Judge's remarks:
      Hello, Massage was the best of the fifteen stories submitted. Ordinarily, its great length alone – 12,000 words – would have disqualified it, but Tuchkov’s pace, an easy, consistent trot, makes all those words easy going.
       Besides its effortless, yet always discernable style, what set Hello, Massage apart from the other stories was its penetrating, sympathetic portrayal of a unique milieu. The story is the grappling of the ambivalent individual, the classic outsider, Dinca, the hero of Hello, Massage, with that milieu.  
 
 

                                      Hello, Massage
                                        by Vasil Tuchkov
 
        Her head in his hands like a buoy. Loosened and floating in total surrender. It knows what to expect, it has absolute faith in the hands that guide it. Not hands but waves. Strong but gentle, they steer the head, rearrange its structure, look for cracks in its foundation. When a crack is found it is loud and sudden, like a twig snapping. And she moans. The sound equally belongs to fright and happiness.
        His hands - livewire that moves down her shoulders; thumbs like spikes, pressing into the sides of her spine, drawing circles. Then he slides back, goes for the base of her head. Her skin crumples under his fingers like an oversized swimming hat.
        “Wunderbar.” – she whispers, and the waves take turn to repeat it; like animals that try to speak, the foam of effort on their lips. 
        He is used to it by now. Does not smile back, does not even look down.
        Just stares beyond the sea, past her damp hairs – discolored seaweed on the bone of an ancient skeleton. His hands do the rest. Muscle memory, the way, he imagines, painters doodle napkins while they wait on their coffee.
        Other days he gave more effort. After all, she was his best customer – the Swiss woman with the arthritis. The banker’s widow. The watchmaker’s wife. The chocolate empire heiress… Whatever she was. He couldn’t understand her but even if he could, he wouldn’t ask. Communication between them moved in signals, a pain-and-relief Morse, triggered by his fingertips.
        And then the hush of a euro bill, slipped half-way in his swimsuit, to the side of his waist, a stripper’s tip.
        He didn’t mind. The bill was usually a fifty, which meant he didn’t have to work for the rest of the day. Still, he did.
        An Olympic gigolo, you make me proud – coach Mihai’s voice would creep on him but who cared what an old communist would say if he saw him.
        There was something else, too. Beyond the tips and regular work. He felt like he was doing her a deed of good, charity, almost. A healer’s responsibility.
        In her late sixties, this was likely the closest physical contact with a man in her life. A young man, too. He was her beach crush, and it made him feel important. She would not cheat on him, let someone else work on her back. She was loyal.
        Sometimes he just sat there, watching her sunbed from a distance, as the competition rolled by, offered and got turned down. She saved herself for him. Some days he would even stall, let her miss him. Build the tension.
        She hadn’t asked for more than a full-body rub yet. If she did, he was not sure what he’d do. Make her vacation memorable? Ask her to marry him? Fly away with her over the Mont Blanc, and then what… wait? Let time take care of her? He lacked the patience for that game. Nevertheless enjoyed the speculation.
        But today he is even more impatient. His fingers rush through the routine, driven by the throttle inside him; flames of anger at his tips. He is ready to get paid and then deal with the other situation.
        He tries to hide it. Pretend he loves his work on her. But other impulses occupy his hands.
        His hands are ready for payback. His knuckles demand blood.
        Factors mix in. Like the cloud of flies hovering above his head, he fails to ignore. That, and the twitch in his hands, sporadic and uncontrollable, as if stung by a stingray. It is gone before he knows it, no trace of pain or stiffness. Like a reflex, almost. Twenty minutes nothing, then BOOM – a shiver. Electricity through his nerves.
        It was no coincidence. Started after that one day. Messed him up, they had, he just knew it. Evil hands had rewired him. He’d pay them a visit soon. Break those hands. Once he was done with the Swiss lady. Soon…
        “10 minutes?” – she says, which meant 10 more minutes, an announcement that usually made him happy but not today.
        “Why so grim, Dinca?”- he tells himself in Romanian, as sweat bags over his bushy Balkan eyebrows; she does not respond but he senses she enjoys the sound of his voice, the Transylvanian carve to his word; her back tells him of every emotion that runs through her. – “Everything goes by plan. Better, even. You have already saved more money than you thought you would in three months. A month or two more, and you can go back home. Victorious. Pay up. Get back on your feet. Show the coach. Show `em all. Or maybe even stay, marry the Swiss mummy. Be the chocolate king, wear a Rolex. Then go back and show `em real good. See, Dinca, for once life can be good to you, too. Then why so grim, Dinca? Remember two months ago?”
        Of late he had developed the habit of talking to himself. Shortly after one of those crisp moments in life when you realize you are your only friend.
         “Just two months ago. Don’t you forget it, Dinca”.
        He keeps rubbing her flesh away, motivation rising in him, as he reminisces on what he’d come from and where he’d gotten to. The session suffers interruptions only when he slaps around the flies, waving his meaty oily hand like a bear chasing bees from their honey.
        The mountainous background beyond the beach is baked red in the afternoon sun, its lonely peak rising up like a volcano; raw beauty that only the island of Crete knows.
        The summer before, his first time on the island, had left a feeling of something unfinished. Perhaps it was the last piece of peace Dinca had tasted before the year to come turned out a nightmare.
         “Hello, massage.” A low nasal tone that drags the words through the sludge of a sewer pipe, and ends in the mouth of a cat in heat. How it rang in Dinca’s ears.
        The first time, he heard it sweating on a sunbed, a Piña colada in one hand, his girlfriend’s foot in the other.
        The girlfriend had deformed feet from wearing nothing but high heels and demanded the squeeze countless times a day, while she narrated: Yes, Max, and Now the other one, Max, and Bravo, Max, you have the golden hands. And even though his first name was Maximillian, he went by his surname – Dinca. Just how it went, since forever. Since the sports school.
        It did strike a chord of irritation in him, the way she said Max (like the name of some number-punching shmuck behind glasses and hair parted in the middle; a “nice guy”; a dud) but not as much as Hello, massage rubbed him. Light years away from it.
        Hello, massage, said the Filipino woman again, next to his sunbed this time. She carried the bag of aroma therapy underarm, and waved that laminated brochure in his face; one side displayed various tariffs for various massages – the plain rubs as low as 10 euro, the special ones - up to 40; the back side of the flyer portrayed some eastern acupuncture-nerve-center-Reiki-mumbo-jumbo graphics in color.
        Hello, massage. A Teenage-Mutant-Turtle-Ninja grin under her baseball cap, and no other reaction. She belonged to no age, neither young nor old.
        Dinca drew loud from the straw in the Piña colada. Shook head in silent refusal. Same as he had done every day of the past week.
        He squeezed the girlfriend’s foot harder, when she attempted contact with the masseuse, cutting her sentence midway. 
        The Asian woman moved further down the beach, snaking between sunbeds and umbrellas, scanning for bodies and calling out Hello, Massage, like a retard siren. The smile never fell, as if surgically stretched permanent; a frozen Kabuki mask dancing in the sun.
        “Golden hands, eh? Ready to throw me away just like that?” – he’d said to the girlfriend, ice in his mouth, doing the math in his head of how much euros Hello, massage makes in a day.
        “Maybe you should give it a try, Max. Kill the competition, steal the clienteleeee… Ah!” – she moaned, as he put her big toe in his iced mouth.
