I waved with one hand, since the second was busy holding bags. It was a Tuesday afternoon and I had just made it for some shopping downtown. The taxi stopped a few feet away from me and I squeezed myself in. What hit me first was a peculiar smell of fruity hair gel mixed with smoke, and a slight odor of sweat.

“Where to?” asked the driver. He was around thirty, with the weirdest hairdo you’ve ever seen on a male taxi driver. His head looked like a pineapple, with short hair on the sides and long locks sticking up on top of his scalp, bouncing frivolously with the slightest move he made.

“Vrilissia,” I responded, making myself comfortable in the back seat so that I could have the clearest view of him. He was wearing a worn-out khaki T-shirt, and what looked like a pair of jeans.

For the first few minutes we didn’t talk, apart from the usual, which is which road to take, if I preferred Irakleitou to Pentelis, because as taxi drivers always say, “Pentelis is a Hell at this time of the day,” whatever time of the day it is.

After a few minutes of silence, he started asking me questions about where I come from, as taxi drivers do. I take two to three taxis a day, usually long rides, so I know what kinds of behavior to expect, and what to watch out for. By the warmth of his voice and the innocent way his hair moved around, I understood this driver was a friendly one.

I talked about myself for a while, and then sent him back his questions, which made him light a cigarette before answering.

He was born in Mykonos, to a very wealthy family. His father was the owner of three large beach hotels and his mother a socialite. He, Giorgos, was an only child. Ever since he was a teenager he had worked part-time in his dad’s hotels, just for fun, spending five to ten times his wages every night. He lived the dream of every teenager: wealth, luxurious cars, wildly good-looking girls, pricey entertainment.

Seeing me look at his locks in amusement, he started talking about his most costly hobby: styling his hair. He bombarded me the names of at least ten different styling products I had never heard of.

“Gia na katalaveis (Just so you understand), I used to spend one-and-a-half million drachmas a year on my hair.”

I made a quick calculation in my head. One-and-a-half million drachmas is around 4,400 euros. That’s 365 euros a month. How could anyone spend 360 euros a month on hair?

Well, two or three times a year he would go to London and have a bunch of scientists examine his hair, find out what type of hair it was, what treatments it needed, and what nutrition would keep it first-class.

I took a closer look at his hair and now it looked like nothing at all. It was just a ponytail made of bad hair, soiled, even burnt. I almost felt sorry for his hair, and I pictured myself cutting it and liberating the poor little tresses from their cruel dictator.

Then again, I wondered how it was possible for such a rich kid to end up wandering about in the jungle of the Athenian streets for what, 1,500, 2,000 euros a month?

“It’s a long story, kopelia (girl), and I don’t know if you want to listen….”

His eyes were shining. I really liked this guy; he couldn’t stop smiling. It appears that he had fallen in love while still in Mykonos. The girl lived in Athens and would not leave the city for anything. So, Giorgos decided to spend the full season on the island working for his father, and the whole winter in Athens, close to his better half and spending his fat allowance.

This went on for a couple of years, till they both got tired of his commute. Giorgos announced to his parents that he was leaving the island for good and would start a new life in Athens with his future wife. His parents were not the least bit happy to part from their only child and tried their best to talk him out of it, but he followed his heart.

And so he came to Athens to live with his girlfriend. The first half-year was very hard, since he was spending his last savings, and she was a student living on an allowance.

Eventually, there came a day when little Giorgos (at the time he must have been around 24) finally got a job for the first time. After a lot of thinking, he decided to rent a taxi and become a driver.

One day, coming home from work, he caught his girlfriend cheating on him with his best friend. He was mad for a while, but then he forgave her and the friend.

A few weeks later, however, she broke up with Giorgos, “because she didn’t want her future husband to be a taxi driver. Her social background would never permit it, katalaves (do you understand)?” Giorgos said, lightly hit the steering wheel with his fist, the remains of an anger born half-a-dozen years earlier, and still alive, apparently.

He lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window. The wind drove it back into the car and he breathed it in along with the fresh drag from his cigarette. Like the things he wanted to throw away: memories, thoughts. But they just kept coming back, again and again, with the slightest breeze.

“Wherever you can,” I said, noticing quite bedazzled that we had already arrived.

Before I paid him, he thanked me for the “parea” (company) and said he wished to continue it some day. I paid my fare, gathered my bags and got out of the car.

“We are all survivors,” were his last words as he headed off into the jungle.