*****
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| Hephaestus - God of Blacksmith's |
*****
***
Lucky’s school
schedule was the same as the Jim's shop hours: 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. An hour
for lunch, starting at noon – sometimes he’d eat at a restaurant with Jim,
sometimes on his own. And a half hour for an after-lunch nap.
In the early days – before Jim knew how Lucky would
behave around customers – he gave the boy a break from class when a buyer came
to the shop – strongly suggesting he visit certain people, like Mr. Socrates,
or the carpenter, Mr. Zeno, or the blacksmith, Mr. Thantos. Lucky usually
obeyed those suggestions, knowing very well that Jim would ask the men later if
Lucky had shown up; but mainly because the workshops were so interesting.
Later, he realized that’s Jim’s suggestions were all part of Lucky’s education
– always interesting and sometimes surprising.
The blacksmith, for example, practiced his craft the
same way his forefathers had. Mr. Thantos’ shop was right out of the Middle
Ages. There was a big forge and bellows and hammers and glowing metal. And he
struck long sparks when he beat the metal, his massive arms bunching and
lengthening as he hefted enormous hammers and tools with ease. Then he’d plunge
the tool – a rake head, or a long, curved harvesting scythe, or even the
hand-crafted parts of a truck – into a tempering mixture of water and oil.
Steam would hiss from the tempering pot, then Mr. Thantos would pull the object
out and stare at it critically. He’d nod, then jam it into the glowing coals of
the forge and shout at his apprentice to start pumping the bellows so he could
heat the thing all over again.
Lucky could imagine Mr. Thantos – or his ancestors -
making swords and armor for Richard The Lion Heart during the Crusades. He
shyly asked the blacksmith if this might be possible and to his disappointment,
Mr. Thantos said, no, his family was hiding in the mountains at that time.
Although most survived, some were captured and transported as slaves.
When he saw Lucky’s disappointment, he added,
"But this shop has always been a blacksmith shop. And a silversmith’s too.
Coins for the pope of Constantinople were once made here."
Then, one day, he told Lucky what it was to be a
blacksmith. Mr. Thantos had lunch brought in for the whole shop that day –
they’d just completed an important order – and invited Lucky to attend. So they
all sat around the glowing forge, shelling eggs, eating olives and spitting the
pits into the forge, tearing off bread and spreading it with cheese. The men
passed a skin of wine around, while Lucky drank a Coke.
After a bit of wine, Mr. Thantos became
philosophical, explaining how it was to be a man who created things from metal
and fire. When addressing the metal with the hammer, he said the first stroke
announced to the iron that it was about to hear a story. And that story would
forever be the metal’s personality. The second blow, Mr. Thantos claimed, set
the story’s scene. The third blow was the pronouncement – the fighting soul of
the metal being released from the ore of its birth to face the world. And the
bump, bump, bump of the reverberations, were the characters being driven into
the metal of the story to be frozen into eternity when Mr. Thantos plunged the
piece into the tempering pot of water and oil. And the steam, Mr. Thantos said
was the metal object’s soul, which rose up from the tempering pot to greet the heavens
with childlike freshness. Ancient ore transformed into wide-eyed youth.
This was the song – the legend - Mr. Thantos said,
that every blacksmith has composed since the first man struck hammer to metal.
Mr. Thantos was also anxious to point out that he was
a modern technician, not a man stuck in the past. He proudly displayed the one
20th Century machine he had in his shop – a heavy electric drill
that ran off a thick black power cord which stretched to a receptacle in the
ceiling light above. When he operated it, the single bulb went very dim, and
sometimes sparks shot ominously out of the jerry-rigged connection. But, Mr.
Thantos told Lucky it was well worth the danger. The drill not only cut hours
off certain jobs, but allowed him to accept work that he was previously
incapable of doing.
The carpentry shop of Mr. Zenos was just as
fascinating. Except here, not one single machine was modern, much less operated
by electricity. Everything was by hand. Mechanical tools ranged from miniscule
thumb drills for delicate joinings, to medium-sized screws made of wood and
metal, to heavy muscle-operated machines that bored holes with large burred
drills, or cut long pathways with a variety of sharp, curved knives. His lathes
ran off long leather belts that snaked from the gears of the lathe on the
ground floor, across several wheels and up into the attic. There, apprentices
with physiques like young Greek champions turned large wheels as steadily as an
electric machine could have done it, while Mr. Zenos applied different tools to
the revolving bars of wood to shape them to size, or to work in different
decorations and scrollwork.
