Christopoulos puts a rock the size of a German Mastiff’s head in my garbage can.
His knees buckling, first he crosses the street with the rock, holds it in both arms as though it’s a baby. As though he’s rocking a baby. Second, he puts the baby down on my driveway.
He wrenches my stuffed Glad 30-gallon out of my can, drops it next to the can, and bends to pick up the rock, his back all knots but his biceps impressive for an old mad Heracles. He heaves and dumps the rock that thuds in the metal.
Finally, he lifts the bag again (piece of cake compared to the baby) and plops it back into the can, as best it fits.
Well, now that the rock is in there, the can doesn’t dare shake, and I think the trash looks less fit to bust than it did before and a tad slouched like it’s been through something— a comeuppance.
Can’t say it’s easy for Christopoulos, what with breaking his back and the law like that. And with me sitting right here watching. It’s a warm evening.
On the other hand, Mrs. Christopoulos brings me Greek beef soup in January.
She insists on coming in to inventory what I don’t have in my fridge: oranges, lemons, tomatoes, canned fish. For these she sends to the grocer her grandson cop who twice a week checks on Christopoulos and Mrs. Christopoulos.
Well, the grandson cop and his partner on their route, each and every time, double park the cruiser, and they saunter up to Christopoulos’s house. The partner stays back a few feet and looks up and down the quiet street as though seeing if the coast is clear while the grandson (swinging a plastic bag of tangerines) knocks loudly on the door or on the front room window that rattles, scaring away the pigeons roosting on the second-floor sills. Christopoulos comes to the door wearing brown pleated wool pants and a sleeveless undershirt. He grins but shakes his head and sometimes his fist and gestures to the partner to come closer and not be an idiot standing so far from the door. The partner, like a kid, kicks at nothing on the sidewalk and shyly shuffles up to Christopoulos who smacks the backs of the heads of both men and tells them to “Always mind the bullshitters.”
The three exchange pleasantries and nods and, after a while, the cops drive away.
Except before they drive away the grandson cop crosses the street (swinging a plastic bag of limes) and gingerly places something on my welcome mat (sometimes a dozen-pack of 12-ounce cans of Kyknos brand tomato sauce, like a tribute). He crosses back to his squad car shaded under elm and to his partner slouching shotgun.
Then the cops, in fact, drive away and Christopoulos glares at where I am, as usual, sitting on my stoop, unless I’m upstairs observing from my bedroom.
In our neighborhood there’s a rumor about Christopoulos that, back-when, he was an elite decorated officer who either killed or saved someone; did time and broke out of prison; runs a mob or lives under witness protection. They say his real name is Seferis. There are rumors about me too, but I’m not privy to the content of those.
When Christopoulos goes inside to watch his Channel 7 Eyewitness News at 5:00, I tip my can over, roll out the rock, roll it into the back of my garage and line it up next to the others. I figure Christopoulos and I, combined, are doing the work of Sisyphus.
Mrs. Christopoulos, bringing my cat leftover cod fritters, thanks me for not saying anything about the rocks.
“It’s real Christian of you,” she says.
“I don’t know about that,” I say.
When I have ten lined up like prisoners waiting silently for execution in back of my garage, I load and drive them in my sagging Mini to Boulders America who buy them back by the pound, “gently used.” Not retail prices such as Christopoulos pays.
It sure is something getting my sardines in brine delivered by a cop.
The drunken man came home with his head separated, as it were, from his body. Wild-eyed and frothing at the mouth, the head shouted as it hovered above the kitchen table. The body, meanwhile, suited in black wool and vomit-soiled on the left shoulder, buckled and swayed around the kitchen. His right hand unbuttoned his jacket, pulling off several buttons in the process, which clicked to the floor and scattered across the tiles. His left hand reached for a serrated knife from the knife block and waved it around. His head shouted at the little wife, who was hugging a broom in the corner.
“What have you prepared for dinner!”
“Chicken,” said the wife, “and fish, as you requested.”
The head veritably spun around, spewing curses and spitting.
“Chicken and fish!” it cried. “Are you mad! Are you a madwoman? Who eats chicken and fish together? Not I. Not I. Not I!”
“But you said …”
“I said? I said!”
The head squeezed its eyes shut and belched and would likely have vomited had it still been attached to the body. The body, on its own mission, staggered about, bumping into the kitchen island and knocking over the wooden butter churn. Luckily the wife had emptied it earlier.
The head wanted to drink from the uncorked wine bottle on the table and even tried to hover close to it and fit its lips around the opening with no success.
“Help me!” it cried. “Help me with this! I need to drink!”
