PROLOGUE Time to Mourn, Time to Dance My truck was the first one in the nursery parking lot that fine September morning. I was buying flowers for the wedding reception, thinking how nice it was that the summer tourists had vanished and thoughtfully left the best weather for us locals, when I heard a gasp and turned to see an elderly woman sitting in her Cadillac, ashen faced, holding a tray of African violets on her lap, apparently unable to move. ìMaíam?î I said to her. ìAre you okay?î ìCome here,î she replied quietly. I put down my mums and walked over, placing a hand on the roof of her car, leaning in. She turned up her radio and stared at it, gripping the wheel. An announcer was going on excitedly about a swirling cloud of black smoke that was now clearly visible the length and breadth of Manhattan Island. After a few moments I said, ìIs that in New York?î She nodded gravely. ìWhat happened?î ìAn airplane just flew into the World Trade Center,î she replied. She pronounced the word aero-plane, the old-fashioned way, like an English blueblood whoíd never flown in one. ìIíll be damned.î She said nothing. And then explained quietly, ìMy grandson Tommy works there.î Of course, I didnít know what to say. I could see she was almost rigid with shock and fear. I moved my hand gently to her shoulder, thinking of my own mother, who had been dead almost exactly a yearóthinking of my son, Jack, too, quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Weíd just arrived home from a summer of trying to wander around the world like a couple real-life Huck Finns, a freewheeling caprice of discovery during which nothing basically went as I expected it to. The spiritual pilgrimage Iíd quietly hoped for turned out to be more of a Hope and Crosby road show. But curiously, for all of our bungled hopes, wrong turns, and failed objectives, I wouldnít swap the places weíd seen, the characters weíd met, and the laughs weíd had together for anything. ìDonít worry,î I assured her. ìThe World Trade Center is an awfully big place. Iím sure heís fine.î She glanced up at me with disbelief. ìI donít think you understand, young man,î she said, her voice wavering with emotion, as if Iíd simply not been listening. ìThat was the second plane to hit the Trade Center. Both towers are on fire.î She paused to let the meaning of that sink in, touching one of her African violet blooms. ìNothing is ever going to be the same again, Iím afraid, dear.î The party tents were already up, the bonfires laid and waiting. But in the procession of numbing days following the terrorist attacks on New Yorkís twin Trade Towers and Washingtonís Pentagon, we decided to postpone the lobster bake and wedding reception. Eight thousand people were still missing in the rubble of the collapsed towers alone. Five hundred were estimated to be dead in Washington, another hundred in a quiet Pennsylvania pasture. The horrifying estimates were incomprehensible, almost biblical in scope. How could we possibly bless rings, celebrate a second-chance union, tell tales of our boysí adventure abroad, eat lobster, and kick up our heels to an Irish fiddle band when so many we knew, or simply knew of, were devastated. Besides, with the airlines in such turmoil, flights were being canceled right and left. A dozen people phoned to say they simply couldnít get here from thereóa dark twist on the old Maine tourist joke. But then someone else called, plucky friends from Georgia, who said they hoped we hadnít canceled the party because they were coming anyway. Soon others were phoning up to say theyíd simply decided to drive instead of flyóto take an unexpected road trip and see America the old-fashioned way, maybe even try and make a second honeymoon out of the weekend. ìThereís a time to weep, pal, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance,î drawled my old college roommate Hugh, more or less appropriating Ecclesiastes. ìDamn it, boy, we need a reason to laugh and dance. So start cookiní that lobster!î So the bonfires were lit, the Guinness keg tapped. More people actually showed up than we invitedófriends brought friends whoíd been holed up staring at the TV for days. The overflow crowd held hands in a vast circle of friends and neighbors, of grief and celebration. A prayer was said for the dead, the missing, the families torn asunder. Then the rings were blessed, the lobster and grilled salmon served, the dancing commenced. Toward the end of the evening, someone touched my arm. I was pleased to see it was Jack, my sidekick from the road that summer. ìHi, Dad,î he said pleasantly, slugging down a Coke. ìHowís it going?î He was barefoot, his nice white dress shirt hopelessly soiled with grass, hair mussed, sweating in the cool evening air. Heíd been playing tag on the darkened lawn and dancing with a group of other children, spinning wildly to an Irish reel. I said it was going pretty well, considering what an unbelievable week weíd all just been through. But I was pleased weíd decided to have the party after all and others, to judge by the rates lobster and wedding cake were vanishing, seemed to appreciate the decision as well. I asked how he was doing because we really hadnít had a chance to talk about our big trip yet. Just days after we came home, Jack had ventured into the brave new world of Mount Ararat Middle School, a hectic resumption of our ordinary lives. ìGreat,î he said but then fell silent. ìHey, Dad,î he added in a more thoughtful voice, ìI was wondering about something. Do you think if this thing had happened last year we would have tried to go around the world?î He meant, of course, the terrorist attacks that we were weighing incalcuably on all our minds and spirits. Ironically, Jack and I had been forced to cut short our summer odyssey because of trouble in some of the more exotic places weíd hoped to visitóincluding canceling a long-talked-about swing through Africa. Weíd only gotten about halfway around the worldóto the backyard of Western civilization, as I said, trying to put an optimistic face on thingsóbefore calling it quits and coming home. A certain innocence or hubris was clearly gone as a result of 9/11 and Iíd pretty much been wondering the same thing he had ever since meeting the woman in the nursery parking lot, wondering if anybody for a very long time would travel the way we had done. ìProbably not,î I admitted, draping an arm around his shoulders. For a moment we stood together knocking back Coke and Guinness respectively, watching our friends and neighbors make complete fools of themselves on a dance floor beneath a waning harvest moon. What a nice sight it was. I was touched that theyíd cared to come so far, and really pleased to see my old college roomie was an even worse dancer than me. ìSo itís good, I guess, that we did it when we did.