A half-hour later I was sitting in a bus beside Romko de Kan with whom I started talking immediately. He had just landed in Crete, flying straight from Amsterdam, for a two-week vacation from medical school. He wanted to scuba dive along the eastern coast at Sitia. The water was cold in February and he had brought his wet suit. I briefly recounted my travels for the last three months but our conversation revolved around the Netherlands during the four-hour trip. I recounted my visit to the Amsterdam prostitute, an indelicacy he hadn’t experienced. Then he mentioned some quirks about Holland that I had found unimaginable at the time. First, and foremost, the availability of drugs. Shops openly sold hashish and marijuana. More perplexing was the Dutch law’s equivocation. You could buy the stuff but not smoke it in public, punishable by a fine. Like prostitution, the civic minds realistically moderated a public vice without having a crusading mentality unrealistically demanding the vice’s eradication. The way Romko explained it, his country had created a balance between hard work, economic rigor, and abject pleasure. This was the unimaginable part. For Americans, vices degenerate and kill. Pleasure must be paid for—by the chunks we lose from our souls. Meanwhile, we forget our obsessive drive to enrich ourselves. Why? To create and indulge in as many pleasurable experiences as possible.
         Romko proudly informed me that public service could replace military duty. He hadn’t decided yet but he was thinking of working in a hospital in Cameroon, as the American Peace Corps was an alternative to the military. Not that Romko was avoiding a rough time. The Netherlands belonged to NATO and took part in military exercises; however, life in the Dutch Army was less than severe. Dutch soldiers were allowed to vote whether they would follow commands. In essence, the soldier voted when he wanted to go into combat. As politely as possible, I told him that as democratic as the system might appear, as pleased as the Dutch were with their inclusive command system which, apparently, was based on utopian management-labor factory models, no soldier was going to vote himself into a goddamn death trip. First you give people the alternative not to soldier, draft deferments and the like, but after that in the army there are no choices. A soldier shouldn’t have to know why he’s going into combat, let alone be thinking that he can avoid it. Just believe in his country’s reason for fighting. Certainly, commanders will not command well if their commands are up for discussion. Now I was privy to the soft spot of the NATO defense: the Dutch Army. Or would they only defend the Zeider Zee and the hell with West Germany? The Dutch had probably realized the folly of having an army in the nuclear age. This set up reminded me, superficially, of the Confederate army during the American Civil War. The Southern soldiers voted in or out certain commanding officers. This situation arose in Faulkner’s Absolam, Absolam! Thomas Sutpen was humiliated when he was voted out of his command. This device, though, seemed more valid than a discussion of an officer’s orders.
         When we reached Sitia, a Greek man in his late twenties approached and asked whether we had a place to stay. I replied that I didn’t, expecting to find a clean, cheap place for no more than five dollars per night, and started walking away. Romko and three others accompanied the man. After a minute or two, I turned back and followed them thinking I had rejected the offer too hastily. After a couple blocks Romko spotted me.
         “You looking for a place to stay,” he yelled. “Come on with us. This fellow says it isn’t very far.”
         “Very good place,” the Greek said, smiling, when I had caught up.
         I greeted the others, whom I had seen on the bus—a Canadian couple in their late thirties and a twenty-year-old German student.
         The Greek led us down a long, dusty street to a two-story whitewashed stone house. A short, slightly heavy woman waved to us. Her name was Merika. She was renting several rooms of her house to foreign travelers for one hundred drachmas per night (less than two dollars). Romko and I shared a small room with two single beds, only a two-foot gap between the beds, and barely enough space for the door to swing open inside. The German student and the Canadian couple received the larger room at the back of the house. The Greek who led us from the bus station, Stavros, a family friend, stood nearby as we dropped off our bags then went with us to a café for a drink. He warned us to be quiet about our accommodations. It was against the law for private residences to take in travelers during the winter season. That was the Greek government’s way to channel business to the expensive hotels. We bought Stavros several drinks. He felt responsible for us while simultaneously wanting to appear as our savior. We wouldn’t be able to go anywhere in Sitia, population five thousand, without bumping into him at a market, outside a café, in Merika’s kitchen, or in the restaurant Zorba’s, which became the only place we ate dinner. One evening, Stavros reserved a couple tables for us at a local nightclub. We paid his drinking tab that evening, as well as his portion of the bill for broken dishes and glasses.
