Ten plates of salad vied for space on an oval tray. Anticipation beaded on our foreheads and the musty smell like pencil lead emanated from our armpits. A hand waved, then servers and runners funneled through three narrow doorways and around four corners into a dinning hall of hungry Greeks. They clanked forks on wine glasses invoking the newlyweds to press their prominent features together, forming a single mass of sweaty, olive colored flesh. Though I never saw the bride, I heard she was beautiful. And though I never met any of them, I heard these were our city’s richest. These thoughts suspended my anxiety like a gurney. This made each step a crucial responsibility to succeed. I felt plates shift and water pool up in the space between my palm and the bottom of the tray as I navigated through a maze of tables. I imagined an entire tray tipping and an avalanche of garden salad, dressing, salmon, filet mignon and potatoes nailing one of these cultural elites. I focused and stepped confidently, back arched and chin high. But it was foolish to think that of all the runners there that night that I would evade starring in another one of Fates tragicomedies.
Three men with glistening, chiseled features stood in the place where I turned to head out to the dinning area. One tapped away on an iPhone, the others swirled Pinot Gris in crystal glasses and spoke loudly with violent gestures. I should have worried about the amount of space afforded to get through, yet I drank deeply of intoxicating confidence and continued toward them, silently. I lifted the tray over one of their shoulders and, with exact precision, knocked the far plate off the tray onto the stone tiled floor. I wish I knew more about physiology and what happens in fight-or-flight scenarios because I felt every extremity of my body tingle, turn ice cold then burn with the unrelenting heat of Hades. “Opah!” One of the men said, then did a graceful two-step, with the glass of wine raised over his head. The other said excitedly, “there’s the first one! At least we got it out of the way early!” They all left the intersection and walked down the hall dancing as they spoke.
My boss for the night, who is also our landlord, saw the entire thing happen. She’s Greek and has the feminine fire of such a woman. But her voice was poised and quick and assertive, “That’s ok. That’s tradition. Just keep going.” What I imagined to be a faux pas turned out to commence a night of absurd custom and clashing of my rigid, mechanical Americanism with the fluid, flawless Greek world.
Naomi served their food and I ran tray after tray of gourmet entrees out. So I cannot speak to the experience of interacting with them. And of the two of us, it was better that she, and not I, had that “opportunity”. As was mentioned earlier, this was no typical wedding. There was a three time Super Bowl winning running back in their midst (Terrell Davis?), club owners, Pete and his family from the myriad of Pete’s Greek Cafes, Diners, Bistros etc. that dominated the downtown Denver real-estate; “a few millionaires” one of the servers said casually, with a sardonic grin. Once the flow of work became a ritual, I relaxed my mind and drifted into a seat at one of the tables.
Faces were aglow from the floating votives that bumped against Orchids in a crystal vase. I wore an Armani pinstriped jacket and a navy blue button up Gucci with the top button undone to reveal a frayed tuft of hair just beneath my prominent Adam’s apple and tendon rippled neck. I wasn’t wearing glasses either because last Spring I’d just taken new eyes from one of my unfortunate clients who couldn’t pay back “The Loan” in time. Yes, I carried a gun: a chrome .9 mil with my wife and mistress’ names engraved around the barrel. One of the bullets in the chamber had “Lucky Bitch” engraved on it. I was happy and took copious, full-mouthed gulps from the Woodridge Cabernet, slouched a bit, yet still maintained aplomb. “Polli kala!” I’d say randomly, raising my glass. (Unfortunately my Greek in real life is far less than it would be if I were this imagined man.)
Yet the pressure of the class and pomp would weigh, I assume, too much, making a night like this unbearable with out the aid of alcohol. But that is me speaking; not Loukas or Salaki, Bernaki or Jimmy. My character faded into the richly textured faces around the table and I receded into madiocredom.