î ìI think so, Boss. Remember that crazy night in Parga?î ìYeah,î he said with a slow rising grin. ìThat was awesome.î Then he went off to rejoin the dance. I walked over to the food tent where my new wife was serving the last piece of wedding cake to an attractive older lady. She looked familiar but I couldnít place a name. Then it came to me who she was. She was the woman from the nursery parking lot. Sheíd come with friends from town. Good for her, I thought. Grief at least can make proper neighbors of strangers. ìHow is your grandson?î I finally worked up the nerve to ask her. ìOh, heís fine. He had a head cold that morning and decided to stay home from work. Can you believe it?î I shook my head and thanked her for coming and went to get a scoop of the Maine blueberry cobbler before it disappeared, too, thinking how strange it was that a head cold could save your life. There were thousands of stories like this being told and retold across America tonight, each one sadder or more unbelievable than the last. Sorrow, as someone said, is sacred ground. But perhaps as Jack and I had discovered on the road that summer, as the ancients themselves advised, eating and laughing and dancing with friends really does help push back the fear and darkness for a little while. The cobbler was all gone so I went and found my bride and led her to the dance floor at a risk to her lovely feet. ìThis reminds me of that night in Chianti,î Wendy said with a sly smile, picking up where Jack left off, as the fiddles slowed to an old-fashioned waltz. ìThe night Sister Patrice locked us out of the convent.î I smiled back at her with maybe the first true and uncomplicated happiness Iíd felt for many days, a much needed lift to the spirit, forgetting for the moment to worry where I placed my clumsy feet or wonder how weíd all get through the uncertain days and weeks ahead, remembering instead a funny evening among the olive trees of an older world that already felt like something that happened to a boy. ONE Nibs the Lost Boy Early that afternoon, as the skies cleared and the summer sun returned to England, Jack and I set off up Greenwich Hill with our ball gloves in hand. ìDad,î he said a bit anxiously as we neared the top of the ancient hill where King Henry VIII brought the first of his many virgin brides home to the palace bed nearly six centuries ago, ìdo you think anybody will mind if we throw the baseball up here? I mean, it looks kind of busy.î ìThe world is a busy place, Nibs,î I assured him, placing a supportive hand on his shoulderópartly to ease his worry, partly to ease my aching knees. ìBut thatís no reason to stay home in the hutch. Besides, weíre only going to pitch a quick inning or two. My guess is, nobody will have a clue what weíre really up to.î The hike up the famous long hill, as my huffing and puffing proved, was either harder than it looked or I was simply in worse shape than I feared. In either case, the enclosed stone terrace of the Royal Observatory was indeed crowded with packs of giggly, jostling French and Japanese students whoíd already occupied most of the space around the Prime Meridian, our tripís first objective, zero degrees longitude, the place where measured time begins. Starting here and now, the plan was for Jack and me to do something weíd talked about doing since he was a small boy perched on a large bed in a quiet dormer room demanding I read him one more adventure book of far-off places or, better yet, make up one of my ridiculously embroidered stories in which he and I wander about the ancient world slaying dragons, saving beautiful damsels, meeting friendly wizards, fighting black knights, and feasting on M&Ms and popcorn, generally having a legendary high old time. ìDad,î he said to me one night after Iíd made up a particularly rollicking adventure which included storming a dark castle, becoming invisible in the nick of time, being personally thanked by the good Queen Gertrude, and riding a loyal camel named Sam all the way across the Sahara to enjoy a swell Kool-Aid party at the foot of the great pyramids, ìdo you think we could we really do that stuff sometime?î ìWhatís that, Boss?î I was hoping he meant fall asleep. ìSee dragons and wizards and visit real castles and things like that.î I hated to have to tell the cute little cuss that even though there might be a few Medieval castles left standing around Europe, there really werenít wizards and dragons and such roaming the world anymore. Pity. So I said what any self-respecting parent says when faced with the reality that the only person in danger of falling asleep is them. ìSure,î I promised. ìSomeday. When youíre a bit older.î Well, a promise is a promise and Jack was a good bit older and someday, as they say, was finally here. Only the stated objective of our long-promised odyssey had changed and matured a bit over the intervening years. Thus, instead of going in search of dragons and wizards, per se, we embraced the more ambitious and perhaps more implausible aim to try and travel entirely around the world during the first full summer of the new millennium, to wander like a pair of Mark Twainís proverbial innocents abroad and see whatever we could see for the two months of summer freedom allotted to us before Jack (a big fan of mythology, a good student of history) moved on to the mysteries of Mount Ararat Middle School. The emphasis was on try because forty thousand miles, the approximate distance I calculated we needed to cover in order to see the exotic places we hoped to see, is a lot of ground to place beneath your feet in less than eight weeks. The experienced traveler in me was realistic enough to think weíd probably only be able to knock off all of Continental Europe, several Mediterranean countries, and possibly a bit of Africa at the tail end of the enterprise. Jack, on