It’s nearly noon but the Athens subway is surprisingly crowded with people of all ages and shades of the human rainbow, most either carrying something, thumbing their cell phones or listening to music or videos through their earbuds.
The heavy-lidded dude perched on the edge of the seat diagonal to mine is wearing cheap Chinese fabric shoes. His face is creased into a permanent frown as he fingers his prayer beads. It’s as if he smells something foul. He’s giving me the once-over – I’m wearing shades, man, but I’m not blind! A red and green striped awning of a shirt stretches over his belly like an apron. His haunches are spread over a seat and a half but his inadequate junk doesn’t make more than a suggestion of bulge. A young woman sits across from me. Under caterpillar brows, those bloodshot eyes probe her body like fingers.
A tanned older man in blue worker’s overalls sways by the Metro doors to the rhythm of an internal melody. When he turns his head and glances out the window at the blurring scenery, I see a most magnificent fleshy parrot-beak nose jutting from his muscular face. He’s sporting a forest green wool sweater tied nattily around his neck. He juggles a bright blue plaid plastic shoulder bag in his hand as he stares into the middle distance, a smile tugging at his lips.
A dumpy woman dressed in black, her handbag strapped across her chest, has planted herself at the front of the subway carriage, declaiming loudly in a harsh voice. The morning commuters around her wince as they edge away, leaving her in a narrow DMZ. They poke at their cell phones, dialing someone, anyone, trying to look busy, shaking the pages of their Metro newspapers and darting glances everywhere but at her. Ah, she’s begging – I recognize parakalos, please. A path opens as she sways down the length of the car, muttering her useless mantra in the faces of anyone she can confront – parakalos, parakalos, parakalos.
Outside the Syntagma Square stop on the grimy marble-curbed sidewalk, a rough-skinned woman in a faded flowered dress positions a plastic crate in front of the sliver of a hardware storefront. There’s a bundle under her other arm. She sits down in the morning sun, modestly spreading out her skirts over splayed knees. She arranges the bundle—a limp, dark-haired child of about four—and droops against the store window with the child lolling in her arms. She’s perfected pitiable, murmuring to passersby for change, shaking a handful of bait-coins around the bottom of a brown paper cup that says Coffee Time on the side. In the afternoon, a dark-skinned man takes her place after a brief conversation. In his arms is another flaccid child that he drapes against his shoulder. His voice is more strident; the cup he waves remains empty.
The Marlborough Man may be dead as the dust at the Acropolis, but his legacy lives on strong in Greece. In almost every jacket pocket or handbag is a red and white deck of the iconic American brand of smokes. The men saunter down Athlion Street thumbing their stone
komboloi with one hand and their lighters with the other as they check out the female real estate. Women yak on the phone, holding their purses to their shoulders with a pinkie, turning their heads to snatch a drag from the cigarette held between two fingers.
