I had this amazingly cute bike for a couple of years. It was an antique Horex, in a more or less original form. The frame was from 1950, but the motor was from 1953, a 400cc. single cylinder four stroke behemoth. It needed some serious repair job, when I got it, and I did most of it on my own. It was hard to find someone who knew about them olden times machines, and most mechanics who really knew their way around them, were also pretty expensive. I was used to the bike letting me down in the middle of the road and me pushing it to the nearest garage for an emergency repair.
I also was used to riding it stoned, and I do mean to the bone. But it was easier than one might think, and also a lot safer, at least a lot more so than it would have been with a modern bike. These old girls, they really knew how to keep up, you know? My own was so stable of frame, that she could go on her own, if I started her up. In large motorways, I always took my hands off the weels, and let her carry on, it was like she was on auto pilot. I could do all sort of stupid tricks with her too, stand on the saddle, guide her with my legs and so on and so forth. Really balanced little machine, and not really that little at all...
Anyway, here's me, going back home one cool summer night. Smoke is coming out of my ears, from the weed I 've smoked, and I see a vague dimmness all around, because I 've had my pills too, some shit of a pill I allways hated, Tavor, a fucking downer, and they allways screw me up. I 'm up Pentelis' avenue, then crossing it over to the edge of Halandri from the old Doukas bridge, and I see two crazed guys on a moped. They ride along, and we realised, all the three of us, that all the three of us are stoned. We feel like chemical brothers, so we start laughing at each other, and then they start screaming. They 're really whacked, and they look like freestylers or shit like it, raver boys. One screams "Have you ever smoked weed from the Gypsies?". I say "No, and I don't want to start now". "Oh, man, you really have to, it's really shit, you have to try some! Come with us, we 're going to get some, come on!". Well, what the hell. A good night, is a long night, so I go with them.
I can't remember much from the gypsies' place. I didn't get in anyway. One of the guys went in, and I sat chatting with the other. The first guy comes out shortly, and he says we 're OK, and we go to some house still in Chalandri. There were people there, and lots of light. I wanted to ask them to dim it a bit, but I didn't want to be impolite, they were after all going to offer me their hospitality... They start rolling some spliffs, and I 'm talking with them, saying some diverse shit I didn't even care to record in my short term memory. We light the spliffs, pass them around, and then, all of a sudden, while I was having such a good time, disaster struck.
I was feeling nauseous by the weed. It's true gypsy stuff is the best of the worse. You can find nothig more harmful for your body than a gram of gypsies' weed. And I had already smoked at least as much. In addition to that, the pills in my stomach weren't find the place much to their taste, and they wanted to get out, taking lunch with them. And so I vomited.
On one of the others.
I swear it was an accident. I mean, it had happened to me once before, not vomiting, it seems I had a sensitive stomach and smoke, the cigarette smoke we greekos put in the spliffs, made me sick. But once before, but only once, I had vomited on my friend Nick, when he was driving, and since then, I had swore I would never do it again in my life.
Well, so much for promises.
I threw up all over that guy, I think it was the guy who owned the house. He was sitting next to me, asking me "are you all right? Do you want to go out to the balcony and throw up?" and then I did it. It fell mostly on his arms and shoulders, and a bit on his hair too. I really felt bad about it, especially as he stood there for a moment, trying to integrate the experience, and then, before I could point out I at least hadn't soiled the carpet of the bed covers, he sprang to his feet, chirping "Oh. Malaka! Malaka! Malaka!" and ran to the bathoom, with one of his friends. The others in the room stared at me. I jumped up, made them understand with gestures they should make way to the balcony, and I threw up some more, this time on the lawn.
After everything was OK again, the guy I had threw up on had put on a clean shirt, I had drunk some water and everybody was relaxed, we started talking casually again, like nothing had happened. It struck me how friendly everyone was, instead of calling me names and kicking me out of the party. It turned out they were all on Ecstasy, and still high on it, so they loved the world and everything in it, even people vomiting on other people. "Well", I told them, "you 're quite different than those guys that were looking for me to kick my teeth in, after that party". "What party"? they ask. I say "it was here in Chalandri."