the other hand, fueled by those distant dormer room dreams and unburdened by too much travel experience abroad, was thinking big and appeared to have no doubt that we could somehow manage to squeeze in the Pyramids of Giza, the River Jordan, and maybe a friendly hike along the Great Wall of China on his birthday at the end of August. As unlikely as I knew it was that we could reach these exotic compass points in the course of just fifty or so days of dedicated vagabonding, I also didnít want to dampen my sonís appetite and enthusiasm for exploring a complex world he was on the threshold of inheriting by insisting those places were out of the question. By design ours was a largely unstructured and open-ended odyssey and the simple truth was, weówell, Ióhad no firm idea how far we might get and no clue where exactly we might wind up, because the point of embarking on a journey of discovery is to let the road unfold and lead where it will, show you what it needs or wants to show you. Thus, aside from a couple advance hotel bookings (one made in London and another in Paris on Bastille Day) plus a refundable reservation deposit plunked down on a ten-day safari I dearly hoped we would be able to take in East Africa toward the end of August (my own childhood fantasy trip), we had no accommodations reserved in advance, nor any firm travel schedule etched in stone. I realize no one in their right mind really travels this way anymore, of course, certainly not abroadógoing where personal whimsy and the winds of chance blow them, with little more than a good road map and an atlas of curiosities in their own heads to guide them. But it struck me that if ever there was maybe an opportune moment in time to undertake such a boyishly unstructured tromp through the Old World, to see what was beyond the horizon of our safe and conventional lives on a seaside hill in Maine, that moment was this summer. Western Civilization, after all, was celebrating its second millennium of survival and Jack was about to turn eleven, the age boys in Medieval times were apprenticed to knights in order to learn the ways of the world; the age boys in Periclean Athens were dispatched to the country to learn the art of civility at the elbows of rural scholars; the age scientists say a boy first begins to notice the musk of life and almost every religion insists heís finally a young man. As for me, the expeditionís de facto field commander, chief financial patron, and head bottle washer, well, I was rapidly approaching the end of my forties, fast nearing that celebrated plateau of midlife when the intelligent man, as a valued older friend of mine likes to point out, honestly appraises his various strengths and weaknesses and begins to accept the remote possibility that he wonít ever pitch for the Boston Red Sox, not even in short relief. Between the idea and the action, as some celebrated poet or possibly bitter exñRed Sox manager once advised, there lies the shadow of the matter. Though the world, for the moment at least, seemed no more acutely perilous at the start of summer 2001 than it had at any given point in my memory, I was old enough to realistically understand there were enough natural and man-made dangers on this planet to keep me on my toes and Jackís momómy friend, coparent, and former wifeógently worried out of her mind back home in Maine, reminders that there were plenty of people who do unspeakable things to each other and perfect strangers every minute of the day and maybe twice on Sunday. History, with its impressive ledger of Holy Roman Crusades, conquests, civil wars, Inquisitions, jihads, plagues, mass murders, revolutions, and Reformations, as someone who was clearly on the losing end of things was supposed to have said, is simply a laundry list of manís staggering inhumanity to his neighbor, and if you think about it too long and hard itís a wonder anybody has the nerve to leave the yard for a quart of milk. But having said this, civilization makes up pretty nicely where history sometimes makes a real sowís breakfast of things, and you donít have to be related to either Kenneth Clark or Ariel and Will Durant to realize that the origins of such wonders as the Italian Renaissance, English poetry, French food, Greek mythology, and the black rhino of Kenya were pretty nifty things to consider leaving home to investigate, even at the risk of making the evening news in the most unpleasant way possible. There were other less glamorous obstacles to our trip, to be sure. Jack would have to miss theater camp and playing Cal Ripkin baseball and Iíd have to forfeit most of the decent all-too-brief gardening and golf weather in Maine. Both of us would miss the heart of Red Sox season (no great loss to meóIím a seasoned Fenway suffereróbut Jack is a true believer in the boys from Beantown) and Jack would miss trips to Moosehead Lake and vital general goofing off time with his best pal Andrew Tufts. To be blunt about it, I also wasnít even certain my wallet could deliver the grandiose boysí adventure my mouth had promised so many years ago up in that dormer bedroom. I mean, honestly now, all security concerns aside, how much did it cost to wander around the world like a couple New Age Medieval spiritual pilgrims? Frankly speaking, based on my own work-related travels, I didnít have much more than a few unsettling rough cost estimates tapped out late at night on the office calculator to go by, and those totals were almost enough to quell the budding world explorer in any responsible American middle-class taxpaying grown-up. Not to put too fine a point on the naysaying, that sum didnít even take into consideration the nearly two months I would have to take off work in order to try and do the trip. No, as several of my fellow parental contemporaries at various youth baseball and basketball games in the days and weeks preceding the start of our unplanned global caprice took pains to point out, there was no shortage of perfectly good and practical reasons why it was one thing to talk about doing this sort of thing with your kid and another to actually try and do it. At the end of the day, I decided, there was really only one reason that mattered to Jack and meówe simply wanted to go. On a deeper level, I had a few private best hopes for believing a trip of this nature would