AGORA DOGS

(**Note: This is a "long" short story -- about 30 pages. To save your eyes, I suggest you download and print it.)

I had always wondered what it would be like to kill someone, and when it finally happened, it was better than I had ever expected.

Let me set things up for you. It will take a moment, but I promise that all the information I give you will prove important in the end. I was living in Athens, Greece under an assumed name for reasons I'll get to later. I say the word "living" loosely, for in actuality I was drifting. I had, a few months earlier, left my former life behind in the States, and I was in search of a new one, or if that didn't work out, at least a nice spot to settle down and put an end to things once and for all. To be honest, I really didn't know what I was doing, but as I had been "on the road" for some time at this point, I was nearly out of money and I was forced to find a job to prolong any decisions I would have to make. My first day in Athens, I answered an advertisement I saw in the English language newspaper "The Hellenic Times" and I as a result I had been hired as a night receptionist for two hotels owned by the same man, located just down from Syntagma Square, and in the heart of the tourist center of the city. The names of the hotels were The Argos and The Dionysus.

It was summer and the weather was ungodly hot -- a record heat wave had settled in over the peninsula and sent the temperatures above 40 Centigrade everyday. In addition to that, brushfires burned out of control at the edges of the city (there had been no rain for weeks) and the smoke combined with the daily pollution to create a thick, unbreakable dark brown haze. For the majority of the people who were just passing through -- just stopping off for a quick photo-op at the Acropolis before heading out to the royal-blue dream world of the islands -- it didn't matter and they hardly noticed. But for the residents of Athens and people such as myself who were now calling this place home, the extreme conditions put an indelible strain on all our moods. Tempers were quick to flare, and in response to the largest tourist population to ever descend upon the city, rooms were scarce, and restaurants and cafes were pushed to the breaking point. The crime rate of muggings, assaults and murders had reached the highest levels ever known.

Despite all this, the freewheeling spirit of summer was hard to completely suppress. The Argos and The Dionysus were "backpacker's flophouses", lively places catering to the college students that spread out across the globe each year at this time in search of all those perfect memories. Most of the staff I worked with at the hotel were good kids, all from many different countries, and they all had degrees and jobs waiting for them when the party ended in September. I was about ten years older than most of the people I met, but on the surface you would never have known that I was not one of them. I was masquerading among them, pretending as well that this was just some grand romp I was on and that I had some great thing to return to once it was all over. In fact, I had a warrant out for my arrest for some ill-conceived decisions I had made, and a return to America would have meant incarceration. But I was able to cover it up well, and even in between shifts, when my colleagues and I would cram ourselves into the overpriced cafes of The Plaka (the large, sprawling, open-air tourist mall at the base of The Acropolis) , or spread out in the courtyards of the hotels where we worked and swap tales about our lives, there were moments when I actually believed all the lies I was telling.

I had tried a few times already to buy some fake documents to make the transformation into my new identity complete, but I had found the cost too high. So my passport still held my real name, though I had been surprised to find how easy it was to get around that. Once I entered a country, almost no one ever asked to see it again (even when I registered in hotels) or if they did, I would say something like it was buried deep in my bags and I would bring it to them later, which I never would, and which they would inevitably forget about. That was in fact how I got this job. The man who owned both of the hotels was one Constantine Palladin, and he was rumored to be in the Greek Mob. I believed it, for the day I met with him in his cluttered office next to The Argos, he had an uneasy calmness about him broken up only by the constant snapping of his eyes. He acted like a man who was always looking over his shoulder, and like a man who wouldn't hesitate to get rid of whoever was closing in on him. Plus he had a large gun which he conspicuously let me see. It was in the top drawer of his desk, where he kept his employee ledger, and when he opened it he looked deep into my eyes the moment I saw it. Nothing was explicitly said except that he did not tolerate people stealing from him and to insure that, he asked all "the little monkeys" he hired to give him their passports for the duration that they worked for him. I told him mine was buried deep in my bags and that I'd bring it to him later. I did not like him, and for the month that followed, I went out of my way to avoid him and the subject never again came up until the very last day. Mr. Palladin put me on the 11PM to 7AM shift at The Argos, and housed me with the other employees for free at The Dionysus. He gave each of us one complimentary meal a day and 15,000 Drachmas each week, about $125. It was more than enough to survive and if I was careful, enough to get me to my next eventual destination -- wherever that would be.

The night shift was not boring. There were people checking in and out at all hours, and I soon became acquainted with some of the long-term lodgers and they would bring me bottles of beer and we would sit up all night talking about all the places we had been and wanted to go. In the early hours, I would begin sweeping and mopping the long marble floors of each of the four stories of the Argos, and I would empty garbage bins and clean the showers and the toilets. I was surprised how little I minded all of it, and to be honest when I cleaned the women's floors (all the showers and toilets were communal) I found it incredibly erotic. Because of the unbearable heat, and the lack of air-conditioning, I would be barefoot, shirtless, wearing only shorts, and completely covered in sweat as I entered the toilets and caught the sweet smell of their urine, and turned over the bins and saw their discarded tissues and the light scarlet smear of blood from their tampons and pads. In the drains of the showers would be their pubic and other body hairs and I always tried to imagine which of the lovely young women I had seen during the day that I was now touching. In addition to the private rooms, there was one large women's dormitory with a dozen beds and the door was always left open to help circulate the air. I would stop just outside the room and peer in and see them lying peacefully on top of the covers of their cots, most clad only in their underwear, and how through the nocturnal movement of sleep, some of their underwear had bunched up into thin strands exposing even larger amounts of their flesh. In the quiet of the morning, just before dawn, this was how I spent my time.

