a passage from what I am working on

In the nearly five years since he had returned to the island, George hadn’t yet “made the adjustment”. Most men of the village wrote him off as just one more loser expat who’d come home to collect his pension checks and squander his last years in an alcoholic haze. Women, and those very few men blessed with a generosity of spirit, looked upon him with pity,

Just about everyone in the village knew who he was. He wore the same clothes day after day, a striped polo shirt and gray gym shorts. it was obvious that he rarely bathed or shaved His graying whiskers were curled and matted under his chin, and his body gave off the sharp acrid odor of alcohol passed through urine.

Each evening at twilight he would George stumble through the undergrowth of the eucalyptus grove onto the dirt that led away from the beach through the tourist center and on into town. With uncertain gait he would make his way along the narrow cobblestone alleys through the old quarter, past the old women in black who gathered on the marble front stoops of the houses by the church plaza for a few precious moments of rest and gossip before the gathering darkness forced them off the street and back into their homes. The custom of women was not to speak to this strange solitary man as he passed, but as George approached, the women invariably would pause their conversation, and look up. One or two of the women would give a slight nod of acknowledgement, meeting George’s eyes as a caged creature night seek the gaze of another trapped in similar but unknowable circumstances. Once he had passed they would click their tongues and whisper amongst themselves, passing on rumors of the terrible tragedies this poor, poor man had endured. Having known the depths of sorrow in their own lives, they did not judge him. Perhaps he needed a good woman, or perhaps he was beyond salvation from anyone but the Lord.

On the other side of the plaza, men gathered at the cafeneio “Nea Kosmos”’ to drink strong sweet coffee or the raw spirit known as tsipiro,. As George passed by the men barely lifted their eyes from their backgammon boards. There were no acknowledging nods no smiles, just silence and the steady clicking sound of worry beads, the rhythm escalating as George drew near, as if each set of beads were performing a rite of exorcism against whatever it was that had broken this man.