The Kalathas Lesson

Confronted by a circular open air bar with a rough wooden roof over ice-chilled refreshments and a distance of only 100 meters or so across the steaming sand to the calmly lapping waves of the Mediterranean, many fresh pilgrims to such a spot may be momentarily confused as to which barstool to set up camp and from which angle to best watch the afternoon’s proceedings. Will they choose to survey other flip-flopped newcomers like them, perhaps comparing sunny fashion styles as they walk cautiously down the hill to the beach area, dangerously toting all manner of cumbersome books, blankets and umbrellas? Or will they choose to focus on the ones who are already there, spying on the glistening skin of the scantily clad or the nearly nude who frolic in the soothing water so close yet so far away?

From the experienced pilgrim’s viewpoint, there is no alternative. The stools on the East side of the round bar offer the preferred vantage point. From there, the wise traveler can scan the often perfect form of the bathers and witness the impending death of the sun each day as it shyly drops behind the nose of a dragon, sinking helplessly into a tempest sea, heating up newer trouble for those to the West.

This was decided long ago, when history was not written and the ancient clues to these kinds of choices, the opposing factors quickly weighed and balanced by thoughtful men of leisure, were considered glaringly obvious for all eternity.

One pale white man with dark glasses, presumably aware of these eternal lessons, sat alone at the East curve of the bar on this particularly brilliant afternoon. Hours before the sun’s predicted doom, the precise knowledge of which would regularly confiscate the pocket change of unsuspecting bar hoppers, he sat and drank, read an old book, observed and waited.

He was tended to, with agonizing sluggishness, by an obnoxiously young but devoted bartender named Tatu.

Tatu, while claiming a preposterous mix of Greek and Turkish heritage, was boldly thin, tanned and shirtless. Sporting a small dirty shell necklace around his neck, thin wisps of adolescent beard on his chin, topped with a mangled mess of muddied hair bleached blonde here and there by the wind and sea, he regularly found ways to annoy his impatient patron to no end.

He nervously idled inside the North curve of the bar on top of a stainless steel cabinet, smoked and fidgeted with his necklace as he watched the beauties on the beach, all the while anxiously ignoring his only customer.

“Another drink, sir?” Tatu finally, dryly offered from his perch.

“Hmm-mmm”, the white man mumbled while thinking to himself words not spoken, “Of course, you little shit.”

It was a repeated mistake that the white man could not understand about himself. He regularly asked why, what caused him to sit there patiently waiting to be served? Why didn’t he just jump the bar and serve himself? It would be so much easier, he thought.

After some time, odd questions left unanswered, the old book and the frantic scene of sandy sexual tension wearing heavy on his mind, perhaps a bit groggy from one too many gin and tonics, the white man rose from his barstool and planted himself in a lounge chair away from the bar, inviting the last warm rays of the day’s sun and the grating sounds of people on the beach to lure him into a fitful sleep…

…The Pilot’s delightful staccato voice broke the stillness of the intercom.

“OK, Jerry, we’ve begun our descent to final, go ahead and break out the Before Landing Checklist, if you would.”

Jerry, the Co-Pilot, dutifully opened his bulky checklist on his lap and found the tab for Before Landing. He thumbed the plastic pages apart and as they released their sweaty hold on each other he thought he could hear a lightly audible “smack” above the drone of the engines and the deafening rush of wind outside the cockpit.

Jerry sat there for a moment, silently reviewing the sequence of procedures contained in the checklist then he turned toward John, the Pilot, and switched his microphone to hot.

“John, uh, are you sure we want to do this?” he asked.

John, unconsciously keeping two fingers on the yoke now that the autopilot was disengaged, breathed a short “Huh?” into his mic without looking at Jerry.

“Well, I mean,” Jerry began haltingly, “I’m not too sure why we are here.”

John, now curious, turned to look at Jerry looking back at him. John could see that Jerry had a quizzical look on his face and that he appeared to be sincere. John turned further around to see that the Navigator, Phil, was leaned forward over his station, intently scrutinizing a two-day-old copy of the Wall Street Journal, apparently disinterested in the conversation taking place.

Secretly turning his eyes to the oxygen level indicators for a moment, suddenly alarmed to the prospect of an entire flight crew going hypoxic on him just prior to landing, John replied as slowly and calmly as he could.

“Ah, Jerry, we are here because we need to turn a few touch and goes. You need the practice, I need the practice, and we’ve got to get these things checked off.”

Silence, as Jerry pondered.

“Yeah, but John, why don’t we do this at home base? I mean, geez, why did we fly all the way out here?”

