Obtaining a ferry to Santorini was not difficult, and after riding the newly renovated underground (redone for the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics) to the port of Piraeus, I had my reservations ready on another overnighter. After scouting out my gate, I headed back to Hotel Lozanni for my last night.
Waiting at the gate for the ferry to begin boarding I met a few people; the one who turned out to be consequential enough for me to remember was an Irishman named J. who was flirting with another passenger in a sickeningly sentimental and capricious manner with a hint of what may have been despondency but I did not quite identify.
I mentioned that I was going to get some food during this episode of flirting, where he semi-goodnaturedly accused me of trying to get in her pants myself (I really wasn't; she was a bit too old and not terribly attractive, although younger than J. and not unattractive either, to be fair. Since he bought me dinner, I offered to get him something from the nearby kiosk (Athens is filled with snack, news and cigarette kiosks, where indeed I did the bulk of my shopping), and he asked me to get him a few beers, which surprised me but I did it anyway, figuring it was about as much as he spent on me.
That proved to be the first of a few beer runs I engaged upon on his behalf.
The second was on the boat, and he gave me money this time. We got to talking, and he told me a bit about himself, and the conversation seemed pretty normal until he invited me to his restaurant on Ios (an Island near Santorini), and assured me that he never told a lie and that I would get to meet "my heroes" like Shane Macgowan of the Pogues and Bono. While I never actually mentioned either of these men as being my heroes, he seemed together that they were after I mentioned that I loved Irish music (although I was specifically talking about the kind of traditional Irish music that Irish bands play in Irish bars, which as much as I do indeed like I know very little about). he mad increasingly extravagant claims such as this one that I had trouble fully believing, but he was an interesting fellow and didn't seem to have any ulterior motives; indeed his only motive seemed to be to keep a steady flow of alcohol going through his system; so I figured what the hell and went to his restaurant with him.
Due to the fact that I did not sleep more than a half hour and other factors which I will not mention here, I was red-eyed and a little stressed the next day. After being slightly embarrassing for asking a group of girls at the Ios port bus-stop where the nearest toilet was (they erupted into a storm of giggles as if it was the quaintest thing they had ever heard, a man asking after a toilet), I found a low wall where I could duck behind and relieve my bladder nearby then sat down at the bus stop and read a bit more of my Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus Edition.
The bus ride was as beautiful as the small island itself, surrounded by the sparkling blue Aegean (within the Mediterranean) Sea. There was only one road connecting the port side of the Island to the "strip" where J.'s Restaurant along with many others and places of lodging competed for the attention of the mostly young tourists.
When we arrived at the restaurant I met a few other characters, one of which was a girl a few years older than I that I had alternately been warned "not to touch!" and "not to hurt," although I could "have her." I resolved to make no attempt at pursuing anything of the sort with her, especially after I met her and discovered that she was already in a relationship with somebody else, in addition to being pregnant.
After I watched with some surprise as she drank a little bit of beer, convinced that this is apparently okay to do in moderation in the first trimester (my words weren't able to disincline her of this notion), I was happy to see she did not drink a full beer, only a little.
The other character I met was a Greek who J. and his female friend both referred to as "Uncle," although I saw no evidence of a familial connection, they certainly treated each other like family. "Uncle" was the primary owner and chef of the restaurant where J. and I lounged in hammocks during the hottest part of the day and I slept the night on a lounge chair in a sleeping bag. It seemed more like a messy front porch where people paid for food and occasionally to get ferries booked, as he also acted as a travel agent for people looking to get around the Islands and other nearby areas (he indeed bought my ticket to get to Santorini the next day, where I was happy to be off to due to some strange conversation with J. that I will get to momentarily and because I had a hostel booked for me there).
The morning was spent napping and then going to lounge in the sun on a nearby cliff. I took some pictures with the €5 disposable camera I bought because Unicorn had mine and after being satisfied with a few great shots, carelessly tossed the camera aside.
I then watched it inevitably bounce down the cliff, landing instead of in the cranny which I had tossed it at into the water below the nearly vertical cliff we sat upon.