Then I met Graciella Martine, and this is where the story really begins. I had noticed her on my first night of work, but we didn't officially speak to each other until almost a week had gone by. She was so beautiful. She was 22 years old from San Sebastian, Spain, and was living at The Argos for the summer. She shared a room with her best friend Sophie Ruiz and the two had come to Athens to participate in a student exchange program at one of the city colleges. They took classes in Greek history and language and in return tutored local students in Spanish. I have to say that Graciella had the most incredible smile I had ever seen. It really exploded across her face and it could make even the darkest of hearts feel that there was something good in the world. She was a thin girl with shoulder-length hair and smooth, clear, almond-colored skin. The first time I saw her bound up the stairs toward her second-floor room, I was immediately and intensely attracted toward her. Out of all the women I had met, not just in Athens, but throughout the past few years of my life, I felt the most powerful and mesmerizing connection. I can't really explain it, but then, who can?

"Can I have my key?" she asked me on the night we finally spoke.

I had been immersed in a magazine and hadn't even heard her come in. I looked up at the very moment that a drop of sweat fell from my forehead and stained the page I was reading.

"You look so hot," she said. "I don't know how you can take it here each night."

"Hey," I finally said, a beat behind the conversation.

"Hey yourself," she said and flashed me her smile. She then waited patiently.

I stared at her a moment and then finally came to my senses and stood up to get her key. "Sorry," I said. "This heat has killed my brain."

"No problem," she said, and I have to say that even her voice was as sweet and as musical as any I had ever heard. "Where are you from?" she asked.

"America."

"I figured that," she said playfully. "Where in America?"

"From _____ ," I said and lied.

"You just start working here?"

"Last week."

"You like it?"

"It's okay. It's only temporary."

"Well, I figured that too."

"Su llave," I said and handed her her key.

"Habla Espanol?"

"Un poco."

"I can teach you," she said.

"Sure, if you have time."

"I have time... Well, don't melt. Buenas noches, _______ !" she said, saying my name, and then bounded up the stairs with her usual energy. She was wearing a thin white jumpsuit and I noticed the delicate trace of her underwear as she climbed each step. It was pink. She turned and smiled at me one last time before disappearing. Then I realized she had known my name without my telling her.

****

The next day I was walking through The Plaka when I heard someone call my name. I turned and saw Graciella standing in the doorway of a cafe and waving at me.

"Hey! What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing. Just going to have lunch."

"Come have lunch with me."

She smiled and sucked me inside. It was a beautiful old cafe with high ceilings and stone floors and it was a cool escape from the heat and the haze. I followed Graciella to her table and she was wearing a white T-shirt and white cut-off painter's shorts. Again I could see the delicate trace of her underwear (today it was black) and as I walked beneath a ceiling fan, I caught a deep whiff of her scent. She smelled like vanilla.

"Writing letters?" I said as she cleared away a stack of papers to make room for me.

"I wish. This is my final term paper. Greek history."

"Final paper? When do your classes end?"

"Next week."

"And then?"

"Then I go home," she said and sighed.

"You don't sound too happy about that."

"No. I really love it here."

"Then stay."

"I can't. Father won't pay for it."

"Get a job. The Hotel Argos is a wonderful place to work."

She caught the sarcasm in my voice and laughed. "I'm sure it is!... No, we have our family vacation coming up. It's impossible not to go. I'd be excommunicated. It's a nice place though. We have a house on Majorca... Wanna come?" she asked playfully.

"Sure."

"Of course, I don't know how they'd react to me bringing strange men along."

"Then we should get married first."

"I was thinking the same thing," she said. "How about tonight?"

"I believe I'm actually off tonight."

"Oh what a shame! I was hoping we could have the ceremony behind the desk."

"With Mr. Palladin presiding, of course."

"Of course," she said.

"And we could have our reception at the McDonald's on Syntagma Square."

"Brilliant," she agreed.

"And for our honeymoon, we could get a suite at The Dionysus."

"Do they have suites there?"

"Not really. But they have a dorm room. We could toss some dried flowers on the floor, put some baklava on the pillows, and chill a couple bottles of beer in the sink."

"How romantic," she said and pressed her folded hands to her heart.

"Thank you. I spare no expense."

We stopped and looked at each other. It's a cliche' I know, but there were sparks flying out of her eyes, and I know for damn sure there were lighting bolts blasting out from mine. We laughed.

"Should we order lunch?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Let's definitely order lunch."

I was such a good actor. Here I was surprising even myself at how loose and charming I was being, when just a few minutes before I had run into Graciella, I had been convinced yet again that the direction of my life was really and truly heading nowhere. It was old news. Let me explain just a few more things about myself.

I know I've hinted at it, but I don't know if I can adequately illustrate to you just how strange and catastrophic my world had become (can anyone truly illustrate their inner life to another human being?) or how dangerously close I was teetering toward self-annihilation. Why? I don't know. There were many reasons. There was no reason. Dreams I had not realized, plans that had fallen flat, loves that had disintegrated, and of course, now there were my legal problems; basically I felt I had reached a certain age and had absolutely nothing to show for my time upon this planet. It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment when things began to change for me, but sometime over the past few years I had become deeply and pathologically disillusioned.