“Well, Jerry, as you know, home base is kinda busy and this place is a bit more inviting at this time of day. Besides, we had some gas to burn. Come on, man, what’s up with you?”

“I’m just thinking, John, we have a perfectly good airfield back home. I like being home, made a lot of effort to get there and all that…I just hate to somehow disrespect it, you know?”

In an attempt to cease the discourse, John forced a smile and used his command voice, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Jerry, but you damn well better start the checklist, dude.”

Just then the airfield controller passed the current altimeter setting over the radio. Instinctively, the crew followed through.

“Set, Nav.”

“Set, Co.”

“Set, Pilot.”

But Jerry didn’t stop there.

“Seriously, John, I think we should reconsider this. I, for one, think home base is perfect for us and I don’t want them to think we’ve left them for good. I’m sure we could squeeze in there.”

Phil, the Navigator, then chimed in his deep baritone, “Uhh, John, Jerry has a good point there. Plus, I mean, what happens if there’s trouble or something? This place doesn’t have much in the way of support, we might be stranded and they wouldn’t want us here forever.”

From the back of the aircraft, the crew chief’s gravelly voice suddenly crackled into the crew’s headsets, “Hey, guys, count me in, I’m all for going back right now!”

“OK, OK!” John yelled into his mic. “Chief, get the hell off ship’s and Phil, dammit, shut the fuck up! Jerry, go select with me now!”

Once on the selective channel, where no other crew member could hear them, John told Jerry the truth.

“Look, Jer, here’s the situation. We are landing at this base. You’re a pilot, I’m a pilot, this is what we are trained to do. Look out the window here, there it is, they want us to land here. You can see the fucking runway! We don’t have time for any more bullshit. Now, start the goddamn checklist and do it fast or I will do it for you.”

“I, I can’t do this, John.”

“OK,” John quickly answered, “You are relieved. Please go to the rear. We’ll have a talk with the Ops O about this when we get on the ground.”

John quickly switched his interphone to ship’s and confidently declared, “Crew, I have the aircraft and we are preparing to land.”

Jerry, numbed by his own intransigence, unsure of his own feelings and fearful of the end of the hand he’d just played, slowly unbuckled himself and started to pull out of his seat.

“A thousand to go,” said Phil, the Navigator.

Just as Jerry pushed up on his arm rests a metallic splintering noise echoed across the shell of the aircraft, as if hundreds of pellets were being slammed into the hull. A bloody carcass of feathers and bone impaled itself on the bottom of the windshield, viscously crammed into a small gap for the wipers. Warning horns and red lights all went off at once, engine Number 3 glowing solid, Number 4 ominously flickering.

“Bird Strike!” went through the thoughts of every member in the cockpit and they all voiced “Oh, shit!” over the hot interphone at the same precise moment.

The nose of the aircraft momentarily went up then forcefully down and to the right. Instantly, both John and Jerry grabbed firmly on the yoke and intertwined their opposing hands on the throttle linkage, fumbling their fingers and arms and alternately slamming on the rudder with their feet to correct the rapidly violent angle of attack.

As the plane shook and careened itself into an irreversible death spiral, the ceiling of the cockpit flashed bright and dark, bright and dark, bright and dark from the brilliant spinning reflections of a fast approaching and everlasting consequence.

A doomed crew all shrieked and pleaded their personal requests to an unseen savior as Phil, the Navigator, whimpered like a little baby while he struggled to secure his beloved Wall Street Journal in the right leg pocket of his flight suit.

Jerry fought the powerful G forces to turn to his left, facing John to see the last moments of petrified terror in the muted pilot’s huge black eyes and yelled with all the despise he could muster, “See? I told you so!”

And together they screamed and screamed and screamed…

“…Are you alright?” whirred Tatu as he shook the dreaming man awake.

The disheveled man, now sensing the early warmth of a painful sunburn on his legs, grabbed for his old book which had slipped from his large belly to a wet spot on the sand. His blurred eyes noticed the sun was nearly down, the once packed beach was now emptied around him and in his ears he heard the faint bouncing sound of rakish Euro-disco playing rudely in the distance.

Slowly, his focus returned and he slurred a reply to Tatu, “Umm, yes, please, I would like another drink…a double, if it all possible.”

“Of course,” Tatu answered, “I just thought…,” the open words trailing him as he spun back to the bar.

Then Tatu stopped and turned back with a sly grin, twisted his head to the side as he faced the uncomfortably reddened white man, placed his hands on his hips and inquired in his sarcastic half-foreign tongue.

“Just one question, sir … at what point does one lose one’s libido, anyway?”

Cheers,
Mb