2. The Star Dust

The Star Dust, Winston’s ship, had seen better days, and those days were probably two-hundred years ago. All of it's various ropes were yellowed, it's anchor woven with thick moss, and it's four white sails frayed. Even so it was an elegant, if small, vessel; for all of its wear, its rich wood surfaces were slick and glittery in the sunlight and it had a buxom, well-carved mermaid on the prow.

Below deck was a small, sparsely decorated living space that consisted of a bedroom, with an attached kitchen, bathroom, and dining area. Winston brought my things down--a bag of personal affects and a couple boxes of books--and helped me arrange them amongst his own.

“Erm, Winston...?”

“There’s only one bed. I’ve already thought of it. Don’t worry, I will sleep on deck with Ramone and Goblin. I often do anyway.”

He didn’t seem terribly put out, but it didn’t seem right that I had invited myself along on his adventure AND I was stealing his bed.

“No, I couldn’t let you. I’ll sleep on deck.”

He laughed heartily. I mean, he doubled over with laughter. Then, he patted me on the back appreciatively, and went up the little stairs that led outside.

His “crew” consisted of a chimpanzee named Ramone and a three-legged squirrel named Goblin. They pushed The Star Dust away from the riverbank where it had passed the last week or so and the five of us--Willoughby came along, of course--headed for the open ocean.



Now, many of the following adventures will involve run-ins with Winston’s ex lovers. This may or not strike you as an interesting topic to explore, but let me assure you: it’s fascinating. The sheer number of girls that Winston had been involved with at any given port almost matched the number of indigenous plant species--and the girls were about as varied in both aesthetics and personality. And his stated intention for this voyage was to make amends with as many as them as he could. I thought it a noble idea, and also, more importantly, likely to produce an exceptionally high rate of excitement and adventure. Can you imagine a more dangerous mission than intentionally throwing yourself in the way of hundreds of resentful women? Okay, so maybe I’m exagerrating the numbers slightly. But just slightly.

We made a plan, as though we were staging a complicated bank heist, ranking our stops in consideration of how many women, and the varying degrees of their expected initial violence and then laid it out on a giant map across the dining room table with pins and thread. There was Alexandra in Western Morocco, Karina in Columbia; there was Cherie in France and Anya in Belgium, there was Em in Malaysia, Kat in Australia and Dessie on Tasmania.

But in Nova Scotia was the girl that would cause us the most problems, a girl named Simone with a vicious temper and such a propensity for cutting insults that even now, thousands of miles and several years away, the mere mention of her name was enough to cast Winston into a despondent, even fearful, silence. They had been lovers briefly, but things ended poorly and he had ended up leaving behind his Parrot, a loving and intelligent African Grey named Rinaldo, a fact by which he constantly felt pained.

We put her at the end of the list. We were still far from the coast of Nova Scotia, in time not miles. Our first stop would be in Ireland, and we were crossing the wide, cold, Atlantic.

Ramone was a remarkably able First Mate, and he had a quite a sense of humor to boot: Willoughby had a bed set up on the deck where he could lay in the sun and feel the fresh sea wind on his muzzle. As soon as Willoughby would get comfortable and start snoozing, Ramone would steer the ship ever so slightly North, or ever so slightly South, so as to shift a shadow back on top of Willoughby. Willoughby, roused from his nap by the chill, would get up, and pull his bed back into the sun, only to fall asleep again, and again wake up in the shadow. It took him at least two hours to realize that Ramone was playing this prank on him. He revenged himself by shaving Ramone’s eyebrows off while he was sleeping. The rivalry only escalated from there, and every day they would each turn up with some new outrageous scheme afoot, or the evidence of some outrageous scheme on their person. Goblin remained conscientiously uninvolved in the feud.

About two or three days off of the coast of Ireland, we hit a storm. It wasn’t a tremendous or terribly blustery storm, but it was windy enough to take up the sails and the swells of the sea became quite large. It was just when the last vestiges of daylight were slipping around to the other side of the planet, and I was clumsily trying to help Ramone tie up one of the sails. There was one piece of rope that I had accidentally let go and it was flailing behind the ship, in the wind; two more seconds and it was going to fly away entirely. Ramone was yelling something to me, but there was so much wind in my ear that I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I reached out six inches farther than I should have, and as I felt the weight of my body transferring to the outside of the railing, felt myself tumbling towards the frozen water below, I finally put it together in my head:

“Don’t worry about that rope; we have another!”

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