         Merika needed boarders. She was married, had three children, the eldest daughter bleeding her parents by going to a university in England. Worse, her husband was unemployed and, judging from his protracted absences from the house all day and much of the evening, a family shame. He could, at the least, have been doing Stavros’ job shepherding bus passengers to the east end of Sitia, instead of hanging around a café drinking coffees and ouzo shots, eating honey cakes, and playing endless rounds of backgammon and cards. When Romko and I went for our morning ouzo at the “the Club,” as we referred to our morning stomping ground, we would see him there. In the afternoon, the German student, Erich, and I would play backgammon at The Club and spot him again. The time or two Merika referred to her husband, it was to apologize for his inability to find work and to blame this situation on the do-nothing, corrupt Greek government.
         The first afternoon, the Canadian couple, Sven and Elizabeth, Erich, Romko, and I sat on the terrace of a café facing the Sitia fishing docks. Sven was originally from Sweden, a tall man with light hair and a puffy body, in his early forties, who had settled in British Columbia. Elizabeth had black hair and a milky complexion, maybe slightly younger than Sven. He had sold his business in Vancouver and they were traveling around the world. Like me, they were using Arthur Frommer’s budget guide and lavished us with stories of their “finds” around Europe, much in the manner of the travelers in the book. They were also frank about their private life. They had been married for five years, both in their second marriage, then Elizabeth added:
         “Sven and I believe in open marriage.”
         I didn’t detect a come-on in her voice or manner, as if she were searching for candidates to practice what they preached. If Erich hadn’t a gaunt, angular physique, I would have thought him a good candidate for Elizabeth because he shared the back room with them. Erich was also a bit untidy, his long brown hair didn’t look to have been washed in the last couple weeks, and he had several months beard unevenly distributed on his chin, cheeks, and upper lip. Yet, I don’t think Elizabeth was trying to shock us. Maybe I was naïve to have missed the potential invitation. Curiously, neither Romko nor Erich remarked or inquired further about the “open marriage” admission. Maybe the Canadian couple was trying to impress this captive international crew with a show of liberation. However, she had planted a seed with this blurb, and I would occasionally dwell on it for the next twelve days. Did she present an opportunity? To get her alone and make love to her? Or did Sven want to watch? Worse, did Sven want to jump in for a threesome? Yet, I rarely encountered Elizabeth alone and was never put in a position to make a fateful choice. Although, eleven days later, on the island of Thira (Santorini), I would knock on their door at nine-thirty at night looking for a pack of matches to light a cigarette. They called for me to enter and, inside, saw both of them in their pajamas in bed. Sven was reading. Elizabeth went to the bureau and handed me a matchbox. Her breasts were prominent and sharp beneath a shiny blue satin top. I half-expected (or wanted) to be asked to stay to have a drink. Who knew what would transpire? We might get drunk and loosen up. I might snuggle next to Elizabeth, hoping Sven would take a walk for an hour. But I would never know. She returned and slid under the blanket. I bid them thanks and good night.
         On the third day in Sitia, a storm stopped all ferry traffic around the Greek islands. No one knew when the next boat would arrive. All but Romko had planned to go to the island of Thira, a hundred kilometers north of Crete. The delays weren’t much bother. We didn’t have to be in Thira at a particular time. I used the extra days to do my laundry for the first time since a laundress in Rome had held it hostage for an extra thousand lire. Just as I could use the five movies I had seen during this journey as markers along the way, I remembered where I had washed my clothes. Bolton (where the attendant yelled at me for slamming the dryer door), Paris, Florence, Rome, Sitia, Palma de Mallorca, and Bolton again. Merika did it for one hundred and fifty drachmas, and I literally had to pull my clothes from the kitchen balcony because the ship to Thira appeared in the harbor. Ten minutes to collect, pack it, and pay Merika, then run to the dock not far behind Erich, Sven, and Elizabeth.