Flashback, now. Pay attention.
I had this friend from the University in Corfu. He lived in Athens like me, and he was a bad student like me, but a real good kid, unlike me, of course. His name was Nick. He had a sister, Helen, and she also was a good girl, a very good girl, she went to a girlschool and all, and one night, Helen threw a party at the familys' flat, a party for all the nice little girls from the girlschool. Well, Nick, and his best friend Mitsos were going to be there, and they asked me and some friends of Mitsos to go too, you know, for a masculine presence. The party was a real hoot, really, I mean it. At some point a girl asked me why I wasn't dancing, I stared at her frocks, and I blurted "uh, I have two left feet". It's an expression, you know. A couple moments later, when I 'm at my third whiskey, another girl talks to me, she says "you 're exempted from the dance because of the feet thing, eh?". Oh yes. The party is going real fine, and I 'm at Nicks, or at Helens' room, looking at some comic mags, and I 'm not counting whiskeys. Girlschool, really.
It seems someone else also found the idea hilarious. Some bad kid of the hood came along with his pals to crash the party. They got in, and started doing all sort of stupid things, and the girls from the girlschool, they were scared, man. But of course, Nicks daddy was there. And he's a big mean sailor man, so he kicks everybody out the door, and yells them to stay out, or they 'll get back home in a stretcher.
It seems the party is going to turn out really boring in the end, but I can't let that happen, can I ? So I get my stupid ass out the door, where the gatecreasher kids are sitting, and I start talking with the leader of the pack, and whaddaya know? He says "lets' go then". And we go down to the yard to have a fight. Oh. This is turning to my kind of party. And now we 're down to the front yard, me and a dozen kids I 've never seen before. Because I 'm stoned, I assume some are on my side, and I 'm waiting to see some major fight braking out, but, no. The crowd of alien kids opens up, and I see the leader guy with an empty bottle of Vodka in his hand. I think it was Stolischnaya. "OK" he yells, really worked up in a berserker rage. "Now I 'm gonna show you" or something equally typical, it doesn't matter. I still don't realise what's happening. So I laugh at him. "Throw that away, you malaka". I tell him. He screams, lifts the bottle and brings it down towards my head. I don't move. A hand grabs his, and then a crowd of a dozen alien kids grabs the guy behind the hand, one of the friends of Mitsos. I realise he's the only familiar face in the whole bunch. Where the hell are the others? Then I realise "the others" are mostly comprising of girls from the girlschool.
Oh oh.
The guy with the bottle comes back at me, and this time he lands the bottle on my head. I closed my eyes, and waited for the pain and the fainting, but, man. Nothing happened. I open my eyes again, and I see the guy standing there with the remains of the bottle still held in his hand. He's staring at me for a moment, and I stare back for a moment. I feel my head. The bottle hit allright. But why can't I feel any pain? Who the hell am I ? Roger fucking Rabbit?
Well, I don't have time to find out. Some of the guys pals grab me from behind, but still I think some of them must be on my side, I still can't see why. I tell them "hey, it's OK, I won't him too hard. Don't hold me!". The guy is coming at me with the bottle piece, and he waves it my way menacingly. He screams at the others "Hold him!". I kick blindly, looking at the guys who held me, and yelling at them to let me go, and next thing I know, there's blood everywhere. They let me go. I see the kid kneeling and screaming, with a gashing wound in his forearm. I think he screamed "get him, you 're not my friends if you don't get him" at that point, but it might be that the other guy, the one who held the kids hand and who was actually on my side, told me so later. Anyway, I fight with the alien kids, who drag me to the back of the garden, and start kicking and punching me. I hit back, and then one is behind me, and puts his arm around my neck, and squeezes real hard. He almost choked me. The friendly guy saved me though, he grabbed his arm and forced him to let go of me, eitherwise I would have fainted.