be good for the Jack of the New Millennium. Recently, heíd played Nibs the Lost Boy in his school production of Peter Panóperfectly cast, in my view, as a boy whoís having so much fun in Neverland he canít see the point of going back to the real world, where he has to remember to pick up his towels and make up his bed and make certain his book report is properly signed and turned in on Thursday. If my Nibs the Lost Boy was polite to a fault, sweet to the core, an excellent student, and almost equally smitten with Pedro Martinezís fastball and the flattering attentions of a certain pretty girl called Bethany Bellnap, he was also one of the dreamiest boys youíre ever likely to encounter, prone to forget where he left his geography project, ball glove, or even good old Jack Pillow, the somewhat tattered, frequently mended icon of those distant storytelling days up in his dormer bedroom, a small Peter Rabbitñthemed pillow heíd had since his mom and I brought him home from the hospital. The fact that he still had good old Jack Pillow in tow spoke eloquently about his innocent view of the world beyond our hill in Maine. He was, as they say in guidance counseling circles, a ìyoungî ten-year-oldóunspotted from the world, as the Book of Common Prayer so aptly sums up the profile. A bit of a worrier, a deep and sensitive thinker, clearly a lad who took folks directly at their word, he didnít appear to have a cynical bone in his rapidly growing body. And as much as I wanted to nurture and preserve these admirable qualities in him, it was illogical and perhaps even dangerous to think I could keep him safely swaddled up this wayóand hidden from the perils and seductions of the world at largeóforever. Travel broadens the mind, I suppose itís true, while TV simply broadens the butt. Thanks to his passion for playing until he dropped at any game involving a ball, Jackís rear end was probably in pretty good shape for the start of a New Millennium, but a summer away from the influence of Game Boy and the Disney Channel and maybe even Red Sox baseball, I calculated, wouldnít do either one of us on the home team any particular harm. On the contrary, apart from the sheer boyish fun we might kick up on a freewheeling road trip to parts unknown, the real benefit of a summer jaunt around the Western civilized world on its two thousandth birthday, in search of the origins of some of our speciesí higher achievements in art and science and history and faithómy unapologetic paternal hidden agenda, as it wereówas that such a roving chautauqua might go a long way toward broadening a young manís thinking and responsibly prepare himónot to mention meófor that sad but inevitable day when Nibs the Lost Boy finally grew up for good and said a fond goodbye to a dirt road in Maine and ventured out to find his own way through life, a tale as old as Telemachus and his worrying dad, Odysseus. I think Mark Twain, patron saint of lost boys everywhere, stated the case pretty nicely when he set off on an almost identical journey of discovery two years after the end of the American Civil War. The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much, he declared. If he is an optimist after that, he knows too damn little. As the ancient gods of sweet irony would have it, the father of this unlettered enterprise was exactly forty-eight years old this first summer of the brand-new age. And to be blunt, I still wasnít certain whether my collected years of wandering about had made me a natural optimist, who stubbornly refused to accept the verdict that the world is crowded with too many perils to consider leaving home, or a learned pessimist afflicted with terminal wanderlust, who simply chose to hope for the best and was willing to risk whatever it took to get back in touch with his inner eighth grader in a place most folks only read about in picture books. On the title page of my own favorite childhood book, an Illustrated Treasury of the Worldís Greatest Legends, Myths and Poems, which still reposed somewhere on a shelf in my office, my late father, an adman with a poetís heart whom I affectionately called Opti the Mystic, quoting some long forgotten Eastern sage, inscribed these words: A great man is he who does not lose his childís heart. Wherever this world takes you, Bo, please keep yours . . . The truth was, I hadnít been Bo in many long years. But maybe it was time, for the span of a few summer weeks at least, to be Bo again. More importantly, as a father fast approaching midlife with a son who recalled his own fatherís grace in so many visible and intangible ways, the double meaning of my fatherís wish wasnít entirely lost on me. Thus, wherever we wound up on the road to somewhereóeast of the moon or west of the sun or maybe just some interesting place in betweenóI finally decided, maybe Nibs the Lost Boy and I could teach each other something valuable, about finding and preserving a boyís heart in each other. So there we were, Once Upon a Time, as they say in fairy tales, at the top of an ancient hill, having taken a tempestuous kingís summit with ball gloves in hand and paid our five quid admission and filtered through the gates of the Royal Observatory museum to the spot where longitudinal time on this planet as we know it, officially called Greenwich Mean Time, is marked, measured, and commences. Without much ado we found an open spot among the jostling French teenagers and took positions on each side of the famous glass-encased meridian line that splits east from west and transects the courtyard floor below a large red illuminated chronometer where milliseconds perpetually whirl in a mad fugue of passing moments, proving tempus really does fugit. I gently flipped the baseball to Jack across the time line. He caught it and blushed and glanced around to see if anyone took offense at us playing catch like a couple runaway Little Leaguers. ìHey, Dad,î he asked casually, ìcan I throw overhand?î In an effort to make up for missing baseball, Iíd larkishly suggested to Jack that we cart along our gloves and a couple baseballs and get in a spot of throwing practice at least once a day, wherever we happened to be. That way, I reasoned, we could see the wonders of the world and work on his pitching technique. I envisioned Jack developing into a fine shortstop or a third baseman, to be honest, though he clearly saw himself as the future Pedro Martinez. ìBetter wait till we find an open field somewhere, Nibs,î I replied, catching another gentle pitch. ìWe might bean somebody and tick off the Queen Mum.