The Flickering Headlight

This is one of the stories from a YouTube channel I started recently called “Mark Rickerby’s Tales of Mystery and Adventure”. I opened an X-File on myself about ten years ago to start recording the unexplainable things that often happen to me. This is one of them.

There will also be stories about travel, writing, and making movies – day in the life stuff about the challenges of owning a production company (Temple Gate Films). Some stories will be off the hip but others (most) will be readings of the over 30 stories of mine that have been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul books.

My parents are both gone now, and I wish I had something like this to remember them by, so these stories are also part of a legacy project for my two daughters. The first five or so videos are up.

If you like this story, please subscribe to the YouTube channel, like, comment, click the bell to receive notifications, and all that jazz. I hope to see you there!

My Last Night in Athens

It was my last night in Greece and I only had fifteen dollars in my pocket. I had to decide between a meal and a bed. I chose a meal, and one last night of wandering. I could sleep when I was back in L.A. It was a Saturday night in July so there was plenty to see and do. The Greeks love to celebrate, and they don’t need a reason.

After dinner, I went to a music festival for an hour, then walked over to the Acropolis to get one last look. I was momentarily disappointed when I found the gate locked, but there was only a chain link fence around the base of the hill. Not exactly a fortress. I walked to a secluded spot at the perimeter, threw my sleeping bag and backpack over the fence, and crawled under it. I would have to keep my eyes and ears open because I saw armed guards with dogs there a few weeks earlier when I first visited.

Once inside, I walked to the Theater of Dionysus, talked to the statues holding up the dais, and delivered a monologue at center stage under the stars to whatever forgotten gods on Mount Olympus might be listening. For a theater major, it felt pretty amazing to have this stage all to myself, the same stage Thespis, the first actor to ever play a character in a play on a stage (according to Aristotle), once stood. (For those who don’t know, this is where the term “Thespian” comes from.)

Then I chose one of the cracked seats (sixth row, center, thank you), pulled a half-full bottle of red wine from my backpack, and imagined I was an ancient Greek watching some passion play. It wasn’t difficult. All I had to do was look at my feet and the brown leather Greek sandals I had bought on Mykonos months earlier.

The wine and the hour made me drowzy, so I hiked to a cave in the uncarved stone at the base of the hill supporting the Acropolis, laid out my sleeping bag, took a candle and a book of poems from my backpack, and invited some great company over (Frost, Longfellow, Dickinson, et al) as I watched hot air balloons glowing against the night sky in the distance, at some other festival.

Finally, sleep took me until I was awakened again by a high-pitched squeal. I held my candle up to the sound and saw . . . bats. Dozens of them, clinging to the walls. Though the night was warm, I got inside my sleeping bag and zipped it over my head, hoping they wouldn’t try to bite me through it.

I awoke at dawn, and went out the way I came in. I was spotted by a guard from the top of the hill. He yelled but I just kept moving. Thus ended six months in Europe. I arrived home twenty pounds lighter, with less than a dollar of change in my pocket, but with a heart and soul filled to bursting, and a mind filled with dozens of new stories to tell my grandchildren. If I had spent that last fifteen dollars on a bed, I would have had nothing to write about. That old saying is true – “It’s better to wear out your shoes than your sheets.”

The Real Greece

They say it’s impossible to get bored in Mykonos, one of the world’s great crossroads, but I did. The constant hubbub of cafes and discos had finally worn me out. I wanted to see the real Greece. I wanted to look behind the stage prepared for tourists like me. I didn’t want to be just another sunburned fun-seeker collecting hangovers and notches on a bedpost. I wanted to slow down and feel my short existence in an ancient place. I didn’t know if I would ever return. I wanted a real moment or two to stand out above the typical version of Greece most travelers experience.

So one night I picked a direction and started walking, away from the noise, into the interior. The streets of Mykonos, like many Greek villages, have no pattern. They were built this way intentionally to confuse invading pirates and enemy armies. The village of Thira on the island of Santorini is probably the best example of this.

