by EJ Knapp
“Yeah. You know, go up there and just tell them to give them back or else.”
“You Americans” he said, shaking his head. “Force is the only thing you know. He who has the biggest gun wins, is that it? Well, it doesn’t work that way. In case you hadn’t noticed, Greece and Britain are on the same team. Even if we had the military strength to challenge Britain, we would not. Issues of this nature are handled diplomatically, not militarily.”
“Well, your diplomacy doesn’t seem to be getting you anywhere,” I said. I tore a chunk of bread from the basket and dipped it into a bowl of tzatziki. The yogurt was tart, the garlic strong. Gerasimos uncapped another beer. “Maybe you could just hire somebody to steal them or something,” I continued.
“Steal them!” he shouted, nearly dropping the just opened bottle in his lap. Several people at other tables glanced over at us. “Steal them,” he said again, leaning toward me, his voice lowered. “Are you taking drugs? Do you have any idea what the Parthenon Marbles comprise?”
I sighed. I’d heard an accounting of the Marbles so often over the last year I knew the inventory by heart. “The British Museum has fifteen metopes, fifty-six panels from the frieze, and seventeen pedimental statues,” I recited. “They have one of the columns from the Erechtheion and one of the ladies from the Porch of the Maidens.”
“The Caryatid,” he whispered, staring past my shoulder into some distant place where the Maidens were once again united. His eyes refocused and he said, “And you think someone could just walk in there and haul all that away? You’ve been reading too much science fiction. Even if they could get past the security, how would they do it? Beam it aboard the Enterprise?”
“Okay, okay, I admit it would be almost impossible ...”
“Not almost, my friend. Totally!”
“Okay. But what if, just for the sake of argument, mind you … what if they, you know … just sort of showed up one day?”
“Showed up?” He took a sip of beer and set the bottle on the table.
“Yeah,” I continued. “Like, someone goes to open up the Acropolis one morning and there are a couple of trucks out there and inside, are the Marbles. What do you think would happen? Would you just give them back?”
“The idea is preposterous,” he said, waving his hand in the air as though brushing away a mosquito.
“Okay. Preposterous. But go with me here. I’m just curious. What would the government do? Would there be a fight? Or would the Greeks just capitulate and return them to the British?”
“Over my dead body,” he roared and once again disturbed the patrons at the other tables.
“So you would fight to keep them?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair and began to rub his lower lip with his finger.
“They, the Marbles, show up at the Acropolis,” he mused.
“Or somewhere in Athens,” I said. “Back in Greece, anyway.”
He thought a moment longer; the tip of his finger moved to the dimple in his chin. “I suppose,” he said at last, “there would be those who would want, or feel threatened enough, to give them back. The diplomatic pressure would be intense.”
“Would there be those who would fight to keep them here?” I asked.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yes. Yes there would be. I, for one. If the Marbles were to find their way home again … yes … I would fight to keep them here. To hell with the British, the Marbles belong to Greece!”
This was the moment. What would be the point of stealing the Marbles if it was a sure bet they’d be returned in the end? Gerasimos was the key to that question. I had learned early on in our friendship that he had a real hard-on for them. His great-great-grandfather had been conscripted by the Turks who had ‘given’ the Parthenon Marbles to Lord Elgin at the turn of the nineteenth century. Gerasimos had been weaned on the stories of the sacred shrine’s desecration, passed down from one generation to the next. He had a passion for the Marbles that rivaled Melina Mercouri’s and though not the Minister himself – as she had been – he did hold an elevated position in the Ministry of Culture. If the Marbles were to suddenly appear outside the Acropolis, the Ministry of Culture would surely be one of the government agencies involved in what to do with them. I was hoping Gerasimos had enough power and influence, that he would be able to persuade the powers that be to keep them in Greece.
I leaned forward, hesitant to voice the all-important question. “Do you have that kind of power, Gerasimos? To keep them here?”
“I don’t know,” Gerasimos said after a long silence. “There are many who think as I do: that the Marbles belong here. I believe I carry enough influence in the government to pull together a coalition: one at least as strong as any coalition in a position to send them back. It would be a fight, to be sure. The British would not be happy … and they are a powerful neighbor to provoke.”
“So, you would fight to keep them,” I said.
“Yes. I would do everything in my power to keep the Marbles in Greece. But,” he said, reaching for his Spaten, “this is all quite hypothetical. A fascinating mind game, perhaps; surely a gratifying thought. But, nevertheless, impossible.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re probably right. Still, it sure would be entertaining to watch.”
“You are bored my friend,” he said with a wry smile. He tipped his beer back and took a long drink. “I think you need a woman to share your bed.”
About The Author
EJ Knapp was born during a thunderstorm in Detroit, Michigan, several years before the Motor City discovered fins. Raised in a working-class, blue-collar neighborhood, he morphed into the stereotypical hoodlum a teenager growing up on the west side of Detroit was expected to be. Dropping out of high school at sixteen, he hit the road in his 1960 Chevy and has, in one way or another, been rolling down that road ever since.
He has published numerous short stories in various on-line magazines, most of which are no longer in existence. He insists this is not his fault. He is the author of Stealing The Marbles and Meter Maids Eat Their Young. He is also the author of the short story collection Thief and Other Love Stories and a non-fiction work, Secrets of the Great Golden Gate Bridge.
He and his numerous critters are back on the west side Detroit, a mere 8 blocks from where he grew up. He spends his time writing and fixing up an old house he bought for a ridiculously small amount of cash.
Table of Contents
News Never Sleeps
Meter Maids Eat Their Young
Vamps On Bikes
Like A Bad Penny
They Call Me Teller
Several Bricks Short Of A Full Load
Tossing Catnip Bags At Kitty Ghosts
Does Zappa Really Do Your Hair?
Anything But Simple
Department Of Parking Enforcement
Hock It To Me
Chics Dig Guys who Pawn
Citizens Against Repressive Parking Enforcement
Why Parking Meters Should Be Banned
Nickles And Dimes And Quarters, Oh My!
Department Of Parking Extortion
A Complex And Difficult Ethical Conundrum
I Know Why The Bluebird Suffocates
A Ride On The Carousel
In The Robyn Zone
Torquemada Slept Here
Follow The Money
Where Teller Fears To Tread
False Evidence Appearing Real
My Baby She Sent Me A Letter
I Don’t Make Love To Boys
Never Trust The Machine
Disaster, Seconds Away
I Wear My Sunglasses At Night
Thus Spake Darth Vader
Devil In A Blue Mercedes
Getting Old Sucks
Luddite
A Perfect Hiding Place
Hinky Is As Hinky Does
And In That Maze There Be Dragons
Attack Cats
Clueless Is A Dangerous Place To B
e
Today Is The Day
Not So Public
A Softer Gig For Mercenaries
The Miasma Of A Sick Ghost
More Nefarious By The Moment
Mutt Minus Jeff
The Mangler Revealed Maybe
An Empty Newsroom Is A Sad Place
No More The Always Happy Rafe
I’m Not Your Fucking Messenger Boy
Like A Frog In Heat
Riot In The Streets
Anonymity No More
The Two Foot Drop
New Uses For A Keyboard
Gotta Go, Gotta Go!
The Bitch Is Back
When Pigs Fly
Onward Into The Fog
Preview: Stealing The Marbles by EJ Knapp
