LC_Satellite Story (from Book 10) - Thanos & Leandros

^{Thina sat on the grass, spreading her skirt so that she looked like a colourful flower. “This is a sad story. It is also a true story, I met one of the people…}

Thina sat on the grass, spreading her skirt so that she looked like a colourful flower. “This is a sad story. It is true, I met one of the people in the story…

Thanos was fourteen years old. He lived in an area east of Kallithea and just outside Piraeus. It is a very poor area with no big supermarkets and nice shops. A few cheap tavernas, a few more bars that fill with sleazy women, those whose looks have faded and can no longer depend on stopping the cars on the main thoroughfares. Both the women and men of the area are not as those of other poor suburbs in Athens. They are hard and disillusioned, most of them chronically out of work.

Thanos was alone in the house with his mother. He sat on the floor so that he could hold her hand.

‘I asked you to miss school so as to talk to you alone. Agori mou (my son), I can feel I am going to die soon.’ She waited as he protested and knocked on wood. ‘I do not have much time Thano and knowing what a miserable bastard your father is, he could return early just to watch my suffering. Listen to me, I am dying. We do not have money and I would rather die close to my children, than in some public hospital where nobody will talk to me while I take my last breath.

All these years I have stolen some of the little food we had and secretly given it to you because I wanted you to grow big and strong so that you can protect your little brother Leandros when I am gone. You are nearly a man, but you must not think to fight your father, he is an animal and will kill you. Not even when you are a man, my son. When I die go to my cousin Fivos. He will find you a job and a room for you to stay. If you can, give to Fivos a bit of money every month for him to help Leandros. See that Leandros finishes school before you take him away from his father. Will you swear on the Virgin Mother that you will do as I ask with my last breath?’

‘Yes mother, I swear.’

‘When your brother is with you, go to those they talk about on television, the tsinians. Tell them you and your brother are good boys and want to be tsinians. Then you will never have to fear your father again.’

Two days later his mother died and Thanos ran to Fivos after the funeral. Fivos was drunk and did not open the door so Thanos had to sleep in the alley behind. Next morning, cold, wet and shivering, he knocked on the door. Fivos swore, but he opened the door. He stared at his nephew. ‘Your mother was stupid but I see you are even more stupid and did as she told you!’

‘Nai theie (yes uncle).’

‘Come in and take off those wet clothes, I can’t afford to help pay for another funeral!’ Fivos is one of those people who talk as if they are about to break every bone in your body, but he is a soft touch. Maybe that is why he acts so tough. For Thanos he was terrifying because, if his mother was wrong, he had nowhere else to go.

Fivos made him wash his clothes, giving him a blanket to wrap around himself until the clothes were dry. He gave him some bread and cheese with coffee. As he ate, Fivos spoke to him. ‘You can stay here for one week. When I wake up every morning you better be out looking for a job.’ He looked at him sternly. ‘When they ask you your age, lie and tell them you are seventeen. Tell them you lost your taftota (I.D.) and need to earn some money to apply for a new one.’

The industrial area is close by, so Thanos walked there every day, asking for a job. Most of them were abrupt or shouted at him to go away, but a few spoke more softly, remembering their own days of walking door to door. Unfortunately, with so many young men from the surrounding countries looking for work at a fraction of what a local worker would accept, there were no jobs.

Fivos became more and more difficult for Thanos to face. Not just because of his insults and shouting, but also because he felt shamed to eat his bread. Finally one night he did not return to Fivos and slept under the concrete highway that goes from Athens to Thessaloniki. Day after day he looked for a job and at night, after they closed, he would go to the back of tavernas to scrounge around in the rubbish bins for leftovers.

One very cold day he was starving and could not wait for the taverna to close. He went to the rubbish bin and had just pulled out a few bones that still had some meat and a few pieces of bread when he realised someone was standing behind him. He crouched as he turned and stared at the waiter. The waiter looked at his hands and Thanos held his hands up, offering the food back.

‘Christé kai Panagia! Nobody should be that hungry! Wait here, I’ll bring you some food.’ Half an hour later, for the first time in months he felt his belly heavy with food. He had hidden the bones and bread for the next day and he felt good, even not so cold anymore. What made him feel even better, slightly human again, was that the waiter, an Albanian, had talked to him. He told him to come twice a week and he would sneak out some food for him.

The next morning he was waiting at the door of a small workshop when the owner drove up, parked and unlocked. Worried he kept on looking at Thanos, thinking he might be there to rob him.

‘Excuse me sir, do you know whether there is any work for me here?’

