globe Tavern which has for these many years been my howff..." Our American traveler thought, I don't know what a "howff" is, but it must be important.

***

Robert Burns has one very existential quote in one of his poems: "The best laid schemes of mice and men, going oft agley." These words were written in a poem that was to a mouse. He loved talking and would spend hours reading newspapers to illiterate people and telling stories. He, apparently, loved the ladies, as well. He fathered 13 children from various women. Burns, evidently, loved the name Elizabeth since he gave three of his daughters that name. His first "wife" was named Jean.

Robert met Jean when his dog ran over some clothes she was coloring. She could see that he loved his dog and it pained him to scold the dog for ruining the clothing. This must have endeared him to her for she said to him, "Have you found any lassie yet to love you as well as your dog?" They had children together and Robert made up his own marriage license that Jean's father later messed up so that Jean could leave him.

***

"Can we sit near the spot where he read the paper?" William asked the waitress. He had learned from the brochures that Burns used to read the newspaper aloud in his chair in this pub and illiterate people would gather around him each night to listen. This presented a nice vision of the poet placidly enjoying his nightly good deed to the common folks of Dumfries. The actual chair sat in the very same corner where he read and was corded off. William, Savanna and Zoë sat around the table closest to that chair.

There was something else that drew William to the Robert Burns chair at the Globe. Back in South Carolina, he enjoyed going to the same places over and over. He loved restaurants and cafes where everybody knew his name. "Betty, I'll have the usual..." He loathed fast food and chains and Wal-Marts. The guy at the local hardware store would ask him if he had finished with his latest project. The bank never asked for an ID. The mechanic knew all about his car and never overcharged him. These places presented a certain comfort. Evidently, Burns must have been just like him in this way: Seated in his chair and his pub reading the paper and hanging out with the locals.

"We don't have a lot of money. So, we are going to have three cheeseburgers and no fries with three waters, ok?"

Savanna responded, "OK Daddy."

Zoë responded, "I want fries!"

As the three ate their burgers, six elderly people were seated at the table next to them. One of the women saw the children eating burgers without fries and decided to do something about it. "I'm not going to eat my chips. Would you children like them?"

She then got up and divided her fries between the two children. This prompted William to have the following thought: Why was this lady giving her fries to my kids? Anyway, it was a very friendly thing to do.

Following the meal, the waitress explained to William that he should pay the check at the bar. He thought it was funny that Americans pay the bill and ask for the check; while British people pay the check and ask for the bill.

"Can we see the bedroom?" he asked her.

"Yes. Just wait at the bar and I will fetch Mr. Davidson for you." The children laughed when they heard the word "fetch".

Mr. Davidson was a man of about sixty and was delighted to give the three a tour of the Globe. In fact, he was grinning ear to ear when he said, "So, you want to see the bedroom? Are you a fan of Robert Burns?"

"Yes." By this time he was telling the truth.

For 45 minutes the man patiently took them through the pub room by room telling lengthy stories with his thick Scottish accent. He showed them a window where Robert Burns carved his name using a diamond ring. He showed them a measuring stick used to measure how much beer was in a keg for tax purposes. He said, "My friend found this when he was cleaning his house. Look what is carved on it."

At the base of the stick was the initials "RB".

"This room is very special. This is where the Howff meets. I was president of the Howff in 1996."

On the wall was a list of all the former presidents including "G. L. Davidson 1995 to 1996".

"This room is special because no one knew it was here for hundreds of years..." He explained that the number of windows outside the building did not match the number of windows inside the building. This mystery was solved when a wall was removed that reviewed a long lost large room. Now a Robert Burns club meets in the room.

A framed copy of an ancient document with ribbons hanging from it hung on the wall in the hall between the lost room and the bedroom. "What is this?" asked William.

Mr. Davidson straightened his back and proudly stated, "That is a copy of the Scottish Declaration of Independence." He paused long enough to smile.

Ultimately, the tour ended at the bedroom. A cozy little room still looking like the sixteenth century rested above the bar. This bedroom is where Robert Burns slept after having too much to drink to make it home. This bedroom is also where he had one of his many extramarital affairs. Ann Park, his mistress, eventually gave birth to a daughter named Betty. Betty was one of thirteen or fourteen children born to Robert Burns. The last child was born the same year he died at the age of 37. William was 37 when he heard this story from Mr. Davidson and thought that 37 years old may not be terribly young, but it was far too young to be dead.

In his thick Scottish accent he concluded the story of Robert Burns by telling the trio that Burns' wife, Jean, raised little Betty after Ann Park died. What a fine woman, thought William.

"Do you want to get on the bed?" He asked the children. Both children looked up to their father who nodded. Then, Mr. Davidson hoisted the children onto Robert Burns' bed. Next, he handed them a bust of the dead poet to hold. What a nice photo opt, he thought as he snapped a photo of the children.

***

The Robert Burns Trail ended Ghost of Christmas Future style at the Burns Mausoleum where Robert Burns is interred in a big white mausoleum and many of his friends are buried with plaques that proclaim "Friend of Robert Burns".

"So, kiddies, what did you think of Dumfries and Robert Burns?"

The two children beamed and cheered, "It was great! Is there more?"

"Yes. Just two more stops. I have to stop by the tourist information center and tell that lady that I really never heard of Robert Burns before today. I feel bad for telling her that we were big fans. Children, we must always be truthful except when the truth might hurt someone's feelings.

"You mean it is OK to lie sometimes?" asked Savanna.

"Well, if your friend gives you a gift that you do not like, you could say, 'I love it! Thanks.'"

"Oh, I get it! I think that lady might have been hurt if you told her that you never heard of Robert Burns," replied Savanna.

"OK. I do believe that you are correct. So, we'll skip going over to the tourist info lady with the big hair. Anyway, we are big fans now, right? Oh yeah, and the last stop will be at that café for Open Mike Night."

***

OPEN MIKE NIGHT! was sparsely attended by about two dozen people of all ages. A man with a mostly bald head and a beard played an original tune on his acoustic guitar. William could understand neither the words of the song nor the title of the song due to the man's heavy Scottish accent. However, the sound delighted him. After a young girl sang a song about heart break with the help of her harmonica, the emcee said, "OK. Next we have Will from America." Despite the fact that he had not written anything, William had signed his name to the list of potential performers as soon as he walked into the café that evening. For some reason he wrote the words "from America" next to his name.

***

The boarder between North and South Carolina dissects a little barrier island with the unremarkable name of Bird Island. The island has no houses or roads on it. However, for some unknown reason, there is a mailbox with the enigmatic name of "Kindred Spirit Mailbox". For many years, visitors to Bird Island have written little notes and put them inside the mailbox without knowing who might read them. Most of these notes seem like prayers, some are more like journals, but a few of the visitors write pretentious poems. Meanwhile, in Scotland, a bearded bald headed guy sang with a heavy Scottish accent and William decided to write a very pretentious poem about that mailbox on Bird Island.

While the harmonica playing young woman sang about heartbreak, he borrowed a pencil from a coffee girl and scribbled a poem on a napkin.

"OK. Next we have Will from America."

Here is what he planned to say before reading his pretentious poem about a little known mailbox on a tiny barrier island, "Ladies and Gents, I have always thought that some poetry is pretentious, because the meaning is hidden behind a bunch of pretty words arranged in a pretty way. To me, a poem is like an inside joke that only the poet knows enough about it to laugh. Poetry is like a pretty girl who is difficult to understand. Poetry is like a dark sea. What lies beneath? Who knows?! However, after visiting your wonderful town and learning about Robert Burns, I now feel that poetry can be simple and beautiful. Thus, I was moved to write a poem, but I am not a poet. For that reason, I decided to write a poem like the poems I hate. I made this one as nonsensical and pretentious as I could. I guess I am just trying to make a point that the more pretentious a poem, the less intelligent it really is. What is really, truly beautiful is the simple intelligent poetry of people like the late Robert Burns. To make my point, I have written the following poem entitled The Most Pretentious Poem in the World."

However, once standing behind the microphone with a four-year-old child clinging to his leg and an embarrassed nine-year-old-child hiding in her seat, he did not say all that. All he said before reading his poem was the following: "This poem is entitled The Most Pretentious Poem in the World." He read the poem with a fake British accent for he thought his native Tennessee accent did not sound pretentious enough. Besides that, he hoped it would be funny. Unfortunately, his fake British accent was the second worst fake British accent in the history of the world. (Of course, the worst fake British accent in the history of the world belongs to Dick van Dyke when in 1964 he played Bert in Mary Poppins.)

He read the following poem from a napkin:

Sailors wearing fishnets on the dock by the pool;

While crocodile monkeys dance with a fool.

The disco doggie moonlight tickles you;

And marshmallow coconuts roll to the loo.

Salt, lime and Tabasco taste real good;

Beware of the liquid shards of glass in the hood.

A barkeep grabs a pint from the shelf;

While a wizard talks with an elf.

Inside your heart I ambiance the beat;

It's cold in here. Turn on the heat!

"I love you," she is calling;

But I say, "Don't stop falling!"

(He paused for effect.)

A mailbox sits on an empty beach;

Put a letter in it;

Where does it go?

I... don't... know.

Following the reading of The Most Pretentious Poem in the World, 1/3 of the couple dozen people in the café sat in stunned silence while the other 2/3 continued milling around the café having not listened to the poem in the first place. Two American children, on the other hand, clapped and smiled enthusiastically not realizing that The Most Pretentious Poem in the World might have actually been The Worst Poem in the World.

"Can we go now, daddy?" asked Savanna with a pleading voice. "I'm embarrassed."

"Why are you embarrassed? Didn't you think the poem was funny," he said to his daughter.

"Daddy, I liked it, but I don't think these people liked it."

"I think they did. Maybe in Scotland silence is the upmost form of applause"

"Really?" replied Savanna hopefully.

"No. Maybe they just didn't get it. Anyway, if they didn't like it, they don't know good poetry! But, it is time to go. We don't even know where we are sleeping tonight."

One person did, however, like the poem. Garth (the Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry guy) sat alone not far from the door trying to get up the nerve to put his name on the list. The object of his affection continued to make lattes and cappuccinos behind the counter. "Hello Garth."

"I liked your poem," he said, "it reminded me of Dylan." William hoped Garth meant Bob Dylan for he liked the comparison to Bob Dylan.

***

Later, due to the Dylan comparison, as the three of them drove away in the Fiat Punto, William sang to his children.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

The children both had their hands over their ears as Zoë yelled, "Daddy stop!" Daddy stopped singing, not because of his children's pleas, but, because he did not know any more of the song. Had he known the next part of the song he would have understood why his poem sounded like Dylan:

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,

Vanished from my hand,

Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.