        To his surprise, there was not one but three Vietnamese women, or Filipinos or whatever look-alikes they were. Split to cover more ground, they worked Agapi Beach end-to-end, the medium-sized Laguna in Heraklion, Crete; pressing on the backs and feet of primarily Germans and Russians - hard-to-spot-against-the-sand piles of flesh, low on melanin, high on alcohol. 
        In fairness to his memory, Dinca had to go even further back to the day he first set foot on Agapi beach.
        The emerald waters of the Aegean Sea – emerald and azure holding hands over a clear bottom that is knee-deep for hundreds of meters in. Reed umbrellas and wooden shacks along the coast, not too many people, no loud music or machine roar. So different from the fuel mazut spills, dead seagulls, nightclubs and party debris on his hometown beaches. He felt as if he was in the past, before tourism had become an industry.
        Sunset. Silhouettes of gulls, taking wing for the brace of the rocky background that makes Crete different from any other Greek island. At the very end of the beach stood a power plant, with three chimneys, red and white striped candy canes. Even the factory’s fumes came out white and clear, as if in accordance with the ecosystem.
        Eyes closed, he breathed, took it all in.
        To Dinca, in this faraway place, six hours on boat from Africa, everything aligned in symmetry.
        Until the noise ruptured the scene. A long and steady burp.
        Dinca turned expecting a fat Greek “malaka” but saw two women sitting on a sunbed, and no one else. The women were dressed and had slanted eyes under the hats, munched on Gyros, and took turns to burp loud and proud. No shame in their eyes, part of their culture, or just their disgusting personas, Dinca could not decide.
        Yep, still planet Earth.  – he’d smiled to himself and went for a swim.
        Swimming. A thing he couldn’t live without, one of the last true freedoms left to a man. He liked to say he swam because he couldn’t fly.
        “Oreo.” – Yani said after swallowing an olive-oil soaked calamari, waving at the seashore view from his porch.  
        “Oreo. Orreoo!” – Dinca’s mouth on repeat at Yani’s table; little as it was, what Dinca knew in a language, Dinca announced with confidence and twist of tongue; within their shared linguistic scope, he and Yani had two poles of communication - everything they approved of was Oreo – “ good”, everything they didn’t was Malaka, or wanker/fagot, which Dinca never failed to express along with his jerking fist in the air.
        Yani was the man the girlfriend’s mother lived with, after divorcing the girlfriend’s father; Yani was a tanned local widower who at 72 looked younger than Dinca’s father at 57. Yani swam a mile a day, practically bathed in olive oil, and never had more than a sip or two of Ouzo.
        In his youth, Yani built houses and hotels. With no help or education, he’d made a little fortune, and used it to rise his wife and son each a house, his daughter one too, and even a house for the granddaughters. The man was an ant that never stops.
        When his wife died, Yani wrote off his own house and two cars to the children; though they let him live out his days in the house, they rarely visited after the inheritance had been settled.
        Yani hardly seemed rattled about it, calm to the bone, it was as if he’d cut a deal with time – given up on all earthly possessions in exchange for longevity and health.
        Nowadays Yani drove around the island in a rattled Daewoo, and collected shells and stones – day by day adding hand-made decoration to his house, not his own anymore. Never stopping regardless of history, gratitude or result. It seemed like the man found his rest in activity. A Zen master you are, Dinca wanted to tell him but instead shook his head and said Oreo; a single word could mean a lot between people who naturally share a mutual understanding.
        “When I grow up I want to be Yani! Tell him! Tell him! Oreo, oreo!” – Dinca exclaimed, his mouth stuffed with calamari and octopus, urging the girlfriend’s mother to translate his words to the Cretan but the girlfriend bored with it, translated a word or two.
        Zen master or not, Dinca knew he could not be like Yani. He knew he couldn’t give up on his dreams before he had had even the chance to achieve them. It was like thinking about children before having any. Make it first, then consider giving it away. All he had at this point, was an idea, and the matches to light it on fire.
        The last time Dinca saw Yani, he worked on a gazebo in his backyard, arranging a pebble mosaic along the roof, as if it were Lego. Dinca helped with all that needed heavy lifting.
        “Oreo.” – Yani concluded at the end of the day; he smiled and looked at the roof falling apart because of the weak cement mix, and winked at Dinca, who wanted to say Malaka, to point that it was ruined, a day gone for nothing but sensed that it didn’t matter; it was about the work, not the result. 
        When Dinca and the girlfriend went back to Romania, things started taking a different turn.
        For a time it was all good. Dinca was charged with enthusiasm, setting in motion the passion project he had planned for nearly a year. It took all the savings he had harvested breathing the sweat of his clients as a personal trainer. He partnered with an old mate from the sports school he’d not seen for years, and in February finally opened The 8-Ball House – a pool and snooker bar with a neon sign above the entrance that even blinked – just how Dinca had imagined it. The joint also offered darts, air-hockey and the Indiana Jones pinball. But Dinca’s pride was the Jukebox – delivered in a container all the way from New Jersey, like the ones in American flicks from the 80s. He didn’t have much ear for music but felt that a place like The 8-Ball House just wasn’t the real deal without one.
        They leased all the equipment, down to the last spoon. Put in the down payment, and cut the line at the opening party with a pair of silver scissors. Adrian, the partner, injected his part in hard cash.
        The guys from the sports school showed up every night of the first month, drinking, hitting pool, watching football, and it felt not like work but a high school reunion. A lot of the guys ran tabs but it was all good, they were family, as the partner said.
        The sports school was an army of its own, the foundation of Dinca’s character, even though he passed for a slacker in the eyes of his teachers.
        As a lad, he first picked up water polo but in the higher grades moved to sculling.
        He was the type of man who could hold his breath for five minutes, no sweat. Each day, he had seven meals, and emptied his bowel on an average of three times.
        Did a hundred pushups before breakfast.
        Did forty chin-ups before every meal.
        His peers called him the Orca. And he swam like one.
        He could row for hours on without a break. His heart was a pumping dynamo.
        “You my best rower, Dinca, and you could become something.” – coach Mihai would tell him, as Dinca rowed in the seat up front, puffing and gasping, moving the kayak along the Danube on his own; the coach - smoking, chewing gum, and slapping the back of his neck every now and then until his hand went numb – “But you won’t become something, Dinca. You’ll most likely be nothing. You know why, Dinca? Ah… Dinca-Dinca… Because you are lazy as shit, and you’re pussy crazed! Broads, Dinca, they are the end of every man’s ambition. Broads are the end…”
        Mihai was a beast of a coach at school. But he went home to a 30 years marriage; he was pussy-whipped by a wife and three daughters, and all the guys knew it. Precisely why Dinca didn’t care too much for the coach’s disappointment when he first cut down on training and diets, then dropped his rowing career altogether.
        The 8-Ball-House was in close proximity to Mamaya Beach, the hottest location on the coastline if you wanted to show off your tan under the beat of never-ending electronic music.
        “Adie, listen. We have to make a plan about the payments. Set up a schedule.” – Dinca told his partner at a club’s entrance, lasers seeking them from the inside like a fishnet – “Get up early. Maybe organize some snooker tournaments, set money away for a prize, create awareness… P-ee., A--RR… it’s called.”