Despite admonishments warning me to stay where I was, I was feeling adventurous so I made my way down the cliff to where I thought the camera might be. It was a slightly fearful expedition, but left me feeling accomplished with myself when I was standing at the bottom. While I did not se what I recognized as my camera, just when I was turning back I saw something that looked like my camera with some of the casing stripped, and grabbed it.
After making my way back up, They expressed some admiration at my nimbleness then poked fun at me for going all the way down to get a camera that wasn't mine. I wasn't so sure and though it could have been mine, but I will never know unless J. Happens to send me the camera or develop the pictures and send them to me, if that is even possible since it was recovered from an area in the rocks where water washed back in forth.
After sitting there a bit, J.'s female friend had to go to the bathroom, so we moved to higher ground, but had some trouble getting there. J. Left his pack and beer behind, and asked me to bring the former up. As he stood watching me mke my way up the sheer cliff, which he and the girl had slipped on several times, leading me to take a different route, he told me to forget about the beer, which I was also attempting to bring. I was feeling stubborn for some reason, and managed to get the beer and pack up to him, where he was waiting at the top and refused to take the beer but instead took the wrist holding it and dragged me up, saying it was me he cared about, not the beer.
J. apparently took it into his head after we sat some more that I was looking depressed and angrily told me repeatedly just to cheer up. I wasn't feeling particularly depressed, but apparently I wasn't smiling enough to satisfy him, so he increasingly repeated that I needed to just smile until he sounded like he was frothing at the mouth with his anger at my lack of displaying enough smiles. I was feeling at the moment not so much depressed but more like a stone with no emotion to display at all, and didn't see any particular reason to change from that frame of mind.
After some silence, he asked me if I knew any good stories or jokes, and none came to mind, except some dead baby jokes. I started to tell one, and then realized that Jimmy's friend, who was still sitting with us, was pregnant and it might be a bit insensitive so I stopped. When I explained I could only think of dead baby jokes, which probably weren't appropriate, J. got infuriated and asked me if I I wanted to be "thrown off the cliff" for making suggestions like that. I said as patiently as I could, for by this time I was growing quite impatient with his drunken egotistical tirades, that this is why I abstained, and was merely explaining. Then I flashed a toothy grin at him, so he could have the smile he kept complaining about, and a bit of ugly energy and dialogue ensued which resulted in the two of them taking a walk and me staying where I was.
Later, J. Took a nap, and I got to know the girl a little better, who had told me earlier "you really had no idea what you were getting into with him, did you?" which of course, I didn't other than he seemed like an alright fellow.
I still think he is a fine guy, our energies just didn't mix pleasantly that morning, and I am not sure if they could be relied upon to mix pleasantly in the future.
Next time I saw him awake, we played a game of chess, which I was happier than I should have been to beat him handily at. After a bit more awkward conversation, he suggested a walk on the beach with the girl and I, and things were alright from there.
°°°
That evening, we watched a South American gentleman play songs in Spanish as well as a few English classics and a couple other languages (notable was his two word song with not many more chords that somehow lasted a good ten minutes and was definitely beneath his admirable skills but awesomely delivered "Welcome to Tijuana-would you like to have sex with my Iguana" sung in Spanglish). There were more girls met there, and more interesting conversation, and J. very surprised that I didn't take what he saw as a golden opportunity to hit on a Canadian girl and try and get some perhaps, but I just didn't care. Besides, as fun as she would have been to fuck, as I explained to J. and his female friend later, I wasn't in any way desperate to get laid.
This eventually prompted the question: when was the last time you got laid? I told him: ten days. I did not tell him that it would have been sooner had the person I was with not been on her period. He seemed surprised, and this drew me into a conversation about my entire relationship, the second intimate conversation that I somehow got engaged with that day, and this one a longer one that found me revealing way more than I ever thought I would to anyone, let alone a random Irishman at a restaurant he claimed as his own along with his young female friend.
One might say this conversation changed the course of my entire trip, as well as well as my life.
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