My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,

I have no one to meet

And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

William turned the on radio as they approached a roundabout.

Hoddom Castle

The many roundabouts they encountered with the Fiat became tangible metaphors of their existential journey. Each roundabout was a roll of the dice, because each of the roads emanating from the axis of each traffic circle could lead to a new adventure.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Six roads diverge in a roundabout, and a Fiat—

A tiny Fiat took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The random road led to a small town called Dalton. William read the sign aloud, "Look a' there kiddies-- Dalton."

Zoë pulled her thumb out of her mouth and excitedly exclaimed, "Papa lives in Dalton!" Of course, she meant Dalton, Georgia not Dalton, Scotland for William's biological father was from Georgia.

Nevertheless, following fate, which he did not believe in, he made the turn to Dalton and saw a hand painted sign that read: "Castle and Campground". The Hoddom Castle Caravan Park was run by a kind English couple. A monument near the giant checker game proclaimed that Hoddom Castle and Campground was voted the best campground in Scotland in 2005.

"Can you believe Scotland has so many castles that they can use some for campgrounds?" he told his children as they checked in and paid £12 for the first night to the female part of the English couple who, due to the fact that she and her husband were wearing night cloths, had apparently gotten out of bed to check them in.

"Many people around here think we are an English couple taking jobs away from Scottish people, but we love telling our friends back in Manchester that we live in a castle," she said. "Where is mummy?" she asked.

"Just the three of us tonight," he responded.

"Oh. In that case, here is the key to the handicap toilet. You three will have the showers to yourselves." The campground had three showers and toilets: Men's, Women's and Handicap. The showers and bathrooms and laundry were in the castle proper and were spacious and made with marble and very palatial looking for a campground.

***

For some strange meteorological phenomena, rain was not falling out of the night sky over Scotland as they sat up their tent under the moon cast shadow of a Scottish castle. Rain was not tap, tip, tapping on the rain-fly of the tent as everyone wrote in their journals, and the children fell asleep. Precipitation did not bounce off William's head as he walked 100 feet to the pay phone between the camp store and castle. In fact, drizzle would not come to Dalton, Scotland until morning. Twenty-four hours without rain anywhere in the UK was akin I-95 without cars for the same time span.

Meanwhile at the pay phone, he told his mama and brother about Dumfries and the amazing restrooms at the castle/campground. From the payphone he could see his tent sitting alone in the tent camping area. There were many other campers in the campground. However, they were in what American's call "RV's" and Brits call "Caravans". Before heading back to the tent, he called Matilda.

"Hello."

"Hey Matilda."

"Wow. Are you calling from England?"

"Actually, Scotland."

They started out with small talk until Matilda dropped a three word bomb on him. "I know this sounds funny, but, Will, I love you."

Pause.

"Really. Wow." William was at a loss of what to say. He certainly could not have a girl loving him due to the fact that he did not want a steady girlfriend. "You know what?"

"What?"

"Think about this. Isn't the best part of a relationship the falling in love part? Maybe we're falling in love with each other. Let's face it once two people say they love each other they stop falling in love because they reach the bottom. They stop falling. Don't those romantic comedy type movies always end when the guy gets the girl? Love is the destination of falling in love. Can we not tell each other 'I love you'? I mean, [pause] let's just not stop falling."

Matilda answered, "Wow. Will, that's beautiful. I think you are right. I've never dated anyone for more than four months. It normally ends right after we start telling each other 'I love you'. So, I agree. Let's not say those three little words. Those words are like poison. Let's not stop falling, OK? Besides that, I don't think we should have sex before we get married, OK?"

William walked back to his tent following the two phone conversations. Matilda went to sleep repeating the mantra, "Don't stop falling." By the end of the week, Matilda had an eighth tattoo under her cloths. The new tattoo, on the left side of her lower back, was of a pink flamingo next to a palm tree with the words "Don't stop falling". By the end of two weeks, Matilda had decided that she did not ever love William. By the end of three weeks, Matilda was dating a guy named Steven who went to her church and took her rock climbing. After five weeks Steven told Matilda, "I love you." Matilda responded with, "Steven, let's not stop falling, ok?"

William returned to the tent to find little Zoë was no longer on her ThermaRest sleeping pad or even in her sleeping bag. She was sleeping soundly curled up in a ball sucking her thumb and clinging to her blanky in a corner of the tent. He zipped her up in her sleeping bag and put her back on her sleeping pad next to Savanna without waking her. At this, Savanna rolled over placing her one free arm sticking out of her sleeping bag around her sleeping sister. The two slept in this way the rest of the night.

William thought about Matilda again and realized that she was one of those dreamers who believed that love is something we find or discover. William, the existentialist, knew that love had to be created not discovered. Since love is the greatest entity of the universe, love takes time to create.

On the other hand, Matilda probably loved being in love and, possibly, already loves her mythical boyfriend. Thus, by the time she meets a guy the love is already there before she really knows him. These types of people say those three words and probably mean them, but cannot pinpoint the reasons why they love.

***

The phone call took his brain back to South Carolina. After he crawled into his sleeping back, he started reminiscing. The reminiscing turned into a dream- actually a nightmare. So, readers, it's flashback time.

Woo, woo, woo.

Flashback to South Carolina (A few weeks earlier)

Willam's phone rang Saturday morning at 11:00.

Ring.

William's cell phone did, in fact, ring. Despite the fact that he could have chosen an old school rap song for his ring tone, he had chosen a sound that actually reminded him of a real phone.

"Answer it," said his father.

Ring.

"No. I'm just going to let it ring. At any rate, I don't recognize the number."

Ring.

"It's OK. I'm going to take a nap anyway."

Ring.

"Hello." He answered his phone, and his father crashed into one of the two queen sized beds in the hotel.

"It's Matilda from your mama's church in Tennessee." Matilda was a blonde twenty-three-year-old singer in a bluegrass band from William's hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was soon to find out that under her cloths were seven tattoos. One of the seven tattoos was a pirate scull and crossbones with a pink bow on the crown of the skull. Prior to this call, he had always thought of Matilda as a conservative tetoteling Southern Baptist.

How was either Matilda or William to know that, ultimately, due this very phone call, Matilda would have an eighth tattoo and William would find himself naked and alone in a swimming pool.

"Wow. Matilda. This is a surprise. I mean to say, this is a pleasant surprise. I'm... I'm glad you called. How are ya?"

"I'm in Myrtle Beach!"

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm here for the weekend. Remember at church when you told me that if I ever get to Myrtle Beach you would show me around? Well, here I am, but you don't have to show me around."

"Well, Daddy is here from Georgia, but I'm sure I can get out of here for a few hours."

Dot. Dot. Dot...

By the end of the phone call, His father was sound asleep on one of the two beds in the hotel room, and his two daughters were asleep on the other bed.

Just in case they woke up while he was gone, he wrote the following note:

I'll be back in a few hours. I'm gone to show a person around Myrtle Beach from Mama's church. Love, Willy.

He took Matilda to Broadway at the Beach and they drank a Margarita at the Margaritaville Restaurant. Following this, they spent 30 minutes in Ripley's Aquarium and drove to the pavilion where they drank a beer at the Bowery and walked along the boardwalk.

"Where can we listen to some live music?" asked Matilda.

La Belle Amie Vineyard in Little River, South Carolina was having one of their monthly wine and music festivals. This is where William and Matilda drank two bottles of a sweet muscadine wine called Sugar Daddy.

A local band called the Necessary Brothers Band played their version of Van Morison's Brown-Eyed Girl.

Hey where did we go, days when the rains came?

Down in the hollow, playin' a new game

Laughing and a running hey, hey! Skipping and a jumping

In the misty morning fog with our hearts a thumpin' and you ...

My brown eyed girl

You, my brown eyed girl...

After half a bottle of wine was gone, Matilda asked William the following question: "Do you think Buddhists are going to heaven?"

William replied, "Well, I look at it this way. If I were born in Thailand, I would probably be Buddhist. If I were born in Saudi Arabia, I would probably be Moslem. I was born in Tennessee. So, I am Baptist. For this reason, I believe Jesus died for all of 'em even the Buddhists, and the Moslems. I feel like they are all going to Heaven. I think any other way wouldn't be fair. What do you think?"

Matilda bent her lips and looked sideways, "I think Buddhists are probably going to hell. (pause) So are Moslems. They don't believe in Jesus. So, they should burn in hell too. You know who else is going to burn? The Catholics, because they don't worship Jesus like we do either."

After the first bottle of wine neither cared who the hell burned in hell. Indeed, after one bottle, they had kissed each other several times in the lips.

Do you remember when we used to sing?

Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da

Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da

Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da

Two bottles of wine was gone and so were they. William drove them to his house twenty minutes away. On the way, Matilda reached under her loose-fitting black dress and removed her white panties and tossed them out the window. Following this, she fanned herself with the hem of her dress exposing herself with each flap of the hem. William looked over at the cutie sitting in the passenger seat and thought, Good things do sometimes happen to good people!

Matilda said the following as she fanned herself: "Will! I'm so fucking hot. I want to take this fucking dress off!"

He answered, "I'm such a pervert. I can't believe how much it turns me on to hear you say, 'Fucking.' A girl from my mom's church saying 'fucking'. I love it."

Matilda then said, "Fucking, Fucking, Fucking, Fucking."

***

There are questions that are so rarely asked that one never expects to hear them. The following question is one such question: "Why is that woman cutting down a tree in your yard with an ax?"

"Will?" asked Matilda. "Will?" she asked a second time.

"Yeah?" replied William.

"Why is that woman cutting down a tree in your yard with an ax?"

"Oh. That's my wife. She appears to be attempting to cut down one of my trees. That's not an ax. It's a splitting maul. Do you mind waiting here while I go talk her out of it? I like that tree"

"You got a wife?"

"I'll explain later, but right now I'd like to save that tree. Like I said, I like that tree."

He cautiously approached his wife as any man cautiously approaches a woman swinging a large sharp tool. "Hey, Karen, why are you beating my tree with my splitting maul?"

Karen's reckless swinging was far more dangerous to her than the large shade tree, but, nonetheless, she continued swinging as she spoke, "Because your fucking chainsaw wouldn't start! So, I have to use this fucking ax!"

William had two thoughts at this moment:

Doesn't anyone know the difference between an ax and a maul?

...and...

Why don't I get turned on when my future ex-wife says "fucking"?

Thus he stated the following: "Yeah. But that's not even an ax. It's a maul and it is used for splitting wood. Doesn't anyone know the difference between an ax and a maul? I bet you don't even know the difference between a spade and a shovel, do you?"