        “Tomorrow, Orca! Tomorrow we take over the world, amigo! Rocky style! Raging Bull style! Rambo style! Tomorrow we take it over. Tonight, we drink. Drink and fuck!
        Adie shoved the whisky glass in Dinca’s mouth so hard that his teeth clinked against the glass. Minutes later Dinca rode the wave, and hours later he couldn’t feel his nose anymore, wondered what would happen if he punched it.
        At the end of their nights, usually afternoons a day or two later, Adie got off at the brothel stating something like “I feel like reading poetry to a harlot”. Dinca got off at his girlfriend’s place; he’d been squatting it lately.
        “Business, baby…” – Dinca told the girlfriend and collapsed, deaf to her screams, his massive body - a numb punching bag for her tiny fists. 
        Adie was a daddy’s son. His father was in politics, even though it was never clear if he was officially listed, and which party he belonged to.
        Adie used to be on the rowing team. He was an even bigger slacker than Dinca but also lacked his talent and stamina. Nobody gave him shit for it because of his father, and his mellow nature. Adie was a friend of everybody.
        He treated his friends lavishly, and even their friends.
        The only times Dinca saw Adie bitter was in the morning, when the cocaine ran out but it usually only lasted for the time of a phone call.
        He was close with every DJ, even the international guests.
        He popped pills like they were candy.
        He was the Jesus of nightlife.
        Dinca was at the pool bar as soon as he rose in the morning, he thought of nothing else but the 8-Ball-House. Adie would show up in the evening and crack a joke, and Dinca would give him the silent treatment until the first row of shots aligned on the bar. It was all good, sloppy but good. They were a team. Looked out for each other.
        The last time Dinca saw Adie was to drop him off at the brothel after seventeen hours of jumping to robotic signals at that Dutch DJ’s gig.
        Scrawny hairs, chemical sweat, and coin-size pupils rode the backseat of the cab.
        - “Mihai should see us now. Pride of the team! First… ROW… Boys!” – Dinca laughed, his voice rang metallic in his ears.
        “Fuck the old fart and that shadow of a dress over him! Fuck the sports school! I swim with the Orca!“ – Adie said.
        They cracked themselves up and Adie got out, dusted his clothes and looked at Dinca seriously, like he had a business meeting to attend.
        “I feel like having a conversation with a lady.”
        He winked at Dinca, and Dinca winked back. He knew that Adie was in no shape for romance, and would probably really end up paying for a conversation with a stranger, he was that bird.
        It was the day after he and Dinca got the same tattoo - The 8-ball House in medieval lettering over the right pectoral.
        The same morning, the brothel was raided for licensing problems, or not paying the right police station, or just the competition paying more. Adie got caught in the quagmire and failed to bribe his way out. He was charged with possession; Romanian law came down hard on cocaine.
        “Do you know who my father is? What’s your name? Give me your district number! See you tomorrow, buddy!” – Dinca imagined Adie wriggling in the hands of the officers, his eyes on strobe-mode, powder and blood at his nostrils, as they cuffed him away, kicks and fists to the kidneys on the way.
        It wasn’t Adie’s first time, either. But it was the first one he didn’t come clean out of. His father had just had it, and even though his record would hardly be tainted, Adie’s support was pulled like a carpet under his feet. The father’s carpet, per se, now scrubbed clean of his own acidic semen.
        The last thing Dinca heard was that Adie was in rehab, somewhere in Spain, living in a commune.
        All of Adie’s numbers were down, yet Dinca kept ringing and ringing late at night, flat on his back over the snooker table, way after closing hour. The green felt beneath him was soft but stung like grinded glass on a torture bed, as the operator sang in his ear that no such number existed. 
        Dinca pulled himself together, and worked twice as hard on the bar.
        He never slept. He never ate. He never trained.
        For the first time in his life he noticed a tube of flesh loosen around his stomach.
        His mother got sick. His father went mad. Or madder.
        Luck comes in streaks, good or bad. 
        But banks are no suckers for sap stories.
        Suddenly all the guys from the sports school he went for help to, turned out either broke or wanted the whole pie. Some offered to buy it off. Make Dinca an employee of his own dream, now their property. Sure, why not, Dinca told them, he’d just have to burn it down first but only after they paid their tab.
        In order to feed the banks, he pawned, and took credit from pawnshops. The pawnshops of his former peers, letting him borrow at a lower juice. Soon he was feeding them too. 
        The dawn of the nineties in Romania, after communist leader Ceausescu and his family were publicly executed that one Christmas, became stepping stone for many. The transitional time opened up opportunities for the wise-guy. Most of his pals from the sports school turn out criminals, a few starved as coaches, and some multi-tasked on both fronts. It was the most what the sports school could offer: testosterone and discipline, killer training from dusk to down, humiliation and abuse at every given opportunity, towel fights and knuckles in the face, forced comradery that lasted beyond the limits of time and law. It offered a lot.  “You are a unit, soldiers at sea. Men of honor and responsibility, to me, to yourself, and to your country.” – coach Mihai growled over his steaming thermos – a waning balance of black tea and cognac, as he rocked in kayak, while they rowed – “I’m only kidding. You are the scum on the bottom of my thirty-year old toilet. Calling you shit would be a lie… Shits are like newborn babies next to you. Every one of you is a corpse of a shit. A dead shit, is what you are. The traces of feces rotted away by time and a million flushes. Are we even moving? Faster, you dead shits!” 
        Fertilizer, was indeed what was left of some of the guys, going for a run of the quick bucks. Others, were still around, driving the equivalent of a hundred average salaries on wheels, through the ruins of communism, another dead shit that was hard to wipe. But though Dinca cared little about crossing the law, he preferred to walk its line like a tightrope artist, in mid-air balance over trouble and merit. He loved his comfort too much to fall into either side. He was just too smart to be that dumb.
        Or maybe it was the other way around, he thought when the bank came for the snooker tables. Dinca studied the pale circles on the floor where the tables’ legs had been, they reminded him of those alien crop field circles in conspiracy magazines. How and Why, seem to be the universal questions.
        Soon the bank would take the rest, and Dinca would officially receive the title of bankruptcy.
        His debts were not unbeatable, a couple of grand here and there, to the right and wrong people. He would pay them back, all of them, he knew. But he was not starting over, no more personal coaching in the air-stuffed gym, no more sweat-bathing.
        And then the girlfriend thing happened. That didn’t help, either.
        Dinca needed to breathe. To breathe and to swim, swim away.
        Before he left The 8-ball House and Romania’s seaside altogether, he broke the glass of the jukebox with a snooker cue. Keep Me Hanging On was playing when wood and glass collided.
        For the first time in years, he borrowed money from his parents. Had to beg his crazy father because his mother was too sick to be bothered.
        He cried that night for the first time in years. He felt like walking over to coach Mihai’s door, ringing the bell hard, then when he opens – just stand there, before the man who’d made him a rock, and just cry, let him see what a failure he was, prove him right. And when he asks him, Why you standing there crying, you pussy? - tell him - Because I’m gay, coach. I’m a faggot and you made me.
        Instead, he just punched the bag for some time, then the wall, and finally spat on the mirror. He then ate burgers to a state of stupor, and fell asleep.
        The next day he felt fine. Desperation turned to motivation, an inbuilt mechanism from the years of training; he knew no other way of function. 
