Kimon Theodorou: Boy cries about Amy

Kimon Theodorou

Boy cries about Amy

THERE ARE ONLY TWO kinds of people in this world: those who cried when Amy Winehouse left us, and the ones who didn’t cry. Zefi gave me her verdict: “You’re nuts, you didn’t even cry this much about father.” And then she said that we were talking about a junkie here anyhow ̶ Amy that is, not father ̶ and everybody knows how junkies end up. She forgot about that time three summers back when we didn’t go on holiday ̶ besides, we never go because we’re flat broke ̶ and we made do with car rides along the coast, driving from Kalamaki to Saronida. The metal  frame of the Opel was smouldering, the old wreck being a thirty-year institution, a family heirloom, with the windows open to the brim, a fan that didn’t work and a radio that hardly did either, but the old tape player could still spew out music, giving off a kind of retro feeling, ’cause who listened ̶ and still listens ̶ to music on cassette anymore? I’d filled up a tape just with ‘Rehab’ and ‘You know I’m no good’ on repeat. In a way, dear old Amy saved our lost holiday. Still, Zefi remained in the camp of those who didn’t cry and I wondered whether it was possible that we were brought into the world by the same parents. She didn’t cry when she lost the baby either; it was as if the miscarriage didn’t involve her body at all. Then, during the divorce, when she finally got rid of her husband, she almost had a party. At a random moment she had come out with a real slip-up, saying that I had no idea how much trouble I was missing because she didn’t see me getting married any time soon, at least not like I am now stuck in the wheelchair. You should have seen how much I cried about Michael Jackson. More about Amy though.

Source: First published.

Kimon Theodorou was born in Kavala in 1981. He studied journalism and European Cultural Studies. Short stories of his have been published in a number of anthologies.

Translated by Chris H. Sakellaridis

Chris H. Sakellaridis is a poet and teacher who was born in London in 1983 and grew up in Crete. He studied English at Queen Mary University, Social Anthropology at UCL and completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at Bath Spa. Poems and translations of his have been published in magazines and anthologies in the UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Greece. He has also been involved in radio production, animation and sound art.