There is a quote I want to share with you now. I'll have to paraphrase it, as I've never been able to recall exactly where I saw it, or even who said it. Maybe it was Albert Camus, or Milan Kundera -- hell, maybe it was the Rev. Al Sharpton -- I don't know, but it comes closest to accurately summing up the condition I had fallen into:

"The wild flame of the romantic is tenuous and needs care.

It is always in danger of going out. If not seen to properly,

only the cold, bitter ashes of the cynic will remain, and life

will sink downward into a never-ending spiral of debauchery,

self-destruction, and despair."

At one time I had been a fiercely committed, card-carrying romantic -- life had been nothing short of a grand adventure to plunge myself into and embrace. But now my wild flame was only seconds from slipping away from me forever. This trip I had embarked upon had been my last, desperate attempt to rekindle some sort of passion in my life, from any source, in any way possible. And up to this point, I felt I had failed.

We finished our meal and now sipped on ouzo and coffee.

"So, you still want me to help you with your Spanish?" she asked.

"Ciertamente," I replied. "Cuando?"

"Now." She settled herself eagerly in her chair and flashed her eyes at me. "So what do you want to know?"

I looked at her. Her almond skin. Her thick hair. The ouzo had begun to work its effect on my body, and I started to melt.

"How do you say: `You have a beautiful smile'?" Internally, I slapped myself on my forehead. I couldn't believe I had just said that. She was taken back for a brief moment, but then we locked eyes and both of us burst out laughing.

"I know," I said. "That was really cheesy, wasn't it?"

"Yes it was," she said. "But it worked."

Our eyes danced around each other. Our chests rose in unison.

"Tu tienes una sonrisa bello," she finally said.

"Tu tienes una sonrisa bello," I repeated.

"Again," she said.

"Did I say it wrong?"

"No ," she said softly. "I just want to hear it again." She closed her eyes.

"Tu tienes una sonrisa bello," I said. "Tu tienes una sonrisa bello."

We made plans to meet again that night.

****

Before I tell you the story of the night I fell in love with Graciella, I first have to tell you about how I nearly had my throat cut.

She was to meet me at The Dionysus around ten that evening and I was, needless to say, very excited. We had nothing special planned; I suggested we start with a bottle of wine and just go from there. So around 9:00 I went to a small shop around the corner from the hotel to stock up for my big date. The young man who owned the shop was not very friendly and always had a scowl on his face. He recognized me when I came in, because in the mornings after I had finished my shift at The Argos, I had gotten into the habit of stopping by there to pick up a couple of bottles of beer to take home with me. The young man had thick eyebrows and a shaved head and he never had anything to say. He would always take whatever I had picked out and slam it down on the counter and then hold out his hand and wait for me to put money into it. I didn't like him, but continued to go there out of laziness and convenience, and I had returned that night because there was a good wine I had tried the day before that I wanted to share with Graciella.

I wasted no time pointing out what I wanted, and when he held out his hand I put 800 Drachmas into it, the exact price I had paid just yesterday. He stared at me and kept his hand open.

"What?" I asked. "There's 800."

"1600," he said and grunted.

"What?! Are you crazy? I paid only 800 yesterday for the same thing."

"New day. New price. 1600."

This really pissed me off, and my short fuse snapped and I shoved his hand away. "Fuck you. 800 is all I'm paying."

He immediately threw the money to the ground and got in my face and started screaming at me. It was all in Greek, but there was one word he kept repeating which I knew very well. He kept calling me "Malaka! Malaka!" which when translated, basically means "mother-fucker."

"I'm not the Malaka!" I screamed back at him. "You're the Malaka! You're the Malaka!"

He bumped me with his chest and then I pushed him into the beer cooler, and then he pulled out a switchblade, grabbed me by my shoulders, spun me around, and put the blade up to my face.

Coincidence saved me. For just as he held the blade in front of me, a middle-aged man walked into the shop, saw what was happening and immediately stepped out and shouted down the street. Within seconds, a Greek policeman that had evidently been patrolling The Plaka (they were everywhere that summer -- you could throw a rock and hit one) strode through the door. He shouted at the young man, and took out his gun. The young man released me, and the Greek cop cornered him behind the counter and really chewed him out. I drifted next to the middle-aged man who had saved me, and watched the cop lay into "the Malaka." The cop slapped him once in the face and then kept pointing to the wall with his gun.

"What's he saying?" I asked.

My savior spoke passable English. "The cop is asking where his business permit is. It's supposed to be on the wall. He doesn't have one. He's Albanian and opened this up illegally."

Oh shit, I thought. I had really stirred something up now. The Greeks hated the Albanians, and never tired of finding ways to push them around. I took this as a strong cue to make my exit.

"Well, I guess I should be going," I said. "Thanks so much for coming in when you did."

"No problem. Don't you want your wine?" The man walked up to the counter, grabbed the bottle, and came back and handed it to me. "Have fun tonight. I hope she's pretty." He winked at me, and then I left the shop.

I rushed back to The Dionysus, showered, shaved, found a clean shirt buried deep in my back pack, and then waited for Graciella. At 10:05 she walked into the courtyard, wearing a loose, cotton, light-blue summer dress, and she looked radiant. She smiled at me and my heart spun up into my mouth.