         Romko spent all but one afternoon along the rocky coast finding safe spots to snorkel. He had brought the wetsuit, snorkel, and mask, and one heavy weight (ten kilograms) with him from Holland, and he bought another weight at a diving shop near Sitia’s bus station. I usually accompanied him to the spots where he would enter the cold Mediterranean water. We started the days with the ritual at The Club. Along with the snorkeling, we made several jaunts around Sitia’s countryside, including an unsuccessful attempt to scale a nearby mountain, or, at least, to get to the village near the top. Dinner every night at Zorba’s, where we vowed not to have the same meal twice. Lastly, evening confabs with Merika and her children, when two or three times she accepted collect calls from her daughter in England.
         The day Romko left, I convinced Erich to join me at Zorba’s. He had eaten there once. Afterward, we went to a movie. It was the first I had seen in a couple months, back when I went to Marathon Man in Amsterdam. The theater was small, makeshift, as if it could easily be a dance hall the next night. The screen was as small as the kind used outside in the quads at college. Erich was keen on seeing a western that I had never heard about. The Last Hard Men, with Charlton Heston and James Coburn, was an attempt to make an Italian revenge western with an Arizona-Mexico backdrop, bereft the stylization that characterized the work of Sergio Leone. It was too eager to arrive at its violent clashes. Erich had come for the gore, the action, the sex scenes, and Coburn getting blown away at the end.
         The next day we sailed to Thira, first stopping at Agiós Nikolas, a small port between Sitia and Iraklion. This sidetrip, necessitated by the recent storms and disrupted ferry service, would eventually delay our arrival at Thira until midnight. It was too windy to stand on deck, so Erich and I braved the faintly sickening air of vomit within the ferry’s large hold. Nearly two-thirds of the two hundred passengers were seasick. I was afraid I’d puke just being near so many others puking. Then we found an area packed with people immune to the boat’s swaying to the sea swells, and I ran into two Canadian girls I had met eight days before at the Phaistos ruins in southern Crete. We greeted each other as if we were the best of friends. They made room for us and I introduced Erich. I sat beside the blonde, to whom I was initially attracted and had given a package of cookies at Phaistos. She reciprocated and passed a mix of peanuts and raisins in a large plastic bag.
         “Where’d you buy that?” I asked.
         “I shelled and mixed them myself.”
         “They’re good. Can I have more?”
         “Take as much as you want.”
         “It’s good that we’re eating,” said Erich, “it will help us not get sick.”
         “Where’d you get on the boat?” I asked her.
         I thought they were coming from Crete’s south coast.
         “We got on in Iraklion,” said the brunette, who was pale.
         “Why are we stopping at Agiós Nikolas? Shouldn’t the ferry have stopped here on the way to Sitia?”
         “It didn’t,” said the blonde.
         “Typical of the Greek way of efficiency,” said Erich.
         The re-meeting of old, though brief, travel acquaintances renewed my optimism. When you thought that you had bid farewell to people for good … they pop up a few weeks later, in a different town, island, or country, two independent routes converging. This was the first time it had happened to me in Europe and would then occur several times during the next few weeks, epitomizing the joyful time I was having in Greece.
         I reminded myself I had something to do, had been thinking about it all week in Sitia, left the Canadian girls for a moment, and asked Erich to accompany on deck for a smoke. I brought my Europe on $10 a Day.
         “What are you going to do with that?” he asked.
         “Declare my independence from it.”
         “Oh, yes, you told me last night at Zorba’s.”
         It was cloudy, near dark, and the ferry sliced through the ten-foot swells. A few other smokers were scattered along the length of the ship.
         “I don’t need Frommer’s stupid advice anymore.”
         “It’s a stupid book,” Erich concurred.
         Erich had quit university for a year because he wanted to travel. Without much money to sustain him, he worked his way through Europe. Spent two months in Iraklion at an olive oil factory cleaning vats of olive skins and seeds. Made enough to move freely for a month.
         “My backpack will be a pound lighter,” I said.