        Dinca arrived in Crete after fourteen hours on a bus, and twelve more on a ferryboat. His ass was gone, numbed off completely; his legs felt like they started at his neck. He had one hundred and thirty five euro on him and he was rich.
        He checked into a hostel, and hit the beach right away. On the way he stopped at a supermarket and bought a bottle of Johnson & Johnson baby oil.
        The sands were on fire but he wore sandals. Started at the bottom of the beach and worked his way all the way to the other side.
        And naturally, the Vietcong was there, too. The same(looking) three women under hats, divided evenly along the coast, Hello, massage like a chant.
        They noticed him right away. A variable moving through their order. An outsider in their territory. He didn’t have the tourist look, and they didn’t know what to make of him yet.
        The straw hat lay shadow over Dinca’s eyes as he walked – a gull’s feather in its brim, towel over his shoulder, oil in one hand, and the laminated brochure in the other. The day he left hometown, he’d gone to a printing house with photos of himself and a disk with images from the Internet – masseuses on scenic backgrounds. “I want my head on their bodies. And buff em’ up a bit, so they look like me.” – he’d told the guy. The result was a slightly retarded-looking collage but Dinca wrinkled the laminate in all the funny spots, and it came out decent. A logo with a black and a white hand, encased like the In and Yang, stood above the lettering Golden Hands Massage.
        The back of the brochure listed four different massages from 10 to 35 euro. His prices undermined the market, and his hands were strong; stronger was only his determination.
        So at the end of the day, when he left the beach empty-handed, the blow to his ego had him planning to go drown himself. People had looked at him like a beggar, worse even, they didn’t take him professionally, thought he was some beach player looking for an easy lay. Never before had he received so many NOs, especially from women, usually he just had to flash one of his big smiles.
        Just to be sure he still had it, he practiced smiling in front of the mirror until his cheeks hurt. Blue eyes surrounded by dark circles, surrounded by freckles, over an anvil jaw. Boyish blond hair still in the right places. And an even smile that sliced his face in half. He still had it.
        It was rejection that pumped him. That, and beating the competition.
        The next day he started with a heavy workout. Swam 5km in one go. Just beyond the second buoy, Dinca stopped and floated in place for a moment, waving his feet like propellers but barely, as the salt refused to sink his body. The sun on his face, and the waves whispering a thousand stories at once. He gazed upon the colorful mosaic of the distant beach, held his breath, his heart racing. There was the thought again. It crept on him sometimes, when he swam for longer.
        The question, and then the fear. One after the other.
        Why leave the place where he felt complete, where he was part of everything? Why go back to where he was apart from anything?
        The fear made him swim twice as hard towards the beach; panic like acid through his muscles.
        Not of the sea, never of the sea. The fear of a lack of an answer.
        He was a man not big on contemplation. Swimming in his own mind scared him more than the sea.
        When he made it back to the sands, it took him no more than a dozen breaths to continue his exercise routine. Seaweed weaved into his hair, red eyes, a running nose, and his skin shining like a snake’s. Beachheads observed him like a creature from the deep blue.
        For the rest of the morning, he built up his strength at a beach playground. The children imitated him in his exercise. After the sit-ups, he left the yellow slide shining of sweat, and it had the kids going down faster. 
        He felt strong. Ready.
        He was determined to take over the market. So he started adapting to the well-tested techniques. Sucked up the ego and proceeded. 
        The first time he said Hello, massage his lips went numb. He’d eaten jam with a dead hornet inside the jar.
        That day he had his first customer – a young Scottish girl, white and puffy as dough, with unshaven armpits, and a stiff shoulder. The action took place on a flattened sunbed. Dinca worked on her for a straight hour, even though she paid for half that time. In the end she did not tip him extra but the next day agreed to another session. As his muscles jumped and twisted over her body, her girlfriends in the next sunbeds, glanced and giggled, like she had taken a gigolo.
        Dinca didn’t mind. And they always blushed when he held their eyes in his own long enough. He felt his strength returning. He tasted hope.
        He worked out twice a day – at sunrise and after sundown. With the intensity of preparing for a competition.
        He watched what he ate. He swam to the second buoy and back. He dived into deep waters, and avoided deep thoughts.
        This was not his sea, and he took time in getting to know it, like discovering a lover. The Aegean was more salty than the Black Sea. The salt was so much it kept his body floating when he was still, refused to drown him. He could lay in the water for hours on, use it for a sunbed, even sit in it. It made his eyes sting like it was lemon juice. 
        When he swam, there was nothing else. He didn’t exist. The molecules in his body dissolved into the sea, and his mind spread over the waves like butter. He was no longer big and heavy, he could be anywhere at once, his speed dictated by the wind. He was a wave.
        “Megalò… Megalò!” – the Greek woman would say underneath him, and he learned “Megalò” meant “big” but he wasn’t sure if she meant him, or his John; he didn’t ask.
        He now slept at her place: massaged tourists during the day, worked on her at nights. Dinca was not too fond of the Greek woman, as she was nationally large and hairy for his taste but he paid no rent, and she cooked for him.
        In time he moved around different beds and houses, and hotel rooms; as many different languages as the views from the balconies. He didn’t have to speak any of them, he just had to smile. A smile that said: I’m from Eastern Europe, where men are savages and take what they want because we can.
        At first work was slow but not long after he started to build a customer base. His clients grew exponentially. On a good day he made between fifty and seventy euro. It was a start.
        And that was even before he met the Swiss woman. 
        He never really studied massage; like any natural, had no diploma to show for.
        At the sports school, Coach Mihai would perform a recovering massage on his athletes after training, and Dinca picked right up on it. Most of all he was intrigued by the neck and back crack, the way the bones snapped as they fell into place. His giant hands and rope-thick fingers helped, they were made to squash flesh and move muscle. Once the girlfriend had measured them, and the distance from his pinky to his thumb was 27 cm.
        Naturally, his business ate from someone else’s business. During a session, while he cracked a neck, he would feel a stare on his back. The Asian women, still in the haze, watching him from a distance. Sentries. 
        He had nothing against Asians, or any other peoples for that matter, except maybe Bulgarians, and of course, Gypsies. But these women were just mongrels. And they still did more massages than him, still beat him to it. Something in the prejudice that Asians give great massages, like it ran in their blood. Karate and massage. Rice and loud laughter. Programming. Labeling. It works.
        All in all, a Romanian muscleman on the beach just had less masseuse credibility.
        “Wherever you go, you always find an enemy. It’s in your nature, even when you were just a child. A magnet for conflict you are, boy!” – Dinca’s father used to say but what does a carpenter know about conflict, or ambition, for that matter?
        Hello, massage was the golden key. He had tried other pitch lines. Even used the thesaurus he brought from Romania – experimented with Good afternoon, would you like a massage? And Nice day for a massage? How about a relaxing massage? But the moneymaker remained one: Hello, massage. Nothing more to it, not even, Hello, massage! Or, Hello, massage?
        Magic spell words that made a tourist take you seriously, no questions asked, no doubt whatsoever. As if the hotels had it printed out in their room guides, right under the wireless password. 
        He started wearing a shirt, as he noticed guys would get jealous at the thought of him touching their women, and would rather choose the Vietcong then let a shirtless hunk oil them up.