She sat down, and I poured out a couple of glasses. We toasted ("Salut" is what we said), she commented on how nice the courtyard was (and it was very nice with fig and lime trees and grape vines running along trellises), and then I told about what had just happened to me. She loved the story, and I told it in a very funny manner, and then we had another glass of wine, and then I told her more stories about my life and this time (as opposed to how I acted around my co-workers) all of them were true. And they were good stories. And she laughed. And suddenly as I heard myself talking about myself, in an honest manner for the first time in forever, and as I watched her eyes, and heard her laughter, and listened to her comments, I slowly began to remember that I had in fact had a rather interesting life. I slowly began to remember that I was in fact a pretty good person. And for the first time, in a long, long, while, I started not to hate me.

Around 2:00 AM we had finished that bottle as well as a couple of beers from the canteen. I was elated.

"Let's go to The Acropolis!" I suddenly suggested.

Her eyes lit up and she smiled. "Alright! I've always wanted to sneak up there at night."

We took off and went out into The Plaka. Most everything was shutting down, and it was nearly empty and the night was surprisingly cool with a good wind. I think we actually skipped along -- yes we did, we did skip along in our 20 minute walk to the base of the large mountain upon which the famous site rested. The mountain itself was dark, but far above us The Acropolis was lit up in golden floodlights. We had both heard there was a hole somewhere along the high fence that had been constructed to keep out vandals such as ourselves, but after nearly half an hour of trolling through the thick brush, we could not find it. It did not dampen our mood in the least however, and we both agreed that the long hike up might be too much after all we had had to drink. By this time every street we walked along was completely deserted and it felt as if we had the entire city to ourselves. Graciella told stories now, about her family and her life, and I drank them up, every word of them, and then we came to the old, ancient Agora -- the ancient marketplace -- that stood at the northwest corner of the area. It was mostly a pile of 3000 year-old rubble, but the fence that surrounded it was low and easy to climb over. So we climbed over it.

What a girl. She was game for anything and didn't blink an eye as we lowered ourselves into the Agora. The cool wind stepped up in pace as we laughed and started to leap from ancient boulder to ancient boulder. We took turns steadying each other as the old stones had been worn smooth and slippery over the centuries. It was a brilliant time. After about fifteen minutes of this, we both looked across the long plaza that ran toward the rear of the site and for the first time saw the packs of security dogs that were quietly patrolling the far fence. There were four of them that we could count, and when we saw them, we immediately became still. Then the wind shifted and blew from our backs toward the dogs, and we saw one brown mutt stop and lift its head. It looked right at us. We knew then we were busted. We smiled at each other, and slowly turned around, ready to make a mad dash for the fence.

The brown mutt barked sharply, and then the other dogs noticed us, and we took off for the fence, laughing like hell, slipping all over the ancient boulders, as the pack of dogs closed in on us. I reached the fence then pulled Graciella up and over, and then just as the brown mutt was only a few feet away from me, Graciella grabbed my hand, and with my other free hand I spun myself over the top and fell safely to the street to the other side. The four dogs rushed up to the fence and barked madly and poked their snouts as far as they could through the rails, but the two of us just made faces at them. Then we brushed ourselves off and headed back toward The Dionysus.

When we reached the courtyard, we turned and looked at each other. Without either of us saying a word, we both gently craned our necks, and for the very first time, we kissed. It was slow at first, but soon we both could not get enough, and we devoured each other beneath the fig and the lime trees.

"I have class in a few hours," she said when we finally came up for air.

"Of course," I said.

"Will I see you again?" she asked.

"Of course," I said, and smiled.

We kissed once more, and then she left. And then I was alone in the courtyard. I broke into the canteen and got out a cold bottle of beer and sat down and looked at the grape vines. How had this happened to me? I wondered. How had I been so lucky? I could not remember a time in my recent life when I had felt so alive as I did at that moment. And I was so grateful the way things had ended. I really, truly did not want things to have gone further. The past years of my life flashed before me -- dark images of endless one-night stands. It all seemed so pointless. Graciella's face blazed above me in the night sky.

****

If this were a "Grade B" movie (and maybe this is a "Grade B" short story -- that's for you to decide), then this would be the part when you would see some dopey montage about all the things our young lovers do as they fall in love. You know what I'm talking about: picnics in lush meadows, candle-lit dinners, walks along the beach, laughing and dancing and frolicking carefree. But all these things did in fact happen to Graciella and I , so I have to at least mention a few of them.

Perhaps it was because we knew we only had a few days that our time together was so intense. She would be leaving in less than two weeks, so every possible hour that we could, we spent it with each other. We visited the ancient Oracle of Delphi, and had a picnic in the mountains. We went to the port city of Piraeus, and had a candle-lit dinner at a restaurant that stood upon a cliff and gave a succulent, nighttime view of the Aegean. We spent endless hours at museums, strolling through flea markets, or just relaxing in some shade. But without a doubt the most incredible times we spent together, were on the nights that I had to work. She would stay up with me all night, sitting behind the front desk at The Argos, even helping me do my chores. She said she couldn't bear to see that time wasted. She would read to me from a book of Spanish short stories that she owned, and then I would read to her whatever I could get my hands on -- Hemingway, Kawabata, Newsweek magazine. I would help her with her term papers, and then in the middle of the night, when the heat just seemed to ready to choke the life out of us, and I would be drenched in sweat, she would take a water bottle and a cloth, and she would take off my shirt, and she would pour the water over my body, and gently rub me down. Many times, during stretches when no one passed by the desk, this would lead to some very sensual encounters, as she would often suck the excess water off my chest, and then I would take my turn, and take the cool, damp cloth, and massage her breasts, and move up her inner thigh, and then she would sit on my lap, and we would kiss as long and as deep as two people possibly could.

