Forfucksake Sam

Sam couldn't remember exactly when he was renamed Forfucksake Sam but it seemed now to be a constant prefix for everyone in the kitchen who spoke to him.

“Forfucksake Sam, get those dishes washed we going down on the Titanic here!”

Or when the manager shouted, “Forfucksake Sam, we need those bins emptied and cleaned pronto!”

Even when being kind, the chef would say

“Forfucksake Sam, there’s a burger for your lunch on the counter.”

Sam grew to ignore the implied insult and just treated it as a title of sorts.  It was bloody hard being a kitchen porter and physically it pushed him to limits that were way beyond name-calling.  Standing at a station washing dishes for eight hours made his backache until his arm muscles grew strong enough to cope.  Having his hands in soapy water so long had caused eczema and it wouldn’t clear.  His doctor warned him that it would be a chronic condition if he didn’t stop.  His fingers were like huge red inflated sausages with dry skin flaking off all over. 

When he examined them at night and covered them in cortisone cream they seemed not to belong to him at all.  They gave the impression of strange appendages that had been grafted on along with the title Forfucksake.  Some shifts he would find himself holding his mouth in a peculiar way, off to one side and twisted shut.  As if there were words he wanted to shout but had to hold him in at all costs by this pursed contortion.  He passed the floor manager screaming at a waitress on the stairway, and as the manager screamed abuse the waitress cried, head bowed weeping huge monstrous tears over a face young and raw like juicy meat.  Sam had wanted to intervene but passed saying nothing, this, like the deformed hands and his title Forfucksake, was another symptom of his new persona.  

At odd moments he found himself examining himself when shaving as if to try and find the person he was before this killing year in the hotel as a kitchen porter.  When he looked in his eyes he saw a broken figure looking back, weary and watchful for the next unexpected deformity to appear, mentally or physically.  He was watchful over himself and others.  You had to be in the kitchen, there was hot oil, burning gas hobs and perhaps more dangerous than all, the cleaning fluid.  To clean the deep fryers you had to use almost neat acid and it got everywhere.  Even his lungs seemed filled with the toxic stuff after a long shift-scrapping gunk from deep within the bowels of the machine.  Some nights he coughed long and hard and wondered if the lining of his lungs matched his grotesque fingers. 

But he liked his fellow workers.  They were an odd bunch but real.  The alcoholic cleaner from Albania, the Afghan chef, missing an ear, the Philippino waiter who minced into the kitchen swinging in time with the music.  The laughter was constant in between the shouting and Forfucksake Sam knew that what you saw was what you got.  In the relentless work load of the kitchen there was no energy for fabrication or pretence.  You worked until you dropped, you could not maintain anything under veils of restraint and tack.  It felt raw but genuine.  When the load was quiet, a rare event, they’d put the music on and each would do a small gig at their station in time to the music.  A moment of abandonment and celebration of life.  They would give each other advice and Sam grew used to “Forfucksake Sam, this is no life, you need to get the hell out of here!”  He saw evidence of kindness too, Forfucksake Sam give me the other handle of that, you’ll break your back!”  It seemed that words mattered not a jot.  Deeds counted and when your arms ached like pulled teeth all became clear.  People are not what they say, thought Sam, they are what they do.  Of every second of every day they show you what they are made of.  Forfucksake Sam realised that even his title had been earned on this odd battlefield of a kitchen.  

Corridor and playground conversations

The PE teacher at my son’s school in Greece was going through a rough time.  Every break time he would tell my son another installment of the bitter divorce he was going through.  It was a kind of debriefing and my nine-year-old son drank in the whole sorry tale.  How love can turn to hate.  What women can say and do to make your life miserable. 
How betrayal colours not just how you see the world but even yourself.  Custody battles, court hearings, his hatred for his in-laws, this plot was as twisted as any soap opera.  My son loved it and looked forward to the next installment.  Being new to the school and a foreigner my son was lonely and having these conversations let him see that suffering was universal not just his own lot in life.  It came at exactly the right time and I hope on some level having a listening ear helped Mr Anastasis too.

As one of my sons, Lewis, walked along a school corridor a heavy set teacher, middle-aged and built like a barn, no neck, half shaven with a smoker’s hack stopped him and said,

“Never long for any day, any moment but this day and this time.  Enjoy this second.  Remember this and you will have a happy life!”

Decades later Lewis, as best man, shared this with wisdom at his brother’s wedding and I feel grateful to this insight from an unlikely source.

Burning Shoes and Stuff

There was a young bored sports teacher covering a class for a colleague in Rhodes, Greece.  He noticed some loose threads on his trainers while he sat cross-legged.  He tried pulling them loose but they were made of tough nylon reluctant to be parted from his shoe.  Inspired he pulled out his cigarette lighter and burned it off in a flash.  Turning his attention to his other trainer he repeated his earlier success.  Unfortunately, in his eagerness to complete the task he managed to set fire to the material and the shoe began to burn.  He used the class register to beat the flames out while my son sat mesmerised by this unexpected entertainment in his classroom.

