Parting Glances: Book pages (Pt. 15)

We all have push buttons. Mine's SMILE! It's usually said by some well-meaning soul who feels my facial demeanor is a little too serious for their effervescent, minty-flavored outlook on life.
I was cornered recently after a foursome dinner by a re-met acquaintance who, after many glasses of wine, put a firm hand on my shoulder and prodded like some Grand Inquisitor, D.D.S., why I had seemingly never blessed creation with a razzle-dazzle (open wide! Charles) smile.
"You're always so serious," said this would-be mental orthodontist, smiling like a male showbiz Sally Bowles to underscore my just outted shortcoming. I almost felt as if I had committed a series of unpunished social misdemeanors worthy of community exile to toothless Tasmania. (By the way: I didn't pick up our tab.)
The truth is I have always been a tad intimidated by those who are dentally electric (or orally exotic). And — if I may be confessional about my molars, incisors, and wisdom of teeth thereto — as a kid I grew up with an overbite. Buck teeth. I was very self-conscious about it. I seldom let a smile be my umbrella (or my parasol!).
Having exorcised this toothy Ghost of Malocclusions Past — and having no need to be other than what I'm not to 'Sally Bowles' — I recall with fondness a friend of decades ago: blond, blue-eyed, Richard Suess, whose smile was outgoing and, as far as I was concerned, seductively breathtaking. He was all superb flossing, two-checkups-a-year A1, this won't'-hurt-a-bit, hunky.
I was persistent in getting to know Rich. I showed up at teenage gay places where he hung out. I got up nerve to say hi. Repeatedly. We became friends. He was what's known in today's closet solicitation ads as SA/SA: straight acting, straight appearing (until he had a few beers). Butch. No nelly queen. I was flattered — and safe — to be in his company.
I quickly learned I wasn't his type. Rich liked swarthy guys. His lover was Virgil, a reedy thin Greek with a triangular-shaped face. By the time Rich and I became chummy, their affair was over. In between recruiting his next sunburnt romance we had fun.
Rich worked in a Michigan Avenue pharmacy. He was an assistant, and back then he could have been licensed after a number of years of apprenticeship — or so he said — without attending pharmacy school. (Ironically, he wound up as a New York hairdresser.)
The problem with Rich was that he often did a disappearing act. This usually occurred at the movies. It seemed to me that for some reason or other he took an inordinate number of pees, leaving me to safeguard his unbuttered popcorn, cherry coke, and my cinematic chastity.
It was a bit unnerving, until I realized he was cruising the men's loo (which, appropriately, in the grander downtown movie palaces, had design elements reminiscent of a French, Aztec, Mayan, Baroque — or, all of the above — brothel).
Returning out of breath, he'd giggle, "Did I miss much of Some Like It Hot?" then, nudging me, he'd whisper, "Marilyn Monroe should be so lucky."
There were times Rich didn't return. Period. I'd worry he had been nabbed by a plainclothes wang waver, until he'd show up a day or two later. "Sorry, about the flick. What can I say? Italiano! Lives near me. Dreamy. Huge. Great lay. Did Doris and Rock finally get it on?" And then he'd laugh and smile. Radiantly . . .
Actually, it was sometimes worth [it] being left alone in the dark.