Our physical life never went farther than that, and I didn't want it to. After so many years of using sex as a cure for boredom, or even as a barometer to check if I was still alive, I did not want to make love with her until it was absolutely, positively perfect.

That perfect night seemed to present itself on the eve before she was to return home. We had talked about doing something special (as if everything we had done already hadn't been) but I was scheduled to work. The following night was my night off, and I tried, I pleaded with everyone to switch with me, but nobody would. It was the only time I ever felt any ill will toward my co-workers, and I felt plenty of it. I was deeply disappointed, and I badly just wanted to quit, but I also badly needed at least one more week of pay. Graciella and I had talked about my coming to stay with her in San Sebastian after her family vacation was over, and to do that, I needed more money. She said that once I got there, she could probably get me a job teaching English, and I would have taken a job cleaning sewer pipes as long as it afforded me a chance to be near her.

So instead of a big final evening out on the town, we planned to find a way for the two of us to be alone some time during the night. It was her suggestion that we pay for a room and keep it empty for the two of us to sneak into. Her roommate Sophie would have obviously gotten in the way had we used her place, plus we both wanted a space, that if only for a short while, and if only for one night, we could claim as our own. As excited as I was at the prospect of consumating the affair with this woman I now deeply loved, there was of course an undercurrent of sadness that ran between both of us. On the surface we projected confidence that sometime, somewhere later we could pick up where we would leave off in Athens, but there was also a palpable anxiety. Anything could happen. And unfortunately, everything did.

At 11:00 as I began my shift, I snuck up into the room we had rented. I tossed dried flowers on the floor, put some baklava on the pillows, and chilled two bottles of beer on ice in the sink. Graciella joined me behind the desk at about 11:30, and though she tried to crack open her usual brilliant smile, I knew she was very sad that at 9:00 in the morning, just nine and a half hours away, she would get on a shuttle bus for the airport and her glorious summer in Greece would be over. We avoided talking about it. She read to me from her book of Spanish stories for the last time, and I read to her the story of "Araby" from James Joyce's The Dubliners, and she took out her water bottle, and took off my shirt, and cooled me off, and I did the same to her, and then she sat on my lap and we kissed once again.

At 3:45 AM, all was quiet, and we decided the time had arrived. I made a sign and taped it to the front desk that I would "be back shortly". I held her around the waist as we walked up the stairs to the first floor, and she laid her vanilla-scented head on my shoulder. We reached the room, and when I opened it and she saw the dried flowers and the baklava on the pillows, and the bottles of beer in the sink, she started to cry. I scooped her up into my arms, and carried over the threshold, and then I laid her down in the bed. I began to kiss her, and she started to take off her clothes, and I slowly brought my mouth along her stomach, heading down between her legs, and we both breathed fast in anticipation... and then I heard shouting from the first floor and someone frantically hitting the little bell on the desk.

I could not believe it. I tried to ignore it. I wanted so badly to ignore it, but the shouting and the bell ringing kept on and on and on. I had to go get rid of whoever was doing this. I kissed her and told not to worry: I'd be back shortly.

When I reached the front desk, my stomach sank. Part of my job as the night clerk at The Argos involved, twice a week, gathering all the dirty linens into bundles to be picked up by a cleaning service. I had forgotten that tonight was that night, and before me stood the two, odd, brusque guys who always came to drop off the clean stacks, and pick up the old ones. It was an involved process: there was a closet where the old linens were tossed into, and I had to lay out bundles of twenty -five each. Often there were over two to three hundred dirty sheets, and the task sometimes took me close to an hour to complete.

The guys slammed down the new bundles and stared at me angrily. They wanted the old ones so they could be on their way as quickly as possible. I tried to explain to them that I had forgot, and then they started calling me "Malaka, Malaka" and one of them kicked the front desk in frustration. They mentioned Mr. Palladin's name, and I told them not to call him, that I would get the linens together as quickly as I could and begged them to come back in 30 minutes. They very reluctantly agreed, and I raced up the stairs, and told Graciella what was going on. She offered to help me, but I told her I could do it faster by myself as there was a certain way the bundles had to be put together. I kissed her again and again told her not to worry: I'd be back shortly.

I ripped open the closet on the third floor, and to my extreme dismay found it solidly packed with dirty sheets. Still, I felt I could get away with this, and after half an hour, I had made twelve bundles and was down to making one last one when I heard the laundry guys ringing the bell. I raced down and told them I was almost done. They scowled at me and I raced back up, and then Graciella found me and insisted on helping, and together we carried the big heavy sacks down three flights of stairs one by one, going back and forth for thirteen trips. It was now about 4:45 when we finally got rid of them. We were both breathing hard and we were very thirsty and when we got to back to our little room, we cracked open the two bottles of beer. We sat there for few minutes, trying cool off and catch our breath. Then she put down her bottle and changed positions and straddled me and began to kiss me gently when... yes, you guessed it: another interruption. But this one was far more serious as I now heard Mr. Palladin himself shouting my name from downstairs. It was 5:00 and I didn't know what the hell he could be doing here unless the laundry guys had called him about my fuck-up with the sheets. I kissed Graciella and told her: I'd be back shortly.

I raced down the stairs yet again but this time I was shocked when I found Mr. Palladin standing behind the desk with his gun drawn and pointed at me. His hair was a mess, and his eyes were a bit glassy. He looked like he might have been drinking.

"Where's your passport?" he asked.

"What?"