Karen looked at him and contemplated his silly statements and realized how happy she would be if he was no longer her husband.

"By the way, can you please stop? I like that tree."

Karen did not like being told what to do. "This is my fucking house," she yelled, "and I'm cutting down this tree so I won't have to rake the fucking leaves!"

William said to Karen, "You don't live here anymore. We are separated. Why are you here?"

Karen threw the maul to the ground and replied, "I'm here, because this is my house! I'm tied of living at my brother-in-law's house, and you living in my house! You move. You're the man. The man is supposed to move. So, be a man and move! Stop being such a fag." At this, she walked inside. Just before entering the house, she turned to him and called him a pussy. The tree appeared fine.

Despite the urge to flee this situation, Matilda decided to remain seated quietly in William's clunky white van due to the fact that there was an apparently crazy wife swinging what she thought was an ax, but was actually a maul, which is used to split wood.

Before walking back to Matilda, he hid the maul and removed the spark plug from his chainsaw. Then, he opened the door to his vehicle and said the following to Matilda: "Change of plans babe! Let's take my bike!"

As, Matilda and William rode through the small South Carolina town on a 1981 one-of-a-kind motorcycle, Matilda's hands were engaging in activities that could have distracted the driver of the aforementioned motorcycle. "Ever go skinny dipping?" she asked.

The afore-asked question prompted William to make an unfortunate decision that would leave him alone and naked in his future ex-wife's pool. In due course, the two, William and Matilda, rode the bike to Karen's brother-in-law's house where Karen was supposed to be living. This was the house where Karen told William she would stay during their separation. Thus, William thought that the house would be empty since Karen was at "his" house.

William dispensed of his clothing and jumped into the water. However, before Matilda could follow him into the water she yelled the following: "Someone is here!"

A dark blue Cadillac had pulled into the driveway of the home. Naked Matilda ran for cover. Her first attempt at clearing the white picket fence that separated her from a small shed behind the house left a large purple bruise on the top right side of her upper thigh just below her girly pirate tattoo (A skull and crossbones with a pink ribbon on the crown of the skull). Her second attempt was successful, and she ran into the shed where the pool chemicals were kept. Meanwhile, William was alone and unclothed in his future ex-wife's pool as Alex, owner of a local sandwich shop, walked to the pool's edge with his sidekick named George.

"Why hey there Alex and George!" said a waving wading naked man.

"Hey Will," replied a surprised Alex. "What are you doing here?"

"Just going for a swim."

George said to him, "Why are you naked?"

"Oh, Forgot my trunks."

Naked Matilda waited patiently in the shed nervously listening to the conversation. Alex explained that he was there with George to clean the pool.

"So, you are here to clean the pool, eh? Well, I'll tell you what, I'll get the stuff out of the shed for you." For obvious reasons, he did not want either Alex or George in the shed.

George cleaned the pool as Alex gave him instructions. After what seemed like an eternity, they finished. George said to Alex, "He wasn't alone in that pool. I saw a girl jump the fence, and she was hot!"

"George, you're crazy. There was no girl with him!" At this, they were gone. Matilda yelled, "Are they gone? Ready or not, I'm coming out. I need a cigarette. This shit is just too much."

Following this, he rode Matilda to the Wal-Mart where she had previously parked her car. Neither talked during the 30 minute ride. However, once at the parking lot, William broke the ice, "Wow. Matilda, what can I say? I'm sorry about all that, but I had a great time."

"I just have one question for you," said Matilda.

"Shoot."

"Did that guy say I was hot?"

"He sure did."

Matilda smiled.

***

Back at the hotel everything was just as William had left it including his two sleeping children and his sleeping father. So, he just tossed the note in the trash and took a nap on the couch.

William had no way of knowing that he would never see Matilda again

Hoddom Castle and Campground

The flashback ended and our American traveler found himself back in his tent under the moon cast shadow of a Scottish castle with his two little girls. He was happy to be there and awake again. In fact, he was so happy that he wished he never had to go home and face whatever music he would have to face when he returned.

***

Speaking of music, he turned on his $29 mp3 player and listened to some random song. His mp3 player was set to "random", and much of the songs were by artists whose lyrics sounded more random than contrived. One of these artists was a band called The Gourds who were an alternative country band from Texas who said their music is for the "well read and unshaven". The song played was When Wine was Cheap. The mystifyingly transcendental stupefying lyrics of When Wine was Cheap was nearly as baffling as a Dylan song and, maybe, even more baffling than the World's Most Pretentious Poem:

I've got callous feet

you fear the wine

believe me in the morning

I've done worse things at night...

The song and the setting somehow warmed his heart and made him feel a penetrating happiness. The following thought left his mind and floated through the mesh, past the dry rain-fly, and off to the moon: How wonderful to be here in this tent beside a castle with the two people I love the most. Then Gourds harmonized during the chorus:

...when wine was cheap

and it ran like ink...

Dalton, Scotland

Two days later, William was driving his Fiat on the wrong side of the road waiting to see what random events where to befall his children and him. At this, he saw a sign that read the following: "Dalton". With his fake Scottish accent he announced, "OK kiddies, let's find out what's in Dalton!" As it turned out, not much was in Dalton. Dalton was a very small town near Lockerbie with cottages, a store, and two very strange looking cows. By the way, the American's fake Scottish accent was more Dick Van Dyke than Sean Connery.

By the way again, 4010 miles southwest of Dalton, Scotland, on I-20 East- exactly 28 miles west of Florence, South Carolina and 369 miles east of Dalton Georgia- off to the left of the Interstate- there is a colossal neon sign. This huge neon sign is in a town called Bishopville where a man named Pearl lives. This majestic sign is best viewed at night. The enormous neon sign has a single word in giant capital neon letters: EAT.

Outside the Dalton Pottery and Art Cafe in Dalton, Scotland there are life sized brightly painted ceramic cows and no sign that reads "EAT". The cows are covered in stars, suns, moons, tiny people, fairies, unicorns, and random designs against a white background. The cows said nothing, but it was enough for the three in the Fiat to stop and take a look. Just before he turned off the ignition switch, the Arctic Monkeys' song Fluorescent Adolescence came on BBC Radio 1:

You used to get it in your fishnets

Now you only get it in your night dress ...

Inside the café, eighteen-year-old Megan carried two cups of coffee (one black and the other with just a touch of milk) to the parents of an eight-year-old little girl painting a ceramic rabbit with bright green paint. The interior of the café was covered with unpainted and painted ceramic objects: Rabbits, turtles, plates, mugs, little people, and vases. Besides the ceramics, the walls were covered in various books and fake tropical plants. Bright happy colors burst from every fragment of the café.

"Do you kids want to paint, as well?" he asked his children knowing the answer.

Megan explained that he had to purchase a ceramic from the shelf on the wall, the children will paint it, then it will be put into a kiln for 45 minutes, and, finally, it will emerge glossy. The least expensive item to paint was a small coffee cup for £5.

For the next hour, both Zoë and Savanna painted with great concentration. Savanna wrote, "Daddy's coffee cup" on the outside of the cup with multicolored letters. Then, she painted, "Coffee Goes Here" on the inside bottom of the cup. Zoë painted a very abstract looking butterfly beneath the purple and green painted handle.

Megan and the children wore white plastic aprons to protect their clothing from the paint which she swore would wash out anyway. Nevertheless, Megan had pink and fuchsia paint on her left cheek.

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Yes, ma'am. That would be OK."

"How about for the children?"

"What do you have without caffeine?"

"We have a juice bar."

Sure enough, behind the café was a very tropical looking juice bar with pink plastic flamingos. Megan took all the leftover fruit and made frozen juice drinks for all. Somehow this broke the ice, and the five adults started chatting. The children had been chatting since they first met and even helped each other paint. It took longer for the adults. Why? I don't know.

The father of the eight-year-old artist asked Megan, "Do you live here in Dalton?"

"No, I live in Lockerbie."

"Are you old enough to remember when it happened?" he asked her. He did not have to say what "it" was for William knew he meant the plane that terrorist had blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland more than 20 years before this conversation.

Megan knew what "it" meant also, but she was not born when it happened. "I was not born back then."

William added, "Yeah. The US president back then was Reagan. I remember it well."

The father of the eight year old artist continued, "I guess you never know what could happen. One day you're in a plane and boom a bunch of terrorists blow up your plane and it's all over. I guess we should just live each day like it is our last, right?"

It was far too dark of a conversation to have in such a bright place, and talk soon turned to lighter subjects.

William was very proud of his new coffee cup painted by his children. After he returned home, he drank from it everyday. The ceramic cup was special to him, because of the little hands that painted it.

***

After a week in Dalton, the three were beginning to feel like locals. However, the time had come to move on. There were more places to see and more things to do.

Ultimately, William and his girls spent their last day before heading south walking along Hadrian's Wall, an ancient Roman wall that used to separate England from Scotland. This was a cold and wet summer day. "I hear London calling babies!" said an enthusiastic William. Then, they drove south for the time had come to return the rental car to Heathrow Airport and begin the London adventure of the trip. Scotland to London was a full day of driving with two children who constantly had to go to the bathroom and eat. The first adventure would be getting the car to Heathrow in one piece.

"She said, 'Take me to London. Tell me something I don't know." And all the girls sing la la la..."

– The Fratellis (For the Girl, 2006)

Part VI: Who is London Calling?

Due to widespread flooding, the trip to London was a zig and zag journey detouring around closed roads and natural disasters. The wrong-side-of-the-road skills that William had developed earlier in the trip on rural roads seemed to evaporate in traffic. Once in London, the Fiat was stuck in what Americans call a traffic jam and Londoners call a traffic cue. Once traffic started moving, William over corrected on the narrow congested road and drove on the sidewalk and destroyed a small tree.

"Shit! I bet we have to pay for that one!" he yelled.

"Ooooooh. Daddy said a bad word."

"Sorry kids it slipped out." Then, he drove too far left again to avoid crashing into an oncoming lorry, but, instead, his left wheel and left finder scrapped against a stone wall. "Fuck!"

"Oooooooh!"

"OK. Now I don't want to hear it. No talking until we return the car." The kids became quite as church mice.

By the time the car was returned (three hours late) to the EuroCar center at Heathrow, a small tree, some bushes, and a tiny grey kitten were all dead from the Fiat's left wheel. The left fender had a deep scratch across it, and the plastic hubcap was as chewed up as a day-old piece of gum.

The greatest travel guide of all time, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, states the following:

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

that bang-ups

and hang-ups

can happen to you...

The car inspector looked at the car and then looked at the sad eyes of the quite little children. "This is going to cost us, isn't it?" William asked the man. He was certain that he was going to have to pay hundreds of dollars in damages to EuroCar. Since he did not have hundreds of dollars to pay, this made him a little nervous.