He stared at him and saw a young man who had reached the point of desperation and because he often said to his friends that he does not give money to the young men who beg as they should look for work instead of begging, he paused just long enough to hear himself. ‘Come in.’

He fussed around, took off his overcoat, made certain it was hanging straight, checked the papers on his desk, went out to switch on the current to the workshop and only then returned to Thanos.

‘Are you clever enough to learn how to work a machine?’

‘Sir, if I could just sweep the floor and help keep everything tidy.’

‘You will make more money if you learn how to work a machine.’

‘I only want to sweep the floor sir.’ Thanos feared that if he accepted an important job, they would demand identification.

‘Come with me.’ He led him to a couple of small rooms at the back, most of them toilets and a urinal. ‘Take off your clothes.’ He saw the look on the boy’s face. ‘There!’ He pointed. ‘Take a shower, you stink.’

There was hot water and Thanos stood under the shower until the water turned colder. A hot shower, it was a luxury he had forgotten about and for the first time for days his body did not ache from the cold. He put back on his dirty clothes and went looking for the man. He did not see him anywhere so he went searching for a broom. All he found was a broom with almost the entire handle broken off. The bristles had flattened and a third of them were missing. He took it, found an old plastic bucket and getting down onto his knees he swept. The curled slivers of metal from lathes and drills cut into his knees and hands, but he refused to stop. By lunchtime he had cleaned the floor and what lay there now was from that day’s work. He returned to the shower and stood under the hot water with his clothes on.

The day was cold, so Thanos went to stand by a machine that was warm. The operator saw him and made a joke to another worker. The other operator stopped what he was doing and came to see.

‘Why are your clothes wet?’

‘I had a shower sir. The man from that room over there told me to get clean because I stink.’

‘Stay there until they are dry.’

The old man returned an hour later and gave him some bread and part of a dried fish. He watched him as he ate. ‘Can you help me when you’ve finished?’

‘Do you see what I do on my machine? I take one of these and here is what it looks like after I’ve worked on it. This piece that I work on, it is made at that machine. The man who works it has found another job and I don’t have any more pieces to work on. If I stop working I will not get paid. If I teach you, will you make some pieces for me to work on?’ He showed him, explaining as he worked. Thanos paid attention and when he tried making the first piece under the close attention of the old man, he did not make any mistakes. Once he had made three pieces the old man left him to work on his own. He was still working when the last man to leave came to him.

‘I have to lock up and switch off the electricity, you must leave.’

‘Can’t you lock me up inside? I still have a lot of work to do. I’ll switch off the electricity soon as I’m finished.’ The man shrugged and left, locking the door.

He worked another eight hours and, realising he was too tired to continue, he switched off the machine and the main switch and went to sit on the floor, leaning back against the warm motor. He snoozed for about twenty minutes but the motor cooled down fast and he was too cold to sit on the concrete floor for much longer. He switched on a light and swept the floor. By the time everyone else came to work he’d finished and was sitting like a zombie.

The owner came to him. ‘When did you come in?’

‘I stayed in here all night sir. I’ve done my work.’

The owner did not even glance at the floor. ‘I hear you’ve been working on a machine. Show me the work you did.’ He chose pieces at random, digging in for them. He turned them this way and that and put them down. ‘Come to the office.’

‘I offered you a job at the machines but you refused me. Why did you change your mind?’

‘An old man gave me some food sir. He asked me to help him.’

‘If you sweep I can only pay you to work once a week. I’ll pay you twenty Euros. If you work the machine I’ll pay you three hundred and fifty per month.’ A grown man with papers would have earned about nine hundred.

‘I’ll work the machine sir.’

‘Do you have family?’

‘No sir.’

‘Where do you stay?’

‘A friend lets me share his room.’

‘Fine. You’ll be paid weekly for the first month. First thing you do is buy some decent working clothes. Jeans and a coverall. Understood?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Tell the old man to give you an old coverall to use for now. I do not want to hear that you stayed in here all night again. You leave when the others do. Now go home, you need to sleep.’

He went for another hot shower and then returned to his machine, working till he had to leave. He walked until it was time to go to the taverna. When the waiter came out to throw the rubbish, Thanos grinned exuberantly. ‘I got a job!’

‘Good, that means you’ll be able to come inside and pay for your food.’

‘Only when I get paid.’ He told him what he is doing and how much he is being paid.

‘Fuck the bastard! He’s cheating you! Wait, I’ll bring you something to eat soon.’