î The Queen Mum, I should explain, was Jackís maternal grandmother, Kathleen Bennie, my former wifeís disgustingly responsible mother (trust me, itís kind of complicated), a retired school principal and superintendent who had thoughtfully agreed to accompany us for the first ten days or so of the trip through England before she headed off to her native Scottish homeland for her semiannual inspection tour of the premises. In addition to being Jackís grandmother, Kate was one of my closest friends on earthóa good-hearted if somewhat moralistic agnostic dame of wartime Glasgow and daughter of the ìRed Tideî Clyde, whoíd grown up to marry a brilliant Paisley scientist and immigrate to America, reading (at least twice, probably three times) virtually every book published since Pliny the Younger along the way, and becoming, in due course, our own familyís New World version of Britainís beloved Queen Mum. Weówell, Iócalled her this with all due irreverence because she harbored an unlikely if deeply felt affection for the oldest member of the otherwise dopey Royal family of Britain, another Scotswoman who uncomplainingly accepted her ìintolerable burdenî of serving as a reluctant kingís wife during Britainís darkest days, a one-woman Royal and Ancient who steadfastly refused to budge from London when the Germans were attempting to bomb the city by the Thames back to the Stone Age. Except for Kateís quiet agnosticism and the fact that she was a card-carrying, George Bernard Shawñloving socialist school superintendent who detested frilly hats and the idea of anybody making the slightest fuss over her person, our QM otherwise struck me as an awful lot like their QMóeven down to the somewhat goofy and embarrassed smile and the way she waddled along with an oversized handbag that held everything from Shakespeareís complete folios to an endless supply of Kleenex and an extra pair of sensible flat shoes. Their Queen Mum, Iíd read in that morningís Times, was off visiting a garden show at Battersea, while our Queen Mum was presently taking the slow shuttle bus up long Greenwich Hill. As I pointed out to Jack, neither of these royal and ancient dames would be terribly pleased to see us throwing a hard baseball over tender heads in a crowded public venue, but our Queen Mum at least would certainly be pleased to see that Nibs the Lost Boy was safely smiling again. ìI gather youíre feeling better,î I said as nonchalantly as possible, underhanding another pitch. Unfortunately, it fell short of his glove and landed on the glass of the Prime Meridian with an unsettling crack, causing several fellow Meridian visitors to turn and glare uncomprehendingly at us. To his credit, Jack expertly fielded the errant toss with a cool flip of his glove, proving he had the makings of a future Cal Ripkin after all. ìFine. Why?î He seemed truly baffled why Iíd ask such a silly thing. ìJust wondering. Glad to see Englandís sun shining and you smiling again. Thatís all.î This was so Jack, sweetly oblivious to the fact that the three of usóhim, the QM, and meóhad just been through one of the most intense experiences of our lives, an unexpected ordeal that began when our half-empty American Airlines Airbus 300 lifted off the runway at Bostonís Logan Airport and tilted in the beautiful summer sky toward London. We werenít ten feet off the ground when Nibs, a seasoned flier whoíd never shown the first inkling of fear in the air in many years of long distance travel, suddenly began hyperventilating and wondering with quiet urgency, between gasps for air, clutching my arm, if we could ìmaybe get off the airplane.î Of course, that had been quite impossible. We were already one thousand feet in the air and climbing at sixty feet per second, so I hastily summoned an attendant and together we escorted Jack to the rear galley of the plane, where Kate, two more attendants, and finally a senior pilot deadheading to London joined us, a small congregation of worried grown- ups quietly doing their best to assure a suddenly mysteriously terrified little boy that the airplane he was riding on wasnít going to crash in the ocean. In a nutshell, nothing we said made a dint in his inexplicable panic and only the introduction of an oxygen mask and tank and the presence of Jack Pillow seemed to calm him down for the balance of the Atlantic crossing. And so, for the next six hours Jack huddled beneath a blanket in the seat beside me, the plastic mask clamped weirdly to his suddenly small and slightly ashen face, breathing easier but by no means easy. He watched an old Chevy Chase movie and appeared to drift in an out of an uneasy sleep while I attempted to read my biography of Dante Alighieri, wondering if Iíd made an awful misjudgment about our fitness to wander around the world together. At one point about four hours into the flight, I glanced over from my book and discovered him staring out the window of the airplane at cloud tops, lost in the upper atmosphere of his own thoughts. ìJack,î I attempted to reassure him, massaging his blanketed arm, ìeverything will be all right. The plane is fine. Trust me. Have I ever lied to you?î He glanced at me, looking far younger than his actual calendar age. ìHow do you know that?î he said from under his oxygen mask. I smiled. ìBecause my father used to tell me I didnít have a good enough memory to be a successful liar. He was right. I canít remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. And thatís no lie.î For what itís worth, making my son laugh seems to be one of my few talents on this earth. When life becomes a little overwhelming, I invariably resort to a lame jokeómy own little defense mechanism, I guess, against unraveling panic. The truth was, Jack was an experienced flier whoíd flown with me many times to places like Scotland and Hawaii, never once evincing the slightest trace of worry for his fate or the airplaneís safety. Iíd never seen him like this and, frankly, it frightened me as much as it obviously did him. For her part, the Queen Mum was busy being the Rock of Gibraltar over some obscure arty unreadable novel in the seat directly in front of us, but I knew she was worried to pieces about Nibs, as well. ìNo, I mean how do you know something wonít happen?