He never did take off his hat

In my childhood in Chicago, Gypsies were the people who lived in store fronts and hung sheets in the display windows for privacy. They told fortunes, and you had to be desperate to go and knock on the window or door of a Gypsy "tent" and ask for an oracle, since (believe it or not) fortune-telling for money was illegal in those days. I don't ever remember seeing Gypsy children.

In Portland, I met the Gypsies. They are likeable folk, and the years between childhood and manhood having passed through the marches of Hippiedom, for me there was no strangeness in dealing with or seeing them.

They have a local hierarchy. The "king of the Gypsies" lives on a large suburban estate on the east side of town in a rambling ranch house surrounded by immaculate white corral fencing, and there are cast lions on either side of the driveway entrance. My godmother, who is a real estate professional, knows the king (or knew him, I heard he recently passed away, and I'm not sure who his successor is), and many other gypsies. They tend to interface more with our women than with us men, except in the case of an incident I will now relate.

One day a late middle aged gypsy gentleman waltzed into Aghía Triás church after liturgy had started, like most of us do. He was wearing a floppy hat hung with pins, had on a nice Gypsy sport jacket with a clutch of numerous heavy occult and Christian trinkets and baubles suspended against his chest between its lapels. He gamboled down the middle aisle, which none of us would do, and found a seat right in the center of the sanctuary, grinning broadly as he looked about him in an outgoing manner.

Communion time finally came, and I wondered what he would do.

As the usher invited the people in his pew to enter the communion line that forms in center aisle, surprisingly he left his place and stepped right in line, grinning and flirting with the children and babies like a clown. I was far enough back to where I never even got into the line while he approached Father Elias (eternal be his memory) holding the Communion cup and spoon.

As the Gypsy came face to face with Father Elias, there was a distinct pause, and you could see that Father was questioning him. (Communion is only for the Orthodox, and a stranger has to identify himself to the priest in order to receive communion.) After the brief interruption, it looked like Father Elias gave the Gypsy communion, and the man walked off, forgetting to pick up a chunk of antídoron (the bread of fellowship we all take after receiving communion) as he walked back. (Gypsies are sometimes Orthodox.)

Smiling now more broadly than ever, and even chortling audibly to himself as he flashed happy eyes at everyone he passed on the side aisle, he finally came to my row, though I was standing in the middle, not the end, of the pew. At the end, however, stood a very handsome Greek-American man groomed and dressed in Country Western style, complete with gleaming cowboy boots, someone whom I knew slightly, but a very private kind of guy and perhaps a little older than me.

As the Gypsy came up to him, he suddenly turned aside toward my friend, grabbed him in an irresistible bear hug, and planted a big, luscious kiss on his cheek, let him go briefly, gave him a mighty friendly handshake, and then continued on his way down the side aisle, and out the door.

I looked back over my shoulder to see where he went. Still smiling and congratulating the people standing around in the narthex by brusquely shaking their hands, he passed out of view, out the door and into the street.

He never did take off his hat.