Steve the Spartan

My friend Steve is from Sparta. "Are you descended from the 300?" I asked him when we first met. "28 of them." he replied and promptly reeled off their names. I was impressed. "How can you recall all that?" I asked. Steve's eyes widened and he looked at me like I was a particularly nasty species of worm: "We PROMISED we'd remember their names FOREVER!!!" he scolded me.

Personally, well, I'd call 1,000 years "forever" but I guess Spartans aren't like the rest of us.

But here's what I want to tell you. I asked Steve ages ago "Is there any of the "Spartan" left in the Spartans?" He said there wasn't; that "All that went millennium back!"

However, yesterday he told me a story - actually it was a "what's wrong with these people" rant - and, boy, I was so enchanted I had to cover my gleeful smirk with my hand:

The night before, he was out nightclubbing with several charming ladies (OK, THAT isn't Spartan, but he's over 30 and they were allowed to associate with women after that age), and was at a kareoki bar in Lan Kwai Fong when a gang of triads - 8 guys - stormed into the place and grabbed a young Chinese man from the next table, dragging him out of the booth and onto the dance floor and started kicking the crap out of him.

Now, to understand the significance of his response, I'll have to quote him, but you have to imagine all this said in tones reeking of contempt and outrage: "And do you know, not one of his friends went to help him. Not a single one! They all just sat there and pretended they couldn't see it! And then, can you believe it? The young man they were kicking? He made no effort to fight back. Not one thing. He did nothing! But then they started kicking him in the face, and you don't do that to a man. Your face is your identity, and it's too much to take away a man's identity, so I got up and grabbed those men and I knocked their heads together and threw them out of the door. "You don't kick a man's face, you bastards!!" I told them.

"But then, you'll never believe what happened next? That man picked himself up from the floor, wiped the blood off his face and rejoined the people in his booth! Can you believe it? "What is wrong with you?" I shouted at him. "How can you sit with those people! They didn't come to help you!" "You don't know the facts." another man said. "I know the facts." I shouted at them. "The facts are that when your friend is in trouble, you go help him!" And then I said to the man "These are not your friends! If you continue to sit with them, I do not want to be in the same room as you!" and he looked ashamed but continued to sit there. And that's when I said "You Cantonese, I don't understand you! What is wrong with you people?" And that's when I decided I don't want to be in the same room as any of them and I walked out.

"And outside, the gang was waiting for me, and one came at me with a knife, so I broke his arm and the others let me pass, and so I walked home to make myself less angry but it don't work and I'm still so angry today! What is wrong with these people!"

Can you count the "Spartan-isms" in that rant? Boy, I just LOVED it! And isn't it sooo good to know that the Spartans are alive and well and still living there in Sparta!