         I had barely consulted the book since I had arrived in Greece, except to find passages to mock at The Club with Romko and Erich. The book had been helpful a few months ago when I was unsure where to find rooms and the sights in unfamiliar cities. Now I was sick of museums and monuments, as I spent most of my time in Greece with persons I had met on ships, trains, and buses, and I didn’t worry about what I had to do as a tourist. It was as if keeping the book prevented me from being a true traveler.
         I flipped the guidebook into the water forty feet below.
         “Screw all those helpful hints,” I declared aloud. “Screw all those people writing to Frommer and giving him material to create a new edition.”
         “Those people are assholes,” said Erich, practicing a word I had introduced him to the evening before.
         “I was beating the book,” I said.
         “You were spending less than ten dollars a day.”
         “You’re fucking right I was. Let’s go back inside.”
         I finally knew what the hell I was doing.

The ferry arrived in Thira’s harbor at eleven-thirty. It was raining, and there wasn’t a dock. Thirty of us disembarked onto a small motor boat, jammed together as if it were a Rome bus at rush hour, with one fellow from California holding a bike over his head. On shore, we boarded a bus, which took us up a thousand-foot cliff, the road without a guardrail. The rain was coming down harder and we could barely see out the windows. The bus halted after a few minutes. Someone said that there was a pile of gravel or cinders in the middle of the road. Suddenly, the bus jerked to the left toward the edge of the road, hit the gravel, and tilted to leftward. I elbowed Erich.
         “We’re going to go over.”
         The back wheel also hit the pile and the bus lurched again. There were muffled cries and groans. Then the bus picked up speed.
         “We made it,” said Erich.
         The driver gave us a thumbs-up. A few people clapped.
         “We’re not up there yet,” I mumbled, and, a moment later, two bright lights flashed through the bus.
         “It’s another bus,” someone said.
         “I hope it takes the cliff side,” Erich said.
         The buses stopped.
         Shit, neither could make it.
         “We better not back down this road,” I said. “What the hell’s another bus doing on this godforsaken road at this time of night?”
         Our bus slowly backed down ten to fifteen years and angled toward the inside of the road. Just enough to allow the other bus to slide by. It was a miracle that their side view mirrors didn’t clash.
         The rain poured as we were dropped off in the middle of the town. Only a few lights on the streets.
         “Are you going with us to the youth hostel?” Erich asked me. Several Americans and Australians, as well as the Canadian girls, were already headed in that direction.
         “Anyone around here looking for a hotel?” I asked aloud.
         Seven others were going to a place a few hundred meters up the road, including Sven and Elizabeth. I was cold, hungry, and tired, not quite in the mood to join anyone’s open marriage. I told Erich that I’d stop by the hostel tomorrow. When we reached the hotel, I saw three stars beside the name and thought it would be too expensive. But how could I be choosy after midnight? We were lucky that the manager was awake. Only one other in this group from the ship was traveling solo. Did he want to share a room?
         “How long are you staying?” he asked. He had a French accent and was a few years younger than I.
         “Four days.”
         “I’m only staying two.”
         I looked at the manager, an American woman whose Greek husband had built the hotel along the cliff. She said that she would find me a single room when the Frenchman had left. Business was slow, her husband wouldn’t object.
         The corridors were damp and the room had a slight chill. I hadn’t spoken to my new companion on the ferry nor was he very talkative when we got ready to sleep. He exhibited signs of a head cold: congestion, nose blowing, coughing, and may not have been in the mood for a talk.
         “Where are you from?” I asked.
         “I am French,” he stated stiffly.
         My apparent obtuseness may have offended him, although I was expecting him to tell me what city he was from. We didn’t say much more. I never learned his name.
         But I was pleased with the temporary arrangement. It wasn’t as if I had to socialize with this Frenchman. I knew several people in Thira. He was gone from the room the next morning when I had awakened. When I returned around ten o’clock that night, he was already asleep.
