I'd like to meet:
I had the surreal pleasure of meeting a true hero of mine some years ago in a surprisingly local location. It ended in the loss of my first love yet I have never regretted those first few hours of his company. I was reminded of this strange situation and its heart rending finale by this unnaturally warm autumn we are experiencing currently. Often though certain smells or even my daughter's dolls house bring me back.In my earlier life, I was a student of the classics. Preferring the Greek of Aeschylus to the Latin of Virgil. The Romans did not seem to truly believe, as I would argue the early Greeks did, in the humanity of their gods. I do not use that word as is the vogue; unfortunately there is nothing inhuman about the way we treat our fellow men. Yet even Aeschylus in the third part of his "Orestia" brings "modern" concepts of justice to triumph over the older furies, who would drive "sinners" to insanity and death. At this point in western culture something was lost. We have no longer the rage of Achilleus; we have the idea of justice as something separate from might. I am not claiming Aeschylus was the first, nor that he was a bridge for a majority only that he rather beautifully illustrates this point. It should also be mentioned that of all the plays of antiquity "The Persians" is the oldest, we have in any sort of complete form. "The Orestia" itself is the nearest to complete except for the missing Satyr play that traditionally ended the set of four. Therefore the change I speak of happened with the birth of classical Greece. We may see this as a progress, as worth while as any in a favourite play, but we must also mourn for a lost world and that out look.When I first started to see the Homeric gods, it was through the eyes of a lapsed Christian. Each representing there ideal, Pallas Athena as victory, Bacchus as drunken revelry and so forth, through the full Pantheon. This is easy but quite alien to the heart of that religion and it is entirely contradictory of any actual meeting one may have with a long-term "dead" god. To think that as boy I read Homer and marvelled at a world, our world, where the king of the Gods was simply the most powerful. The supreme beings tried, failed, sinned, loved and lusted drunkenly, directing their passions at anyone or anything. Both ancient Greece and China have extant fragments of religious works in which the author bemoans the injustice of Heaven. How different is that from our out look today? No wonder it produced gods of more rounded character. I can now say that I have sank a pint with Zeus "father of the gods" but if one were to imagine taking the Judeo-Christian God out, for a night on the tiles, it would be more akin to having a concept such as infinity on your shoulder than a old time boozer of some infamy. As Theocritus wrote circa 265 BCE: "sometimes Zeus is clear, sometimes he rains". But he is always "human" in his passions even if he has supernatural powers to aid his quest to sate them. When I meet him though, his powers were not waxing great they were indeed waning in the odours of Meths and Old Spice. (Incidentally Ares does often wear Brut, "the scent of a man".)It was one of the truly happiest periods in my life nothing like the false aspirations of the forties and my Nobel disappointment. Having just spent time in Egypt during to the Suez crisis, I had managed to earn enough, that I decided to return to Airdrie, town of my youth and propose to my childhood sweetheart. It was an autumn of rare colour, the ambers and oranges like embers glowed in the background. The bananas strangely enough, ask your grandfathers if you do not believe me, were translucent that year. Due to some shading error in the now famous Banana boat's cargo hold. To make best use of, what was likely to be, one of the years last warm days, my fiancée and I, may all of Satan's devils caress her with eternal flame and trident involving bum love, headed to the Airdrie's tram terminus. Determined to get a tram to Kelvingrove Park and partake of wine and strawberries. Had it not been for the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester B. Pearson and his bright ideas, I would have been able to forgo public transport altogether. As it was I had a comfortable amount and no more.My darling love and I held hands as we wandered down. I saw nothing but peace on the horizon and having left the gun running to my Egyptian partner I was content. The question was in my mind, the ring in my pocket. I turned to my intended and said "Not a fair riddle though was it my precious". The confusion, this caused us both, led to us being for a time split and boarding the tram separately. I sat near the rear on the bottom floor, hoping to, from a slightly elevated vantage, be able to espy any one boarding or leaving. Thus would I be reunited with my love, though we had been parted but moments. As I scanned the carriage, I must have been too wrapped up in the gauze of love to notice or smell an aged gentleman who came to sit next to me. I was immediately going to insist that he moved on, but he fixed me with a stare that would have taught the Ancient Mariner about resolve and anyone else the meaning of menacing and intoxicated. I continued to look around the tram but as my eyes were now watering, I feared I looked out in vain. My new travelling companion carried with him what appeared to be a large box covered in a cheap cloth. Both his personal attire and the item in his, not inconsiderably large, hands were of a ragged and abused nature. Telling of too many nights in cheap hotels and sawdust covered floors. (Can you tell by my literary style here, that I helped draft the original script for "Casablanca"? Though I lost out on the royalties and writing credit, swiftly leaving America in the back of a potato van. Known for his wit, that cad one, of the Epstein brothers, now credited with joint authorship, commented that the screenplay for Casablanca contained "a great deal of corn, more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined". A line he also stole from me)I was not impressed by his appearance and I tried not to look but something kept drawing me back. Until he meet my gaze, the remains, of what I take it, must have been some form of tobacco product oozing out of his lips he splurted in full one hundred percent proof English. "I can see your looking for something easy to catch". I was secretly impressed by the degree of enunciation and replied "It is my wife to be, who I am sure will find her way to my side soon enough, sir". I felt that final "sir" had all the force of a proper "...and good day" but it was to no avail. He