Frank Georgalis – Writer

The Barefoot Evangelist, the Book. Part I

THE BAREFOOT EVANGELIST

At The Left Hand of God

The family breakfast

The silence of the darkness, the drenched feeling of the air, the lingering mist that crawled along the ground like a dense cloud of smoke and sorrow were destined to be related by a brotherly nature. That was what Erik Karas felt as he stood at the back door of a single family house with his face painted with grief, gazing far beyond the well illuminated garden unto the darkness ahead. He saw far off lights twinkling and dancing in the damp atmosphere.  The sparse sounds of the early birds awakening that showered the air, and the scanty light in the far low sky revealed the hour of the nearing dawn. He stood there and gazed vacantly ahead as if he were trying to gather some promises of new hope. Logically speaking no man in his right mind will stand at the back door of a house and stare at the chaos of life hidden in the dark beyond, unless he has lost his past. To a man, whose past is lost or ruined his thoughts are weighted by despair and remorse which presses on his heart, nothing can remove and all sound of joy or complacency is torture to him; solitude is only one consolation— deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

It is true that most people began life with benevolent intentions and are looking for the moment to put them to practice and make themselves useful and somebody happy. Sometimes in the process, beyond their power and control, they lose it all and now are exposed to all damps and dews of life.

It is clear though when a man who lost his past will find hard to find his future. It is not clear though whether it is better to stay put and rebuild the past or leave and look for a new life in the future. Erik Karas decided to leave everything behind and go and feel his way through the chaos, so he began to walk towards those flickering lights and quickly disappeared in the soft darkness. He walked on with the same unaltered look on his face. The grass was wet and the low places were filled with water. The damp breath of the wind was soothed languidly by, with a hollow moaning sound, but he rambled on, insensitive to its call. After a short while, rain began to pour and the wind became sharper and more piercing as if it were in a hurry to reach other distant lands. Eventually the birth of a new day glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects that looked dim and blurred in the darkness grew more defined and gradually were resolved into their familiar shapes as he came upon them, he then passed them by. He was staggering and creeping, almost unconsciously, with his head drooping on his breast now as if he were stricken with a good deal of sorrow as he was drawing space between himself and the house he had just left behind.

Police are after him

He suddenly heard sirens in the distance and police cars squealing their tires, human shouts of anxiety and anger, dogs barking with the sound of madness and fury; they were all coming from where he had left, and he now realized that it was a police pursuit for him. Looking back for a moment, he saw men silhouetted against the lights, climbing the fence of the field in which he was standing; dogs were running ahead of them, barking and looking for blood; his countenance had changed to thoughtfulness and concern. He knew it was his blood they sought. He dashed off at full speed, laying as much distance as the lord allowed between him and the pursuing team of angry men and fierce animals. That was the arm of the law, he thought, the real arm of the law with unyielding heart, strong legs, one-way narrow mind, unbending convictions and clenching teeth. The tireless animals and their ruthless masters were tightly focused on catching and grasping to unleash their pent up angers and frustrations on their prey

Erik hid in the stream and began to think

The man, Erik Karas darted to the left and stumbled in a swift running creek where he struggled, crawled, ran and swam in that cold, unkind body of water, hoping that the dogs might lose his tracks. Finally exhausted, he squeezed himself under a bush in the rushing stream of murky waters, He coiled and hid there panting and shivering, and to ease himself from some suffering, forced his mind to travel back to recall his resent past, and to try to make sense of what was taking place.

He thought for a moment that if he knew he was going to end up like that he would have garnished his life with more vises.

He began to put things together as he well remembered how it all started. He remembered, he laid his plans on the table and his wife Susan destroyed them to the point that they could never be mended again.

 

How did I get here

The June morning sun darted its beams reproachfully into the kitchen, he recalled, where three people sat at the table to eat breakfast. He, his wife Susan and their son Randy celebrated the end of the week with a hearty morning meal prepared by the wife. Mother and son sat and listened to interesting stories of by-gone days told by the man of the house with a touch of humor. Having spent the week performing difficult and boring tasks of an insurance salesman, he looked forward to sit and enjoy this ritual.  This morning, however he seemed restless; he rose from the table, walked to the opened kitchen window and stared at the

horizon.

 

Sometimes the apples don’t fall under the apple tree

Astakos, Greece                          “Where it all started from”

Although accustomed to her husband’s wandering spirit, Susan sensed something new brewing in his unpredictable and often changing moods. She had married him not for his wealth, which he never had much of, but for his good looks. She liked running her fingers through his thick curly hair and never tired of admiring his Grecian statue-like body, which he consciously kept in good form. From the first day she met him she was amused by his humor and enchanted by his impulsiveness; one minute he would be sitting at a café romancing a cup of coffee and suddenly he would insist on her going with him for a cup of Greek coffee several miles away.

He very well knew that his wife thought of him being a remarkable man, and his telling of stories to her about his mother country Greece, would appear to have infused a considerable portion of his restless and inquiring soul into her breast and to have awakened in her mind the insatiable thirst to hear more. It was obvious to her that although he had a sharp and quick mind, at times it went the wrong way.

