I’m growing murderous. Visions of duct tape and Thai tattoo tubes drown out the mundanity of their nonsensical dribbling. We round the corner and enter the lobby with only seconds to spare before my cool evaporates and I stab them both with the steak knife stolen from the café.
The Palas was perfect. Truly. Tarnished, tattered, down at the heels, and haunted. The ghosts of illicit romance, espionage, and dirty deeds painted the lobby in a milky film. The marble columns were cracked. The carpets were sticky. The lobby stunk of cigarettes, booze, overripe broads, and men old enough to overlook their own halitosis. Nobody batted an eye as three twenty-somethings (okay... I’m lying again) scaled the massive staircase up to the third floor.
Blond and Blonder opened their flimsy door to reveal a shitty room with a spectacular view. Two ratty queen-sized beds bookend the massive window overlooking the breath-taking Bosphorus, that magnificent river of mysterious origin that slices Istanbul in half. Her glistening shores flanked by glorious monuments erected centuries before in praise of egotistical kings who worshipped at the feet of false gods. The late-afternoon haze refracted heat and light, creating a gauzy mirage. The madness below was temporarily suspended, silenced. A frozen moment, postcard perfect. And rudely interrupted by the staccato pop of a beer can cracking open. Which reminded me why I was there. I needed to leech a little blood as purgation against my own incurable sickness. I winked and took the can.
I soon excused myself and entered the sprawling bathroom. Beautiful tiles of lapis blue, ivory, carnation pink, scuffed with soap scum. I set the beer on the edge of the tub. Opened my purse. Removed a small ornate brown bottle whose faded label promised Spirit of Philosophical Vitriol. I had to chortle. Such a poetic name for Algarot, a trichloride which induces vomiting and diarrhea. Purchased with half a dozen other outdated bottles of hazardous pharmaceuticals at a small flea market outside of Satu Mare. Now hidden in a locker at the train station. The key tossed down a sewer grate. Squeezed a couple of milliliters into the can’s mouth. Flushed the toilet. Washed my hands. Adjusted my lipstick while pinching myself, trying to ease my rictus grin into a sexy smile.
I joined the little party in the corner rolling hash joints. Probably game planning where to hide their camcorder. Let ’em wet dream all they wanted. I’d grab it on my way out. As well as their wallets, cell phones, credit cards, passports, and airline tickets. I passed the poisoned brew to the high baller on my left. Still didn’t know their names. Didn’t want to.
Suck guzzling half the can, the wonderfully hunky idiot burps proudly and raises the beer in a toast in my direction. I wink, blow a kiss, and purr, “Good little donkey... gobble gobble,” while the mark does as expected and finishes off the can. A witchy giggle tickles my throat. I get giddy when someone is about to shit their pants.
“Music!” asshole number two insists. “We need some tunage!”
“I’m on it, soldier,” his nutty buddy mutters, taking a deep drag on the soggy joint. “Bro, this shit is silk.”
Now I wanted to puke. Turkish tobacco mixed with a bullet of black hash which still stinks of the mule’s ass that smuggled it in. The moronic tub thumping of watered-down West Coast gangsta rap bleeding out of crappy portable speakers. The juvenile camaraderie. Their good looks. Perfect teeth. Their sense of entitlement so indicative of a generation bred to measure merit in net worth, success with fame, importance by how many like-minded dimwits have visited their shitty web page. Their fratboy sexuality and everything they stand for is about to fall. Another beautiful victim of gastrointestinal poisoning.
Two minutes and thirty seconds later an outrageously harmonic eruption of wet sulfuric gases explodes from the rear of the stoner to my right who’s frantically yanking on his belt buckle near the entrance to the bathroom. He clutches the door knob in one meaty fist but lacks the strength to pull it open. “Man, was that joint laced? I think I’m melting.” His legs give out. I laugh out loud. Another soul-shattering anal skronk. A wet greasy stain spreads across his backside. Shit. That was quick!
“Christ! Take it in the shitter, dude, you’re making me sick,” heckles his compassionate traveling companion. No sooner said and he’s also done in by a violent spasm which suddenly doubles him over in what appears to be a one-man football huddle. Hands on knees, head bent down. Choking, spitting, drooling. “What the fuck? I told you we shouldn’t drink the water...” He doesn’t get it but I’m cackling like a madman. His head thrashes from side to side. Explosions of yellow and green bile spraying from his mouth and nose, soaking the bedspread and mattress. A Jackson Pollock rendered in puke.
“Fat joint,” I snicker. “Never touch the shit myself, the smell alone makes me sick.”
He continues to retch.
I reach for the hidden camera which they had strategically placed on top of the old chifforobe angled in the corner. It’s petite red eye aglow. Unwavering. I zoom in for an extreme close-up of the beautiful wreck’s puckering maw, capturing every intoxicating minute of his award-winning regurgitation. I’m a bloodhound in heat, the camera my snout. I follow the chartreuse trail as it cascades over the side of the bed and mingles with the toxic brown effluvium of his ailing twin, who’s crawled out of his dirty drawers and into the sanctuary of the bathtub turned toilet. A shroud of steam haloes his gorgeous grimace. I tower above the ruined puppy, a psychotic paparazzo, focus trained on his heavy lids, parted lips, limp prick. He stinks. I zoom in.
I imagine the credits artfully rolling up from the mist announcing my latest contribution to the vast library of reality porn on that slagheap of American culture, the Internet. The Spirit of Philosophical Vitriol, a.k.a. Dirty Dicks and the Chicks That Love Them: Volume 6.
Part III
In the Dark Recesses
One among us
by Yasemın Aydinoğlu
Sağmalcılar
“I will flog the piss out of you, you hear me, you mother-fuckerrr!” he bellowed above me. I thought my ear-drums would burst. I was begging, dying, my knees trembling. The bones, the joints of my hands, had turned to putty.
“Brother, I swear to God, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t!”
They were yanking my head back by the hair on the scruff of my neck and dunking it into the bucket. I couldn’t count how many they were. Each time I held my breath as long as I could. I let it out bit by bit, but it was no use. I couldn’t take it anymore. I inhaled some water through my nose. The salt singed my nostrils, scorched my throat. My eyes burned. They were dunking my head into something, something heavier than water, oilier than water, saltier than water, but what was it? It was like seawater, like tears, what they were trying to drown me in. This time he pushed me hard, harder, into the water, by the back of my neck. I struggled, I cried. You could drown in a fucking spoonful of water. What the hell did I know? What the hell was I doing here?
A crackling sound exploded in my ear. Suddenly, I woke up. I was in the prison ward. The music broadcast had started. Orhan Gencebay buzzed through the speakers: “May I be damned if I’ve forgotten you, if I’ve found another lover.” A dream? It was all a fucking dream, goddamn it. I touched my face, felt the tears still there. My balls and my chin ached from the spasms, from the crying. I’d never been so happy to wake up in this ward. I headed straight for the toilet upstairs, cutting a path through the pungent scent of urine. I didn’t want to let on that I’d had a bad dream. Sixty of us all living together in the same room; sixty people under the constant surveillance of fifty-nine. Somebody’s bound to catch on to your soft spot. My biggest fear, ever since I was a kid, was for someone to be able to read my mind.