Mix it together and you got Emmanuel’s Greek Coffeehouse: suspended cigarette smoke, a half-empty glass of Ouzo, small cups of lukewarm Turkish coffee strategically placed on a checkered oilcloth, and plenty of idle chatter—important stuff, with no topic off-limits. It is strictly a man’s domain. Take it apart and you got: Pete, Jimmy, Niko, and if it’s not a high-holiday or Sunday, Father Ted--everyone from the old country, the same village outside of Athens --men with pencil-thin mustaches, dark hair thinning at the top, hairy chests and thick old-world accents. So you can imagine that when he strode in like he owned the place, everyone paid attention—blond with hair longer than a woman’s, a clean-shaven upper lip, and over six feet three inches tall. And adding to his bulk, about one hundred grams of yellow gold draped around his neck and hanging low between unbuttoned margins of a Tommy Bahama sports shirt. He didn’t seem the type that played gin rummy, drank Turkish coffee and let his teeth turn yellow. He didn’t seem the coffeehouse type.
“Is Angela around?”
“Whose ask?” Niko replied. “Does this look like a place a girl would be at?”
“She gave me this address. This is 1310 Broadway, isn’t it?” He smiled to showcase his unyellowed teeth. “Angela Mason gave me this address.”
“Angela Mason?” Niko’s brow arched; the brows of his compatriots followed. “There’s no one by that name here.”
“She’s a dark-haired girl, about five foot six inches tall, with the darkest eyes you’ve ever seen, a real sweet looker.”
“Oh, you mean Angela Masonapoulos,” quipped Pete. From beneath the table a swift kick to Pete’s shin followed, then, from directly across the table, a clearing of words from Niko’s throat.
Niko rose to face the stranger. They made an odd couple, the two of them.
“Do you want some Ouzo, if not, perhaps a cherry Coke with a straw?”
Niko looked him straight in the chin.
“No thanks.” The blond stranger stepped back, extracted a glossy print from his pocket and brought it forth. It was a group picture: six males, and standing in the middle, dressed in leather boots, a black leather miniskirt, and the skimpiest of sequenced tops—Angela Masonapoulos, her electric violin held against her bosom and a smile that reached wide.
Pete and Jimmy gasped. Father Ted made the sign of the cross.
“Let me see.” Niko snapped up the print, held it at arm’s length, examined it, turning it from side to side to let the reflected light from the front window paint it with a surreal hue.
“What’s she to you?” His face stoned and muscles born of thirty-five years of hard labor at US Steel Plant 5 tensed into a knot of no-nonsense determination about his brow.
“She’s part of the band, The Wild Seven, and she hasn’t shown up for practice the last two nights. I’m worried; we have a big gig in South Chicago. She gave me this address, just in case….”
“And we’re engaged,” the blond stated. “My name is Sean O’Reilly. I’m not Greek.”
Engaged? Not Greek? Niko’s head swam and he felt woozy, as if he had drank too much Ouzo. This must be a bad dream, he thought to himself.
He felt the blood rush to his face, not from anger, but from embarrassment. His Angela engaged—engaged to a non Greek, to a man with blond hair. And his Angela playing electric violin in some rock band with six men. Not possible!
From the behind the lunch counter Emmanuel’s hands busied themselves washing a plate and two glasses. Pete’s and Jimmy’s lips pursed, and Father Ted nervously fingered his prayer rope. This was potentially an explosive situation and they all knew it. Niko was strictly old-world, as unyielding as the high-tensile steel he helped make at Plant Five, as volatile as the flames that bellowed from the throat of the Bessemer Converter each evening, as traditional as his 1955 Buick with black-walled tires that took him to work five days a week.
“I’m the lead vocalist—my professional name is Stud John-- and I play
guitar when I’m not singing.”
Niko stood back, clicked his tongue, and dissected him thoroughly, as a pathologist might a corpse. He studied his features, his non Greek features. He could not understand what his Angela saw in him… saw in that non hairy chest, in that face that didn’t look like it needed a shave twice a day, in his tattoo.
“How many?”
“How many, what?”
“Tattoos, how many? And where?”
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?”
“Not if you’re engaged to my daughter. Angela is a special girl. She’s brought up a special way, a way your type don’t understand.” Niko lifted his head and stared with eyes of steel—eyes born of US Steel Plant Number 5.
They stepped apart briskly. The blond’s shirtsleeve rolled up, first to the elbow, and then above. And there, wrapped about the upper arm, a red heart pierced by a cupid’s arrow, and in the center, the letters, A-N-G-E-L-A.
The gasp from the back table was too audible, a hiss of disgust followed. Emmanuel continued to wash from a brown pool of warm water, his dark eyes darting back and forth, his dilated pupils overwhelming the white.
Niko’s knees buckled from the sight. Their eyes, his and the blond’s, met in an amalgam of mutual determination, their heavy breathing an intonation of equally strong wills.
“Sit!” Niko pointed to an adjacent table, rounded, large enough for only two people. Two chairs were placed opposite each other. The tabletop dulled of worn laminate, spotted of Ouzo marks and the rings of Turkish coffee.
The blond sat first. Niko followed. Each shuffled their chair so the legs were firm and secure. Niko’s chair rocked slightly to the side. He replaced it. Their eyes met and sweat gathered in creases. Pete and Jimmy came closer. Father Ted remained back, his prayer rope tangled into a knot.
The arms thrust upward, elbows pinned to the laminate, hands interlocked, thumbs crisscrossed.
The tattoo bulged as his upper arm grew in mass, the letters, A-N-G-E-L-A,
spread wide like a grin. In response, Niko’s arm tensed, doubled in size as the bulge of muscle, an accumulation of thirty-five years at US Steel and the result of endless toil at Number 7 Open Hearth, mirrored the transformation of raw iron into refined steel, reflected a strength and determination that his Angela would rise above his immigrant status. That she would be special.
The arms tensed as the two forces met. The sweating increased. The breathing grew deep. For the moment, neither arm moved from the vertical.
But….
The street noise leaped in as she stood at the open doorway. Her snug leather pants glistened to the rays of a setting sun, a sequenced tank-top danced from its own reflection. Her dark eyes floated in clear olive skin.
Pete and Jimmy turned and looked, their jaws quivering. Emmanuel dropped a slippery glass to the counter.
“Well, how do I look?”
“Angela?” Niko’s voice wavered with unbelief. “My daughter, Angela?”
“It’s me Papa.” She glanced through Niko, to the blond; her smile curled at the edges and he smiled back.
“But…?”
“I had to Papa.
After all, I’m nearly nineteen-years old.”
Her silhouette shimmered in the doorway. She turned to the side. Her waist was gone. In its place, a gentle bulge.
The blond’s arm slammed to the tabletop, his wrist snapped, his upper arm bone splintered. The tattoo deflated.
After all, he was not the Greek coffeehouse type.
The End