We had a chemistry teacher we nicknamed ‘Sexy Sam’.  In the sad cruel ways of teenagers he was as far from sexy as we could imagine.  The ironic title stuck and spread.  The class tell tale after some months squealed to the teacher his new name.  For weeks after we endured the nauseating spectacle of a preening ‘Sexy Sam’ convinced he was the object of longing to the upper sixth.  He made renewed efforts to live up to his heady title and began wearing lurid silk shirts and skintight trousers.  He was renamed ‘Seedy Sam’ and held this title for ten years.  Teenagers hold and perpetuate grudges big time!

Like sea water they aid healing

Today my son, Daniel went swimming off the coast near our flat in Malta.  I watched frankly worried from the shore.  I dislike big waves when swimming.  Instead of feeling you are deciding your direction and pace in the water a greater force dictates, unseen with considerable power.  I wonder is it the lack of control or lack of power over this medium that disturbs.  My son has no such qualms and will do his swim sun, rain or hail.  After a day working indoors he is longing for the freedom of the waves and sea.  For many, the daily swim almost acts as a form of necessary therapy for body, spirit and mind.  There may be even some anecdotal evidence for this.

It is said, “Navy SEALS even say that if they have a scrape or cut, they know that being in the sea water will clean them up and speed up the healing process.”

Ancient Egyptians apparently, used salt water for stomach ulcers and external skin injuries.  Of course there is also Hippocrates from 460 BC – c. 370 BC who was a strong believer in salt water’s usefulness…

“Hippocrates, also known as Father of Medicine, concocted multiple cures using saltwater to heal cuts, scrapes, and even more serious skin injuries. He also used saltwater for internal problems, such as ulcers of the mouth or stomach. Hippocrates became interested in exploring the healing powers of saline after he observed how quickly fishermen’s hands and other minor skin injuries healed after exposure to seawater.”

“The Romans treated stomach ulcers and digestive problems with the solution by preparing drinks for their patients. They also made ointments to treat skin injuries, and had patients bathe in the solution to clear up skin diseases and combat itching and inflammation...effectively recommending saltwater as a primary medicinal for skin care and common skin problems.”

I don’t know if is true but I remember being told Alexander the Great urged his wounded solders to bath in the sea and dry in the sun to heal wounds.  Given these days were all long before antibiotics the sea was probably a reasonable option if you had an open wound, ripe for infection.

World War aircraft crash victims who went down in the sea strangely healed better than burn victims on land.  It is not just humans who have benefited from the magic of water treatments.  Hydrotherapy is used in veterinary clinics up and down the country where it allows animals, especially post operative, to strengthen muscles when weight bearing is too much.

Perhaps there is something deep in our psychic about being from the sea originally?  After all, our ancestors crept ashore millions of years ago before evolving into land animals.  Who knows, but I do love water enough to feel genuinely horrified when adults announce they cannot swim.  It feels so unfair that they have missed out on this delightful therapeutic experience.

My son is talking to a Greek man on the rocks with his two small daughters playing at his side.  All my sons speak Greek with a distinctive Rhodes island twang, as they were brought up there, and it is a very strong dialect indeed.   The man seems overjoyed to find a native Greek speaker on a Maltese shore so far from home and they rattle away their own language.  

He tells Daniel all about his life.  Working in a small family owned business for decades.  Of how he met and married a tourist. Then he spoke of the dreadful economic situation in Greece at present that saw him lose his business and turn his home into a liability rather than an asset.  Of his separation from his wife.  Then he holds up his hands asking,

“What did I do wrong?  I couldn't have worked any harder. I never cheated anyone.  I love my family more than my life!”

He stops and stares at the sea shaking his head at the mystery of it all.  Then he continues,

“It's wreaking even village life in Greece, everyone is having to leave to work abroad, to earn money.  Only the old are left, alone.  It is all changing.”

He describes in fast Greek, how he works in Germany and Malta, wherever a job comes up.  Desperate to make progress but aware that he is barely afloat financially these days.  He says. 

“  I had my own business in Greece and was good at it.  I made something good of my life.  I did, I really did.”

Then he turns his palms heavenward and explains,

“Now, I try and get hotel jobs, any jobs.  Just any work to support my family.  I’m not giving up, but I do want to understand what happened.”

They talk for an hour of politics, world affairs, Greek village life (which they both adore) football and even Greek history and language.  His two small daughters, half German and half Greek, speak perfect Greek and tell Daniel stories they know by heart.  The tales of heroes and villains and great deeds from Greek mythology, as their father smiles proudly.

Then as they part Kostas, hugs Daniel to his chest as you would a dear brother and wishes both of us well.  There is a sweetness about Greeks that takes the breath away when they open their heart to you.  Even in their pain, you somehow gain.  Like sea water they aid healing.