        Mostly it was women he rubbed against but there were some men, as well. Once a German baldy seemed to enjoy it a little too much, panting and moaning and shivering, as Dinca pressed harder and harder, to the point of almost breaking his bones. The pain seemed to make him more aroused, and by the end Dinca could see his own reflection in the receded spot on the dome of his head, spit-shun from precipitation. Dinca scrubbed his hands with wet sand and gravel for ten minutes after that but the tip was worth it. “Money doesn’t smell. “ – his father would always finish the story of how in the 1st century, Emperor Vespasian told his inferiors when they protested against his tax on toilets.
        With his first savings Dinca bought a Suzuki scooter to roam the island, and service more beaches; He paid a 180 euro, after haggling for half an hour over 20 euro in Greek-English. It was a farted-out relic from the 80s, acid yellow, with no windshield, and a chewed seat – the upholstery coming out in sponges. It was perfect. Dinca had had a similar model as a boy, which he learned to fix himself; knew its hum by heart and how to make it sing.
        On the way to the beach he passed by Yani’s house. The placed seemed unchanged, except for the row of new tiles on the roof of the porch. They were painted blue.
        The porch was as he knew it – pearl-white painted wood, shells and plants, a Virgin Merry glass mural behind. He saw himself sitting there with Yani, sharing the string of his late misfortunes over Ouzo and calamari, a hundred Malaka-s to mouth until Yani nods and concludes that all is Oreo. That he is here and trouble is behind him. That a ruined roof is a blessing because it teaches you how to make it right next time. This and all the Cretan-Zen wisdom he had for him, compressed in a single Oreo.
        Dinca hesitated if he should ring the bell, say Hi. He wondered if Yani was still with the girlfriend’s mother. Wondered if Yani hadn’t died.
        He twisted the gas bar, and full throttle went the Suzuki. The scooter was toy-sized beneath him but it was fast, and made him feel like a kid.
        The chances of seeing the girlfriend’s mother were too high. Her or even worse. And as long as he didn’t know for sure, Yani would still be alive. Why ruin the perfect image of him and Yani on the porch? The cement had already dried.
        Sometimes he missed her, the girlfriend. Her deformed feet in his grip. The way she said Max.
        But mostly he regretted not kicking the shit out of his cousin – Octavian. Not wiping the floor with him, not caving his skull in with one good punch.
        And not for sleeping with his woman, not even for that. For not having the balls to tell him, tell him he had horns on his head. In Romania to have horns meant to be cuckolded, and that was no cousinly deed, Romanian or not. Dinca imagined the guys from the sports school chasing each other with a fist on the forehead, forefinger and pinky pointing up like the Heavy Metal sign. No longer the Orca but the Ox, they probably said when his name came up. 8-ball-horned Dinca.
        An Ox is a beast of burden. A proud one. You are more like blind mule. Doesn’t know where he’s going but doesn’t stop either. And you could have been a champion, if you were born with eyes. – coach Mihai would say with his imaginary voice still fresh in Dinca’s ears.
        He was pushing the Suzuki to its limits, flies squashing into his shades, the tire barking and flapping over the asphalt like a drunken seal. He didn’t slow down, if he wanted safety he’d buy a Vespa.
        Octavian got away easy not because of Dinca’s sense of mercy but because he got to Dinca’s mother first. Oh, how she begged and begged Dinca, how she made him swear, swear on her health that he would spare her nephew who was so sorry, and was an idiot and a gypsy but her nephew, nonetheless, her sister’s son, her and Dinca’s blood.
        Cowards move the world, they hold the power, Mama - Dinca sighed and kissed her hands, and she said something about taking the high road but he had stopped listening.
        Maybe the girlfriend was right to stop loving him, Dinca thought, or maybe she was just a treacherous skank. Either way, after Adie got sent away, Dinca had worked his pants off, and The 8-Ball House got all of his attention and most of his affection. When the girlfriend threatened to leave him he told her to fuck off. Keep telling your woman that over the months, and she won’t leave you, she’ll sleep with your cousin.
        Last Dinca heard she was pregnant from some German dentist.
        To make himself feel better, he stopped by the tourist-trap kiosk and picked himself a new pair of shades - the old ones now a graveyard for flies; he tossed them in the trash. It was the third pair he’d thrown thus far, as the vermin cloud refused to leave his presence.
        He sprayed repellent on himself in circular moves, like deodorant, and set foot for the beach. Nothing like the feeling of a first stride with new shades. Heads and bodies twisted over towels and sunbeds after him.
        He was lord of the backrub.
        A champion of the sands.
        And everyday he got better at it.
        By tradition, he fed the dogs at the beach, and they trailed after him like a gang as he entered the sands, his four-legged entourage. They even barked at the Hello, massage Vietcong.
        People started to greet him – the waiters and the beach bartenders, the lifeguards and the water facilities manager. Charm to his step. He was part of the team. 
        He cracked backs.
        Cracked necks.
        Rubbed feet.
        Cashed away paper in his water-proof neck-purse.
        Pressed thighs.
        Squeezed loins.
        Cashed away paper.
        Thumbed calves.
        Located shoulders.
        Cashed away.
        Slapped skin.
        Pinched fat.
        Penetrated a ginger German girl, with unshaved armpits, from behind in a changing booth.  
        Cashed.
        Breath. Hold. Let go. – Dinca told them as he lifted the victim from behind in his hands like a puppet, held them in an arm lock below the elbows, and squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, until the back sang its crackling song. Sunbathers around would get up from their towels to see where the sound came from.
        Head, please. Heavy on my hand. Like pillow. – Dinca said as the neck tilted, and the head rested in his pan-sized palm, his other palm at the back of the head. He always enjoyed the moment of pure eye terror, especially in the men, the silent question: did I make a mistake, before he twisted the skill diagonally, and the cervical vertebrae clacked in place like domino falling on fast-forward.
        Most were afraid of the neck crack but it was Dinca’s favorite technique. He gave the brave ones a discount, and after the cracking, massaged the eyelids and temples to ease the stress.
        Like new! – a man had said, and Thank you, doctor! – a woman had said.
        The smell of Johnson & Johnson walked with him. As hard as he tried, just couldn’t wash the oil off himself, even after he swam, and he swam after every massage. It was chronicle. And the flies… They just wouldn’t leave him wherever he went. In his room, newspaper in hand, Dinca would take care of them, have peace. But the moment stepped out, a buzzing cloud escorted him. Perhaps there was something sweet in the oil. However, Dinca was not the man who would spend money on a new oil because of a bunch of flies.
        His hands felt ever-greasy, too, even when they weren’t. But work was work and it filled him with joy. Flies or no flies. He was a healer. A professional. His debts - a mountain no more but a hill.
        When a member of the Hello, Massage trinity passed by, while he worked on a client, Dinca would sit up, smile and give them a senatorial wave.
        One day Dinca was walking back from the beach and a man accosted him in the driveway; stood in his way, arms crossed, face frowned like an ass. It happened by the tennis courts, and for some time Dinca and the man studied each other under the pounding of racquet against ball. And the buzz of the flies.
        Finally the man said something in Greek, pointing aggressively at the beach. Dinca caught only the word massage, went all smiles. The eyes were not slanted but Dinca was sure.
        You must be the Vietcong pimp, Dinca said in Romanian, the guy still blabbing in Greek.