His aspiration for success, inspired by his background, seemed, at times, as idle dreams to others, but to him it was a reality that instilled more than a little fear in Susan’s mind as to the ways her very intriguing man would go about achieving his goal. His parents were middle- aged when they immigrated to the United States with their three youngsters, two boys and a girl, aged fifteen to eleven. His father was his hero who, with sparse knowledge of the English language, little money and not a solid promise of security from anyone, left his friends, relatives and his beloved native land and ventured to a new land with the desire in his heart and the purpose in his mind of giving his children a chance to reach their potential.

The man knew and understood his father’s sacrifices and ambitions and as this spirit guided him, it also hindered him. He often appeared to be striving to realize his father’s dream and to be bigger than this giant of a man, his father.

He at times realized the classic Greek lesson of Alexander the Great, who begrudged his father for having so many triumphs that he left merely a few battles for his son to fight.

After his marriage to Susan, he carried the full load of providing for his family, which now grew to three with the arrival of their son Randy. Her husband, security, and Randy, now five years old, were Susan’s main concerns. Wealth and fame were beyond her thoughts and      imagination.

In their household was a deep running love, but they were not entirely happy and there was no cause for their unhappiness and his wife to weep. But why were those gentle beings at many times unhappy? They possessed a beautiful house, a delightful son, they had fire to warm them, they were dressed in excellent clothes; they enjoy one another’s company, and speech, interchanging each day looks of affection and kindness. What did her tears imply? Did they really express pain? It was eventually discovered that Erik’s dreams of becoming respectful and her insecurities were the cause for her tears. The child, Randy, listened intently but never stopped loving either one of them, as often revealed by his words and actions. Erik, with his devil-may-care attitude, a forever optimist, a spoiled husband, and vibrant and differently handsome man with great charm and intimidating charisma, occasionally would find comfort, peace and satisfaction in other women’s arms on temporary basis.

Susan was fairly convinced, by innumerable examples, that her husband loved her and cared for her and their child with all his heart and effort, so she refused to scrutinize his actions or look to find evidence of infidelity or immorality in him.

“Erik,” said Susan looking at him intently that June morning, “aren’t you going to eat your eggs?”

Erik turned and looked at Susan as if he were elsewhere attending to a different matter.  He walked back to the table slowly and sat on the chair without uttering a word.

“Go ahead and eat them. I cooked them just as you like them. It takes time and effort to cook, don’t let that be wasted.  They are getting cold,” remarked Susan, looking at him with an anticipating manner.

“I had another of those horrible dreams last night,” said Erik, looking away.

“Again? Let’s have it. You’ll feel better afterwards. You always do,” said Susan soothingly, reaching over and touching his hand.

“Tell us another war story, Daddy. I like to hear them,” said Randy, who was intently employed with his pleasing task of eating.

“Okay, Big Guy,” said Erik, caressing the little boy’s dark brown hair.

“But don’t say anything while your father is telling the story,” interjected Susan.

“Family traditional Saturday morning breakfast”

“I had a dream of the day my father was taken away by the Germans and my dream was almost as real as when it happened more than twenty five years ago,” said Erik. He then paused, considered, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took one or two short puffs, and in contemplation of what he was about to say, a painful smile mantled on his face.

He hadn’t forgotten the day his father was taken away by the German soldiers, but with the last night’s dream, his memory received a very disagreeable refresher on the subject.

“The entire population of the town, about two and half thousand,” started Erik, “were awaken early in the morning and escorted to the town’s main square where we were made to stand and face the big church that stood on the west side of the square. I remember the men were separated from the women and children, but holding tightly my father’s hand, I sneaked in the ranks with the men.  We were made to stand there in the hot July sun for many hours. That is funny,” Erik mumbled. “This has taken place many years ago and it comes to me as if it happened yesterday. Anyway,” he went on, “after a while I saw the German soldiers moving around hurriedly, as if something important were about to take place. Suddenly I saw a big army truck stopping between the church and the crowd and the soldiers began to unload machine guns; they were displayed in front of us facing the crowd.

“Upon this, the women burst into loud and dismal screaming, and rushing to gather their children, they flung their arms around them to preserve them from danger. I felt my father’s hand tighten around mine and I heard nothing but screams and confusion resounding from all sides.”

 

They were gathering them up for execution

“Eventually the screaming and the noise subsided and shortly thereafter I heard murmuring and whispering starting up in the crowd. I heard rumors told in low voices around me. One of the rumors I heard, while I was in the middle of the crowd of men, was that the Germans were going to execute us all like they had done in another town called Kalavrita on December the thirteenth of the past year 1943, when one thousand nine hundred and fifty-six teen-aged boys and men were put to death military execution style by machine gun fire purring into the crowd of all the males above fourteen, who were impounded and ordered to stand and wait for hot tea in the cold early morning of December. Eleven men survived the massacre and most of them were wounded.

 

Hearing that story told in freighting whispering sounds, didn’t affect me very much because I was holding onto my father’s hand and I felt that he wasn’t about to allow something like that to happen to us.”