         Thira was a whitewashed town, having been completely rebuilt after an earthquake in 1956. Along the cliff were several gutted buildings, reminders of a disaster that could come at any moment. Overlooking a harbor as deep as the cliffs were high, Thira was one of the most popular tourists stops in the Aegean’s Cyclides. Beyond the harbor were three unpopulated islands, one of which was an active volcano, a constant thin column of smoking emanating from it as it were a giant ashtray. Thirty-three hundred years ago, a volcano eruption and subsequent collapse of the volcano into the sea caused, among other things, a tidal wave to hit Crete and deal a deathblow to Minoan civilization. The same volcano, I had read in an article years before, may have been the catalyst for the ten plagues in Egypt at the time of Moses—e.g., the Nile running red. Most of Thira’s towns, roads, and monasteries were located more than a thousand feet above sea level, and one had to descend from the heights to reach the beaches, notable for their black sand.
         Erich was not at the youth hostel when I arrived at eleven-thirty, but I met the blonde Canadian girl. Was she headed to town? She and her friend wanted to rent motorbikes and see the entire island. Did I want to join them?
         “I’ve never ridden one.”
         “They’re not expensive,” she replied, sensing my true hesitation.
         “I have to meet Erich, my German friend. Maybe I’ll see you around town tonight. I heard there’s a good club with music.”
         “I don’t know. If we spend our money on motorbikes….”
         I was more interested in getting her alone at the nightclub, but she was reluctant to ditch her friend. Nothing definite was arranged. I left as unsure about her interest in me as I had been when I started speaking to her.
         Before I went looking for Erich, I visited Thira’s only bank and cashed a personal check for a hundred dollars, receiving enough drachmas to last me a week, depending on how many other islands I visited. I had planned an itinerary that would take me to Paros, Andros, Khios, Lesvos, Limnos, Skiathos, and Skiros. Stavros had told me that it was possible to get a private boat from Khios or Samos to the Turkish coast, where I could easily reach the ruins of Ephesus and Troy before heading to Istanbul, another very inexpensive city. Istanbul frightened me, as I had heard stories of travelers getting ripped off, having luggage stolen, but it was an objective from the first days I had planned this trip. I wasn’t sure of Erich’s plans but thought I could convince him to accompany me much of the way. Maybe he could find a job in Turkey.
         I wandered around the town, looking for a place to eat lunch and hoping to bump into Erich. I was staring at a menu in a window when someone addressed me. Not recognizing the voice, I turned and saw Jeff, a twenty-year-old college student, whom I had met at a hostel in Olympia. He was taking courses at an extension university in Athens was sharing an apartment there with a friend from home. We warmly greeted each other, commenting how unbelievable we should bump into each other after two weeks. I mentioned my reconnection with the Canadian girls the day before.
         “Did you take a boat?” I asked.
         “I flew in. Cost fifty bucks. We have only today till Sunday”
         “Did Greg come, too?”
         “He has a big test on Monday and thought better of it.”
         “Too bad.”
         I thought this would be the end of our conversation. I was glad to see the friendly face but wasn’t too excited about hanging out with him. My student phobia had kicked in. Trying to protect myself from becoming too much the student. Those days were long behind me.
         “What are you doing now?” Jeff asked.
         “I was looking for a place to eat.”
         “So were we.”
         “Who are you with?”
         “Some people from school. I think they went into that small restaurant over there.”
         The restaurant was thirty meters away. I couldn’t think of an excuse not to go with him. Now I would be stuck with a pack of obnoxiously loud American students. All from the Midwest. Not a cynic among them. I followed him and upon entering he told his friends to make a space for me at the table. I stared past him. I couldn’t believe it. Five coeds. Not one other guy but Jeff with them.
         “We should move to another table,” said a long-legged brunette with lusciously red lips.
         “Why don’t we take two tables,” Jeff suggested, after he had introduced me to his fellow students. He stuck me between a redhead and the brunette. The redhead had large, bright green eyes, which I couldn’t stop glancing at. The other three were also attractive and vibrantly friendly, acting as if they were glad to have me with them. In fact, by the end of lunch, I had blended into the group and was expected to accompany them—and I did—to the black sand beaches and, later, to their rooms to watch the sunset. Happily for me, they were staying at the same hotel.