And when you're in a slump

You're not in for much fun

Un-slumping yourself is not easily done...

"I'm afraid so," replied the inspector as he scribbled checkmarks and notes in his notepad. Then, he smiled and said to them, "Never mind. Just run along."

"What? Are you serious? Wow. A million 'thank you's' to you sir!"

"Cheerio," said the car inspector to the three as they boarded a bus. In fact, the three just boarded the first bus they saw not caring where it took them as long as it was far away from that little car with the scratched fender and the chewed up looking hubcap.

Congratulations!

Today is your day

You're off to Great Places

You're off and away!...

Ula

In 2006, one year before this story took place; a strawberry blonde Polish girl named Ula (who happened to be Buddhist) washed her dishes in the cramped shared kitchen of the Salvation Army Guest House in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Reykjavik, by the way, is the coolest city in the world.) Meanwhile, a six-foot-five black guy who was a doctor of Chinese medicine from San Francisco named Jumbee (who happened to also be Buddhist) drank coffee with a skinny six-foot-four guy from Tennessee named William (who happened to be Baptist). One year later, William and his two children would be sleeping on a couch in Ula's nice one-bedroom London flat due to the fact that she had stated: "If you are ever in London, you should visit me."

***

Ula was filled with wanderlust. Despite good looks, she had been able to stay single and free for her 35 years and spent time wandering through Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. In fact, a few months prior to this story, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with a friend of hers named Deanne. She lived her life with the simple goal of seeing as many places as possible. This, of course, is not better or worse than any other type of goal in life.

***

Each night in London, William and his children slept together on Ula's white leather couch. The sofa was large, but not large enough to appear roomy enough for three occupants. However, they accomplished this seemingly unattainable feat by the kids sleeping one direction and William sleeping the other.

"Are you sure you are able to sleep like that?" Ula asked one night.

"Yes, we are fine. Thanks for asking. I cooked salmon pasta for you. Would you like some?"

"Did you buy salmon? I already have some in the freezer. You could have just used that."

William and his children had stopped at a supermarket called Tesco and purchased salmon, pasta, basil, asparagus and other supplies. Back in South Carolina, he cooked this salmon dish many nights, and it tasted fine. However, here in London, using the same ingredients and following the same instructions it tasted bland. To cover up the bland taste, he put some hot sauce on it. This turned the bland taste into a spicy bland taste.

Ula politely ate the bland tasking dish and lied to him telling him that she enjoyed it. Then, she pulled out a map of London and told of some interesting things to see. She explained the bus system and the London Underground.

During their stay in London, the three American travelers developed a routine that looked like the following:

 Eat breakfast at Ula's apartment. (Zoë loved Nutella on whole wheat toast.)

 Pack raingear, jackets, and lunch in a small backpack.

 Stop at the library to check e-mail and get a book for Savanna, who read them as fast as her daddy could check them out.)

 Purchase a £6.50 all day pass for the London Underground (Kids were free.)

 Take a whirlwind tour of London using the London Underground system.

 Eat supper back at the flat when Ula returned from work.

 Read, tell stories, and drink a glass of wine with Ula.

 Go to sleep on the couch.

 Repeat.

On the first of these typical London days, they walked the five-minute walk from Ula's flat to the library with free Internet access. In order to use the Internet, they needed a library card. Having a London Library Card was such a novelty that William could not stop smiling as the librarian, a girl named Sonal, handed him the card.

"Can I get a book Daddy?" asked Savanna.

"Sure. You know what? I can use a book too. I need something else to read." Then he asked Sonal the following question: "Do you have The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry by Nikki Moustaki?"

"Let me see..." Type, type, type... "No."

A copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five sat on the desk next to Sonal's computer. "Can I check out that one?"

"Yes. I was reading it, but I'm done now."

"Did you like it?"

"Yeah. It was a little strange."

Actually, by the time the three left the library, they had three books and the Beatle's Sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band CD. Vonnegut had just died, and it was the 40th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. Thus, he felt like these were timely choices.

The three read for the entire 30-minute train ride into central London. Actually, Zoë did not entirely read her book-- Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss-- but she did look at the illustrations most intently. Zoë was in the process of learning to read.

Almost immediately William became enamored by Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut wrote the book with anonymous-first-person-omniscient-narration from the third-person-point-of-view of the main character, Billy Pilgrim. Slaughterhouse Five begins with a prologue chapter that tells how the story will begin and end:

It begins like this:

Listen:

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

It ends like this:

Poo-tee-weet?

Vonnegut began telling the story in the second chapter after his first chapter (which was the prologue). Sure enough, just as he wrote in that prologue, he started with the words:

Listen:

Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

So, of course, the book ended with:

Poo-tee-weet?

By the time the train arrived at Westminster Station (Mind the Gap), William had decided that next time he writes a book he would write that book with anonymous-first-person-omniscient-narration from the third-person-point-of-view of the main character.

Why? Because, he felt elements in Vonnegut's writing was the literal equivalent of a Michelangelo sculpture, because, more than 500 years before he and his kids traveled to London, Michelangelo said, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." For example, the way Vonnegut told the reader how the story would begin and end made him sound like he was simply freeing a story that already existed. Vonnegut made it sound like the book was already written as he was writing it. Luther Hughes attempted the same thing in his book The Buddhist Coffee House which, in its original version, had 157 pages.

By the way, Vonnegut wrote a most useful sentence in Slaughterhouse Five:

All of this happened, more or less.

The train came to a stop. William closed his book. An enigmatic woman's voice echoed through the train and the majestic station saying, "Mind the Gap." The American translation of this phrase is the following: "Watch out for the space between the train and the platform." The mysterious sounding voice lacked emotion and sound Orwellian: "Mind the Gap." [Pause] "Mind the Gap."

The British have no guns. The island has no bears, snakes, or alligators. The summer is not hot, and the winter is not that cold. Due to these facts, the London city government was worried that their metropolis would become a city of wimps. Thus, in order to add some adventure and danger into the lives of these pasty and puffy Londoners, they put a small gap between the trains and the platforms.

Evidently, if one falls into this gap, he or she will fall unswervingly to the pits of hell and burn for all eternity. For that reason, the people must be constantly warned. Besides the ghostly voice ("Mind the Gap"), each gap is marked with large bright yellow letters in a large bright yellow box with the following words: "MIND THE GAP".

***

Just to be safe, William carried his youngest daughter across the dangerous chasm, and held his other daughter's hand. Somehow they survived the dangerous crossing and made their way into the grand surroundings of the bustling Westminster Station of the world famous London Underground.

London Homesick Blues (July, 2007)

Sometime in the 1970's Gary P Nunn wrote a song called London Homesick Blues and Jerry Jeff Walker sang it. The most famous line in the song is "I wanna go home with the armadillo." The song is actually about an out of place American cowboy in London and doesn't paint a pretty picture of the city on the Thames. However, the lyrics contain truth. For example, before the first "I wanna go home with the armadillo". Gary P wrote and Jerry Jeff sang, the following:

...Well, when you're down on your luck and you ain't got a buck in London you're a goner...

Well, ten-gallon-hat-wearing Texan Gary P probably didn't drink lattes, but, if he did, he would discover that a latte from Café Nero in Westminster Station cost seven of those bucks. Besides $7.00 lattes, everything else cost double what it cost in America except gas, which cost four times what it does in America. So, if you ain't got a buck (or a pound) in London you're a goner.

After the first, but before the second, "I wanna go home with the armadillo", Gary P wrote another line of fact about London:

...Well, it's cold over here, and, I swear, I wish they'd turn the heat on...

He probably thought of that line when he had to put on a jacket in the middle of "summer" in London.

As June was marching toward July in London, William was in the mood for a latte. The problem with wanting a $7.00 latte when one is toting two children around London is that one cannot simply get a latte and make the aforementioned children watch him drink it. Little Zoë said, "I want a babyccino!"

"Calm down and say please."

"OK." A little smile spread across her face and her little brown eyes opened up big. "May I please have a babyccino Daddy?" Then, to seal the deal, she blinked her little eyelids a few times while looking up at her daddy.

"Oooh! Oooh! I want a latte too! Oops. I mean, may I pleeeease have a latte?" asked Savanna.

The cappuccino girl behind the counter at Café Nero with her dyed-black-hair, tattoos, and nose and eyebrow rings looked just like most baristas anywhere else. "I'll have a latte. This nine-year-old who thinks she's a twenty-nine-year-old will have a small de-café latte, and my baby will have a little hot chocolate with whipped cream and all that stuff on it."

"That'll be £8.50 please," said the cappuccino girl. $17 will pay for dinner for three in South Carolina. However, in London, $17 will only pay for two lattes (one decaffeinated) and one tiny hot chocolate.

...When you're down on your luck and you ain't got a buck in London you're a goner...

Zoë held her babyccino in one hand and her daddy's hand in the other as the three walked out of Westminster Station and out into cold wet London. "It's rain gear time." Inside his backpack William carried water, snacks, jackets and raingear. The bite of the cold air and the spitting rain prompted them to empty the pack of cloths and bundle up.

...Well, it's cold over here, and, I swear, I wish they'd turn the heat on...

After wandering aimlessly for 30 minutes looking at the double-decker buses, the funny looking phone booths, and the strange looking taxis, phony Beatle mania had bitten the dust and William's mood shifted from Jerry Jeff to The Clash. His girls and he were most content to be wandering around the city on the Thames. Eventually, they arrived at Kensington Gardens where there was the most marvelous of playgrounds: The Princess Diana Memorial Playground.

A giant wooden pirate ship sat in the middle of the playground with dozens of climbing happy children climbing up and down the twenty-five foot high mast, and the various nooks and crannies of the life-sized ship. Besides the ship, there were acres of swings, bridges, stepping stones, and countless activities including a garden of sound in one corner. For a few splendid moments the sun actually shinned down from a nearly cloudless sky. A snack bar sold $5.00 muffins and $3.00 bottled waters. Since the playground must have been dedicated to how much the princess loved children, the snack bar must have been dedicated to how much she loved spending money.

William wanted to see Westminster Abby, but he knew the children would rather be at the playground. For this reason he decided that Westminster Abby could wait for another day. "Children, would you rather stay here or go see a bunch of dead people in a big church?"

Dozens of chatting mamas were seated on benches and picnic tables watching their children play. He sat on one of the sawed tree trunks that served as stools. Little Zoë said, "Daddy, don't leave me while I play, ok?"

"Zoë, I would never leave you."

"Daddy, I mean, don't read your book. I want you to play with me."

