I'm in Patras, Greece. The town basketball court has been converted into a giant open-air dining restaurant, serving beer, Chivas Regal, and meat on a stick. Souvlakia.
I've been dragged to this by my Greekly indigenous dad. He's from around these parts. He never notices how goddamn awfully embarassed I get at these - "these" being "Anytime I'm In Public" whenever I visit Greece - since I'm always the only one in a 500 foot radius who can't speak Greek fluently. It doesn't matter if it's 3 family members at a dinner table, or 300 strangers partying in a crowded basketball court surrounding me on plastic chairs and tables, I just don't speak the language, so I'm always - at best - a step behind. Like high school, I'm just left out. But somehow worse than high school, since if it were done out of malice - like in high school - I could lay blame on assholes being assholes. But this time it's just my laziness and cowardice, making it worse than high school, through some dark magic. My father, oblivious to this. Lucky for me.
Lucky for me, this scene is stocked with The Three Great Motivators - Music, Booze, and Beautiful Women. Even a sad solitary Nazi stranded in the Mongolian steppes would know what to do when given a crayon box stocked only with those three colors. He wouldn't need to find a foot in the door, he'd already have a power trio of them. The opening stumble of maybe futzing up a first impression would be forgotten. He'd forget (as I did in my scene) all the times and nights that plans did not pan as planned, how The Person Before may see only failure ahead, The Person After now speaks another language which defines things like Success and Failure in ways that that guy he knew prior to The Experience would never understand.
Just to remove any suspense for the story: nothing happened to me. Besides my family, I had no company follow me home (the Nazi in my fantasy fared better, though. I AM a loving god. afterall), but going home alone With Memories - how is that not automatically superior to the alone you'd have waiting for you at home anyways? Exactly my point.
My mood was negative, to say the least, at first. As I said, I could already tell how the night was going to proceed unless I could do something vaguely drastic. But then I saw my barley and hops Evening Glue in a Can. The night started to fall into its beautiful slots and puzzle pieces. Speaking as a Reverend Shaman, I feel people often underestimate drugs. Most people see them as an apertif of some kind - a period, or small accomplice, to the larger meal, or something of the sort. Whenever I consume drugs, of any make, model, or consistency, I aim and look purely FOR the alteration. Any less is to show them disrespect.
The band was magnificent in that special way only half-way talent blokes can be who have more enthusiasm than skill. Such a dirty through-together. And as long as they kept the time enough for people of a likewise mediocrity in skill to keep their shuffling, sweaty bodies spinning in a "we don't give a fuck" rhythm, everyone fulfilled their job requirements, and the gods above were shuttered away and fearful of this man-made joy made for free and of no judgment or prejudice.
On the intro-trill to one of the songs, a bat flew overhead in a perfect whobbled dancing squiggly multiple-looper, in time, beat, and following the falls and rises of the notes and speed of the sound from the man-made musican. The lyrics made as much sense to me as any other conversation going on in earshot, but music has rarely been about the words anyway, as you know, and I doubt those fluent in attendance cared either.
Greek dancing is one of the most violent, sensual, delicate, communal, individual things you will ever have the terror and concern to watch unfold in front of your eyes. Old men & women swaying as drunk, or near cardiac arrest, strangers on one knee around them cheering them and keeping and clapping time for them. Arms out, then sweeping down nearly almost touching the ground, then a leap and a great vert, all from a man who looks like he hasn't eaten solid food since the 2nd Great War. Or a group, in a spinning circle, arms-over-shoulder linked together, legs kicking on the downbeat (if they're feeling conventional that night). Crip walks, shuffles, worms, waltzes and the like are optional. Odds of something being on fire: 5-10%. Props: 70-80%, most often a small glass of strong booze for the aforementioned old man to dance around sensually, until on knees with his hands behind his back he will pull and drink the glass up with his lips and mouth only - hands are allowed, but must be used with the appropriate style, grace, chutzpah. Odds of broken glass: A guarantee. Literally 100%. This night in particular they had over 3 dozen boxes of shit-poor champagne, stacked two-man high, whose only reason for purchase and existence was to be opened with a cork shot up into the sky over the crowd and land in the audience, the bottle was then placed back in the box, and when the box entire was shot, it was thrown with a heave to bash into a million glass and wet cardboard pieces on the edge of the dancefloor-basketball court, some 4 feet from my vantage point. I want to repeat this point with pride for my heritage: If there is no glass to break at a Greek party, we will buy some, so that we can break it. That is what's known as a Literal 100% guarantee.
As a pinnacle finality, we have the women. You look into a crowd and try to guess if Helen of Troy looked like any of them, and by the end of the night you have both a better and even worse idea than you did at the beginning. Curls and colors of hair, eyes, shapes, and heights of every combination and style, you'll have the vision pegged in this gleaming beautiful amalgamam in your head of what the girl who could start a war would look like, and then a girl will walk by who looks nothing like the picture in your head but somehow exactly twice as beautiful.
Tasked with my Solemn Mission as "WRITER!" for the night (which meant intermittent notes with a face that looked like I was eavesdropping uncomfortably close to YOUR private conversation, ma'am) I had my awkward sample for the night. My favorite girl happened to be at about my 4 o'clock, about 10 feet away from me. Counting me (plus the five foot gap I could find for myself and be able to think in before the next person) she was the third person out away from the dance floor. She had the perk of a nice body, but what made her special was the smile so easy to fall in love with. Like she's smiling at the same time about 3 other invisible things that only she can see.
Myself, I was The Picture of Class, sitting alone off one of the corners of the dance floor, taking pulls from a scavenged champagne bottle I'd found unbroken in the dump pile. I was just happy enough to take it all in. In a big enough crowd, my loneliness always runs upto my skull, but when I'm outside looking in, it's never that bad, since I can have these little 7 second visions of everyone's lives, and - like my little Nazi - I always see the best coming ahead in all their futures. I do it for Americans too, but it's just even easier to imagine happy endings for Greeks. I think it's the property destruction and reckless dancing that helps my creative juices. Our weaknesses and evils, painful memories, could never withstand the torrent of our sweat and drink, and only the good things about us would remain when we became new people tomorrow.
And finally: This was all at a fundraiser for the local soccer team. This was a Greek version of a Lame Government Sponsored Public Event. Technically, this didn't even qualify as a "Party". There was a raffle, for christ's sake.
And that, your honor, is why I caused the scene at the Church Waffle brunch last week.
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