Was wrong. They were like people running to meet, holding out their arms, but they miss; they pass each other and keep running.
Most of his work was done at home, which was why the house systems were important to him. He wrote guidebooks for people forced to travel on business. Ridiculous, when you thought about it. Macon hated travel. He hurried through foreign countries, with his eyes shut, holding his breath, till he was safely back home, where with a happy sigh he would get on with producing his next passport-sized paperback. Accidental Tourist in France. Accidental Tourist in Germany. In Belgium.
He only wrote about cities in these guides, as people taking business trips flew into cities and out again, and their main concern was how to pretend they had never left home. What hotels in Madrid had American-style beds? What restaurants in Tokyo offered American food? Did Amsterdam, Rome, Mexico City have a McDonalds?
Although Macon hated the travel, he loved the writing – the delight of organizing a disorganized country, putting down in short neat paragraphs just the essential information. He spent pleasurable hours over the right choice of words, the correct use of a comma. I am happy to say, he would type, frowning in concentration, that it’s possible now to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken in Stockholm.