Still clutching the broom handle, the wife stepped out of the corner and walked over to the table. She grasped the bottle and lifted it to the hovering head. She tried to tip some wine into the gaping mouth, but the head did not hold steady and the wine spilled to the floor.
“Look what you’ve done!” cried the head. “You’re useless! You’re a useless woman!”
Long acclimated to such verbal abuse, the wife set the bottle back on the table. The chicken she had roasted and the fish she had poached grew cold on their plates. The head had scarcely glanced at the plates. All it could do was complain about her cooking the fish in addition to the chicken. But her husband had requested the two and had insisted on no vegetables or potatoes or rice.
The body slumped down against the pantry with one knee up and a forearm resting across it. A foul smell rose from it. The wife suspected it had soiled itself. This had happened on more than one occasion. And she had been forced to clean it up. Of course she did so without complaint, for she was a good wife, loved her husband, cared about him, and wanted the best for him. But she didn’t think she would do anything of the sort on this evening.
“What kind of chicken is this?” cried the hovering head.
She did not answer that question.
“The fish smells foul,” the head said. “It all smells foul. You’re terrible. You’re a terrible cook.”
The wife stepped closer to the head, still holding the broomstick.
“That chicken,” said the head, “that chicken looks like the majolica chicken your mother gave us for a wedding gift. Remember that hideous thing? It was terrible. Your mother’s terrible.”
The wife had all but forgotten about the majolica chicken, a red-and-brown object of exquisite beauty from Italy that her husband had destroyed with a dropkick one evening after a particularly excessive and violent drinking binge.
“Fix me something else,” the head demanded, hovering near her head. “Fix me some pasta. Yes, some pasta with sardines. I want pasta with sardines.”
“Okay,” said the wife, averting her face as her husband’s head smelled like maggoty casu marzu. “Some pasta with sardines.”
As the head hovered with lidded eyes, the little wife lifted the broomstick and pulled it back over her shoulder. Then she torqued her hips and swung the broomstick around at her husband’s head, walloping it out of the air with a dull thunk. It flew across the kitchen and struck the stovepipe before falling on the stovetop with its eyes shut. It made no further sound.
With her things already packed in her portmanteau, the little wife put on a smart blue jacket and some red high heels she had recently purchased in the village. Now she did something curious. She grabbed the fish she had poached for her husband, walked over to the head resting on the stovetop, and stuffed it into the mouth, headfirst.
This morning my eyes sit at the bottom of my face and my parched mouth gapes where my forehead should be. I slept in my best suit of clothes and now it is several shades of blue for some reason. I glance at my reflection in the kitchen window and I see a lot of green. I open the window and let the cool air caress my hot, cubist face. It is not green outside. It is dun and brown and dirty. So what is this green? My cat bumps my leg and purrs. I look down and she is also green this morning, with emerald eyes. Why is she green? I try to reach her head but my hand feels inflated. I look at it. Madonna mia. The green tinge concerns me as much as the swelling. The cat bumps me again. “Not now, amore. Not now. Papa is dying.”
Am I dying? Everyone is dying. Not everyone is dying this morning. I try to stand up but this causes my stomach contents to rise. I sit down again and take deep breaths. Should I hate my cousin Bruno for introducing me to and then deluging me with his terrible wine? He said he made it with his father, my Uncle Silvio, who knows from wine, but I suspect he crushed the grapes with his own foetid feet and fermented them in dirty barrels without his father’s supervision. I will never drink wine again. And I will hunt Bruno down when I am able and inflict a proper beating on him. A red bird of some variety lights on the windowsill. A drop of red in a barren landscape always pleases the eye. But on this occasion, the red sends me rushing to the jakes to empty myself of all my intestinal devils past, present, and to come.
When I emerge the green cat awaits and I stagger to the clay jar where I keep her vittles and grab some with my swollen hand. I drop the food on the floor and she growls as she wolfs it down. “Good girl,” I say. I have yet to name her. Maybe I will call her Green, the green cat. It makes perfect sense. She has been hanging around my abode for several weeks and I have been feeding her lamb jerky, which she seems to like. Perhaps I should endeavor to diversify her diet, but I know nothing of cats. I assume she dispatches the occasional rodent or lizard creeping about the house.
I drink a jug of water scarcely drawing a breath, but this drives me back to the jakes for more purging. Bruno will die, mark my words. That will constitute a parricide, or more properly speaking a patruelicide, the killing of a paternal cousin. Funny there is a word for that. Our fathers were brothers. Both dead from heart ailments. Bruno will not die of a heart ailment. He will die of poisoning or stabbing. Will I really kill my cousin? “Green,” I say, “should I kill my cousin, Bruno?” The cat looks at me with her slitted, murderous emerald eyes, seeming to suggest that death is only and ever the solution.
