Scarlet Fever The family sailed from England when I was little. We departed from Southampton and crossed the Atlantic in a season of storms. After seven sleepless days of nausea we landed in New York harbor. My father carried me in his arms down the ship's gangplank. For the next few months we lived a peripatetic existence out of suitcases, driving the DeSoto and staying with relatives. Then--still with no home--my father, the war pilot, left us in Portsmouth, Virginia, at his sister's house and returned to duty in England. I fell ill with scarlet fever. The day I got sick, my mother suffered a vertigo attack. For days she could not lift her head from the downstairs sofa, while I lay feverish in a second-floor room under the eaves. Fires inside me burned and raged. The doctor snapped his black bag shut; the health inspector posted on the front door a quarantine sign: no one was allowed in or out of the house. My sister and cousins whispered I'd be lost. A telegram was sent to London. An Episcopalian priest, I'm told, knelt by my bed and prayed. I cannot remember whose hand held the cold compress when my temperature spiked and the end loomed near. I still don't know what hand gave me water, my aunt's, my sister's, or someone unknown to me, or what angel to thank for accompanying the child I was through the valley of death. And yet, after all these many years and a long and lucky life, whenever fever dreams wake me in the dark, I sometimes feel on my brow that cool, damp cloth-- calming me, healing me-- one of a thousand mysteries I give thanks for when I close my eyes at night. The Way We didn't go to London after all. She was German and we drove her old Citroen from her father's home in Hanover south to the Alsace where we stayed for a week in her uncle's cottage. Then we followed the winding Costa Brava to Barcelona and crossed the plain to Madrid. If we'd parked the car and walked the Camino north, we might have done the pilgrimage properly, but instead we drove to Toledo, then on through forests to Lisbon and the sea where we camped on Portugal's lonely beaches. In Galicia we stopped at Santiago de Compostela-- as if "the field of stars" had been our destination all along. We walked the town's cobblestone streets and through colonnades crowded with university students. In the great cathedral we wet our fingertips in the seashell filled with holy water while the blue smoke of incense lifted up its fragrant prayers. Neither of us knew how to kneel, but when we touched the statue of Saint James we wished for all the things we didn't know. All I knew was that it was Spain and I was alive and she beautiful, kind, and generous. It is a sweet memory and cherished, though I have not seen her for more than twenty years and don't know where she is or what wonderful things have happened to her. We drove on to San Sebastian. We pitched our tent on the edge of a vineyard. At an old castle, at a table beneath the stars, we drank wine. By candlelight we spoke in whispers about all the things we would do with the lives we'd been given. The Hayrick When I was seventeen I took a ten-week battery of psychological tests at the local college to help figure out my future. Most kids waffled between medicine and law. The baffled doctor apologized when my final results counseled "hermit" or "monk." I didn't think of "hermit" as a legitimate occupation, long-robed monk neither. I forgot all about careers when I crisscrossed Europe with my childhood sweetheart. Though we were poor, Europe was ours. We lived for the moment--Amsterdam, Paris-- and our minds burned with all we saw-- the face of the Matterhorn, the fountains of the Alhambra. We slept in youth hostels, converted monasteries and convents with separate dorms for girls and boys. Lying in a dark monk's cell, I couldn't see heartbreak in the future. I believed in love and bright mornings and couldn't see past summer's end. We crossed the channel and from London took the train west to Tintagel in search of King Arthur's castle and the Holy Grail. Under a windswept sky we spent the morning hiking barren cliffs; in the afternoon we followed the footpath signs into deep woods. In the woods lived a hermit in a shack by a waterfall. Bearded, gaunt, and wild as Merlin from years of solitude, the hermit fixed his eyes on me, put a finger to his lips, and bid me listen to the rapturous water endlessly falling. That night there were no boys' beds left in the hostel. I knocked on doors in the village, but there were no rooms to let. I slept in an open field of hayricks on a bed of straw beneath a sea of stars. I'll never forget that night, or that my first love knew an innocent heart. Excerpted from Stranger on Earth by Ri'Chard Jones 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.