         How quickly I shed Erich’s company. Even faster went my idle desire to meet the Canadian girl at the nightclub. I had found fresher faces, less worldly attitudes, and rubbing against them for eight hours weakened my resistance to appear, in spirit, the recent college student (I had been out of graduate school for a year and a half). I would follow this crew anywhere.
         Anywhere!
         For the faint hope of a fleeting physical affection. Alert for casually venturesome sex. Possibly get one of the girls to sneak away from her friends and join me. On Sunday afternoon before their four o’clock flight departed. The Frenchman and his cold will have departed by them and I would have my own room. Seemed much better than sharing Elizabeth with Sven.
         Do anything!
         Even rent a motorbike. Speed end to end on Thira’s three roads.
         I didn’t even have to worry about Jeff being a rival for any of the girls’ affections. I became one with the student-pack. Joined the fun! I usually gagged on the word “fun.” Now I was willing to risk a broken head riding a motorbike. I was willing to put up with the banal pleasantries of these voluptuous adolescents.
         In the late afternoon, we went to their hotel room to watch the sunset. Jeff and the girls brought out their cameras. They talked as if their appreciation of this sunset was of a high aesthetic order.
         I erred when I did not share their pedestrian appreciation.
         My student mask fell from me and instantly I assumed, in their eyes, the demeanor of an adult. I had exposed my harsh, critical, non-fun self. The brunette, the red head, and their friends seemed less friendly when the photo session was finished. They wondered aloud where they were going to dinner but at no point suggested that I would be included in their plans.
         I reevaluated the situation. It would have been easier to isolate Suzanne, the Canadian blonde, from her companion than trying to establish free-and-easy credentials with Jeff’s friends. I excused myself and ran to the youth hostel. I found Suzanne and asked what she was doing for dinner. I was thinking of paying for her food, if that would tip the balance.
         “Betty and I already ate.”
         Shit, I thought. I blamed Betty. I should have known better not to try to insinuate myself between two female travel companions. I had allowed a previous experience at the ruins, giving them the cookies, to create romantic spermatozoa that couldn’t find an appreciable physical analog.
         I wanted to travel with Suzanne! Take the boat from Thira with her and go wherever she wanted.
         As it was, Erich and I would take the ferry to Paros.

The seas had remained turbulent. The ferry arrived four hours late. We started a conversation with and befriended an American couple in their twenties from the South, Preston and Penny, while we waited for the boat. Plenty of time to trade travel stories. They were headed to Athens and, subsequently, Spain. Aboard ship, we four and several Greek passengers played a backgammon tournament. Losers paid for drinks. Ouzos or beers. I spotted Sven and Elizabeth, who had reserved a cabin and retired early. The boat was occasionally tossed violently and one of the lounge’s tables overturned and slid along the floor. Seasick cases increased.
         Around eight-thirty, we stopped at the small island of Ios and the captain announced that the ferry would stay here indefinitely. Erich and I were pleased because this unscheduled stop would save us a night’s lodging. I decided to buy dinner and ate with the captain, three of the crew, Preston and Renny, and five other passengers. Although we were docked, the ship occasionally lurched and rocked, nearly sending some plates into our laps. I had a rice dish with tomato sauce and ground meat. Afterward, I met Erich in the lounge and we tried to sleep. We could hear the rain. My stomach was becoming queasy but I couldn’t be sure whether the boat’s movements or the meal or both caused it. I went to the men’s room but couldn’t get any relief. Then, around eleven-thirty, the captain announced that we would be continuing to Paros in a half-hour.
         “We won’t get there until four or five a.m.,” said Erich.
         “What’ll we do when we get there?”
         “We can find shelter somewhere. I’ve slept outside many times.”
         “I haven’t.”
         “Don’t worry about the police.”
         “I’m not. It might still be raining. Do you think any hotels will be open?”
         “It will be a waste of money.”
         Why did the ferry have to leave Ios? It hadn’t seemed as if the weather improved. The seas were no less turbulent when we had resumed the voyage.