He had no choice but to put Kurt Vonnegut back into his backpack with the raingear and snacks and climb onto the pirate ship with the children. For this reason, he realized how lucky he was to have kids, because otherwise he would not be able to play on a pirate ship parked in a park in England. Imagine how funny it would be if a 37 year old man without kids climbed a pirate ship in a playground and played on the swings and so forth.

Unstuck in Time in London (2007)

Later that same night, he was unable to put down Vonnegut's book, William read until 2:00 AM. The main character in Slaughter House Five is Billy Pilgrim, who became unstuck in time. Rather than following linear time like everyone else, Billy spends the book traveling through time. Unlike "time travelers" in other books, Billy only travels through time within his own life and experiences. For example, on one page Billy finds himself a prisoner of war in the city of Dresden, Germany as it was being bombed into oblivion. Then, he finds himself home with his wife and children twenty years later. Next, he's back in Germany before getting captured. At one point, Billy finds himself on an alien ship with a sex slave. The story is all over the place, but, in the end, it all makes sense.

The four hours William spent with the words of the late Kurt Vonnegut gave him very sleepy eyes and reminded him of a philosopher he met once. Since it is much easier for a sleeping, or even sleepy, mind to get unstuck in time, His mind drifted off into a dream before he feel asleep. His dream took him back seventeen years to a tiny jail cell in the Central American Republic of Belize. There he was in jail with a philosopher named Richard who, like Billy Pilgrim, was unstuck in time.

Woo, woo, woo...

When William was 20 years old, he traveled through Europe with a backpack on his back and a Lonely Planet in his hands. This would be the last time he ever carried a Lonely Planet. Before he turned twenty-one, we find him on the dirty wooden floor of a jail cell in Belize City, Belize sans a travel guide book...

Belize City, Republic of Belize (1990)

In 1990, William was 20 years old and lying on the dirty wooden floor of a Central American jail cell. The humid tropical air that seeped through the open door at the back of the police station was all that deluded the thick body odor of thirteen men crammed into a small jail cell. Instead of bars, the cell was covered with chicken wire. The cell had a flimsy wooden and wire door, and a little hole for food and water to pass through. William used his shoes for pillows. For the first eight hours of his incarceration, he needed to urinate badly. The cage had no restroom. Occasionally, he dozed off, but the tickling sensation of an insect running across his face would intermittently cause him to stir. He had $800 dollars cash in his pocket. This was all the money he currently had in the world. Then, he heard his name called in the Caribbean accent of a man from Belize.

"William Charles Presley! Stand up!" He stood up, and the space where he slept was quickly filled like water filling an empty tub. "In accordance with the laws of the Republic of Belize, and her Majesty the Queen, you are hereby charged with..." He went on for about three minutes with what sounded like Middle English. Bob Marley read Shakespeare. When he completed his recitation he asked him, "William Charles Presley have you anything to say?"

"May I please go to the bathroom?" William Charles Presley asked.

After he returned from the restroom, it took him around five minutes of moving around to secure a sitting position in the corner of the crowded cell. He had spent the previous 28 hours passing the time talking to his fellow prisoners, and, occasionally, sleeping. A drummer named Ross was waiting to go to trial for what he called religious persecution: "God told me to grow the herb and smoke it..." Richard had long sideburns, and was a man of about fifty. Richards's little sister was a beautiful woman in long braids who brought him Chinese food to eat when she visited. He shared it with all of his fellow inmates. Richard was in this tiny police station jail, because he had escaped from his larger prison cell. Like the rest of them, he was waiting to go to trial. He told William that he had been in prison for many years, and he would die there. "How do you handle that fact?" he asked the older man.

Richard spoke softly with Caribbean accented English. "I do not look at life as a line with a beginning and end," he said, and then continued. "I picture life like a wheel with a center, and spokes. That way my freedom, my incarceration, my birth, my life, my death are always with me. Everyone that I have ever loved is here in my heart forever. In reality, 'past', 'present', and 'future' do not exist. Everything is always here at this moment. That is the center of the wheel: This moment. Life is a nanosecond and one hundred years. Here's another way to picture what I am teaching you: Life is not a pile of stuff, it is a basket of experiences. I remove an experience from my basket whenever and wherever I want to. What do you see with your eyes young man?"

"I see twelve smelly people in a cage," he answered him. Then he looked around the cell and said to the other inmates, "No offense."

"You see nothing. It's all on allusion caused by your brain. The pictures you see are developed in your brain. Your camera is your eyes. Your eyes take in light. All that you think you see is light. Do you know what light is?"

"I've never thought about it. I guess light is energy."

"No. Light is not energy. Light is colors. All the colors of the world are in light. Light is what you think you see. Without light, you are blind. Without eyes you are blind. Without a brain, you see nothing. Without light there appears to be nothing.

"Everything that we experience with our eyes is recorded as pictures in our brains. We can look at them anytime we want, but not like a photograph from a camera. All you can do with a normal photograph is look at it, but our beautiful powerful brains have smells, tastes, feelings, emotions. When you fall asleep tonight, you will discover what I am talking about. When you are awake your brain is trained to follow linear time, because that is what you have been trained to do. All that changes when you go to sleep."

Hours of conversation passed. Ultimately, after hearing many other stories, William felt like neither talking nor listening any longer. So, he rested his head against the wire and began to think. In the silence, he had an existential epiphany: This is not that bad. I mean I have nothing, and nothing to lose. Wait. I'm happy. How could this be? His brain took a snapshot of the moment and, for the first time, he realized what it meant to be alive and stuck in a moment. A feeling of euphoria filled him, because he knew that his life was about to change for the better. What could be worse than being in jail with a bunch of smelly people? He realized at that moment that life just happens and allowing this would make for an interesting existence. Never again would he allow trivial matters to bother him. He began to understand the wisdom of Richard's words. From that moment on, he vowed never to complain about anything. He took a "bitching vow of silence". Life was a collection of experiences. Then, he fell asleep and sleeping he could no longer tell whether he was sleeping in a packed jail cell or a comfortable bed. The sleeping brain doesn't seem to care where it sleeps once it sleeps.

The juxtaposition of this newfound contentment, and this newfound incarceration was difficult for him to understand at that point. Nonetheless, the upshot to all of this was that William began to look at life differently due to a random experience. He realized that life was a collection of random occurrences with no metaphysical meaning. He became certain of uncertainty and this was comforting. Just be, because it doesn't really matter...

In due course, the morning sun sneaked in an open door at the rear of the police station. Then he heard Ross' voice start to sing.

Old pirates, yes, they rob I...

He continued singing for a few more seconds then Richard and the other prisoners joined in with soft small voices...

...But his hand was made strong by the hand of the Almighty...

Then with his eyes still closed, he joined in the singing.

...Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom?

The Policeman writing at his desk joined in. Then, they were all singing.

...Redemption songs; redemption songs. Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds...

Man, I love this song, Thought William Charles Presley.

Ula's Apartment in London

William fell asleep with his body in Ula's apartment and his brain in a jail in Belize City. For this reason his brain woke him up in the middle of the night. For no reason at all, he was excited about visiting Westminster Abby where there is a large collection of dead people. Here is a list of some of dead folks interned in Westminster Abby:

 Sir Isaac Newton

 Charles Dickens

 Queen Elizabeth

 Mary Queen of Scots

 Anne of Cleaves

 Edward the Confessor

 David Livingston

 Charles Darwin

 Geoffrey Chaucer

What Color Shall We Paint London?

"Get ready children because today we are going to paint the town!" William yelled to his kids in a voice full of glee. Thirty minutes later, they were on a train in the world famous London Underground (Mind the Gap) and Zoë was smiling and looking out the window. Throughout the course of this day, they would visit Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, and the London Eye.

"Why are you so happy?" Savanna asked her little sister.

"I'm just so happy that we are going to paint the town! Do you know what color we are going to paint it?"

Savanna rolled her eyes and said, "Stupid-head! Daddy didn't mean that we are going to really paint the town!"

Zoë yelled, "Yeah uh! Daddy says what he does, says what he does. He said we are going to paint. I wanna paint!" (William had told his children many times, "I do what I say and say what I do." That's what Zoë was trying to say.)

Meanwhile, the morning rush on the London Underground was over. For that reason, there was not a huge crowd to witness what happened next. What happened next was two children yelling at each other until one, a four-year-old, kicked a nine-year-old on the knee of her right leg.

"Daddy! Daddy! Zoë kicked me!" screamed a crying Savanna.

"She called me stupid-head and said that you were lying!" screamed a crying Zoë.

William began addressing his children calmly as if he were aware of the small cloud of witnesses that surrounded him on the train, but he became angrier and angrier at his children's apparent lack of love for each other. Eventually, he sounded as loud and immature as the children. Each statement became louder and louder. "First, never call your sister stupid." (Turn up the volume a little.) "Second, never kick your sister." (Louder) "Third, never call each other any bad names!" (Higher volume) "Fourth, never hurt each other!" (Loudest) "Fifth, act like you love each other! You two are sisters! You should love each other! Not this sh--stuff! You're embarrassing me!" At this, he realized that it was he, in fact, who was the one causing the embarrassment. For this reason he started whispering, "No more talking until we get off the train."

The first stop on the Paint the Town Tour was, of course, the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. Once again, the three climbed all over the pirate ship, walked the trails and swung on swings and all the other blissful playground activities. William vowed never to yell at his again. The next stop was Westminster Abbey.

***

William showed his British Heritage card to the man collecting money at the entrance hoping for a discount. "We do not accept that here. How old are your daughters?" he asked.

"How old is free?"

The man laughed at this answer and said, "Under eleven."

"They both are under 11! OK. Here's the 10 pounds for me, then." The man smiled, handed William three tickets and did not take the £10. "You are free today, as well."

William told Savanna and Zoë, "We are on sort of a treasure hunt for dead people." He had made a list of all the dead people he could remember being buried at Westminster Abbey and showed it to his girls. Smiles spread across their little faces. One-by-one they went around the grand abbey checking off names as they visited each tomb and read the inscriptions.

"I don't get it," said Savanna. "Why are Mary and Elizabeth in the same tomb? I thought you told me that they didn't like each other." He had told her the story of Elizabeth and Mary and all the conflicts of their time. Savanna was sincerely interested in the story of these Tutor sisters.

Near the restrooms toward the back of the Abbey at the Poet's Corner, they stared at the Shakespeare Memorial and their father said, "I didn't know he was buried here?"

A priestly looking man with a long black and red robe, who obviously worked at the Abbey, overheard him and responded with a rising crescendo, "Shakespeare is not buried here. He insisted on being buried in his native town of Stratford-Upon-Avon." This man had a flare for the dramatic, because he pointed down and announced in a crescendo that raised a bit more, "No. Shakespeare is not here, but Charles Dickens is."