î ìSomething will happen, Boss,î I said as calmly as possible, ìbut I have faith that it will be good.î He nodded fractionally and glanced back out the window at the clouds. ìWhat exactly is faith?î he asked after a quiet bit. I gazed at him for a moment. Jack was a founding member of the chapel choir at the small Episcopal church we regularly attended, and weíd had scores of conversations over the years, in some form or another, about the subject of faith. But maybe he just needed to hear my latest take on the subject, especially as it related to the suspension of disbelief that we wouldnít at any given moment plummet into the sea five miles below us. I smiled at Nibs and, neglecting to properly credit Luther, proposed that faith was something beneath your left nipple, a reason to keep on smiling no matter what. Keep heart and you kept faith. It sounded trite, perhaps, but that was pretty much the essence of what Iíd learned thus far in life that really mattered through good times and bad. I had faith the airplane would get us to England and the rest would basically be up to us. He glanced at me and actually smiled a bit beneath the foggy Plexiglas of his oxygen mask, though in truth the smile looked decidedly forced. That was Jackís way, I think, of trying to reassure me. It wasnít until the planeís wheels finally touched down at Heathrow, in any case, that the mystery of what unaccountably spooked him to the marrow began to reveal itself. The night before our departure, he explained as we taxied up and made our way through the airportís endless maze of arrival corridors toward customs, he and his stepbrother Charlie watched a few minutes of a television program on plane crashes, specifically the preview of a forthcoming documentary on people who had ìmiraculouslyî survived plane crashes and lived to tell about the experience. ìItís not that I really thought our plane would crash or anything,î he attempted his best to assure me, almost his old Lost Boy self again but clearly relieved to be earthbound. ìItís just that I realized it could.î Iíd nodded understandingly, suddenly remembering that this was the same cute tyke who once caused a minor disruption by refusing to return to the school building after his first fire drill in kindergarten because, as he later explained it in a calm logic that was difficult to deny, wherever there was a fire drill proved there might be a fire. Maybe his airplane terrors had simply been an extension of that logicóa kind of prefiguring of the worst that could happen. Or maybe, as fire-lit mythology and a thousand years of church doctrine seem to agree, eleven years really is about the time a boy begins to notice the wider world and its myriad joys and random terrors. The trick, of course, at the heart of growing up, is somehow learning to safely distinguish which path to take to the former and which to avoid to the latter. I draped a reassuring arm around his slim shoulders and politely shoved him toward the customs officer, who asked, with perfect BBC diction, what the nature and purpose of our travels to Britain were. ìWeíre going around the world.î Jack spoke up for us both, still a little pale at the gills, holding tight to Jack Pillow. ìVery good,î the officer said with surprise, smiling and glancing at me for clarification. Under the circumstances, after what weíd just been through, I felt the sudden urge to repress my responsible adult side and try and leaven the mood just a bit, a theme I would pretty much adopt for the rest of the summer. When in doubt, make Jack laugh or at least smileóthis became my silent travel motto. My role in this expedition to ancient wonders, I decided, would probably be at least as much court jester as it was knight errant. ìJust your usual garden variety summer holiday,î I explained. ìWarwick Castle. The Tower of London. Shakespeare at Avon. Warm beer and cold showers.î I leaned forward and nodded discreetly at the old biddy waiting politely behind us in line for her personal interview with British immigration. ìSee that elderly lady there, the one who is trying her best to look like somebodyís innocent Scottish granny?î He nodded solemnly. ìIf I were you, I would have her taken off and strip searched. For one thing, sheís carrying the unabridged Oxford Dictionary and some awfully dangerous looking knitting needles.î He glanced again at the Queen Mum and smiled; she smiled back at him, the very picture of Glaswegan granniness. ìI trust, madam,î he said to her pleasantly, ìthat you are traveling with these gentlemen?î ìThatís right,î she replied crisply and marched dutifully forward, depositing her massive bag directly on my foot. ìAnd what, pray thee, have we here?î declared a plumy voice all the way from the Age of Reason. ìA pair of whimsical Colonials performing what appears to be . . . some crude form of American recreation?î There was a great deal of chuckling from the other tourists still loitering around to see if somebody was going to make me pay for cracking the Prime Meridian. Jackís pitching arm froze in midair, his blue eyes widening. Our little game of catch had been detected by a powder-wigged gentleman whoíd come out of the observatory museum to investigate our activities beneath a violently arched eyebrow. ìItís called baseball,î I explained to him, hoping our inquisitor had at least a sense of humor to go with his lacy waistcoat. ìIt wonít be invented for another hundred years or so. By then, Iím sorry to say, youíll be dead.î He smiled graciously. ìVery witty, sir. You should be encouraged to take the stage. Or possibly flogged.î We carried on like this for a bit, until it suddenly came to me who he wasóNevil Maskelyne, the kingís infamous royal astronomer who did everything he could to prevent humble Yorkshire clockmaker John Harrison from proving the existence of global longitude and claiming the scientific adulation of his age for his brilliant discovery. ìYou know,î mused the young actor playing Maskelyne, leaning over to speak confidentially with Jack, ìthere was a time, lad, when men such as ourselves controlled the very passage of time itself. By that I mean to say that emperors and popes established calendars, kings named months and days of the week.