A life lesson 1: “Do you have bones?”

Judging by the looks can be misleading…

The “central market” of Katerini was demolished in 1982. “In 6 months it will be ready again” the politicians announced, but this happened only in 1988. My family had a butcher shop there since the 1920s, but (despite the promises) we had to enter into the auction phase so as to get a new location with a new lease. In autumn of 1989, following tactics that nowadays can be considered a Real Estate lesson, my father chose and managed to sign our new shop, “which is the second one from the corner but still visible from the street, on the underground parking’s entrance”.

My brother Grigoris and myself were “working” in the butcher’s shop since the age of 9 – 10 (being there every Saturday, helping in what we could). Since our 12 we started working for real. But we had to move to the new location so as to start working very hard, every Saturday, all days of every holiday season. Our third brother joined almost immediately as well. The pleasure of serving someone and watching him coming back next week was our biggest reward.

At your 12 – 14, you have the feeling that you have become a man, even if you are still a teenager. Also by meeting hundreds of people each week, you get the impression that “you understand how they are”. In the same time, there are always some characteristic figures in between all these people, figures of persons you remember for different reasons. So each of us had “his clients”, people who wanted to be served only by him, while we were trying harder to serve even the most demanding ones. Still, all the above had a bad influence as well. No matter how much our parents were telling us to “respect everyone, you don’t know his story”, we had the stupidity of sometimes “judging” people based on their looks or ability to spend…

“Do you have bones?”

In the 90s, Greece was in a situation similar to its actual one. Citizens with high income in a State that was broke… so the majority of our clients had money to spend on meat. Few of them were asking for bones, which they were giving to their dogs, so we used to have some bags prepared for them as well. Poorer clients used to buy inferior parts of meat, but always meat.

It was Saturday afternoon when a young man appeared. Around his 20s, but looking like 16 – 17… very very thin, with “feminine” characteristics and a similar voice. He was looking ill, being very shy, staying at 4 meters distance for quite some time, until he found the strength to pull his long hair aside and come to me, asking me quietly: “Do you have bones?” Usually bones were kept for the clients who were buying more, but I checked in our small refrigerator, down in a corner (at that time I had no issues with my back…). I gave him a bag of bones, asked him if he wanted something else, he refused. We were not usually charging the bones, but he insisted to pay, so he left some money in the cashier. In a society where all men “should be macho”, he was an exception…

Two weeks later, this young man appeared again. He waited for a big queue of clients to be served and my brother to go out, then slowly approached him asking again “Do you have bones?”. We did not… he left disappointed… In the following 6 months, he appeared again 3 – 4 times, we happened to have bones available only once, so probably he stopped passing by.

An example of weakness?

Two teenagers, my brother and myself, always respected all our clients, but gradually we started using him as an example of weakness. When one of us wanted to tease the other, he would rather say “do you have bones?” pretending that the latter is weak. We had to get 18 so as to stop this “joke”, when we were pretending that we were also impersonating his voice…

“Earth, please open and hide me…”

Years have passed, our father died… we continued working in the butcher’s shop… all our family. More years passed and in 2003 I decided that “Greece will bankrupt after the Olympic Games” so I started traveling in Bulgaria and Serbia. In 2004 I came to Romania and decided to move to Bucharest, leaving behind a career and starting from zero.

Soon, in 2005, lots of people in my city were talking about “Ilias, who left Greece for… Romania!” Their curiosity was quite big and I was also very happy to tell them why I made this choice. So when an old friend of my father asked to meet me “as to explain to him what am was doing in Ceausescu’s country”, I was happy to pay him a visit…

He used to meet with people in his old doctor’s cabinet. He had stopped practicing his science, but he kept the cabinet… I walked from the center of the city and the market towards his building, using the stairs so as to reach the first floor. I looked at the old door in front of me, the one I used to pass when I was a kid and I had a problem that he could resolve. I was proud, happy, ready to tell him all, ready to meet one of the best friends of my father… I opened the door with strength and walked into the hall, then turned right to the second door (an even older one), knocked it. “Who is it?” “It is me, Ilias”. “Please, come in, my boy”.

I entered in his cabinet, a place I did not visit for more than 10 years. His books were in the same place, a small skeleton too… but someone else was sitting on a chair towards my father’s friend. I came closer and suddenly paralyzed. The boy of “do you have bones” was sitting there… looking more like a man now, but still having the same face. He smiled at me, he did not remember…

“Ilia, this is … (let’s call him X) He is a good friend of mine, actually I am proud to say that he is one of the children who changed their lives coming to Greece. I knew his father, right after their family came from Albania. Unfortunately, he died young, leaving this child alone with his mother. But X was a fighter, isn’t it? He was working all day, studying all night, eating nothing while all of us were eating good” (he looked at his belly and added with a smile “maybe more than good”). X managed to study and become a doctor, now he is in Thessaloniki, he got married and has 2 lovely children”. X looked at me with a smile, a shy smile…

In Greek we have an expression… “Earth, please open and hide me”… this is how I felt… I got blushed… I was feeling ashamed… I asked to get out for a moment, had tears in my eyes… how stupid I was…. “this man did not have money to buy meat, he was starving so as to protect his mother and I was making fun of him…”. I went back, ready to say sorry to X, but he was already standing up, leaving. I barely managed to discuss with my father’s old friend… Romania, my family, his memories… everything was less important comparing to X…

I came back home shocked. I told to Grigoris… we both had tears in our eyes… we both felt stupid…

Judging by the looks can be misleading. In business, in life, in everything… X is the best proof of this rule…

P.S. Yes, I still search for him, so as to apologize if I find him. This is not for him, this is a personal debt…