"Your fucking passport! I don't have your fucking passport! There has been money stolen at The Dionysus and you are the only one who never gave me his passport. I want it!"

I looked at the gun. "Mr. Palladin, I'm sorry I guess I just forgot. But I didn't steal any money. I've been here all night."

He shook the gun at me. "Just go get me your fucking passport!"

"Okay, okay. Just relax. It's at The Dionysus."

"I'll stay here while you go."

"I just have to go get my shoes. I took them off upstairs while I was mopping."

"Fine," he said and then mumbled something and collapsed in the chair behind the desk.

I raced upstairs yet again, quickly told Graciella what was going on, and grabbed my shoes.

"Maybe its just not meant to be tonight," she said rather dejectedly.

"Don't say that," I said. "Don't say that. I'll run there. I promise: I'll be back shortly."

By now I had said that phrase so many times that we both couldn't help but find it just a little bit funny. She smiled, I kissed her, and I left her yet again.

It was about 5:15. The walk from The Argos to The Dionysus usually took about fifteen minuets. I ran it in six. When I got there I asked Lara, the Swedish girl who was on the night shift just what the hell was going on. She said she didn't know, but that Mr. Palladin had suddenly showed up and started counting the money. He was drunk and miscounted, and thought there was 60,000 Drachmas missing. Lara said she tried to show him his mistake, but he wouldn't listen to her, and said he was going to take her to jail if she didn't tell him who had stolen it. He had woken all the other employees, shouted at them that he was a powerful man not to be messed with, and said who ever did this had until morning to put the money back, or he would shoot them. Lara said she hoped that when he sobered up, she would be able to explain to him that it was all a misunderstanding. She said he had specifically asked about me.

Unbelievable, I thought. Now I was really fucked. Once I gave him my passport and he saw it was a different name than what I had been going by, that would not make me look too good in this phantom crime. I didn't know how I was going to explain this. I got my passport and this time I walked back to The Argos, buying minutes as I tried to come up with some kind of story I could lay on him. It was just after 5:30 when I got there, and I found Mr. Palladin had passed out in the chair behind the front desk. The gun lay in his lap. I nudged him awake, and I think he had no idea where he was.

"What am I doing? Where have you been?" he asked me.

"You told me to go get my passport."

"I did. Wake Stratos for me and have him come down here. I need you to come to my office."

Stratos was the lumbering, dim-witted handyman/henchman who lived at The Argos, and as I raced up to his room, I stopped on the way to see Graciella. She had fallen asleep. I tiptoed in, kissed her lightly on the lips, and whispered to her: "I'll be back shortly." She moaned softly, and faintly smiled.

Stratos came down groaning and rubbing his eyes and took my place behind the front desk and I went with Mr. Palladin to his office. It lay adjacent to the Argos outside on the street. I could tell that the alcohol had started to crash within him as Mr. Palladin moved lethargically, and he dropped his keys a few times as he tried to open the front door. Eventually I took the keys and opened the door for him and we went inside. I was very nervous as I had no idea why he wanted me to come with him to his office and I had visions of him just turning around and shooting me. I gave him my passport, but amazingly he didn't even look at it. He just opened a cabinet and tossed it in a box with all the rest of them. Then he went to a small safe, opened it and handed me 60,000 Drachmas and told me to go back to The Dionysus.

"But Mr. Palladin, Lara told me it was --"

"Just go!" he ordered me.

So I went. Back at The Dionysus again and it was now 6:00. I told Lara that he had given me this money, and she shook her head.

"Just keep it and give it back to him later. He doesn't know what he is doing."

I didn't feel comfortable walking around with all that cash, so I went to my room and stuck it in my backpack, honestly planning to give it back to him later that day.

When I finally got back to the Argos it was 6:15. On the walk back I noticed that the shop where I usually bought my beer had been boarded up, and as I passed Mr. Palladin's office, I noticed the lights were off and it was locked. I guessed that he finally had gone home.

Stratos was happy to see me, as people had already starting rising and checking out, wanting to catch the first wave of ferries out to the islands. When he went back to his room, I snuck upstairs to check on Graciella. She was still asleep. I gently sat down on the bed next to her. I watched her. I could not believe that in less than three hours she would be gone, and I could not believe how badly this night had unfolded. I was thoroughly devastated. Sure, we had made promises that our separation would be a short one, and that we would soon be reunited, but I couldn't count on that. It wasn't enough for me. You may be thinking that this was only a brief little summer romance I have described to you, but you must believe me when I say it had been much more than that. Especially for myself, when I compared and contrasted the state I had been in before I met her, to how so many things had now opened up and returned to me, ways of thinking and feeling that I had forgot I knew how to do. I had flashes then of what it would be like in the days to come, and I couldn't stomach it. I knew I was bordering on obsession, but it was mostly driven by fear: I couldn't stand the thought of one single day without her, or seeing myself sink back into that horrible abyss I had crawled out from with her help.

I caressed her now, her smooth almond skin, and I ran my fingers through her hair and beneath her chin, and across her neck...

At 7:00 my my replacement came and my shift finally ended. I went up to our room, but found it empty. I then went to Graciella and Sophie's room, and found the two of them awake and packing. When Graciella saw me she smiled at me sadly and shook her head.

"There was nothing I could have done," I said.

"I know," she said. I started to help her pack.

By about 8:30 we finished and had all of hers and Sophie's bags waiting downstairs by the front desk. We still had half an hour before the shuttle bus would come, so we decided to walk across the street for a private stroll in the National Garden. We found a secluded spot beneath a willow and laid down. I took a blade of grass and started to trace her body with it.