Sure enough, under their feet was the grave of Charles Dickens. "Wow. We're standing on Charles Dickens," said an astonished American father. He did not want to disrespect Charles by standing on his grave. So, he took a couple steps back and ended up bumping into a man with a red and grey ponytail.

His pagan robe was replaced by tan pants and a polo shirt, but, nonetheless, the man was unmistakably Paul the pagan...

***

Paul did not mention anything about not seeing William at Solsbury Hill, instead he said, "Nice to see you again." Then, he went on his way.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "Cut all those exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke." How true! Another important bit of advice comes from Anton Chekhov. "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." His advice later became known as Chekhov's Gun.

This chance meeting with Paul the pagan was simply random and would not have any bearing on the story later. In fact, this chance encounter was much like life: Random and without meaning, but, nonetheless, interesting. For some reason the author of this silly little tale just chose to include this here and, thus, ignored a very important principle in writing (Chekhov's Gun). Why?

The Tower of London

The next stop in this whirlwind day was the Tower of London. The cost for a family to enter the Tower of London was £45, which at the time was $90. William was able to get the price down to £22.50 by showing his teacher ID, and asking if Zoë could be a little younger. Still it was $45 to spend three hours in the massive Tower of London.

On the other hand, the Tower is the epicenter for English history. So many names are associated with the Tower: Queen Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh, King Henry VIII, and on and on and on. What made the tour of the Tower unique and interesting are the stories told by the Beef Eaters who roam around the complex giving grand tours with booming voices. The voices echo the human stories of the long history of the Tower of London in both comical and bloody details.

The bearded Beef Eater in his colorful regalia proclaimed to the crowd standing around him, "We have these guide books in German, Spanish, Japanese... However, I am sorry to report to the Americans that are in attendance that we do not have a guidebook in your language. You will need the English guide book!" Much laughter. After spending the past two weeks wandering around the UK and trying to make sense of the version of English spoken by these people, William understood this joke.

The bearded Beef Eater boomed, "The White Tower was built in 1078 by King William the Conqueror..." Later, he pointed to a raven, "King Charles (the First) was told that if these ravens ever leave the tower that would be the end of the monarchy in England. For that reason, there has always been no less than six ravens here..."

At this, Zoë asked her father, "May I walk?"

"Wow. I don't believe this, really?"

When Zoë was 12 months old she loved to walk. For the next six months she walked and walked. However, by the time she turned 18 months, the novelty of walking had worn off and she decided that being carried everywhere by her daddy was much more enjoyable. During the entire whirlwind tour of London, Zoë took a total of ten steps.

As soon as Zoë was on the ground she headed straight for the ravens. The ravens scattered. "Zoë get back here before you cause the fall of the English monarchy!"

Outside a little chapel, the bearded Beef Eater told the story of the beheading of Anne Boleyn in dramatic and gory detail. Then, he stated, "Men and boys, remove your headdresses before we enter this chapel. This was and is still a place of Christian worship. Please stop your video recording. I will tell you how this story ends. They all died." He then laughed and they entered the chapel where a few royal headless bodies are buried with their heads under the various alters.

The London Eye

The London Eye sets above the promenade on the colorful "South Bank" section of the River Thames. Savanna gave her half-eaten ice cream to her father, and Zoë dropped her ice cream on her father's shirt as he carried her along the promenade. Zoë's face was smeared with chocolate and sprinkles as she pointed up and asked, "Daddy, can we go on that wheel thingy now?"

"Guess what girls? That is exactly where we are going!"

"Yay!"

He paid another £22.50 for the three tickets. That was the full price of an economy ticket. The London Eye would be the only attraction that they could not get a discount of some kind. One could pay double to wait in a shorter line. Once the three were in the long line with all the commoners, William spotted this shorter line with suit wearing people carrying baskets. This group must have been having some sort of company party.

The London Eye is a giant Ferris wheel with large glass capsules. The views from these capsules are described by many as "breathtaking". All the familiar landmarks of London can be clearly viewed from high above.

Following the once around on the London Eye, the three walked along South Bank. The South Bank is the area along the Thames where all the crazy folks hang out and do crazy activities. For an example, a man with dreadlocks beat a drum with such feverous violence that no crowd had gathered to watch him. This was probably due to fear. His eyes were closed and the yellow towel that was spread out before him had one coin on it. "I wonder if that man is actually playing the drums or just crazily beating it?" Besides the drum beating guy, many other characters lined the promenade trying to earn a pound or two with some sort of craziness.

An example of this was the person who tried to appear to be the invisible man. He was a suit with no hands or head. Only a pair of glasses seemed to float above the collar of his shirt. A crowd gathered around him and tossed money into the bucket before him. Zoë wanted badly to take a photo with the man, but was afraid. Eventually, she got up the nerve and her daddy snapped a photo. With a tight smile on her face she raced back to her daddy's arms.

"Look Daddy! That man is fighting a bush," exclaimed Zoë.

Sure enough, an un-kept looking man was using some homemade form of karate to fight a bush. He fell flat on his back after he attempted a roundhouse kick. The bush won the fight.

After paying so much money to view castles, palaces, fortresses, and a giant Ferris wheel, William was delighted to have free entertainment. He was delighted at the humor of the humanity along this river. Besides all the aforementioned, the events along this part of the Thames had a beautiful randomness to it that the London Eye and the other planned attractions lacked. He and his children were not being pushed along in some artificial line (or cue) like farm animals, but here along the river they observed life flowing in all its unpredictability. Besides this, he and his children were happy to be amongst the crazy folks of whom they felt a member.

Why Travel When You Can Google Earth?

They returned to Ula's flat long after dark. William opened the door to find Ula home, and jokingly announced, "Hi Honey! We're home!"

Later that night as the children were settled down on the couch, Ula and he shared a bottle of wine and looked at Google Earth on the computer in her bedroom. Of course, Google Earth allows users to view just about anywhere from space.

"This is my parent's house in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Do you see that ballpark? That's Engel Stadium..."

"Wow. That's my car parked outside my flat here in London..."

"I'm looking for the 'Bad Kitty' sticker on the bumper of your car. Who is that nude sunbather in your garden...?"

After their virtual tour of the world, William decided that there was no longer any reason to travel since he could simply use his PC to see anywhere in the world. Why buy a plane ticket to see the Pyramids of Giza when one could just click a mouse and be there in an instant? For that matter, why even go anywhere to meet anyone when people can meet up on Facebook or some other social networking site?

"I'm taking a year off for travel," said Ula.

"Where do you plan to go?"

"India and Nepal. Then, I don't know. I may go back to Bhutan to practice my Budhism."

"What about your job?"

Ula responded, "I'm tired of the repetition of taking the Underground to work and working and taking the Underground home and eating dinner and watching the telly and then sleeping and starting over the next day."

A Party in the English Countryside

"My friend Sharon is having a party in a couple nights," Ula said. She continued, "She lives in the English countryside. There will be other children there for your children to play with. Why don't you come?"

"Yes," answered William.

"You say 'yes' to anything, don't you?" laughed Ula.

"I think it is a lot more fun to be open to whatever happens."

And when things start to happen,

Don't' worry. Don't stew.

Just go right along.

You'll start happening too.

A couple days later, Ula, William, and the two girls were climbing into her car. Ula's little green car had a sticker on the rear bumper with an illustration of a little demon kitten with the words: "Bad Kitty". After strapping his children in the backseats, he asked a very silly question: "Are you a bad kitty, Ula?"

She only responded with a laugh. "It will take us about two hours to get to Sharon's house," she continued.

"I do not want to show up empty handed. Can we stop and get some wine?" asked William.

"Yes. I need petrol. You can buy a bottle of wine at the petrol station."

Ula pumped the gas (or petrol as these folks call it), and William purchased a bottle of Australian wine to take to the party. Upon his return from the shop, he joked to Ula, "Why don't you let me pump the gas, since that is a man's job?"

Ula laughed and said, "All I need a man for right now is the cooking stuff."

The sounds of the passing cars going beep, beep, beep muffled her voice. When she said cooking stuff, William thought she said kinky stuff. Thus, he ignorantly responded with, "Yeah baby. I can do kinky stuff."

"Kinky stuff? I said cooking."

A stuttering and stammering American man answered with, "Oops. Ah, yeah. I know. I was just kidding. I mean, I can cook. Well, you would not have known it from my bland tasting salmon pasta, but I can cook."

A Latin beat came out of Ula's cell phone as it started vibrating. It was her friend Natasha. At first Natasha told Ula that she was not going to the party, but then she changed her mind. Thus, Ula had to backtrack to get her.

"We're going to be late to the party, because I have to pick up my friend, Natasha. She is from Poland like me and lives in Central London. "

"Is she Buddhist?"

"Of course."

"Yeah, who isn't Buddhist these days?"

Natasha was a thin 28 year old girl with blue eyes and short brown hair. She sat in the front of the car and talked in Polish with Ula for most of the two hour drive to Sharon's house. At first, she seemed very reserved. She only asked William the typical questions of "where are you from" and "what do you do" and so forth.

***

The party he had expected to be a small gathering of Ula's friends at a small house in the country turned out to be huge. Sharon's large house was surrounded by acres of land dotted with parked cars. The party goers had set up tents all over the property. William sheepishly sat his bottle of wine on one of the three tables sat up with every kind of adult beverage possible. Large white canopies covered the dozens of food tables. Next to the heated pool, a blow-up bouncy castle was set-up for the children to play in. The scene looked more like a large outdoor music festival than a party.

Ula and Natasha mixed three drinks and handed one to William as his two children clung to his legs like they were fearful.

"What kind of drink is this? I like it."

Ula responded with the name of the drink. He had never heard of it.

"This is my friend Deanne." said Ula to William, introducing him to a tall blonde with electric blue eyes and a child named Emma.

Deanne was a soft spoken single mom from South Africa. At first conversation flowed easily as the two sat on one of the bails of hay that had been arranged as seats. However, Zoë became very winey and clingy making it difficult for them to talk. Finally, Savanna squeezed right in the middle of the two as if to say, "Nobody talks to my daddy!"

As the wet drizzly day turned into a mud soaked night, his children never left his side for even a second to go play with the other children. They acted as if they left him for a second, he would fly away forever. During this time, he slowly sipped away at the various drinks people made for him and mingled while dragging his two young children around. Apparently, the others at the party, felt like his hands were too full to make a drink for himself, because as he mingled around talking with people, they kept making him sundry drinks.

