what a fantastic goal!

There’s this guy. His name is Fotis but everyone calls him Borelli, because of the physical resemblance to Juan Jose Borelli, an Argentinean soccer player who played for Panathinaikos somewhere in the early to mid nineties. I don’t know how old he is, but if I were to make a lucky guess I’d say 35 the most but he could also be 28, as far as one can tell…
He is not the smartest or the cutest guy in the world. What he does for a living is to… take the movie prints from, let’s say, a distributor company’s storeroom to theatres all over the city. That’s what he does. Usually, he is late. But no sane person in the world could ever be angry with him – because he is a true misfit.
He’s got no insurance whatsoever. He doesn’t have a family. He obviously doesn’t have a girlfriend, I reckon. He doesn’t have a home – he lives in an attic, in one of the companies he works for. I have spotted him a couple of times. Never got the chance to talk to him, though…
…Until yesterday, when I bumped into him after 21.30, when I left the office to get a drink. He was holding a souvlaki and a glass of wine. I said hello. He recognized me, so we said a few words about prints, delays, film distributors and…. that was about it, actually. I mean, I couldn’t think of anything other to say, and he wasn’t much of a talker either, so…
Then he put his hand in his pocket and gave a five-euro note to the guy at the restaurant. And he replied: “Nah… u can’t possibly mean that. Take away your money, don’t be funny!” And Borelli seemed to have mixed feelings about that, sth combining gratitude and awkwardness. And he insisted: “Please, take it, the treat’s always on the house – it’s not fair. I HAVE to pay sometimes.”
But it was hopeless. No one could ever charge Borelli. You just have to see the way he smiles, whatever happens. Yeah, I guess you could say he’s a bit crazy. And, to be honest, he’s so poor, we cannot imagine how he spends his time when he’s not late at work…
Later on, I found out that everyone in the neighborhood loves Borelli. They give him food, clothes, whatever. But most of all, they pay attention to him… Because, last night, just before Borelli was about to leave, the guy who was up to his neck with orders, bills, souvlakia, French fries and stuff, said, “Hey Borelli, where are you going mate? You haven’t said a word to your friend!” [referring to himself]
Our hero smiled, as always, and said “I know, but I think today is a bad day for you. Too much work. You don’t want me to annoy you on top of all this, do you?”
I was stunned. The “strange”, “funny” guy was more discreet than anyone of us would ever be.
But the man who was sweating over the broiler really needed that talk. He wanted Borelli to have a conversation with him. Because Borelli is a nice guy. And he only means good, because he couldn’t ever understand how on earth he’d benefit from something bad that would happen to another person..
Now, how many people like that do you know?…
And, just for the record, the real Borelli was a hell of a midfielder…