         In Paros, around four-thirty, we walked onto the dock with ten others who quickly dispersed into various parts of the town. The wind was brisk and a drizzle whipped into our faces. The town was dark. My stomach had prevented me from resting and now it felt worse. I had reconciled myself to staying outdoors for several hours. I was tired. But, now, Erich had changed his mind. He pointed to a hotel nearby.
         “Let’s try that.”
         “It’s dark,” I said, “the owners are probably asleep.”
         “We’ll wake them.”
         “But you said it would be a waste of money.”
         Erich was also very tired. His steel-rimmed glasses fogged. He wanted to sleep until noon. We would still have time in the afternoon to explore the island’s interior. Besides, the hotels away from the port were half as expensive.
         He pushed the hotel’s buzzer and a woman answered immediately. We paid two hundred and fifty drachmas apiece and followed her upstairs. Erich was asleep within ten minutes. I was feeling even greater abdominal pressure, apparently not only gas, and went into the bathroom. I test-flushed the toilet but it only gurgled. Christ, now what was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to foul the toilet and then not flush it. Okay, I thought, maybe the urge to shit wasn’t really that strong and I could hold it off until morning. I undressed and slipped into bed, falling fast asleep.

Awoke with a start. It was light outside. Erich’s alarm clock read seven o’clock. I turned slightly under the covers and felt something wet on the back of my underwear.
         No!
         I didn’t! I couldn’t have!
         Maybe, oh please, Lord, let it be … maybe, it’s only … a spurt. Just a tiny wet fart that had barely soiled a square inch of my underpants.
         But, as the seconds passed dreadfully, I noticed … no, a spurt couldn’t have left something down the length of my thigh!
         I checked Erich. Dead still. Not a puff or snore from his lips.
         This couldn’t be happening. Damn me! I hadn’t remembered doing this to myself once during my entire conscious existence. And I wasn’t even in my own bed! No, I was six thousand miles away in some Greek’s bed. A bed that had seen thousands of travelers. A bed that expected thousands more. I had sullied this bed’s future.
         So full of fear of the unimaginably humiliating consequences for this ferocious defilement of the traveler’s covenant with the innkeeper, I have no recollection of smelling anything.
         Gradually, guardedly, my hand moved behind me to feel the extent of the accident. Apparently, my underpants did little to hinder the flow.
         How long had I been lying in it? Minutes? Hours?
         I checked Erich again. So calm, peaceful, incognizant. How could I explain this to him? Fuck that! How would I explain to the Greek lady?
         I eased my body from the dark wet mess and stood. It looked worse than it had felt. I covered the soiled sheets with the blanket and tiptoed to the bathroom. I stared at the goddamn toilet. Why couldn’t I have used it and not cared about what anyone found unflushed there in the morning? Why hadn’t I taken care of this business before I had left the ferry? Why did the ferry have to leave Ios? Whatever I would learn from this episode wasn’t going to be worth what was in store for me in a few hours. If I were the owner, I would have called the police. They might not have this crime on the books but I had done was criminal. What I ended up doing in the next hour may have been worse than criminal.
         The Writer of Integrity, a companion of mine during this memoir of my travels, recoils from this public airing of my dirty underwear. The subject matter is beneath him. Who wants to read about someone shitting himself?
         [Didn’t Henry Miller record a similar experience in The Colossus of Maroussi?]
         Henry Miller mentioned it in passing. He didn’t dwell on it.
         [Maybe he should have.]
         You’re not Henry Miller, especially viewed from the perspective that you have had trouble getting laid. But that’s not the point! I’m speaking out as the voice of your friends and loved one who don’t want to be associated with your disgrace. If that isn’t enough for you to reconsider and revise the passage to end with your going to sleep on Paros.…
         [How would I explain leaving Paros after four hours?]
         The reader will know something happened. As if you had placed a literary blanket over your shame. But if that isn’t enough reason, think about this: who really cares about you shitting your bed?
         [You mean that I’m nobody worth considering. If I were known, famous, and shit myself, the public would give a shit.]
         In so many words, yes. But also, as the Writer of Integrity, such personal shit is not my idea of literature nor will it be your ticket for literary greatness. Therefore I must disengage myself from this narrative immediately.