When he came out he handed him the food. ‘Eat it and then we’ll go to the plateia for a coffee.’

It was the first time Thanos had ever sat at a coffee shop and it made him feel grown up. The waiter introduced himself as Kostí. He asked what kind of machine he worked on and nodded. ‘You cannot show your papers, you are too young so you have to take what you can. Work there until you can get a proper job. At least it is enough for you to live. Let me know if you need to find a room.’

‘I can’t use the money for myself!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Thanos explained about his promise.

‘Thano, if we are to be friends, things must be clean between us. I am gay and have a lover. He is older than me and pays for everything. I am saving my money to open my own hair styling salon. I’m telling you because you will find out anyway and think I wanted to make love to you. I don’t. I never mix friendships with sex and I want you to be my friend.’

‘You are a poustis?’

‘That is a nasty word to use with a friend.’

‘I’m sorry, I just found it funny. My father always calls me a pousti.’ When they parted, Thanos went to sleep in his hole under the highway.

When he received his first money he had a shower at work and went to visit Fivos. He explained why he had not returned and that he now has a job. He took out what was left after buying the clothes he needed. ‘This is for Leandros. How will you stop my father from using it for gambling and cognac?’

‘I’ll tell him I have decided to pay certain expenses of his son. Don’t worry, leave it to me. Thano, you can sleep here, you should not have left, I am your uncle, it is my duty to help you. It is not shameful.’

‘I am a man, I must pay for what I use.’

His uncle brought out two glasses and a carafe of red wine. He poured for both of them. ‘Did you know that when your mother was a young girl, about eighteen, I was in love with her? She loved me also, but we could not marry because we are cousins. It would have been shameful for our families if anyone found out. Your father was then my friend and I told him about her. He saw her and went to her parents and asked to marry her. Thano, you are the son I never could have. Stay here with me. Someday when you are rich, then you can let me stay with you. Entaxi (okay)?’ He laughed. ‘It is time you shaved. Use my blade in the bathroom.’

After six months the owner decided he should increase his salary as it was likely he’d take a job somewhere else if he didn’t. Thanos kept the increase of fifty Euros for food and the odd cup of coffee with his friend Kostí. He also became obsessed about learning all he could about the tsirinians. He had received his food machine and it awoke his curiosity.

He was sixteen when he found a job that paid more than double. He was sorry to leave the friends he’d made at work, but he was worried. Military service is compulsory in Greece so he worried about Leandros. How would he manage to send money when he was in the army. He worked out that if he saved half his salary for two years that would solve the problem. Another year passed and he now had six thousand saved up without anybody knowing. It was Friday night and he was meeting Kostí and his older lover for a coffee. He was surprised to see only Kostí.

‘He was invited to a house in Kifissia. We’re on our own.’ They chatted for a while and then Kostí confided his troubles to him. ‘I’ve found the perfect place for my shop, but I don’t have enough money yet. I’m short five thousand! Who would give an Albanian five thousand eh? I’ve asked all my friends, even offered them a share in my business but no luck, they don’t want to know.’

‘What are you offering?’

‘Ten percent. I should make about three thousand a month, so that means they would make three hundred or more.’

‘Are you sure? Maybe they are afraid you will lose their money.’

‘I’m not opening a boutique! We’re talking about a hair styling salon! People have to cut their hair.’

‘Kostí, you have not asked all your friends.’

‘What are you talking about?’ His eyes widened. ‘Don’t tell me you have the money! How?’

‘I’ve been saving up for Leandros when I go to the army. Kostí, I’ve never forgotten how you helped me. I’ll give you the money if you promise me you will pay the three hundred every month to my uncle for Leandros.’

‘We’ll go to a lawyer and he’ll give you a contract that says I have to and that you have ten percent of the shop.’

‘I asked you for your promise. I know you’re an Albanian, but it is your word I trust.’

When, after the first three months, Kostí had not paid him anything, Thanos shrugged it aside and carried on saving. On the fourth month Kostí came looking for him and handed over five hundred.

‘You know how it is when you start a new business, it takes time to build it up. From now you will get your money every month.’ He was as good as his word and sometimes even exceeded the agreed three hundred. Thanos just saved the money, but he now started to have a small dream. The day he went to collect his brother, he would buy him a car. He hugged his dream to himself and it sweetened those difficult times when he wished he could do what the other young people do to have fun. As far as he was concerned, that kind of life was not for him, but he would see to it that his brother had everything he missed.

He was seventeen when the old man who’d taught him to use the machine came to see him. They went to a coffee shop. He saw the old man’s hands were trembling.