        The pimp rocked a red fishnet tank top. Tattoos crawled out of all places imaginable. A stylized beard drew lines through his chin. His muscles bulged out in formations but Dinca knew body like a mechanic knows car; he knew those muscles were clothing, a steroid-and-fitness inflated jacket that served only to show off and weigh down.
        The guy made a demonstrative step forward.
        Dinca’s smile grew wider.
        The zip announced his fly open, his eyes still on the pimp.
        The man slowly lowered eyes, until they stopped at the hairy piece in Dinca’s hand. Then the eyes widened, as liquid gold arched forward. The pimp had to step back or risk the dignity of his sandaled feet.
        Hai, suge pula, Dinca said.
        Malaka, he might have also said.
        In the back the dogs started to bark, ran down their way.
        The man stood against Dinca a moment more, shaking head and mouthing curses and threats in Greek. Then turned around and left down the road, head still shaking, looking over his shoulder, making stops to spit at the dogs chasing him.
        Kittens, - Dinca said gazing the distance, - come down the seaside of Mamaya and play gangsters there. See what happens.
        One of the dogs, the black and white limping one, sniffed the ground around his urine. Then lifted leg and marked over Dinca’s mark. 
        The failed threat just might have worked to Dinca’s advantage. His long term plan was to get the Hello, massage women to work for him, become employees at Golden Hands Massage. He would project manage them, be their muscle and their daddy. For a fair percentage, of course. Now that they’d seen that their muscle was no good maybe they’d decide it was time to rebrand.
        Around the time he met the Swiss woman, Dinca had so many regulars he started turning offers down. The goal was to work several hours a day on a few whale clients like the Swiss woman, take the rest to focus on other means of income, maybe even explore the island.
        And then that one day came. He had just finished massaging the Swiss woman and his neck-purse was stuffed with dough. He rested on a sunbed, caked in sweat, sand in his ass, and elbow-deep in oil. If someone tells you massage is not an exercise, tell them they never tried sport.  
        The woman approached him from behind, and caught him off guard.
        Hello, Massage, loud and sleazy, to make him jump in his seat.
        It was the one with the orange t-shirt and the pink-laced fedora; he could only tell them apart by the clothes but they always wore the same. Her grin locked him down, and he thought her teeth were unnaturally small, like a doll’s, they had a plastic glow to them.
        Hello, massage, she said again, like a lullaby toy.
        Not unless it’s a happy ending massage, - Dinca regained his composure, and spoke in Romanian but she caught on the happy ending part and produced a goofy chuckle.
        C’mon, big man. Big man need massage, too. Hard work and stress. Bad for body. Bad for work. Stay young. Big man. Massage…. – she jabbered in a squeaky voice, the tail end of her words swerving away.
        Before he knew it, the woman was on his back, massaging his neck with both hands, and still unable to embrace it. He tried to protest, stood up with her on his back but she was a leech, wouldn’t let go, rubbing away in mid-air. What she did to him was not half bad, so he sat down and agreed.
        The flies around were more than ever, as if doubled by the presence of another creature of oil.
        Soon the Vietnamese had him flat-out, facing the sunbed, as she swam across his muscled back. He felt like moaning but kept his cool, not a peep out of him.
        The truth was his body responded to her moves, it felt like a ball of cables untying. She lacked the grip and strength of his technique but was methodical, and her fingers sank deep into his flesh, as if performing a needleless acupuncture. The last massage he’d had, was years ago, from coach Mihai, and it felt more like a beating; certainly left the marks of one.
        This was different, slow and smooth but sharp at points, so sharp it felt as if she squeezed in through his skin pores, unveiled his muscles and sinews, and touched his organs.
        He decided to let go and enjoy it. It was a break from their war – a tiny peace treaty under the palm trees. A massage, nothing more, a full-body therapy for the healer, himself.
        Nobody died of one massage.
        What is name? – she whispered in his ear; her English is horrible, thought Dinca, who also thought his own English had come a long way over the last months.
        However, he did not have a ready answer and would not give his real name to the enemy just like that, after one massage.
        The air vibrated with insects. Tickle marked their landing.
        Alfonse, he said and immediately felt stupid, comparing himself with Capone… He wanted to sound important and powerful. After all, he did have an operation of sorts in mind.
        The woman started to count his ribs, then drummed her scissor-crossed forefingers against him, up and down, up and down, as if he were a musical instrument.
        Perhaps the Vietcong had discussed matters, decided the pimp could not protect them as good as Dinca’s. Came to pay their dues; sought better muscle and brain behind their operation. He was the new King of the Hill. The thought filled him with plans for expansion of the beach massage services on the island. Of course, they would have to rebrand, and wear uniforms, nothing fancy – white shirts and hats – the Golden Hands Massage logo embroidered in gold above the heart.  And no more Hello, massage, no more chasing customers down the beach. Perhaps a few massage pavilions lain across the sands, professional tables and all, some low-volume eastern music, some incense…
        He sensed his erection pushing against the sunbed textile, and got up, pushed her away in shame; sat cross-legged, the towel in his lap. This had gone too far. They needed to respect him if they were to work for him.
        Good. – he spat lip-tight. Then reached into his purse, passed twenty euro her way. More later. -  he added.
        But she wouldn’t take it. Bonus, she said. Free, she said. But Dinca knew nothing was for free, especially in a tourist town. The last thing he wanted was owing favors to his future subordinates.
        He got up, went behind the Asian woman, two heads shorter then him, and laid his hands on her shoulders. He felt he could crush her in one squeeze. Why had he been that hostile from the start? These women bent up and down the sunbeds the whole season, heatstroke always around the corner, hunchbacks already forming from the constant leaning. Maybe they weren’t so bad. As long as they didn’t stand between him and his goal, he was willing to share the pie, cut them a good slice.
        He grew closer, as to squeeze her neck, and a wave of garlic hit his nose. Dinca tried breathing through the mouth and continued but her skin just felt strange in his hands – dry and oily in the same time, like an old parchment dipped in formaldehyde.
        He moved away, mumbled that she was fine, very healthy, and that he’ll see her and her friends tomorrow. Then left the beach.
        He despised the fact that his back felt a little too good, his feet – lighter at every next step. Her massage was Ok but not that good. Still, he wouldn’t let them touch the Swiss woman. 
        There was something different about her, the Swiss woman, something lady-like in her posture he respected. He respected it because, despite her obvious social position, she didn’t make him feel like a servant. When he massaged her, he felt chosen. Nothing wrong or dirty about it, a high-valued task he had to perform. Him against the arthritis. Him against the loneliness. He made it better, made her feel something, and was respected for it. When she spoke, her voice rang with gratitude. When he said something to her, she understood, she listened. Worlds aside, away from context, maybe they weren’t so different. The whale and the orca. 
        Late at night, he sat by the window, or on the balcony, sipped Ouzo, scanned the city. The white three-stories-at-most buildings reminded him of Beirut; the way he imagined a middle-eastern city. Palm trees and low stories, washed-off colors, and shrubbery. Something oriental definitely floated the air. He wondered if he really wanted to go back home… What the word home meant.
        Maybe if he stayed long enough, he would be like Yani. Make something of himself. Reach his dreams, then give up on the achievements, give away the possessions, live long and be truly free. But he couldn’t even think that way. Because all he had to his name was the name of a bankrupted company, a debt in the thousands, and a chest tattoo that made mirrors painful to look at.
