Fault Lines - John Knoop

size of our herd had thrown everything out of balance. I wondered if my parents knew the
meaning of what they were doing and if running the biggest goat dairy in the Midwest made any
sense. Especially if it required killing my Nubian and Alpine friends. Eventually the pathogens
moved on and this reign of terror was over, but the questions remained about the forces of nature
and how I should relate to my parents’ effort to succeed in the world of commerce.
I wonder how strong a psychic hit all this has been for me. It launched me firmly on the
road to pacifism and was confirmation of my thoughts about the dark side of life. I expect the
worst and sometimes doubt my right to anything better. I don’t trust fate to be benevolent nor
human nature, including my own, to be beyond suspicion.
This morning I watched as a boy punting a ball down the paseo kicked his shoe off and up
into a plane tree. Then he threw the ball at the shoe, and it hung like a ripe grape where the shoe
had been. He threw the shoe, and it joined the ball in the tree. He threw his remaining shoe and
everything came back down. He gave a joyful chortle and went on down the esplanade. This
panoply of life and the freedom to sit and watch it is the education I am looking for. We’ve come
9000 miles over these past two months and spent 400 dollars, most of it on the bike. Two hotel
nights so far. Between us we have a bit more than 100 dollars left. Things are cheap down here
and we’re very frugal, but maybe we’ll need an infusion. Gasoline is rarely more than ten or
twelve cents a gallon. The comida corriente at the Hotel Pacifico is 22 cents or 2 colons with
salad and a glass of milk. It’s costing a dollar apiece a day for us to live here. We’d rather not
live here any longer. The captain of an American tanker, the ‘Gulfabo’ said he would take us to
Panama, then changed his mind and wished us luck.
Gunter, the German second mate on the ‘Magdeburg’ had five ships torpedoed and
bombed out from under him in the Mediterranean. In 1943, disabled, his freighter put into
neutral Barcelona. An hour later a British destroyer was docked next to them in such a way that
their flags crossed. Gunter and a shipmate went ashore and took the last table in a crowded
restaurant. A few minutes later two British officers came in and were seated at the same table, the
only one left with vacant seats. Shock and horror on both sides. They ignored each other but by
the end of the meal were drinking together and after several bottles of wine were wondering why
they should fight each other.
Every week or so I buy an envelope and go to the post office to mail the journal back to
Judy. She is my Penelope; making her my muse keeps me from missing her too painfully. I’m
asking her to write me care of Thomas Cook & Sons in Quito, Ecuador, the first place I can be
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