Finally, Natasha appeared looking different from when he last saw her hours before at the start of the party. The stoic look on her face was replaced by a lighthearted smile. Her speech was bouncy and joyful. She grabbed the hands of Zoë and Savanna and said, "Let's go to the bouncy castle!"

"No!"

"Yes. Look at all the other little boys and girls laughing and having fun! Let's go." Not taking "no" for an answer, she took the children to the castle. Deanne and Emma joined them, and everyone, including the adults, removed their muddy shoes and jumped, jumped, jumped in the blow up canvas castle near the heated pool.

Natasha and William crashed into each other and fell to the canvas floor embracing and giggling. As they lay there on the floor hugging each other, Natasha said, "I'm getting so drunk! I think it's the bouncing!"

Natasha was in midair when she yelled, "Let's go swimming!"

Little Zoë and Savanna love swimming more than chocolate. For this reason, they yelled, "Yes! Yes!"

Steam rolled off the pool and into the cold rainy summer night air. Despite the proximity to the bouncy castle, this pool was actually a little bit inconspicuously located in a far off corner of the property. A large shed separated the pool from the party people.

"We'll just swim in our knickers," said Ula.

"What are knickers?" asked Zoë.

Daddy responded, "I think 'knickers' are underwear."

Sure enough, knickers were, in fact, underwear for he looked from the side of the pool and saw Natasha waist deep in water. Her toned back was turned to him with a thin blue bra strap across it. He felt the urge to reach across the pool and unsnap it, but children were present. Natasha turned around still jumping and yelled, "Come in! It's perfect!" As she jumped, one of her breasts fell out of her bra. "Sorry!"

"No problem," responded a smiling William. He could not help but grin in the presence of a girl so exuberant and full of life as Natasha was that night.

Savanna took one look as Ula's lacy, thin tan knickers and said, "I bet you regret wearing those, uh?"

Natasha said to William, "You did not think you would end up in a pool full of beautiful women wearing knickers, did you?"

This prompted him to think of a passage from the greatest travel book of all time:

You'll be on your way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

Who soar to high heights.

The three children, Savanna, Zoë and Emma laughed and played. Savanna and Zoë's daddy threw the children high in the air letting them splash into the warm water below.

"Why don't you join us?" he asked Deanne, who was sitting beside the pool fully clothed. "Come on. Everybody's doing it."

"Someone has to mind all the children when you get out," she responded. "Would you like some drinks?"

Deanna returned with drinks for all the adults. William had lost track of the variety of drinks he had downed up to that moment.

After an hour of playing in the pool and several drinks, Zoë said to her daddy, "I'm getting cold." Her blue lips were enough to convince him that it was time to stop swimming. Ula volunteered to get towels, and exited the pool and boldly made her way to the crowded house with her lacy, wet knickers. The wetness of her knickers left nothing to the imagination. I gotta like that, thought William. Deanne wrapped all three children in towels and whisked them away to get dressed in warm clothing. He felt bad that he was not taking care of his own children. Then, Natasha and Ula left with the only remaining towels to go change clothes. This left William, waiting for a towel, alone in the heated pool wearing only his boxers.

After everyone had left, he began to feel very exposed, because he was alone in a stranger's pool wearing only his underwear. Just then, people started arriving. Shit. How many times can this happen to one man! he thought remembering what happened with Matilda back in South Carolina.

The guest had arrived to check out the pool and, to their surprise, a nearly naked American was swimming in the pool alone. "Other people were here with me. They just left. I promise," said a stuttering William. "They're changing clothes."

Whatever you crazy American!

Most of the children at the party were dancing in the mud in front of the DJ. "Let's dance girls!" said William (now fully clothed) to his daughters as he dragged them to the middle of the dancing group of children. The three danced a little, but the kids were getting tired. For this reason, they made their way to the tent.

After brushing teeth, they all stuffed their muddy bodies into their sleeping bags. Zoë said, "I can't sleep." So, William scratched her back. Then, Savanna said, "Can you rub my back?" Zoë only liked her back scratched and Savanna only liked her back rubbed. So, with his two hands he scratched Zoë's back and rubbed Savanna's back for 20 minutes, but, still, they would not sleep. The party was apparently over for William. It was time to tend to his children and be a father.

Zip! The sound of a zipper opening caused the girls to sit upright. It was Natasha with a small cup in her hand. "Hey Love, drink this. It's vodka to make you warm."

William loved the sound of her English tainted Polish accent. He especially loved that that she called him "Love".

Then, Natasha said to the girls, "Listen, Daddy needs to have some fun too. How would you like to go night-night with Natasha?"

To his colossal surprise both girls enthusiastically responded with, "Yes."

As he exited the tent and walked passed the drink tables and out to the dancing adults, he could not believe what was happening. The thought of him dancing and drinking washed him with euphoria. Ula handed him a drink of some sort, and they walked barefoot to the mud pit in front of the DJ where a dozen people were dancing.

The DJ played a techno version of Country Roads as Natasha showed up with three cups of vodka. "Your daughters are sleeping." William could not hear her, so the two embraced and she yelled the aforesaid into his ear. His ears rang, but it felt great to have a pretty girl so near him. He drank the vodka down in one sip, drank Ula's sweet drink in one sip, and danced like he was out of his mind. Next, the sky opened up and buckets of rain fell. All they could do was dance euphorically in the mud.

During a techno version of Cotton-Eyed Joe, He kissed Natasha. Natasha has full wet lips that felt like heaven against his lips. This kissing and touching went on from song to song as everyone danced under pouring rain and ankle deep mud. At one point Natasha lightly bit his ear.

Pure hedonistic pleasure had taken William by storm. The drinks, the girl, the dancing, the freedom... He felt high as a kite.

You'll be on your way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

Who soar to high heights.

Ula dance over and yelled into his ear through the loud music, "Are you snogging my friend?"

"I don't know what 'snogging' means, but if it means kissing and touching then the answer is a big fat 'yes'!" he yelled in response. Then, he lost one of his shoes in the mud.

When the DJ played "You spin me round, round like a record player..." Natasha stopped dancing and grabbed his arms and looked into his eyes and said, "I know you are in the shagging mode right now, but I want you to promise me something?"

"What do I have to promise?"

"No apologies, ok? Never tell me, 'I'm sorry', ok?"

"Ok."

"I know you will promise anything since you are in the shagging mode now, but promise, ok?"

He tried to look serious when he responded, "I promise." He had no idea why she asked him such a question.

At 3:00 AM the two climbed into a random green tent that was unoccupied. One of William's shoes was buried in mud, and his underwear was somewhere near the pool. He walked with one muddy shoe and one muddy foot. Since his pants were caked with mud and his veins were flowing with equal parts alcohol and blood, he simply removed his pants before entering the tent. Natasha did not even notice until her hand went from his chest and then south. "Where are your pants?" she asked.

"I forget," responded a very drunk American. Then, he pulled off Natasha's loose fitting long-sleeve T-Shirt to reveal her breasts. They were perfect little breasts: Perfectly shaped, perfectly positioned, and perfectly formed in everyway. Perfect was the only word that came to his alcohol soaked brain.

He kissed one of these perfect little boobies, and Natasha arched her back and made a wonderful noise of pleasure. This is when events took a tragic turn. Suddenly what had begun as wonderful started going horribly, terribly, dreadfully, and hideously wrong for William. It was at this moment of intense pleasure when the tent started to spin.

***

The greatest travel guide in the world (Oh, The Places You'll Go!) states the following:

You'll be on your way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

Who soar to high heights.

However, the very next page states the following:

Except when you don't

Because, sometimes, you won't.

On this page, a once soaring balloonist is caught in a tree with his hot air balloon in tatters. As previously stated in this story, the following page continues with:

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

that Bang-ups

and Hang-ups

can happen to you.

Our drunken American was not thinking about the aforementioned passage from the aforementioned Dr. Suess book when he had one of Natasha's beautiful breasts in his mouth and the tent started spinning. All he was thinking about was how lucky he was to have this perfect breast in his mouth. However, following the commencement of the spinning, the breast slipped out of his mouth and he fell on his back and looked up at the roof of the tent, which refused to be motionless. Next, the beer in his belly decided that she didn't like the wine; the wine decided that she didn't like the vodka, and a fight broke out. This prompted all the other adult beverages to join in the ruckus. In fact, the fighting became so fierce that everyone decided to leave. His projectile vomiting covered the tent and part of the left arm of poor topless Natasha.

This was one of those moments in history where an individual had everything within his grasp only to lose it. Imagine an Olympic marathoner about to win a gold medal and trips just before the finish line and is stepped on by everyone else as others win the race. This was one of those moments.

Pitiful William, his lower half in the tent and his head out of the tent, threw up until he was able to get out of the tent and walk pants-less to the other side of the property and throw up some more. Topless Natasha followed him and, eventually, patted his back as bottomless William leaned against a fence and vomited as people passed. The vomiting never ceased, even as he walked back to the now empty tent. Natasha stood behind him using one arm to cover her breast and resting her free hand on her forehead looking distraught.

He turned back to pretty Natasha and, forgetting his previous promise, all he could tell her was the following: "I'm sorry."

He found his mud-caked pants under a pile of his own vomit. After vomiting some more, he wiped his pants in the wet grass and made his way back to his tent where both his children were awake and crying, "Where's my daddy?" The sound of their daddy vomiting had awakened them.

"I'm here babies. I just don't feel too well."

Savanna looked angry and hurt as she responded with, "Daddy! You shouldn't have drunk so much! I heard you throwing up and that woke me up."

"I'm the father here. You can't tell me stuff like that, but, I have to say, this time you are correct..." He was unable to finish talking because he vomited some more. The time was 3:00 AM, and 3:00 AM is both too late and too early to do anything.

Vomiting out the Car Window and the Rest of the Trip

The following day, he sat in the back of the car with his two children. The ride back to Ula's house was two hours. He kept his head out the window vomiting for most of the drive. The only relief he received was from the cold wet wind on his face between vomiting episodes. The cold wind made his head fill slightly better, but there was nothing for his shame.

That day was spent lazily at Ula's apartment recovering from the party. The children watched Ula's box set of the Robinhood TV series while their daddy took short naps and made lunch. Natasha slept alone in Ula's bedroom while William napped with his kids on the couch. Once the kids were sleeping, Ula said to William, "Would you rather nap in my bedroom?"

"I thought you would never ask!"

He found Natasha half sleeping on Ula's bed. "My I join you?" he asked her.

"Please," she responded. Apparently, Natasha was prepared to forgive him for vomiting on her. He slipped under the sheets. Her body felt so warm next to his. So, he put his arms around her and their limbs became tangled.

