51d - Football! (Playing Truant to Play Football)

It was one Wednesday afternoon when some schoolmates invited Kostakis and myself for a match on a fenced sandlot of substantial area, free of cars, on Kallidopoulou Street, not far from home. The place was ideal for a proper game of football, however, there was a major hindrance: later in the afternoon, both Kostakis and I, had a scheduled after-school English tutoring class. The temptation to participate in such a match with bigger boys and ‘star players’ of our school, including its top talent, a boy named Papaeconomou, was great -irresistible. I spontaneously decided to skip my English class, although my friend Kostakis resisted the temptation. So that I can satisfy my urge and evading recriminations and the chastising that would be in store if my parents found out, we agreed, after the scheduled end of the English class, we would meet with Kostakis outside the tutoring school to walk home together, as we always did, like nothing happened. No harm would have been done to anyone concerned. What a gap in the learning process missing a two-hour lesson of a foreign language would have left?

I enjoyed my football to the maximum possible that afternoon and utterly satisfied with my performance in the match, but taken away by its flow and the excitement it offered I neglected to check the passage of time. It was dark when the last kick of the game was played and we could barely see the ball, but neither fatigue, nor the dust, nor falling over and scratching elbows and knees would have deterred us from carrying on; only darkness or some higher power. The tutoring school had been closed for some time, before I eventually made my way home: tired, flushed, sweaty, covered in dust. At the intersection of Deligiorgi Street with our alley, a few restless shadows were waiting for me under the dim street lights that illuminated Tsapatsaraina’s corner. Standing there with grandma, Father and Mother, was also Kostakis, standing meekly by his mother, Foula, and his grandmother, Mrs. Marika. My truancy, my choice of football instead of two hours of a boring English lesson, was exposed by Kostakis, inadvertently or not nobody could tell. I was overwhelmed by fatigue to worry about the scolding and yelling of Father and the whatever punishment that would likely ensue, or feel any guilt for the money Father paid for my English lessons and in that instance was wasted.

Upstairs in our apartment, I endured the angry outburst and thundery shouts of Father, in the scale of intensity (and Father always had, even in old age, a thunderous and piercing voice that could shudder people nearby and could be heard throughout our building and beyond). That reaction was expected and did not affect me as much as previous times: ‘You fool! Imposter! Liar! Ungrateful donkey! I pay for you to learn a language and instead you are turning into a vagrant... I will cease your English tutoring from as early as tomorrow...’ and so on. The Mother listened from next door with what, one could say, was a furtive satisfaction and condescension. I stood silent in the middle of the entrance hall with my head hung down in shame, staring at the floor. In the bathroom, where grandma, the most sympathetic of all, took me by hand to have me washed, as she was preparing a bath, Father slapped me for the first (and, it should be noted, the last) time in my life. This shook me and made me cry. Grandma, on my side even in mischief, my only compassionate ally that night, reprimanded him for that slap, in her smooth Asia Minor way: ‘P, my son, he is just a child...’ She wiped my tears away, washed my face and body and comforted me with the towel. Even today, the sympathy and comfort that my grandma showed that evening, her affection and understanding of a child’s way of thinking no one else was capable to show, touches me inside. Mother, with her silence, maintained a muted demeanor and seemingly neutral attitude, but I believe she shared Father's anger without expressing it and consented with the scolding and, perhaps, even the slap. Unruly children in the schools she taught were still at the receiving end of corporal punishment. The model of a diligent and studious child of a fastidious teacher had been shattered that evening at least; I had become one with the neighborhood and school ‘whitebait’, lacking drive, ambitions and serious goals in life.

As the evening progressed the situation deescalated and things gradually calmed down and returned to normal. Second thoughts and some kind of guilt for the violent outburst probably seized Father. Before my bedtime, in a low tone of voice, he asked grandma how I was. Despite the shouting and pretentious threats about my schooling, despite the dominance his manipulative personality exercised over his family environment, physical violence had never been an attribute of his generally unpredictably tempestuous behaviour. The episode of my truancy was forgotten the very next day. None of Father’s threats about having me expelled from the English school or having me locked up in the house in the afternoons or banning me from joining Kostakis downstairs strictly materialised.

I never played the truant again; neither from tutoring nor, of course, from school, until perhaps once or twice in the last years of high school. However, our explorations of places where we could play football undistracted continued with the same zeal and gained new dimensions. After work and food, Father would take the usual refuge in the bedroom for the established and non-negotiable afternoon nap, the titirla as he humorously called it in a good mood, but for a short period after my truancy, I was quarantined in the afternoon his bedroom, having me lying next to him in the double bed. He was fixated by the idea that Kostakis and friends would get together downstairs for play, and I would be tempted to follow their lead to the detriment of schoolwork. Yet, I found impossible to evade that temptation. My resolve was too feeble to resist the call for a kickabout. Playing with friends on the streets is the opium of childhood. I counted to a hundred, sometimes even to two hundred, or until I heard Father's snoring, and I slipped quietly out of my bed-prison. With admirable technique and causing minimal noise I opened the lock of the front door of the apartment, which was frighteningly close to the bedroom, and I slipped out into the hallway and the staircase to freedom. Shutting without keys the slightly creaking front-door (Father for the benefit of an undisturbed siesta oiled the door hinges frequently), the noise from the latch bolt when it was shut, was an agonizing and time-consuming process. Yet again, I was thinking, even if Father woke up from his slumber, which often lasted hours, there would no way he would have the reserves and drive to bring me back shouting. At worst, he would call my name in vain in the empty apartment, turn on the other side, and complete his siesta.