Maxie Goes to Greece

Or, How an Itinerant Ex-Philosopher and Writer-Wannabe Tooled Around the Aegean and What He Saw There.

Chapter 5
Beached

The octopus is a tough-fleshed creatures. Before it can be cooked, it must be beaten 100 times with a heavy hammer, before being laid aside for further preparation.
On Saturday I was beaten 100 times with a heavy hammer, so to speak. On Sunday, Maxie rested.

A day trip was planned -- a drive up a high mountain to a monastery with a fantastic view. But I was tired and groggy and sore and prickly, and feeling more than a little sun sick. so I skipped all the events -- the day trip and the evening film -- and just hung out in cafes, drinking iced coffees and doing some thinking and reading and writing. Not many stories from the day.

Well, none of my own. Saturday night a few people -- those who hadn't suffered enough punishment and were looking for more -- went out to a small club and stayed out until ungodly hours. JH (to give him some degree of anonymity), it is reported, was chased about by a local girl who was convinced he was Brad Pitt -- or was convinced that all blond haired, blue eyed American boys are Brad Pitt equivalents, a proposition scarecly less credible than the former. She followed and cornered him in the men's bathroom and wouldn't let him go until she got a picture of him. Whether it was panic or chivalry I don't know, but Josh admitted he had a girlfriend when she asked -- to her disappointment.

D was seemingly more receptive to advances. Men two and three times her age plied her with vodka shots, and by the end of the evening she was dancing on the bar. The sequel came the next evening, as a half dozen of us were eating in an outdoor restaurant right by the harbor, directly across from a broad-keeled yacht named the "Eros." (For those of you who don't know, that where we get the word "erotic" -- the love that rarely lasts more than one night.) A man in a red shirt and shorts waved to D. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed, turning around. "That's one of the guys who was buying me shots last night!" She went over to chat, and returned, pink with the news that he had just invited her to go on a short dinner cruise at sea.

A flashback: On the flight over from Amsterdam, one of the other women had fallen asleep on the plane, and woken to find that she had thrown her arms around her seatmate, and he had fallen asleep with his arms around her. "I have an hour before my next flight," he told her after they had deplaned. "I'd like to have some coffee with you." "Mmmm, I'm not sure I'd like that," she said. "Oh, you don't have to worry," he reassured her. "I'm engaged to be married." "Well, I know your fiancee wouldn't like it," she said more firmly.

Classic set ups both, when you think about it, but for what kind of story: romantic comedy, or suspense thriller? In both cases they were situations cut short. One declined to share coffee, and the other, after desperately searching for a friend to accompany her on the cruise, but finding no takers, regretfully declined to pursue her opportunity as well.

Tomorrow: All Wadded Up
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