I paid as much attention as possible to their disposition and manner with each other. Warmth -light hearted and flamboyant warmth- hung over each table like a fog. But like fog in a valley, it was trapped and immediate to those at the table. It was family and friends; the atomic structure of the bonds between individuals was exclusive and beckoned envy. There was a sense of infallible filialty. “Mamaaa” an older gentleman said at one point. He stood up from his seat and gripped the jowls of a woman across the table, shook them, shot Greek into the air then pressed his lips against both hers and the corner of an eye. I watched the expressions of the other guests at that table, expecting the sophisticated wince at an uncouth action. Instead, a younger man with a face that resembled Pliny’s ivory bust, hoorayed, clapped his hands then raised his glass and cheered to Mamaaa. A part of me wanted to throw a plate against the wall and cheer too, saying, “Opah! Polli kala! Mamaaa!” But there was a clear division: Family. Friends. The table runner: Foreigner.
One has to remember that it is the Greeks who invented sophistication. Sophia: their word for wisdom, social intuitiveness, the finger on the pulse of custom and tradition. Had I been Greek I might not have been horrified at breaking a plate. I might have dropped the whole tray and broke into dance and song. But probably not. I’d be the crazy Greek they sequester into the dance hall. Nonetheless, there was something elusive and mysterious about the event, something antiquated and incredibly taunting.
After our shift was over we were invited by our landlord (no longer boss) to join her for drinks in the Champagne Corner. Naomi grabbed some sticky baklava and a glass of Champagne. The glasses were set up in pairs of two and lined the perimeter of a round table. One of the fellow servers was in the Corner and had a bottle of Miller in one hand and a glass of golden bubbly in the other. Her once pale, northern European face was flushed pink and stretched into a permanent grin. We joined her and turned to face the dance floor.
Bills of money, from ones to hundreds, lay scattered everywhere. I saw rent, a skateboard, new shoes, and a debtless life get danced on. The women in silk and high riding dresses, and the men, as symmetrical as Ken dolls, contrasted the elderly who walked slow, bent over by the gravity of time. Stumpy thick legs carried the women and the men’s faces were submersed in the growing flesh of bulbous noses, cauliflowered ears and jowls that crowded the dark dots of eyes. Many of their faces looked like lumps of tawny dough that had coal pushed into the surface for eyes and slits cut out for mouths. How do they get from this, looking at a handsome man link arms with an astounding woman, to that? looking at an older man prop himself against a brass cane, striving to maintain life.
The girl we met up with in the Corner talked viciously about the women; their figures, skin tones and hair. “Those bitches can’t afford to look normal” she said. She followed the statement with a toss of Champagne down her throat. “Their husbands would ditch them so fast! I’d love to just cram baklava down their throats and hold their hands back so they couldn’t make themselves vomit!” her glassy eyes glaring at the hourglass shapes gyrating before her.
It was odd to see how “perfect” everyone looked. I grew self-conscious, too. A round pudge pushed out over my waistline. “Does more money actually buy the time to work this off?” I thought. We observed the mass of people interact. Jovial and free to the eye. I thought about private lives of Greek-American society. Like our new friend said, many of the men carried around wads of hundred dollar bills that were dispensable, being thrown in the air, floating gently to the ground for the groom and bride to scoop up later. Were they happy beneath this sheen? Was affluence really working out to their favor? My simple observation of the activity on the dance floor said “Yes, absolutely.”
A new song began and the crowd joined in a circle, their arms linked over each others shoulders as their legs matched the rhythm and pulse of the song; kicking once, stepping twice, kicking with the other, stepping twice. They bounced with each move not merely gliding and keeping sync or precision like an American square dance would. There was a carelessness and frivolity with it. A young boy stood in the center and clapped his hands imitating the adults that surrounded him. I said to our friend, “I wish I was able to do that with out thinking.” She said, “they’re not thinking about it. Its just centuries of tradition passed along by blood.” What a concept. Maybe it really does boil down to biology. I have the coordination and moves of a rusty John Deer tractor despite being from a Maltese background. Yet somehow apart from my consciousness and self-absorbed eyes, my knees bent and swayed, my toes tapped and my shoulders twitched with the music. How is it that I am restricted from enjoying myself?
We left after the show ended and as we walked to our car, Naomi reflected on the beauty of other cultures and asked naively why imported Greeks managed to make so much money. “They entertain and offer a lot of goods and services Americans covet” I said. We got in our Toyota, rolled down the windows that still work, and clunked off to a Greek owned home, licking the residue of free baklava from our fingers.