The villagers would hide in doorways and windows with clubs and knives and slaughter the disoriented attackers as they passed. Now the labyrinthine streets confuse only tourists. After a half hour of wandering, I was lost but didn’t care. I was nervous but at least I felt alive again, out of the tepid bath of familiarity.

It was quiet for a long time as I passed apartments and the occasional shuttered cafe, then I started to hear music. I walked toward it. The sound of bouzouki’s and mandolins became clearer but not the source, until I came to a sunken doorway. Nobody was outside. I touched the handle. I wasn’t sure if it was a private house or a public bar. “I didn’t travel thousands of miles to be timid,” I thought. “What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll get thrown out.”

I opened the door and saw a very small room, but it was a bar and cafe. I walked in and sat at the nearest table.

The room was filled with the mingled aromas of cigarette smoke, retsina wine, lamb and duck. Five men played vigorously and twenty or so others sang and clapped. A few took notice of me but most were too enraptured by the music to care about the outsider in their midst. A man I would later come to know as the owner walked to my table, looked at me very seriously, and waited for me to order. Wanting to earn the space I was using, I ordered a glass of retsina. He walked away, came back with a glass and, in a somber tone, said, “Welcome. Enjoy.” I had not yet earned his trust.

I watched and listened for an hour as the men did what they had clearly done for decades. They were masters of their instruments but most probably had never signed a recording contract.

Separated by language, the key that unlocks everything, I was unable to communicate with them, but the great gift and joy of that night, aside from the music, were the subtle looks and smiles the musicians and locals occasionally gave me. The bar owner refilled my glass without keeping track and became more friendly as time passed and he saw how much I was enjoying hearing his friends play.

 

I wish now that I would have snuck a photo or two but I didn’t take a single photo of the musicians for the same reason I started walking away from the crowd earlier – I was tired of feeling like a gawking tourist. I wanted something personal, sacred, real.

I stayed until they all went home, and shook hands with many of them as I was leaving. A few even hugged me, perhaps because they knew I didn’t find their secret hideaway to take photos of them and brag to friends back home. They knew I didn’t want to make an exhibit of them on some apartment wall. I’ve never even written about that night until now, twenty years later. They accepted me because they knew I was there to find the heart of Greece, and I did. And as usual, it was delivered to me by the two greatest forces that ever brought people of different cultures together – music and kindness.

 

Greek Island (travel poem)

Since there’s still some time left to travel this summer, here’s something that will hopefully inspire you to (as Jimmy Stewart said in It’s A Wonderful Life) “shake the dust of this sleepy, little town off your boots and see the world!”

I lived on the Greek island of Santorini one summer many years ago and have dreamed of returning ever since. Here’s a poem about my happy memories of that time, and an homage to Greece and the Greek people. I hope you enjoy it. Opa!

Greek Island

Raven hair falling across the pillow.
Denim hanging over a wooden chair.
Half-written poems litter the table.
The village is dancing, everywhere.

This frenetic crossroads of the world,
bursting with life, is heaven to me.
So many people I haven’t met yet!
So many places I’ve yet to see!

The wind is cool but the sun is rising.
Bikes are waiting, tickets to anywhere.
We’ll ride this morning through the hills
then relax in the sand without a care.

Tropical oils are carried by ancient winds
as life-loving hedonists deepen their tans.
A girl weaves bright threads into your hair.
A radio plays melodies from faraway lands.

I dive from a cliff into the bright blue Aegean
and return to you, fresh as a newborn child.
We lie together on rocks ’til we’re golden brown,
then rush back home to heed the call of the wild.

On the way, a smiling man sells us homemade red wine
as a spectacular sunset ends one more perfect day.
The yellow lights of the village flicker and twinkle
inviting everyone to come and eat, dance and play.

What else could we need in life? What else but this?
Reveling in all that it is to be human and young.
How many live lifetimes never knowing this feeling?
How many die with their sweetest songs unsung?

So come with me, now – not tomorrow or “someday”.
Right now! Pack your bags. We’re leaving tonight.
The wide world is throbbing outside our windows.
It’s time to do EVERYTHING we said that we might!

Mark Rickerby
(c) 1999