Dating Tips for the Unemployed by Iris Smyles

Author:Iris Smyles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

My advice to all who have the time or inclination to concern themselves with the international language movement would be: “Back Esperanto loyally.”

—J.R.R. TOLKIEN

Philadelphia

HE WASN’T EXACTLY TOOTHLESS. He was only missing the one, but it was a good one, right in the front. He sucked at the gap then looked toward the street. “I astynomía, bah!” he said, referring to the cop who’d tried earlier to give him a speeding ticket.

Greeks regard the law as a style more than a rule. He had his own style and gave the cop what for, he explained to the gathered company, before sitting back in his chair. Then, lighting a cigarette and exhaling from his nostrils in two powerful streams, he turned his head and gave me a wink.

He did this often. He’d suck at the gap to accentuate a point, show he was serious, suggest that someone he was arguing with wasn’t, or indicate with a nod that the waiter bring round another beer. It was very sexy, as if in calling attention to that rotted empty space, he were calling attention to all that was lacking in the world. He’d throw a hand, make that sucking sound, then look up from under his heavily flexed brow, hinting at the kind of wisdom that can only be earned from loss. “The only teeth are teeth lost,” Proust would say.He chain-smoked and rode a motorcycle and had greasy hair like a teenage villain from out of a YA novel, though when we met, he was well into his twenties. He worked on cars at an auto shop in nearby Volos and at the end of the day, would take his motorcycle from the garage and drive down into the seaside villages nearby, happy to have a cold beer and a laugh. His hands were rough, his fingernails permanently blackened, and we started seeing each other one summer when I was nineteen or thirty.

We’d meet at this beachfront café, go for a walk, smoke some of the pot he’d brought down from the city, and look around skittishly. Unlike the other laws, those governing drugs were non-negotiable. Marijuana was whispered about in hushed tones. He’d never smoked with a girl before; good Greek girls didn’t smoke, he told me or tried to. “They think is bad,” he said, motioning to his head to suggest such girls had nothing in theirs, before returning his attention to the giant spliff he was preparing on his lap.

Occasionally he’d pause between his perusal of the street and his perusal of his work, in order to peruse me; he’d flash his special smile. Then we’d get high and kiss in the dark on the beach. I barely spoke Greek and he, almost no English, which made our conversations that much more interesting. If we had nothing particular to say, we had at least a very particular way to say it. We’d make our faces telling, our hands expressive, perforating the language barrier with excited jabs. Sometimes we’d bring a

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