Ζει με τις αναμνήσεις μου (Zei me tis anamní̱seis mou) - Living with my memories (P.1)

It was a fresh night of a long and dreary very hot day. I ended up at the two-story pub by the beach, drinking and chatting to old acquainted pals, without taking actual notice of the time. It was already long past midnight and too late in the evening, even for my standards, when I decided to take a break and enjoy a smoke out in the night air.

Saturday nights are great. Feeling absolute free from the need of being up early or not having any specific schedule the next morning gave me a kind of sense of comfortable irresponsibility.

I stood at the beach, looking at the dark sea ahead and listening to the sound of waves breaking on the shore, maybe a little too drunk to think about anything serious and feeling very pleased to be there, thinking of nothing and puffing my favorite filtered cigarette.

His presence was only noticed when I heard him saying something about the group of young people that was coming noisily towards the spot where we were standing.

-          Youngsters! I wonder why they always have to be so noisy. I don’t remember being like that… ever…

I looked at him, who seemed as drunk as I was and said nothing. In my mind I was too lazy to consider his comment any seriously. In fact, I was a little envious of them, for being so ingenuously free. The group approached a little closer and sat on the soft white fine sand. One of the young guys stood up, got rid of his clothes and walked towards the dark waters. The others followed without hesitation and jumped in the roaring ocean.

He muttered something I could not really understand, walked some steps away and started stripping, intending to join the group of nudists who were boisterously playing and swimming close by the shore line. I watched him getting rid of his shoes and socks, then the shirt, jeans… and finally the white cotton underwear…

His skin was pale and his body was manly, slim and stiff, not ostensibly muscled, a bit hairy on the chest and on the lower part of the stomach, without being excessively covered by what seemed to me a soft dark fur. His legs were long and strong. His feet were well proportioned and very whitish. His back was hairless as were his buttocks, which seemed to be smooth and firm for a man in his early fifties.

The funny thing about that situation was that for the first time ever I noticed he was really attractive to the eyes. When dressed he seemed too ordinary to be noticed, maybe because of the sober and nearly loose-fitting almost-always-grey-and-blue jeans & shirts he was used to wear and which never really caught a bit of my attention. As he was at that moment, the bare reality was showing an astounding mature beauty which was hidden underneath the usual dull cotton cloth. I thought of a grey moth stripping away its unattractiveness and showing the actual shape of a beautiful butterfly, whose sober colored wings were not really appreciated and that passed through life completely neglected and unnoticed. I considered myself to be drunk enough to think all of that about a man’s body at that time of the day… or better still, of the night.

Almost unconsciously I undressed and followed him, with my eyes still magnetized by the pale body walking just a few steps ahead of me. I jumped in the cold waters before my body could show any evidence of an embarrassing amusement for the view. The physique of the other guys or girls swimming close to us did not make any impression on me. I was startled by my own reaction.

We swam for a while without talking to each other but I have to confess I had to control myself or he would know I could not look away from his amazing body. Fortunately the lights were a bit far away from where we were and I could catch a glimpse every now and then of his startling figure, without him noticing my growing yearning.

When we were finally back to the beach I pretended to be freezing and dressed up quite quickly. He did the same and we silently strode out to the pub area again. I lit another cigarette trying not to show my anxiety.  He did not smoke... at all. My drunkenness was all gone and I felt a little embarrassed to look on to his face as we walked side by side. The pub was already closed when we reached it, so I decided it was time to go home.

We were not close friends by that time and I realized there and then that I wanted us to be closer than we had ever been for obvious reasons. I felt as if an unwelcome cover was being taken off my previously blindfolded eyes.

I am not one of those who can easily get impressed by these kinds of things but I admit the vision of that night events were imprinted in my memory and kept me thinking about my reaction for a good time afterwards.

Next time I saw him I tried every effort to befriend him as close as I could. Summer was high and hot, so we used to go the pub almost every evening and sit by the beach while talking for long and endless hours.

One day, a few weeks later, I decided it was time to go on and tell him how I felt. I did not want to scare him away, so I had to be very careful. I joked about his butts and the way I noticed how perfect they were. He laughed at me and said I ought to be kidding him. I laughed. Inside, however, I decided I had to be even braver if I wanted to insist on my intent. That night, though, I could not go on. Things like these should be natural, not forced.

For many occasions I tried to go back to the matter and he always laughed at me. One day, another few weeks later on, I told him I was really serious. I wanted us to try and do something about it. He seemed to be shocked and said that would never happen. He, nevertheless, kept on coming to the pub and never avoided me, in spite of the serious statement made that day. I understood he was struggling to get used to the idea, or so it was what I wanted it to be anyway.

I decided to stop pushing him for a while, in an effort to bring our cherished friendship even closer, but my thoughts used to betray me and so did my eyes. He surely noticed it, but never let it show clearly. Autumn and wintertime came and passed by us quietly, without my coming back to the matter, as I knew he was still firm in his poise.

A few months had passed again and summer was slowly coming back. We were standing alone on the balcony of the same pub we used to go by the beach. I did not want to spoil the camaraderie between us, so I started carefully. 

-          I don’t know why you keep pretending to ignore the subject but be sure that if something unpleasant happens we can still be friends. I would like to try, nevertheless, instead of avoiding it forever and causing uneasiness for both of us.

He stayed quiet. The night was pleasant and fresh. I was not drunk that time and took his silence for a ‘no’.

I took a deep breath inhaling the saline air surrounding my body and filling my nostrils and lungs with the iodine scent of the ocean. There was a flight of steps from the balcony leading to the soft sandy beach. I went downstairs, took my shoes and socks off and started walking barefoot towards the sea. With my trousers folded up to the knees, I got into the waters which felt amazingly fresh and nice. The sound of the waves and an uncomfortable loud noise in my mind kept me from noticing anything else but my own confrontational thoughts.

There was a pier ahead and I decided to go there with my feet boisterously kicking the sea waters as I walked. I felt like a boy playing along the shore when a familiar voice called me back to reality. He was walking by my side and telling me not to be upset and that I should accept inevitable things as they were… simple like that. I halted. He was serious. I was more serious than he was.

‘How could he be like that’, I asked myself, when I looked at him. I punched his arm hard and he hit me back harder. It was reason enough to start a fight and in no time we were rolling in the water hitting each other as if we were two youngsters fighting for some idiot reason like maintaining the prides of each other above everything and all. After a sequence of punches I hit him very hard in the stomach and he curled up holding his belly and moaning in pain. He asked me to stop and I stood up, turned around and walked off, leaving him alone, before my anger could make me cause a real harm to him. I was so mad at him I could hardly think…

But remorse made me turn back around again and then I saw him lying on his back still holding his stomach. I draw myself near enough to see if he was ok. His eyes were closed and his mouth was a little open, as if he was trying to catch his breath back. Then he stopped moving.

I felt as guilty and scared as a lad who had wounded a colleague in a fight at the schoolyard. I had to do something quickly. Almost instinctively, I ran to him…