looked at me before breaking into a tuberculosis inspired tummy chuckle. "Son my name is, Zeus, I've been in this bloody damp land for twenty five years looking for this very box." he patted the box for a little gravitas. "And you found it in Airdrie?" I enquired quite believing you could have found a fine replacement, kind for kind, in any council tip. "Aye, in the council tip" he answered a tad to steadily. What is so special about it, I hear you ask, well I did not ask. The only special quality I saw next to me was in the sanity of the man known as Zeus. Luckily for the inquisitive among you and my own future stability he offered all the explanation I ever received. "Sons a cripple but he was always right good with his hands, he wasn't just a joiner and a spark he was also a magical artificer. Well being so rich and all he wants the trophy wife, plus I put in a wee word here and there, and there yeh are, blonde and busty, like a bunny in bed." Zeus winked a little to knowingly at this for proper patriarchal decorum. "Well I didn't have to write it in the skies for him, though it got a lot of laughs when I did. It was harder back then, you know, with a disability. No Ramps, wheelchairs or travelling circuses to take you in. He built this box to keep an eye on her." A few times I had felt like lecturing him on the appropriate use of our dear Queens English but as he was slightly ethnic in appearance I let it slide down to join the ticket stubs and the credibility of his tale on the floor. Instead I ran with his whimsical notions and queried the range of the box. I was told of this being its one failing, of how his son had spent such time on the precision parts, the range was somewhat lacking.We were by this point on the fringes of that unaverage city. My mind was becoming more focussed on the future Lady Sloan. I asked in jest, if this box could pin point her for me as she was surely on the tram some where. He had, as I looked away still snatching at the hope of sighting her, removed the rag. Underneath was an ornate box not overly carved there was some spoilage to the pattern of the carved graffiti variety. I recognised a few bits in ancient Greek and a more recent addition, street poetry style, "One eye is a wank". My attention was drawn as the lid was lifted, for out came slight bellows of what I took to be smoke. As I looked in, while being signalled to move unbearably close, I realised it appeared to be tiny cloud formations. I was held enraptured by the wonder of this device as he moved his hand over the lid, the scene in the box changed constantly, as if it were indeed moving down through the linen of the sky. A few moments passed and then green appeared sporadically along with the greys and browns of the urban landscape. I was dumbstruck; remember this was an age when 3D was confined to a few drive-ins catering to the mentally challenged of America and their silly glasses. Soon the very tram itself could be seen in the box. The full process seemed to slow down a great deal here.My own conjecture leads me to believe that the controls are better while above the clouds for we moved quicker then and the problem with range is getting anywhere but straight down accurately on a cloudy day. I, to my everlasting credit, managed to turn the talk away from Zeus's "down blouses always good for a laugh" on to more historical/theological matters. It seems the Roman gods were not just pinched from Greece but were in fact Zeus et al. He grew very heated at this point talking of a Scandinavian advertising agent who had led them into one of the worst re-branding mistakes up to and including our own Consignia/Royal Mail. Then as the man himself said the "hippy killed that game for all of us lot" but he did admit "...we had lost it by then anyway to many fashionable Togas and not enough angry thunderbolt style intervention..." I would have asked more but we were by then on the top floor of the tram or at least gazing down upon it in miniature form.I recognised a number of the passengers; I had seen board while keeping my faithful watch. How could any man of letters fail in his duty to fully concentrate on this wonder. He asked me if I could see her, I peered closer observing how the people in the box moved and breathed as if alive. I finally shook my head, it took again a few minutes to move our view properly down onto the bottom floor but I could find no words and the great Zeus of the wino clothes seemed to need every bit of his divine skill to manage the task. The sight will stay with me until the alcohol and narcotics have done their work eradicating my troubled memories, such was its accuracy. But like any star-crossed lover in the first throes of passion, I started to look for the missing girlfriend. She was not here, my heart sank at the possibilities, tragic accidents and armed robbery. Or had I, in the mental mist of my pre-boarding remarks, committed the grave error of leaving the girl you intend to propose to behind.It was then I saw a gleam more alive than any I had witnessed on that old battered and bitter face. He nodded down to the box and slowly the image changed moving down towards the driver. I could not see how this would help but again I dare not avert my gaze. We moved through the wall to a small room behind the driver, for the conductor to store tickets and porn magazines in. Then that bum which I would have so readily fallen behind and kissed mere minutes ago, is taking up half the box. While legs that can only belong to the conductor stick out long and white beneath those treacherous cheeks. My face flushed red but I held my nerve fearing my anger unleashed and departed at the next stop. Not having paid a penny since the conductor had been busy with matters concerning my betrothed.Zeus invited me for the pint I mentioned earlier, we talked no more of theology or history, the great man, in his true wisdom had banned shop talk from the pub. He did put me on to the winner of the three twenty at Cheltenham, as recompense. When we parted an hour or so later I was still too shocked, my mind muddled, to ask for his contact details, business card or anything of substance except a small statue; he had offered when he had not the money to cover his round. This Statue was privately valued at between three and four million in a London dealership some years ago. I never saw a penny of it, the Greek government having seized it, seemingly it was looted from a museum there during the last revolution. I lost all my money on land deals in Cuba before the end of the decade but had gained a new spiritual insight that in its self proved useful for my fathering of the sixties
