I drove aimlessly through the English countryside, not even knowing what direction I was heading. I kept going until I came to a road that looked bigger and kept taking bigger roads until I came to a highway or whatever they’re called in England, and after a few miles passed a sign that read: “London 40 miles.”
The traffic began to pick up as I got closer to the city. I drove with both hands on the wheel, my knuckles bone white, the Sword lying on the seat beside me. I couldn’t stop yawning, and all I wanted to do was pull to the side of the road and go to sleep, but I kept driving.
The sun was rising by the time I reached the outskirts of London. I was definitely not driving into the heart of the city in a hot Bentley, so I pulled into the first hotel I saw in a place called Slough. I took off my jacket and wrapped the Sword in it, but that left the butt of the gun sticking up from my waistband in full view. I worried what to do about this and if the clerk would wonder why this fifteen-year-old kid was checking in without any bags or parents, and why I had a jacket in the shape of a large sword. But some things you can’t do anything about, so I pushed the gun all the way down, into my underwear. The cold metal of the barrel pressed against my groin.
The hotel looked old, as if it had been something else before it was a hotel, maybe a nobleman’s country estate. The lobby was very small, and just felt old compared to the American hotels I had been in. The clerk didn’t say anything about my sword-shaped jacket. He put me in a room on the third floor, and told me I’d have to take the stairs because there was no lift. He asked how long I’d be staying. I told him I was taking a walking tour of England and I’d leave when I was tired of walking. He didn’t ask anything else. He didn’t smile once, and I thought maybe he had bad teeth. I had read somewhere that’s a problem in England.
In the stairwell, I took the gun out of my underwear and kind of tucked it under my arm. The hall was narrow and there were water stains on the baseboard. The paint job and carpet looked at least ten years old and smelled of mold. My room was at the end of the hall, next to the bathroom.
My bed was narrow, about six feet long, and shook a little when I sat on it. I was afraid it was going to break. I thought about calling the front desk and asking if they had rooms with bigger beds. I put the gun on the bedside table and laid the Sword down on the bed beside me. I took off my shoes, peeled off my wet socks, and lay down.
What was I going to do with the Sword now? Mike had a good point. They’d lock down the whole country and go door-to-door if they had to. They’d find the Bentley parked in the hotel parking lot, and I hadn’t even used a fake name to check in.
I expected a knock on the door any second, but they probably wouldn’t knock, just burst in with guns blazing, because after all, I had the Sword of Kings and might use it to take over the world.
I yawned. I needed sleep, but my instincts told me sleep should probably be the last thing on my to-do list. I pushed myself off the bed. On the wall next to the TV was a mirror. I looked at myself and decided I probably should take a shower, but that would mean leaving the room, and I didn’t want to take the Sword with me into the shower or leave it in the room. I looked in the mirror and thought about Mogart calling me fat. I wasn’t fat; I was just big. I had always been big and blocky, like one of those blocks at Stonehenge, wide and rectangular, the most boring shape next to a square there is.
I sat back on the bed and tried to figure out my next move. I couldn’t stay here long—no more than a few hours. I should shower and brush my teeth and go, except I didn’t have a toothbrush. I didn’t have anything except the most powerful weapon on earth. I could declare myself the Emperor Kropp, King Alfred the First, Lord of the Earth, but right then all I wanted was a toothbrush.
If I made myself king, I could summon all the world’s leaders to Slough and declare world peace. I could demand all the tanks and bombs and guns be melted down and turned into playground equipment. I could tell all the rich countries to feed the poor ones and outlaw war and tell them from now on every penny they used to spend on weapons they now had to spend on finding cures for diseases and making cars that burn clean fuel. I could demand the end to every evil under the sun. No more war or disease or famine. I could fulfill what Bennacio said was the reason the archangel gave the Sword to Arthur: I could unite mankind. I could finish what Arthur started. It might not bring Bennacio back, or Samson and the knights, or Uncle Farrell, or anyone who was lost because of me, but it might make up for what I had done. It might even make Natalia not hate me anymore.
Maybe my destiny was to be the sword-wielding savior of the world, and wouldn’t that just make Amy Pouchard regret not giving me her cell phone number! I had a vision of myself on a great throne, with a great big golden crown on my great big head.
The cold I had felt coming on was now fully on: My head hurt, my nose was running, and my forehead was hot. I lay on the bed and told myself in a minute I would get up and take a cool shower to bring my fever down and be ready to think more clearly. It’s pretty sad when you reach the point of scheduling your clear thinking.
“That’s it. You’ve figured it all out, Kropp,” I told myself. I was pretty feverish by this point. “The Knights of the Sacred Order kept the Sword hidden for a thousand years, waiting for Alfred Kropp to come along and save the world. Right! It never occurred to any of them, from Bedivere on down, that maybe one of them could take up the Sword and bring peace to this rotten world. They were waiting for you, Mr. big-headed high school dropout, to take care of things.”
I touched the cold metal of the blade—after a thousand years, how smooth and perfect it was! Just touching it made me happy and sad at the same time.
Eventually, I fell asleep, and I was back in the dream of the dark rider on the terrible battlefield, the Sword in the rider’s hand. Just as he was about to slam the blade into the ground and blow away his enemies, he lifted his head and I could see his face. It was my face. Not Kropp the Benign . . . but Kropp the Conqueror, Kropp the Terrible.
When I opened my eyes again the room was dark and the phone was ringing. I turned on the table lamp and wondered how long I had been asleep. I stared at the phone on the bedside table and wondered who was calling. Maybe the front desk, to tell me some guys in black robes were waiting for me down in the lobby.
I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Bonjour, Mr. Kropp.”
I picked up Mike’s gun from the bedside table and held it in my lap.