"So when are you coming to see me?" she asked.

"Soon," I said.

"You better."

I looked at her and then felt that I had to at last be totally honest with her.

"You know," I said. "My name's not ______, and I'm not from _____."

"So? Maybe my name's not Graciella," she said and smiled.

"Really?"

"No silly, of course it is. I don't care what your name is. `A rose by any other name smells as sweet'"

"Also," I said and here I really hesitated, for I really did not want to say this. "I've kind of got a warrant out for my arrest in America."

"What did you do? Kill someone?" she said and nuzzled up closer to me.

"No."

"How disappointing." I looked at her as she playfully batted her eye lids at me.

"You know, I don't want to get into it right now," I said. "It's really very stupid and embarrassing."

"Well, as far as I know Spain doesn't extradite petty criminals to America. So you'll be safe there. I'll make sure of it."

We kissed again, deeply, then we stood up and walked back to The Argos. The shuttle bus was already waiting and Sophie was already on it. I helped Graciella load her things and then we said goodbye.

"Come back to me shortly" she said and winked at me, and then she got on the bus and was gone.

****

By 11:00 that morning I was drunk. In this "boy meets girl--boy loses girl--boy kills someone story" here's the part where I drown my sorrows in booze. I sat in the courtyard of The Dionysus by myself and drank about ten thousand beers until around one in the afternoon, I finally went to my room and passed out. I awoke around 11:00 that night, and as it was my night off, I didn't have to be anywhere. I just laid in bed thinking of Graciella Martine.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore so I went out to The Plaka and stopped off at a series of cafes and sat by myself and drank. A wave of doom began to wash over me, and I was convinced that the two of us would never be able to recapture what we had found here. And what was I supposed to do if I went to Spain? What could I really offer her? I wasn't a "real person" anymore, just some vagabond drifter. At 2:00 the cafes started closing and I hit the streets and I just walked. I felt so trapped, having no money, and no place to call home. How had I made so many mistakes in my life? I wondered, and then by some subconscious, metaphysical law of attraction, I found myself in front of the Agora. I stood there and of course began to reminisce about that brilliant night when we first went out. Then the brown mutt that had chased us strolled up to fence in front of me. It wiggled its nose at me and whimpered.

I left there and wandered some more, but as I continued to chew things over inside my head, I kept having flashes of Graciella's great smile, and slowly the brutish cloud that hung over me began to subside. The alcohol wore off, and the initial shock of her leaving became more manageable. A groundswell of optimism began to rise within me. She had accepted me for who I was, and I knew that if I gave myself the chance, I could be an even better person than that. Suddenly it all seemed very simple: stay here a few more weeks, go to San Sebastian, and then work hard to create the best life possible for the two of us.

The streets were empty but suddenly seemed a bit brighter and it was now almost 3:00 and I know you've got to be wondering just when it is that I kill someone. Don't worry, it's soon. I'll bet some of you thought it would be Graciella. Am I right? That I would have become so obsessed over her, it would have unearthed some deep, psychotic tendencies and made me decide that if I could couldn't keep her forever, then no one else would? Well, I do admit I teased you a little on that, but it's my story, and I just wanted to have a little fun. Some of you may have thought it would be Mr. Palladin, and to be honest, I would not have minded if it had been. And maybe even others of you might have thought it would have been myself that I killed and that this had all been just some clever message from the Great Beyond. But all of you are wrong. The person I killed was the young man from the wine shop.

I turned down a small side street and I was feeling quite wonderful when I noticed another man walking toward me. I didn't pay much attention to him , but just as we passed, we both looked up into each other's faces. Our eyes grew wide in surprise when we recognized each other, and what happened next happened so fast that I'm not even sure what happened. I think that just as he passed me, he turned and tried to tackle me from behind, but I must have sensed it (I think I heard him shout) for I stepped to the side and he went over my shoulder and tumbled to the street below. Then I looked at my feet and saw his switchblade lying on the ground, and completely as a reflex, I bent down and picked it up. Just as I was straightening myself out, he must have charged me again, but instead of getting me, he ran into his own knife as I held it in my hand. He stumbled backwards, the knife having plunged straight into his stomach, and then he fell to the road upon his back.

He just lay there and I looked at him. I think I was more in shock than he was. Had I actually driven the knife into him? It had been an accident, right? He had run into it himself, right? I knelt next to him. He was bleeding heavily and he was breathing very fast and shallow.

"Oh fuck," I said. "Just hang on. I'll go find someone. I'll find a phone."

He turned his head and looked at me. His wild eyes bored into me, and with a gargling voice he whispered: "Malaka. Malaka."

I wasn't sure I had really heard that. "What did you say?"

Then suddenly he spit in my face. "Malaka!" he said more forcefully. "Malaka!"

I could not believe it. When he said that, something deep inside took hold of me. Something primal exploded within me, and maybe you could say it was all the years of frustration and failure I felt bubbling up all at once, or all the angst and fear about losing Graciella, or maybe, within every human soul is a part of us that truly wants to kill, and all it needs is the perfect alignment to at last be set free, but whatever it was, I suddenly found myself floating in the air and watching myself as I pulled the knife from his stomach, and then with pleasure drove it straight into his heart. I did it again. And a third time. And then a fourth, twisting it and grinding it from side to side. And then he was dead.