It's not over yet. The kid with the bottle was seriously injured, he had cut a tendon and he was loosing serious blood, so an ambulance was called and they took him away. Then the police came, but the girlschool-party crashing company was out of there. Only, once the police went away, they came back, or at least lots of them did. They looked more to me than they were before. They were shouting, screaming for me to come down so they could beat me up. Hah. Well, as I was still working on my bike back then, I had with me two really huge wrenches. I was counting on them, and I thought "what the hell, when the party is over, I 'll make my exit", but first I needed to sober up. I still hadn't realised what exactly had happened, and Mitsos' friend was bringing me up to date. Then, a guy who hadn't come with the gate crashers, comes up to me, and says "why did you do that"?
I say "why did I do what?".
"Why did you cut my friend up like that ?"
"Oh, he's your friend? Tell him not to play with pointy objects again, will you?"
The guy goes on: "But he's my Brother, man. I hate seeing him all cut up and bleeding like this".
"So", I say "what the hell do you want now? More of the same?"
"Yes. He says. Come outside with me."
"OK".
And I 'm going down the yard again, with this kid that looks like he was also going in a girlschool, or an intern or something, he had red hair and freckles, and expensive clothes.
There's a little crowd gathered again, only this time, some of them are from Mitsos friends, and on my side anyway. Some tall kid with a flushed face comes screaming at me, but I tell him to shut up, and wait for his turn. The red- haired kid, says, "let's go talk" and he shows me to the side of the yard. I follow, and I go lean with my back on the yards' wall. I cross my hands on my chest, and rest one foot against the wall. The red kid comes close, he puts his hand in his pocket, and takes out a handgun.
I start laughing.
I mean, I know nothing about handguns, you know? This could be a real one he stole from his father, or a fake one he bought for Easter. I 've no idea. But it sure looks ridiculus, this spoiled little brat, thinking he's in a street fight in a Tarantino movie. He was really lucky it was plain old drunken me there, and not some really mean guy, who would have taken that thing, and shoved it up his ass. I tell him laughing, "Ok, pal, since you have a gun, and I only got my balls, I 'm not going to do anything stupid." The tall kid starts screaming again, in my face. I tell him to shut up again, I told him something "look, don't start a fight with someone elses' balls". I had used the word "balls" in a macho context twice in two consecutive phrases. I needed therapy, quick, this was turning to friggin Pulp Fiction. Or some video with Ice-T, even lower down the scale of my self respect (no, don't get me wrong, I like Tarantino). The freckled kid looks unsure what to do with the gun, so he sticks it to my stomach, and he starts screaming some shit, like "leave me alone" (to the tall kid, this one) "I 'm really crazed now, I 'm going to kill someone" which of course makes me laugh even more. I ask the kid "is this thing real or what?" The kid then starts to smile, speaks in a kinder tone, says more bullshit about his friend, and all I can say is "what do you want me to do now man? What's done is done." In the end, he does an even more tacky thing than all the rest. He takes the gun away, but then he sticks his hand out, and puts it around the back of my neck, in a paternalising gesture.
My god.
Then he tells me to take care.
My fucking Pantheon! Man!
Then they go away.
Now, pay heed. End of flashback, OK?
I 'm back in the house were I vomited on that guy. I have just told everyone the story, and I added how I heard later that these guys were "looking for me", although of course they knew where to find me, because I had told the kid with the freckles where I hanged out, so he could bring his friends and I 'd call mine and we could have a nice party, like good little boys that we were. I 'm telling them all that, and then one of the boys turns to me and says, "we 're those kids, man".
I looked at them, but I couldn't recognise anyone from the party. I figured they were just friends of the guys there, or maybe one or two of them were there, or they had just heard about the whole story and they wanted to play friends with the big bad kid with the bottle. Anyway, I 'm impressed. If they are the guys they say they are, why aren't they jumping at my throat?
Oh.
It's the E.
Kids.
Stay away from that shit that turns wild men into sheep and fucks your brain up.
And that's a real story too.