Rumors
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.
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