         I dropped my underpants into a metal trashcan that had a lid, fortunately, and then I washed off the shit with water and toilet paper. I didn’t know what I was going to do. How could I explain this accident that a four-year-old child wouldn’t have? I could have run down the hotel manager’s daughter with a car and not have felt guiltier. In fifteen minutes, I was cleaned and dressed. Erich was making a sound. I opened the door of the room. Quiet in the hotel. Was it Sunday or Monday? The sun shone brightly on the white pavement of the dock area. The azure sea rolled with occasional whitecaps. I lit a cigarette.
         Trapped. Like so many situations during childhood and adolescence, denial was useless.
         What if the Greek lady wanted my passport (it sounded like “ass-spurt”) and demanded that I pay for a new bed? Nobody would blame her.
         I lit another cigarette. A few people and cars started moving along the harbor. Two women were standing by the ferry’s docking station, their two large backpacks leaning against the seawall. I recognized them. Australians. I had spoken to them on the Sitia-Thira ferry. Never got their names. I waved. Both were on vacation from the university in Sidney. They returned the greeting, shouting to me:
         “Hi, how are you? What the hell are you doing here?”
         “Got here last night. About four hours ago. I’ve been sick.”
         “Diarrhea?” asked the husky one with the high forehead. “We have, too, for the last week.”
         “How long have you been in Paros?”
         “Two days,” said the other, sour-faced but softly. “There wasn’t much here.”
         “Do you have any medicine?” asked the husky one in her thickest Australian accent. She unzipped her backpack and handed me four pink tablets. “Got them three days ago. Take two now and two more in another four hours. They seem to work.”
         “You two waiting for the ferry?”
         “We’ve been waiting for an hour. It was supposed to be here by seven.”
         “Here it comes,” said her companion, pointing to the white ferry passing the jetty that projected into the harbor about a mile away.
         “Where are you going?” I asked.
         “Athens,” they said.
         “Do you have tickets?”
         “No,” said the husky one, “we’re buying them on the ship.”
         “I didn’t realize you could do that. I’ll be right back.”
         “Better hurry,” they called to me.
         The Man of Integrity, a companion for most of my life, would also like to comment on this situation. That is, if one can have a Man of Integrity after something like this. Judging by the conversation with the Australian students, our traveler is about to do something he will always regret. From an Integrity viewpoint. And the Man of Integrity would be pleased to join the Writer of Integrity and disengage himself from anything else this traveler does from now hereon.
         I had twenty minutes. The hotel was tranquil, asleep. The second floor hallway empty. Erich was still asleep. I gathered my toothbrush and deodorant from the bathroom and stuffed them in my case, grabbed my small backpack and put everything by the door.
         I stared at the bed. No smell. Underneath the green blanket a horrid surprise awaited the maid. She would sooner have wanted to unveil a mutilated corpse.
         “Erich,” I called out quietly. “Erich.”
         He stirred. Streaks of long hair covered his face.
         “Erich.”
         I approached his bed and touched his shoulder. His eyes opened.
         “Erich, I have to leave.”
         He grunted.
         “I don’t feel well.” He roped for his glasses. “I got sick last night. While I slept.” I couldn’t be more honest. “I’m taking a ship to Athens. I’m sorry. I have to catch the boat, it’s docking now.”
         “You feel that bad.”
         “Yes, I think I got food poisoning from the dinner last night.”
         His hand was extended from the covers and I shook it.
         “It was good traveling with you, Bob.”
         “Yes, it was a good time,” I said weakly.
         “I enjoyed our backgammon games.”
         I left the room and was in Athens ten hours later. In two days I was out of Greece.

Robert Castle teaches history and film criticism at a small academy outside Trenton, New Jersey.  “Passage” is part of a book, The End of Travel.  Other excerpts have been published by The Sun, A Summer’s Reading, Curriculum Vitae, and The Iconoclast.  Recent stories and articles have appeared in Archipelago, Gadfly, Bright Lights Film Journal, Arbutus, Octavo, and The Sidewalk’s End.  He is the publisher of Film Ex, a zine dealing with movies.