î He pointed a tapered finger at the museum proper, where three or four of Harrisonís famous sea clocks were housed and kept on display. ìBut the clocks inside that building and the creation of this very Prime Meridian changed circumstances forever. Instead of men ruling time, time ruled the lives of men! And henceforth, science ruled the clockwork heavens and controlled all our lives!î It was a nice little speech, probably rendered dozens of times a day during the long summer tourist season. Jack nodded, smiled appreciatively, and murmured, ìOh cool . . .,î all the while thumping his glove gently and impatiently with his balled fist the way all baseball-addicted boys do when theyíre anxious to keep throwing the ball. I wasnít sure he fully grasped the scientific significance of what our man from the eighteenth century was getting at, but a clever idea suddenly came to me how to illustrate the point. ìIn that case,î I injected, casually tossing the ball back across the Meridian to Jack, who caught it, rather cheekily, Willie Mays style, like an apple dropping into a basket, ìby sending this baseball back exactly the way it came, have I, in effect, sir, reversed time or at least momentarily suspended its forward passage?î ìIntriguing question!î Maskelyne appeared delighted with my little impromptu inquiry to reason, no doubt because all the world is a stage and the crowd of curious onlookers had begun to grow. ìWhat a positively beguiling theoretical notion!î he declared, cocking a bluestocking hip, narrowing an eye, and lifting a theatrical finger to his temple. ìBy moving that crudely stitched object that appears to be covered by the skin of some albino bovine creature backward through space and time, you have enacted, or so you claim, a process whereby timeís ineluctable passage is, per force, somehow reversed? Is that the crux of your fanciful theoretical premise, sir?î ìYep,î I admitted, trying my best not to blush. ìYou should be commended for your Newtonian cleverness,î he insisted, bowing elegantly from the waist. Then he smirked and glanced at his audience. ìOr else placed in stocks and severely thrashed for being such a pathetic heathen and heretic!î Just then, wouldnít you know it, our Queen Mum hove into view, carrying her vast canvas bag and looking deeply worriedóas if she gravely feared that whatever trouble Iíd gotten her grandson into was going to wind up splashed all over the front page of the London SunóYANK RUNS AMOK AT GREENWICH! BEANS INNOCENTS WITH STRANGE LEATHER ORB! ADVOCATES REVERSING TIME THROUGH MINDLESS GAME! Good lad that he is, Jack immediately sashayed over and gave his flushed agnostic granny a welcoming hug, as if he hadnít seen her in weeks rather than minutes. ìAnd how long shall we have the pleasure of your company in England?î Maskelyne wondered to me, smiling after Jack, sounding more like the young actor playing him than the snotty astronomer who made such a royal nuisance of himself. ìAs long as it takes to go as far as we can,î I said, and explained the rough theory behind of our little field expedition to Who Knows Where. He complimented me on such a novel idea, artfully noting that during the Age of Reason promising young men who displayed any intellectual or social potential were invariably sent on similar ìgrand toursî of enlightenment to the capitals of the Continent and beyond, including the Middle East and China. ìLook at Byron, look at Shelley,î he trilled plummily, naming two of my favorite Romantic poets. ìFrom Cambridge to Chillon, the Ponte Vecchio to the ancient Peloponnesus!î ìRight! Look at John, Paul, George, and Ringo,î I chipped in helpfully. ìLiverpool to New York, Ed Sullivan to an ashram!î He summed up with a familiar quotation from Shakespeare. ìA noble enterprise, sir. As a famous English bard might say, ëThen comes the time, who lives tísee it/that going shall be usíd with feet!íî ìExactly, Lord Hamlet.î With this, though, the actor gave a sudden powerful shudder of revulsion, reverting quickly to the loathsome Nevil Maskelyne. ìThatís Lear, you unwashed soppit!î ìAre you behaving?î the Queen Mum demanded to know, sounding remarkably like the retired school superintendent she was, when I finally sidled over, gently punching my own mitt, an old Little Leaguerís catcherís mitt that was fraying at the seams and actually too small for my adult hand, a relic scrounged from a barrel at the back of our garage back home. ìNot entirely,î I reassured her, pointing out that sheíd probably just saved me from a royal flogging for momentarily confusing a mad Danish prince with a mad English king. ìGood thing youíll be having a refresher course soon, James,î she said primly, digging into her vast canvas thing for a tissue to blow her nose or a knitting needle to smack me with. Both of us knew that the primary reason sheíd agreed to accompany us on the British leg of our journey was Jackóa chance to spend nearly a fortnight with her first male and (in some ways) favorite grandchild on foreign holiday. Another reason she agreed to tag along and good-naturedly suffer my constant abuse of her royal and ancient person was that Iíd shamelessly dangled the carrot of promising to take her to a Royal Shakespearean Companyís performance of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at Stratford-upon-Avon. Hamlet was Mumís favorite play, for reasons known only to her, a play I find about as much fun as watching someone mop a floor in a shopping mall. I know what an uncultured Philistine boob that makes me out to be because Mum, who isnít nearly as innocent as she looks to people in British Immigration, reminds me of this cultural reality all the time. ìThat guy in the wig said Dad was a heretic.î Jack appeared to take great pleasure in revealing my public shame to his private grandmother. ìActually, if you can believe it,î I elaborated a little woundedly, ìhe called me an unwashed soppit! By the way,î I asked the human Unabridged Oxford Dictionary, ìwhat exactly is an unwashed soppit?î ìIím not entirely certain,î she was forced to admit, ìbut it pretty well describes you, I think.î She turned to Jack and smiled with a forbearance she rarely extends to any of her former sons-in-law, of which I happen to be the only one. ìA heretic, Lamb, is someone who challenges the existing order of things. Theyíre often ahead of their time in thinking and philosophy.