Mr. Zenos had his own special glue that he said was a
family secret that went back hundreds of years. But unlike Mr. Socrates, he
made no familial claims to someone famous, like his namesake, Zenos, the great
Stoic philosopher of old. He also scoffed at Mr. Socrates’ glue. "For a
few years, maybe even fifty, it will hold," he said. "But after
that…" he spit into a pile of shaving… "it dissolves into dust."
He leaned closer to Lucky, lowering his voice. "Also, it is said that the
glue of Socrates attracts termites to eat the wood so repairs must be made at
great cost to the customer."
But, Mr. Zenos was most vocal about wood, or, more
precisely, the trees that produced the wood. He said that he was "a little
bit red," an admirer of Mr. Stalin, and so did not believe in God or
religion. There was no afterlife, he said, no heaven or hell. Except, of
course, for trees.
"I assure you, that all trees have souls, Mr.
Lucky," he said."
Then he displayed different types of wood –
sharp-scented pine from the Troodos forest, dark-smelling oak from the groves
near Paphos, perfumed cedar from the Lebanese village across from Limmasol, and
so on, including a plank of sandalwood from the high forests. He kept this
covered in oiled burlap and when he unwrapped the wood, Lucky thought he had
never smelled anything so wonderful.
He told Lucky the grains of wood he was observing,
were in fact, the memories of the tree. "Like in the phonograph record,
Mr. Lucky," he said, circling his fingers around the bole of a fresh cut
log, "these memories are spoken to carpenters like me."
Lucky was incredulous. Burying a smile to preserve
Mr. Zenos’ feelings he merely asked, "The wood talks to you?"
Mr. Zenos caught the doubt. He gave the boy a sharp
look. "Well, Mr. Lucky," he said, "perhaps you Americans are too
busy and important to hear about the wood."
Lucky felt foolish, chastened. Noting his
embarrassment, Mr. Zenos touched his shoulder gently and said, "Don’t be
so surprised at the nature of common things, Mr. Lucky. Especially when
observing trees. You know, a great tree, an ancient tree, can tell your
fortune. This is a fact. An old Greek told me so, and his ancestors were much
older than that fraud, Mr. Socrates. You must also realize that nearly all the
great trees in Cyprus were cut down by the Turks, who cruelly enslaved us, and
sold all the wood and the minerals on the island to the Syrians and the Persians,
and other people. And as a result of that, the forests of Cyprus are mostly
pine. Where you find the other wood – the hardwood – is where bribes were paid
by rich men to keep the trees. But it wasn’t for the usefulness of the trees
that they saved them, but because it made them feel important to be the only
one with such glorious possessions.
"However, if it is your fortune you want to
hear, Mr. Lucky, go find yourself an old tree. Wait for the wind, then listen
closely and the leaves will relate your heart’s desire and chart the journey
your soul must take from this life to the next."
NEXT: LUCKY IN FIVE LANGUAGES
LUCKY IN CYPRUS: IT'S A BOOK!
Here's where to get the paperback & Kindle editions worldwide:
Here's what readers say about Lucky In Cyprus:
- "Bravo, Allan! When I finished Lucky In Cyprus I wept." - Julie Mitchell, Hot Springs, Texas
- "Lucky In Cyprus brought back many memories... A wonderful book. So many shadows blown away!" - Freddy & Maureen Smart, Episkopi,Cyprus.
- "... (Reading) Lucky In Cyprus has been a humbling, haunting, sobering and enlightening experience..." - J.A. Locke, Bookloons.com
THE SPYMASTER'S DAUGHTER:
A new novel by Allan and his daughter, Susan
After laboring as a Doctors Without Borders physician in the teaming refugee camps and minefields of South Asia, Dr. Ann Donovan thought she'd seen Hell as close up as you can get. And as a fifth generation CIA brat, she thought she knew all there was to know about corruption and betrayal. But then her father - a legendary spymaster - shows up, with a ten-year-old boy in tow. A brother she never knew existed. Then in a few violent hours, her whole world is shattered, her father killed and she and her kid brother are one the run with hell hounds on their heels. They finally corner her in a clinic in Hawaii and then all the lies and treachery are revealed on one terrible, bloody storm ravaged night.
*****
Here's where you can buy it worldwide in both paperback and Kindle editions:
United Kingdom ...........................Spain
Also: NOOK BOOK. Plus ALL E-BOOK FLAVORS.
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
NOW AN AUDIOBOOK!
NOW AN AUDIOBOOK!
 |
Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969
|
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself.
*****
STEN #1: NOW IN SPANISH!
Diaspar Magazine - the best SF magazine in South America - is publishing the first novel in the Sten series in four episodes. Here are the links:
REMEMBER - IT'S FREE!
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