Yes, a long way to reach Yani’s mentality. Until that day he had to charge through life.
        Crete was quieter than his image of a tourist island. As if the ancient land grew on visitors, calmed them down.
        The population shown in the full spectrum of color. Dinca had never seen so many black people at once. A rare sight back home. Africans, seeking a better life on the island; mostly women, tossing their spring-like electrified hairs, looking through the eyes of distant lands. The men went for trade, selling anything under the sun, or became guides. The women looked after old Greek women for a month’s pay, or turned tricks. Dinca had always wanted to sleep with an ebony queen, it was an exotic shot of absinth and rum, lit on fire. But he’d never paid for love… And why would he when he did most of the work, anyway? Maybe when he was Yani’s age, working on his own gazebo before he gives it away to his children; he’d sponsor a Nubian panther to bring him cold water in the afternoon, and then bathe her in milk.
        There were a lot of Romanian working girls, too but they interested Dinca even less. He stayed away from his kind. But trouble took many forms, and he couldn’t stay away from all of them.
        The boy was nervous. He came all the way to the sunbeds to call him. Kept talking in Greek, at the edge of his breath, pointing back to the parking lot. No more than twelve years old, he helped around the Agapi café. As he followed the boy, Dinca remembered he’d treated him to ice cream once.
        The rubber soles of their slippers smacked against the cement, as man and boy ran into the parking.
        Dinca pushed the boy forward, glancing at his watch. He had a scheduled session with the Swiss woman at six, and it was almost six. She was a client he never made wait; punctuality, Dinca imagined, would be law in Switzerland; her time, the one thing he couldn’t mess with, once the appointment was set it was set; and it wasn’t like her watch would run late.
        Once they made it, there was nothing wrong with the parking lot. A few cars and empty space. The empty space, precisely, had Dinca pushing new layers of sweat; bullets slid around his brows, fell into his eyes and stung, stung like Aegean seawater.
        Who did? Who! Say, boy! Who! – Dinca shook the boy, his shadow over the gutter like a scarecrow.
        The boy lifted hands, shook his head. His eyes filled with tears, what it took for Dinca to stop shaking him. A snot hung from his nostril like a jellyfish.
        He stroked the boy’s dark hair, looked down the ditch again.
        There, in a graveyard of shattered glass, mud, and decaying food, lay his Suziki. What was left of it, anyway. Just from this angle, Dinca knew the scooter was finished – the tank folded flat, the wheels bent in every angle; judging by the large tire marks, it was ran over by a truck or a tractor, and multiple times, too. The yellow skin of the paint had cracked in patches. Dinca felt like a dear friend lay there, dead in the gutter.
        He had stashed some money under the seat - the 130 euro from this morning’s work, he hadn’t wanted to carry with him to the beach – but there was no point in checking, surely that was gone, too. This was planned work. A message.
        The joke was on him. He’d laid his guard down, and the Vietcong had struck.
        He felt the boy pull at his arm. Using gestures, it drew invisible lines over his skin. Then pointed at Dinca’s 8-Ball-House tattoo.
        The pimp. There was a time to deal with him. But it wasn’t now.
        Don’t worry, be happy - Dinca quoted the song with a fake smile. He shoved ten euros into the boy’s shirt pocket but it happened again - his hand jumped; a spasm that made him get the pocket from the second try; that weird twitch, he’d had it all day.
        Then he ran, ran as fast as he could. In the rush of things, he’d forgotten the Swiss woman had set the appointment for another location – the beach in front of the Minoan hotel, several hundred meters away from his current position. He’d slacked because he relied on getting there in two minutes, on the back of his trusted Suzuki.
        No, you slacked because you are nothing – coach Mihai’s voice in his head.
        He hadn’t been feeling well all day; his back was stiff, and he’d just eaten. But he had to make it. He hadn’t worked that hard for nothing. Not again.  
        C’mon, Dinca, push it! What is that training any good for if you can’t run a few hundred meters! – he wheezed and accelerated, liquid jumping up and down his stomach.
        He was six minutes late for the session, when he placed hands on the back of the Swiss woman. Even if she noticed, she said nothing. But Dinca saw the skin-thin band and the obsidian dial of her watch, blinking at him from the top of her bag. 
        Traffic. – he’d said, tapped the bottle, dripped oil in his palm – Very bad.
        Danke… Thank you, deаr. – she said but he didn’t know what she was thanking him for.
        And there he is, self-reflecting and back again. Her head in his hands. Good old, Dinca. Where he’d come from, and where he’d gotten to. Sometimes, when he gave a massage, his own hands would hypnotize him. But focusing on the movements now hadn’t managed to wash away the anger. Maybe just a little.
        She always wore a one-piece polka dot swimsuit. Today the dots are red.
        The veins on her legs are lightning under rice-paper.
        He focuses on her head, works on the blood circulation, traces her skull’s outlines.
        He studies the creases in her skin, the plucked waning eyebrows, the flare of her nostrils. Faded beauty that had once blossomed.
        He tries to think of anything else but a broken scooter, a broken jukebox, a broken heart.
        He succeeds for a time. Then something catches his eye. A grin on legs, moving at a safe distance. Hello, massage, she says casually but her slanted eyes are locked on him. The same one that had given him the massage. The hand that made his back stiff. The hand that made him twitch.
        She knows he can’t touch her now, while he is with a client. His best client, nonetheless. His future corpse bride-to-be.
        Dinca mouths curses in Romanian in a soft voice. The best ones he knows. Things like: I’ll dry my underpants on your mother’s cross, and Your mother’s Christ, her Easter, too!  Romanians like to go all poetic when it comes to insults, never forget to include family and religion.
        The Swiss woman hums. I love your language, she says.
        Thankyouverymuch, he murmurs.
        The Vietcong keeps its distance.
        When the Asian is gone, Dinca’s blood boils under his skin. His breathing is like none the client’s ever heard from him. He can feel her body respond to the fast rhythm of his breathing.
        She whispers something long and tender.
        He oils her up some more.
        Head, please. Heavy on my hand. Like pillow. – Dinca repeats his lullaby, she knows it by heart, and before he finishes the sentence her head lies against his palm, no resistance whatsoever. In his hands, she existed to comply.
        Dinca stares into the sea but there is only a grinning sun-burnt Asian face (an amalgamation of three separate heads) before his eyes. Three wise monkeys: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
        Crack! The neck goes, rearranging the foundation of her head, shifting vertebrae in place. Left side – check. He rubs the neck to ease the stress of the cracking before he moves to its right side.
        There it was, history repeating itself. It wasn’t about the scooter, even though it would slow him down, demobilize him. It wasn’t even about the clients or the money. It was about history.
        He would not fail again, not at this child’s play, the simple job of a sweaty beach masseuse. If he couldn’t handle that, he couldn’t handle anything bigger. He would simply not be making it through the warm up, not to mention the battle that comes after. This job was meant to make him bulletproof, harden his skin, and prepare him for comeback.
        Dreams or no dreams, Maximillian Dinca would simply not allow to be beaten and outsmarted by three garlic-smelling Vietnamese women and their steroid pusillanimous pimp. He would not lose again.
        Relax, Dinca… It ain’t so bad… Just a battle lost, the war is yours. Think of the money you made… - he tells himself out loud.