î ìRight,î I agreed. ìLike your socialist granny who claims to be a naturalized American citizen but steadfastly refuses to eat a charcoal-grilled steak, vote for a Republican, or watch the Super Bowl. I expect her to be deported any day now, Jack. Better get your goodbyes in now.î ìDaughter of the Red Tide Clyde,î the QM reminded me with a blithe little shrug, as we shuttled toward the observatory museumís front door. ìDonít be such a boring old agnostic,î I sharply rebuked her, paraphrasing Robert Frost. ìActually be something.î She smiled tolerantly and Jack loped ahead inside to find Harrisonís clocks. Kate used the opportunity to whisper, ìSo howís our worried lad really doing?î I explained that he finally seemed to be settling down, though the side trip the three of us had made through the hokey, overpriced London Dungeons on the way to Greenwich Hill had clearly been another sensational miscalculation on my part. For reasons that now eluded me, Iíd thought Jack might find the place as much of a hoot as his fearless older sister, Maggie, had when I brought her with me to London two years previously. Sheíd adored the gaudy spectacle of blood and gore and the simulated horror of everything awful that had ever happened to the citizens of old London Town: the Plague, the Great Fire, Jack the Ripper, trial by a Dark Ages judge, beheadings and hangings and various ingenious forms of Medieval tortureóall rendered with ghoulish enthusiasm by painted-up wraiths who leapt out from dark corners amid swirling electronic fogs to jolt squealing teenagers and make Midwestern tourists soil their walking shorts. Jack, on the other hand, who has a powerful aversion to any loud noise, as I normally do, had endured the Medieval fun house with fingers plugged protectively into both his ears, a grimace of pure disgust on his face, and a visible pallor at the end of the ordeal that dangerously resembled his whacked-out countenance over the Atlantic Ocean. Lunch at Covent Garden and a soothing rooftop tour of the city on the Big Red Bus served to ease his anxiety a bit, but I made a firm mental note not to try anything like the London Dungeons again wherever we went from here. Up ahead in the gallery of Flamsteed House, where clockmaker Harrison once sought the advice and counsel of Sir Edmond Halley, a tale handsomely told in Dava Sobelís lovely book Longitude, which Jack and Kate had given me one Christmas, Jack had reached the first of John Harrisonís famous sea clocks, so-called ìH-1,î a huge, ornate brass and steel timekeeper with various unseen wheels and mechanisms that, thanks to Nevil Maskelyne, sat forgotten and decaying in a damp storage place until it was meticulously restored and began running in 1933, after an interval of 167 years. H-2 and H-3 were also working, minutely advancing the summer underfoot while a white-haired museum guide named Nick thoughtfully materialized on whispering crepe soles to explain the complicated functions of the world famous clocks to Jack and his grandmother, a wealth of scientific detail and operational minutiae that flew, let me be honest, straight over my head. ìThose suckers remind me,î I heard myself mumble to no one in particular, ìof Mr. Peabodyís incredible Way Back Machine.î ìOf . . . what?î Nick the time guide abruptly paused in his enthusiastic narration, fixing me with a woolly eye. He didnít seem at all pleased to have been interrupted, or maybe he was slightly annoyed by the fact that I was mindlessly thumping my own ball glove. The truth was, the observatory loo was closed for repairs and I really had to go. I explained to him that Mr. Peabody was a beagle-like dog who invented a special Way Back Machine that enabled both him and Sherman, a brainy kid about Jackís age, to climb aboard and travel back through time to personally experience Arthurís round table or Madam Curieís laboratory and other pivotal moments in human history like that. My favorite episode was the one where Sherman and Mr. Peabody wound up at Custerís Last Stand and narrowly escaped with only a bunch of arrows dangling from their hindquarters. That episode never failed to crack me up, I explained. But I guess you had to actually see it or something. Nick nodded and sniffed. ìAmerican telly-vision, eh? Sounds more like a story basically stolen from H. G. Wells.î He turned his full attention warmly back to the Queen Mum, who seemed to be hanging on his every scientific word. I was half-tempted to pull him aside and warn him that the QM was a natural menace to the fun and personal freedom of eighth-grade boys everywhere until I heard him going on about his fast-approaching retirement from the National Trust and the Royal Observatory staff, in a fortnightís time, his needy dahlia garden in Luton, nine grandchildren who irregularly phoned, and a pension he hoped would take him for a lengthy ìrambleî through the ruins of Italy and Greece. ìAlways meant to do that but time simply flitted away,î he explained to her a bit wistfully by the exit door of the museum. ìAs Ben Jonson was supposed to have said, time really is the old bald deceiver and youíd best do today what you dare not put off till tomorrow!î And with this bit of woolly parting wisdom, he smiled tenderly at Mum and patted Jack thoughtfully on the head. ìCarry on, my good chap,î he declared to me as if I were just some dumb jerk hired to carry the steamer trunks on our Old World expedition. ìLovely man,î the Queen Mum remarked as we filtered out the Royal Observatory gate and passed through the nicely landscaped grounds toward the waiting shuttle bus. Our first full day of trying to go around the world had been so tense and draining we were all going to ride back down the famous hill where time begins. ìAt least he didnít call me an unwashed soppit,î I agreed, thumping my glove. Reprinted from The Road to Somewhere by James Dodson by permission of Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA). Copyright © 2003 by James Dodson. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission. Excerpted from The Road to Somewhere: Travels with a Young Boy Through an Old World by James Dodson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