For the rest of my life, I will never forget just how good it felt to murder that man. Even today, like some phantom echo of synapses and neurons, I can still feel the exact tension in my arm, and I can remember the soft release of pressure as I plunged it into his heart, and I can hear the muted squeak that it made, and I can smell the blood as it poured out from his chest, and I can recall the whisper of his last gasp of breath, and I can see his his eyes turn cold and still. I sat beside him for a while, just looking at him -- ten minutes, fifteen, thirty? I don't know, but I do know that at first I felt oddly relaxed and calm. But then panic began to take over, as I saw myself in a police room, explaining my two different names, and my warrant in America. I stood up and took the knife out of him and I ran away. I just left him there, in the middle of that street. Near the Dionysus, I threw the knife into a sewer drain, and then when I reached the door, I looked at the front desk. Lara was there. I had blood on my arm. I paced around trying decide what to do, but then took off my shirt and wrapped it around my arm and went in.

"What happened?" she asked.

I smiled at her. "Had too much to drink and slipped and fell."

"You okay?"

"Yep. Just a big scratch is all." I went straight to the bathroom, and washed away the blood, and then I went to my room and filled up my backpack with my things. It was then that I saw the envelope with the 60,000 Drachmas that I had planned to return to Mr. Palladin. I smiled.

I went down a fire escape into a side alley, not wanting Lara to see me taking off in the middle of the night with my backpack. I quickly walked toward The Argos. I stood in front of the door to Mr. Palladin's office and waited until I was certain no cars were coming by, and then with a sock wrapped around my hand, I broke the glass to his door, and reached inside and undid the lock. I found my passport in the cabinet, and the big thing I worried about was if he had ever written it down in his ledger. I opened the drawer to his desk, took out the green book, scanned the list and did not find my name. Perfect. He had no record whatever of who I really was. No one here did. Then I put the ledger back and looked at his gun in the drawer. I put the gun in my backpack and went out.

I made it to Syntagma Square and found a taxi and told him to take me to Piraeus. I tried to act calm, but inside I felt like I was about to erupt. In a few hours the ferries would start running out to the islands. If I could just make it there, there would be no way to trace me. I would be free.

The sun cracked across the sky as the ticket office opened for the Aegean Shuttle. I bought a passage to the island of Paros for 2000 Drachmas. I paid in cash. At eight o'clock I stood by the pier and nervously waited for the ship to begin boarding. There were four large boats docked and waiting to set sail, and a large crowd was rapidly growing larger. As I gulped down some coffee, I scanned the docks, and then my worst fear came true: I saw Stratos, Mr. Palladin's henchman, walking through the line of people at the second ship down from mine. He was looking at all the faces. I guessed that by now, the broken door and my missing presence had been discovered (as well as the missing gun) and Mr. Palladin had wasted no time dispatching his crony. He was only fifty meters away from me, and he was quickly making his way toward my ship. I dug in my pack, took out a baseball cap and sunglasses and Mr. Palladin's gun. I tensed up, and tried to bury myself far into the crowd, and a number of times I bent down as if to tie my shoe, and kept my face turned toward the water. But I each time that I glanced up, I could see Stratos still heading my way.

But then the deus ex machina occurred. You knew there had to be one. But I swear to you, the improbable actually did happen. Maybe I was just lucky, or maybe Someone or Something did not want me to be destroyed on that day, even after the terrible act (sin) I had committed. What was this act of God? This incredible coincidence that saved my (our hero/anti-hero's) life? A freak storm? A taxi suddenly screeching up to the docks, spinning out of control into the crowd, sending everyone ducking for cover? No. It was really more simple than that. It was as simple as Stratos looking right at me, not recognizing me, and then moving on. He only glanced at me, but in his eyes I still saw the puffiness of interrupted sleep, so maybe that was what had worked to my advantage. He lumbered on to the next ship. And then the ramp on my ship lowered. I quickly walked up and climbed aboard.

I restlessly walked around the deck, still looking at the pier below and keeping an eye on Stratos. He finished going through the crowd, and finally gave up and walked away. Then my boat blew its horn, and slowly started to drift out to sea.

Out on the water, I finally relaxed. I bought a beer at the concession stand and went out to sit on a bench upon the deck. I closed my eyes. I felt the new day's sun start to warm my face. I opened my eyes again and watched the shoreline disappear. Then I looked out at the Aegean sea. It was then that I knew I would never again see Graciella Martine. Before I had just been a bit of romantic loser, basically a good guy caught in a bad time and place. But now I was a murderer, and no matter how much she might have understood what had happened, and no matter how much she might have claimed that it all didn't matter, I could not see burdening her beautiful soul with such weight. She had her whole life ahead of her, and I knew it would be brilliant, and I did not want to get in her way. I decided not to even write her.

I knew that she would wonder about what happened to me, but I was also sure that eventually, as time crawled along, I would become nothing more than just a pleasant, slightly mysterious memory of her great summer in Greece. My only regret would be that I would never be able to fully explain to her just how much she saved my life. I would never be able to truly repay her for kicking up that "wild flame" at a dangerous time when I was certain that it had slipped away from me forever, or thank her for standing as a brilliant, yet unsuspecting mirror that I used to see myself in a long-forgotten light...

I sipped my beer, and then I changed my mind. I thought that maybe one day I actually would write all of this down, and try to get it published, and maybe one day she would stumble across this and know, once and for all, just what happened, how deeply I loved her, and just how profoundly grateful I felt toward her ...

And how much I still do.

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