        But the images kept rushing in and interfering with his cool. Somewhere at the edge of his mind, he acknowledges that he has left his hat behind hours ago, and has been exposed to the sun long enough for a heatstroke.
        His hands move over her on auto mode, detached from what went on inside him. His vision swims. He can almost see them, moving through the haze above the sands. The girlfriend, with a baby on arms; a boy with golden hair, giggling in the sun, his laughter like pouring marbles in a glass bowl. Beside them walks a man in a white gown, grinning. The dentist. His eyes are slanted.
        The three of them pass by Dinca and the Swiss woman, and the girlfriend recognizes him, stops by the sunbed. She smiles and whispers into the baby’s ear: See, Max, this could have been your daddy. But he grew horns, and turned into an ox. And oxen, sweetie, are losers by definition. They work long and hard but in the end someone else comes along and reaps the fruit of their efforts.
        His hand twitches, and the loud crack snaps him out of the daydream. He is not sure if he had spoken his command: Head, please. Heavy on my hand. Like pillow. But he probably had. And even if he hadn’t, the Swiss woman knew the drill, their communication needed no words. Both sides of the neck are now cracked. He continues in circular motions, spreads the stress evenly, like butter.
        The massage is near its end. He always gives her extra minutes. Extra effort and special care. Multi-folding her body, like a Swiss army knife. Anything for his new old bride to be…
        See, Dinca, not all is bad. Just a rough day. They can’t knock you down if you keep your humor. The best armor… Some sleep, then some good food, followed by a good swim… And you’re back on top of the wave’s crest. Then you deal with your enemies. Give the pimp something to remember you by. Get the Vietcong in line, make them beg to work for a Golden Hands opportunity… Life is your friend.
        It wasn’t all in vain, he did good work. The Swiss woman in in his hands was the living proof. So relaxed, her head floating in space like no bones held it together, smooth as cream, loose as a buoy.
        You fall asleep? – he smiles at her from above – You know I say no sleeping. Stay in the moment.
        Her eyes are closed, her cheeks ruddy, and a blissful half-smile over her lips, lightly cracked at the edges like bread crust.
        Oh, you sleep. Bad girl. Wake up.  – he laughs over her body - I have to carry you? No problem. I am strong.
        He shakes her more firmly. Her body, a slippery puppet with no strings attached.
        Uta. – he mutters her name – Uta?
        Then he feels around her neck for a pulse.
        Then he knows.
        Funny thing is, all stress leaves his body like water sliding down his skin. He watches his own movements from above.
        How he lays her down gently on the sunbed. How he spreads a towel over her warmed up body against the wind. Just as he’d done every day of the past two weeks.
        Her still warmed up body.
        How he talks nonsense over her.
        How he looks around, from the corner of his shades. A game of volleyball, some book readers, the rest getting up to leave with the sunset. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one calling out his name, no one pointing fingers. No lifeguards.
        He watches.
        How he caresses the Swiss woman’s back, tenderly.
        How he pulls out a euro bill from his own purse. Tucks it to the side of his swimsuit. Like a stripper.
        How he says same time tomorrow. Almost no accent to his English.
        How he walks away from the sunbed, towards the low-hung sunlight.
        No one sees him. He is invisible to the tourists, a piece of background moving in and out of the picture. 
        Only the other workers on the beach had the eyes to see him.
        The Vietcong woman, earlier.
        Check. Mate.  
        Everything has an end, Dinca, only a salami has two. – coach Mihai liked to say.
        Her neck, he thought. A stiffness without pain. He’d cured it forever. Just another Jukebox to break before he leaves.
        Dinca loses himself for some time, no recollection of his own position on the beach.
        He finds himself again, standing still against the sea; a monolith statue washed on the shore, dark and smooth, polished beyond any detail. His red swimsuit is the only contrast out of place.
        He notices something is missing. A presence. A disturbance. The flies have left. Probably gone off to gather around the Swiss lady. Or perhaps he was so far gone, even the flies would pass him. He felt transparent.
        He wonders what Adie is doing. Growing potatoes, or picking corn in an endless field, the sun’s very own backyard. New friends around him, no matter where he was.
        Dinca’s one true friend, his own body, had betrayed him. It felt like a stranger, that mountain of wiry flesh that encased him. He threw his thoughts into the sea but the tide kept pushing them back.
        The waves come and go. Leave foam thick as whip cream, on his toes, up to his ankles.
        A gang of children tears the frontline between him and the sea. Boys. They fall and get up. When they notice him, one says something about his muscles. Atlas, Atlas, another one says, he lifts an inflated ball over his head, pretends it’s heavy.
        Dinca tries to smile. Then notices the kids pointing at his swimsuit.
        He looks down and sees dark spots over the nylon fabric. Oil spills. Johnson & Johnson branded. Like he has ejaculated all over his pants.
        The children giggle and run off; looks over the shoulders, laughter growing bolder with distance.
        Dinca measures the sun. Thirty minutes till dusk, maybe less.
        In the back voices awaken. Screams.
        The factory chimneys puff shapes into the sky, a three-barrel cloud canon.
        Eyes closed, he breaths, takes it all in.
        “Good evening, old friend.”- he tells the sea, then slips out of the tainted swimsuit and runs into the water, the grace of a torpedo to him. The euro bill slips into the water, and the waves take it back, like change.
        He starts with the butterfly, jolts of adrenaline through his body he has to channel out before he can achieve a steady rhythm.
        He reaches past the first buoy.
        The water is salty as tears.
        By the second buoy he switches to freestyle.
        Suddenly the back stiffness is gone, as if a curse lifts from him.
        His moves are flawless, not a twitch. If only coach Mihai could see him now. Top shape stuff.
        The sea gets colder as he swims deeper and deeper in.
        His body is a dynamo that makes the water boil. His moves are perfect, surgical, as he slices the surface. His mind is gone.
        Now you are nothing, coach Mihai says.
        Finally he passes by the third and last buoy, and switches to breaststroke. From the coast, the floater appears as big as beach ball, up close it grows two meters in diameter.
        Dinca slaps it, as he passes that marker too, and continues beyond its frontier.
        As a child back home, he would swim in the Black Sea all the way to the third buoy and then to the barrels that floated by the ships and tankers. It was as far as he’d ever gone, the beach unrecognizable from the distance, like a view from an airplane, and he remembered all sorts of jelly fish and slimy seaweed stuck to the barrels.
        But now there are no barrels. There are no ships. Just the sea, stretching to the horizon – a buoy frontier on its own.
        He had heard the old stories, from back in the day, before the communist regime fell. Stories of desperate men, fed up with the status quo, swimming hundreds of miles across the Black Sea towards freedom, at night, with only a bicycle tire around their waist, a knife, and a few gold coins. Most were shot on sight but some made it. He could have been that man. It was in his blood.
        Heck, if they could do it, maybe he could swim all the way back home… Just swim long and steady, all the way to the Black Sea.
        Or towards the ocean. He would see how far he can go. He always wanted to test the limits of his endurance.
        Or swim to Africa. Libya was six hours away on a boat.
        He’d always wanted to see a giraffe. Always wanted to sleep with a black woman.
        The possibilities were endless. The sea, as big as his dreams.
        The trick was to swim. Swim till he could. Swim till he would. Swim like an orca. Be a wave. Become one with the dream.
        Swim.