‘Thano, you are a good boy. While you worked with me you helped me out many times, working extra when I was not feeling well enough to do my job. I’ve come from the doctor today, he says I have cancer and will die before the end of the year. I am an old man without any family. Thano, the apartment I live in, it is an ypogio (basement) flat, but it is mine. I want to leave it to you. Will you come with me to my lawyer for him to make the papers?’

That weekend he told Fivos about it. ‘You seem to live a charmed life. Your Albanian friend? If you had asked me I’d have told you, you are crazy to even think of giving your money to him, but he turns out to be the only honest Albanian I’ve ever heard of. Now an old man wants to give you his apartment! It must be worth at least one hundred thousand Euros!’

Fivos would have had a fit if he’d known what Thanos planned. He’d heard that the Teller family often went to Kefalari for coffee. He went there every evening and weekend until he saw them. He recognised them from the photos on television and the newspapers, but he was certain he would have recognised them anyway. The girls looked like they were goddesses from another world. He’d seen that the coffee shop was guarded by plain clothes policemen to prevent people going to speak to them. He waited until they walked away. As he saw them enter a small side street without anybody that he could see close by, he ran, shouting, asking them to wait, to please let him talk to them. Men ran out of gates of the houses in between and knocked him to the ground.

‘We apologise Kyrie Teller, we’ll take care of the problem.’

‘What problem? I don’t see a problem, I see a human being. Please let him go.’ Thanos saw the stern look in his eyes and became afraid. Robert reached down and gave him his hand. ‘Come, you wanted to talk to us?’

They jumped with him to a beach somewhere exotic and warm. They walked along the beach under moonlight to a hotel and sat for a cold drink. They were waiting, giving Thanos time to recover, for he was shaking so much he could not talk. When Robert gently told him to speak he almost blanked out and wildly talked without being aware of all he was saying. He started from the beginning and told of his promise to his mother. He ended off by pleading with them to cure the old man.

The Teller family were amazed. They had never sensed a Normal with such an open mind. Without them trying they were hearing and feeling his thoughts. ‘How has he escaped our notice? This boy should have been linked a long time ago.’ They promised to help the old man and then asked him whether he would like to be linked.

‘Could I wait please? I promised we would both try to become tsirinians, I want to wait for Leandros.’

‘When it is time, call this number.’ Robert gave him a business card. ‘Relax and enjoy yourself for a change, you’re in Africa.’ They talked and teased each other, filling the air with soft sweet laughter and Thanos lost his fears.

The old man was cured with the side benefit of being rejuvenated. Thanos shrugged when he was told he could not expect to have the apartment for many years. He was jubilant and could not believe how well all had turned out for him. He hid the card as if it were his most precious treasure, even though he had memorised the number.

He only had months to go before he would be drafted when Kostí asked him to come to the shop. He looked around, amazed that such a bare shop could have earned such good money.

‘I am selling this shop. Thano, my lover found me a shop for sale in Kifissia where I can charge a lot more because the people there are rich. He is lending me half the money to buy it and most of the rest I need I’ll get by selling this one. I want you to have ten percent in my new shop, but it costs a lot more. Will you put another five thousand?’

‘You will pay Leandros double?'

‘Of course.’

‘Agreed.’

As expected he was called up and served the full time he had to. Because of his expertise, the army placed him in a machine shop and he joked that the only difference was that now he had to work for free.

The day he was discharged, Fivos took him to a taverna and ordered a full carafe of wine and toasted him. He had come to love his proud and good nephew like a son.

‘Thano, your brother has finished school. He asked me whether I can help with his university fees. He has been accepted. The first son of our family to go to university!’

‘You told him you would?’

‘I will help you as much as I can Thano. I do not make much, but whatever I can.’

‘It will be enough. Fivo, what should I do? Should I meet him or should I wait until he has finished university?’

‘You must meet him. His father makes his life a misery.’

‘Can you arrange for us to meet…I don’t know where.’

‘Not in public, you will both need to be alone for a while. You know the psaro-taverna (fish restaurant) at the Delta? On the beach in front of it.’

Sometimes November can be pleasant and mild. This year the cold winds had come early and it cut through to the bone like a knife. Thanos was hardly aware of the cold as he anxiously looked at every car that slowed down and tried not to feel disappointed when they either sped off or parked and the occupants entered the taverna. He saw a young man walking in the dark along the beach and he was certain, his heart singing with his joy. Eagerly he started walking towards him, but the figure raised a hand for him to wait.