With her eyes still closed, Natasha smiled and said, "Ah, this feels so good. I'm glad you like to cuddle. I love cuddling."

He could not remember the last time he had shared a bed with a woman. The feeling was like heaven to him. He rubbed his hands all over her body as she rubbed her naked legs all over his body.

Then, the door flung open.

Immediately, William flung himself free of Natasha. "Daddy! Daddy! Come out with us! I miss you!" It was Savanna. She was crying, screaming with tears running down her face. William felt so guilty about his behavior the previous night that he would have done whatever his children wanted.

Natasha's face became exceptionally astonished. She said to William, "What is this? You flung yourself free of me like we were a couple of teenagers being caught by a mother! We are adults! I am 28 years old. It is healthy for your children to see you with a woman. Otherwise they will be scared and not know how to handle a relationship. What is wrong with you and your family? You need a psychologist and so do your children. I have never met such a messed up man!"

Savanna just stood at the door crying as Natasha said to her, "Daddy needs friends too! Go to sleep in the other room with your sister." She spoke sternly to Savanna and William did not like this.

Right on cue, Zoë walked in. "Daddy! We need you!"

At this, William left Natasha and went into the other room with his children where he stayed. He could not stand to see his children so scared and crying for him. As he walked into the other room he heard Natasha's voice, "You three need help!"

The kids clung to him afraid that he would leave them again. He said to them, "Don't worry. Daddy will never leave you."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

***

Eventually, everyone went to sleep, and the rest of the day and the night passed until morning. Meanwhile, William felt humiliated for how things went with Natasha. He wanted to make it up to her and, for some reason, he wanted to prove that his family did not need psychological counseling. Hence, he invited her to lunch. A few days later, they met at her apartment in central London. William was surprised at the latitude that Natasha was willing to give him.

"Coffee?" asked Natasha.

"Sure."

"How do you like your coffee?"

"I'll drink it how you like it."

Natasha made three cups of coffee and poured vanilla flavored rice milk in the coffees. William took a sip and said, "Wow. This is good coffee. I love the rice milk in the coffee. What a great idea."

Natasha handed the third cup of coffee to her French roommate who was sitting there eating lunch with a blue business suit on. He and William had a conversation about France and America. He told William about his Spanish girlfriend. Finally, the Frenchman asked William, "Are you Buddhists?"

He responded with, "No. I'm a Baptist. You? Are you a Buddhist?"

Later, Natasha and the three Americans walked to a restaurant called Charles Dickens'. From their table they could see the little boats in the little harbor below. Beside the harbor, there was a little market selling mostly flowers. This view could have been an essential ingredient for the perfect atmosphere for two people to talk casually. However, this would not be the case. Natasha and William sat on one side of the table while the children initially sat on the other side of the table. However, Zoë quickly walked over to her daddy and sat in his lab. Savanna moved her chair from her side of the table and placed it in right in the middle of William and Natasha.

"Girls, this is crazy. Go back to the other side of the table."

Savanna's bottom lip stuck out as far as it possible could. She said to Natasha, "You're going to marry my daddy, and I'm never going to see him again!" Eventually, both children became quiet and refused to eat. William and Natasha attempted conversation.

"Do you like to read?" he asked her.

"I love to read."

"Who's your favorite?"

"Kurt Vonnegut," replied Natasha.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out his copy of Slaughterhouse Five and said, "Wow. I can't believe this. Look who I am reading!"

"Have you read any of his other books?" asked Natasha.

"I loved Catch-22. It was brilliant."

Natasha went on to rhapsodize about many of his books and the various literary and philosophical nuances that are addressed in Vonnegut's writing. Savanna, on the other hand, said, "I hate Kurt Vonnegut!" Zoë agreed, but completely mispronounced his name saying, "I hate Burt Bonnagoo too!"

William said, "I might write a silly little novel about this trip. If I do, I'll use fake names for everyone. What name would you like?"

"Natasha," replied Natasha. "I always wanted to be call Natasha rather than this silly name that I have. Wow. I've never been in a novel."

William snapped a photo of her as they exited the restaurant to the promenade along the harbor. "Give me your camera," she said.

"Are you going to delete the photo I just took?"

"No. I'll take a picture of you and your children. I'll get a good one."

At this moment, he noticed the men and women selling flowers and purchased a small bouquet and gave it to Natasha. The four walked to the underground station together with Savanna holding one of her daddy's hands and Zoë holding the other. Both children clung to his hands so tightly that his hands were turning red and white.

"What are your plans for tonight?" she asked him.

"We're going to Deanne's tonight with Ula. She invited us to dinner." William stopped at a small Kiosk and purchased two bottles of South African wine to take to Deanne's house. Natasha took a picture of him purchasing the wine as his two children held on. This turned out to be his favorite photo of the trip.

The two adults hugged and kissed each other on the cheeks European style. William said to Natasha, "It has been nice meeting you. I'm sorry the way all this worked out."

"Me too. You are a nice good-looking guy, but I feel traumatized by this."

"Traumatized?"

"I cannot understand everything right now, but I feel like you are over-protective of your children. This is like an emotional scar for me and, I believe, you are harming your daughters by not allowing them to see you in a positive relationship with a woman. I feel like you should not allow them to behave the way they do. I know you think you are being a good father by devoting yourself so fully to your children, but they need to be allowed to grow up."

There was nothing he could say. He knew he made mistakes, but he did not like someone he hardly knew telling him how to raise his daughters. He said nothing, but his heart hurt. Natasha was beautiful.

***

He and his children took the London Underground to the station near Deanne's house. Both children instantly relaxed on the train laughing and talking. Once at the station he phone Deanne. "We're here..."

Deanne replied, "Good. I'll fetch you."

Meanwhile, while they waited for her, he said to his children, "She said that she was going to fetch us."

The children laughed at the word fetch, and Savanna said, "Like a dog! Go fetch!"

"I brought South African wine, because I remembered that you were from South Africa," he told Deanne as she cooked dinner in her kitchen. The door of her kitchen was open. The late afternoon sun seeped through the open door from an area she called the garden (British people call their yards "gardens"). Emma had a little friend named Cecilia. The four children played the entire night.

After dinner, the adults sat on the floor listening to the chilled out sounds of Jack Johnson and Newton Faulkner. They talked, and drank wine, and the children played. Deanne asked William, "Are you Buddhist?"

Funny Hats

Days later, William, Savanna and Zoë found themselves standing outside the gate at Buckingham Palace looking at motionless guards with colorful outfits and bearskin hats. This was the last day of their trip to the UK. Savanna and Zoë were completely enamored by the guards with their bright red suits and big hats.

Savanna stated the following: "Daddy, why don't they talk to each other? I think that must be boring."

Zoë followed with: "I don't want to do that!"

"Do what?"

"I don't want to be one of those men with the funny hats that don't talk."

"I understand. I wouldn't want to do that either. Let's go."

Both children responded with, "No."

Savanna: "Can we please stay? I want to watch them some more. Just five more minutes?"

Zoë: "Please Daddy?"

"OK. Five more minutes. Do you know what?"

"What?"

"I love you Savanna. I love you Zoë."

Two "I love you too's" were followed by a big hug. They stood there staring at the guards for a few more minutes.

"Three o'clock is always too late or too early..."

– Jean-Paul Satre (Nausea, 1938)

"It's 3:00 am. I must be lonely."

– Rob Thomas, et. El. (3 am, 1996)

Part VII: How will this little story end?

About 170 years before the invention of Google Earth, Søren Kierkegaard wrote in one of his 30 books: "I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that." There may not be a reason to either do this or that, but, nonetheless, that is the choice we all have. This may sound grim, but, quite the contrary, it is liberating. We are "condemned to freedom", as Satre put it. Hence, without some big metaphysical meaning, we are free to choose our own path. In 1835, Kierkegaard wrote the following line in a letter to his friend Peter: "The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die." Moreover, he also wrote the following: "To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose ones self." In other words: Find something to do and do it, and whenever possible and reasonably safe say, "Yes."

***

That evening's empire had vanished into sand and the England, Scotland and Wales part of the summer was over. There you have it: The story of William, Savanna and Zoë Presley visiting a big island on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from their home in South Carolina.

All of this happened, more or less.

They had one more stop before heading back to South Carolina: Reykjavik. Reykjavik is the coolest city in the world, and William was looking forward to his week in Reykjavik, Iceland with Savanna and Zoë. They were about to spend a blissfully peaceful week together in a guesthouse in central Reykjavik. They knew people there. This would be a reunion of old friends, and a time to relax before returning home.

***

William sat in the middle of the three seats on the plane. He had pushed the armrests up, and each child slept using each of his legs as a pillow. He plugged his diminutive headphones into an armrest and turned to channel 8, which played nothing but Beatles' music. The song coming out of the modest speakers in his ear was Yesterday.

Yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away...

William closed his eyes and leaned his head against the headrest. With his children sleeping and the jet engines humming, his mind was clear. I think I will write a little fictional book about this trip, he thought. Then and there, he decided to write a book using anonymous-first-person-omniscient-narration from the third-person-point-of-view of the main character. He was not sure what fake name to give the main character, but he did know what he would call the book: The Buddhist Coffee House. He also determined that the book should start and end with the same word: Coffee. He thought this would be Vonnegut-ish.

Meanwhile, a flight attendant with a tired smile and pinned up frizzy disheveled blonde hair carried a blue pitcher with stainless steal lining. She asked him a one word question: "Coffee?"

"Sure. Fran, may I please have a cup of coffee? By the way, do you remember me from another flight?"

"No."

She poured the coffee in the mug that the children had made in Scotland. She laughed a little when she looked at the bottom of the cup and read, "Coffee goes here." This time, she pointed to the little packets of creams and sugars he already had and said, "If you need cream or sugar, it is there."

"I know this might sound funny, but may I please have some rice milk?"

Fran walked over to the cart and pulled out a one liter box of rice milk and handed it to him.

"Thank you," he replied. Then, he took a sip of the warm caffeine-laced, rice-milk-sweetened drink and said, "This is good coffee."

About the Author:

Since publishing his first book in 2004, Hughes has sold dozens of books worldwide and has a loyal cult following. Luther Hughes is currently living somewhere and making up a bunch of lies for his next novel.

E-mail the author at lukesharp22000@yahoo.com, and he'll send you one of his books if you want one. You can also find his books as e-books all over the Internet.

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Please e-mail me what you think of this book: waccamawpress@gmail.com

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All books by Luther Hughes:

 2004 – Road Maps on the Dashboard

 2005 – Six Nights

 2006 – Isla Margaritaville

 2007 – Hitchhiker's Guide to Iceland

 2010 – The Buddhist Coffee House