They came face to face. ‘Leandro?’

‘Nai, Thano?’

‘My brother!’ He made to embrace him, but Leandros pulled back.

‘I hardly remember you. You don’t look the same as I remember.’

‘We’ve both grown.’ He laughed. ‘God! I can hardly believe how much you’ve grown! A real pallikari (warrior). I’m proud of you.’

‘Proud of what, that I had to grow strong to survive when my big brother left me? You abandoned both me and our father on the worst day of our lives.’

‘I had to, our mother made me swear I would leave even as she lay dying.’

‘Liar! Patera!’

A large man stood up from behind a fishing boat that had hid him. He walked over. ‘So, you have returned. Was it to come to our house to embrace us and call us family? No, it was to poison your little brother against his father with lies. Did you remember us once during all these years? Did you send us any money? No. You were rotten from the day you were born.’

As he came close and car lights flashed over them as they took the corner, Thanos saw the rage he remembered so well on his fathers’ face. Before he had time to consider his options his fathers’ fist hit him. After that, all he could remember was one pain after the other, both his father and his brother hitting and kicking him.

In a haze he saw his father leaning over him, panting, his face a mask of hatred. ‘Stay away from Leandros or else I’ll kill you.’

Thano was found two hours later by a couple who came out of the restaurant and wanted to walk on the beach for some kissing and whispers of love. The ambulance took him to the hospital and hours later a police car came to Fivos and he was told that Thanos is badly injured. His heart a clenched fist in his chest he rushed to see him.

‘I’m sorry but we do not think he will live the night. He has broken ribs and one of them punctured his lungs. His liver and stomach are also damaged from what we presume were kicks, causing internal bleeding. He will be entering surgery to stop the bleeding and to re-inflate his lungs, but the prognosis is not favourable.’

‘I want to see him.’ They allowed him to stand by his side for a few minutes as they prepared him to be moved to the theatre, tears falling down his unshaved cheeks.

‘Officer, have you arrested the man responsible?’

‘We were hoping you could tell us who it is.’

‘He went to the beach to meet his brother, I arranged it.’ He gave them details of where Leandros lives and went home.

He sat drinking wine, despair and grief filling him. The television was on from before his leaving for the hospital and he heard them say something about the Teller family. He rushed into the room of Thanos and finding the card he phoned Robert. He hardly made any sense, but when Robert understood he asked which hospital and jumped there.

Thanos died about five minutes before Robert arrived.

Leandros was arrested and charged with murder. It made for a horrifying story, the public angry that a brother could kill a brother. Robert was advised that if he requested permission to meet the accused he would be refused. He went as a soul, saw the holding cell in the police station and returning to his body he teleported there.

‘Get away from him.’ The two men turned to see who had spoken and Robert, using his powers knocked the men aside. He leant over and touched Leandros. They arrived on a beach in Cyprus.

‘Do you know who I am? I bring you a gift.’ Angrily he smashed through his mind and forced him to live the immediacy of the memories and emotions of Thanos. When it was over Leandros lay on the sand sobbing.

‘This will be your punishment. I will not link Thano until you are also suitable to be linked. It was what he asked of me and now it is up to you. Either your brother stays dead, or I bring him back to be linked with the brother he loves. If you die before you are linked, then Thanos stays dead.’

Emoting a cold anger Robert took him back to his cell. Ignoring the policemen, he spoke softly so that only Leandros would hear, ‘Stop protecting your father. He is more, or at least just as responsible as you.’

The police kept quiet about Robert's visit, but announced the arrest of the father. They were both found guilty and Leandros was imprisoned for a term of fifteen years. He has been out of prison for a few years now and is struggling to earn a living. Thanos has been dead for sixteen years.

The younger brother is watched by Robert. He desperately wants to bring his brother back to life, but he is too filled with pain and anger. He is still on his journey of freeing himself from the memories of his father and the evil he committed. We do not know if he ever will be ready to be linked as one of us.”

^{*All images used are from Pixabay}

Thank you for reading my story.

If you enjoyed it, I do not ask that you resteem or upvote; those to me are just bonuses, a sign you enjoyed reading Thanos & Leandros. All I really want as encouragement is that you recommend the story to all your friends; those you think would enjoy such a fantasy story.

I would like to add a personal note, which is also a hope of mine. You may or may not enjoy my way of keeping my writing simple where I can; you may or may not enjoy the style of the adventures experienced; but, I am very confident you will each grow to love at least one character. I know you will, for I have loved each of them and written of them with love :)

Thank you.