Yasemın Aydinoğlu - Istanbul Noir

“Ohh, look at that view.”

Both of them swung around.

It was a short, energetic-looking young man, standing about two meters behind them, his hands at his waist. He had curly blond hair and his eyes sparkled with joy. He was wearing a black T-shirt with Annihilator written across the chest.

Tufan instinctively leapt to his feet; he didn’t know who this guy was, but he knew his type. His hand went for the switchblade in his back pocket. At the very same moment, Ekber Bey grabbed Tufan by the leg. Hold on, son.

“Looks like you guys have been chillin’ out,” said the new arrival. “That’s good. Honestly, I can’t stand those high-strung types.” He stuck his hand in one of the pockets of his baggy hip-hop pants and removed a folded piece of paper. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” He unfolded the paper, mumbling to himself as he read it. “Ekber Şen, right?” The old man nodded. “Great. And you, you must be Tufan Tokgöz.”

“And who the hell are you?” asked Tufan.

“Shhh,” said Ekber Bey. “Excuse him, your Holiness, Azrael.”

The young man let out a giggle. “No, Ekber Bey. The big boys don’t do the bookkeeping.” He took out a pen from another pocket. He looked at it, then at the paper, and then he motioned for Tufan to approach.

“So who the hell are you?”

“Who, me?” He scrunched his brows together in thought. “Oh man,” he said, finally, “you guys rule. Not many of you hotshots think to ask me my name. Hmm, what shall I call myself this time?” A smile spread across his face, he looked to the sky. “Okay. Fine. Cheese . That’s right, my name is Cheese. How’s that?”

Perplexed, Tufan looked from Ekber Bey to the young man, who was again motioning for him to come over. Tufan didn’t know why, but he was gripped by a sudden fear; his knees quaking, he walked over. From behind Cheese’s shoulder, he could see the two cops still standing by the boats. Cheese noticed the expression on Tufan’s face.

“Don’t mind them,” he said. “Now turn around for me.”

Tufan stared at him blankly.

“I said turn around... Ha ha ha! You nasty little thing, you. That’s a good one. No, that’s not what I had in mind. I’m just going to use your back to write something, if you can stand still for a minute, that’s all. All right? Now turn around.”

Tufan turned around. Cheese placed the piece of paper on the dealer’s back. He started writing. He stopped, looked at the pen, shook it up and down, and started writing again. Then he stopped again. He brought the point of the pen to his mouth and blew a few warm breaths onto it. He tried writing again. He let out a swear word. He looked over Tufan’s shoulder.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a pen on you?”

The old man shook his head.

“I’m not even going to ask you ,” he said to Tufan. “Well, there’s not much to write anyway. I can just punch a couple of holes next to your names.” He shook the pen once more. “Fucking supply department...” He pressed down on the pen and punched two holes in the paper. “All right, you can turn around now.”

“What the hell’s going on?” asked Tufan. Not that he couldn’t sense it, he just wasn’t quite ready to admit it.

“What’s going on?” Cheese opened his eyes wide. “What the hell’s going on, you ask? Wait, let’s see now, what’s going on.” He moved his hand to his chin, squinted his eyes. “Hmmm. There’s going to be a car crash on the avenue in a little bit. Classic midnight drag race. I’ve got one more pickup there.” He sighed. “A father on night duty out looking for a pharmacy. Unfortunate case, that one. Just became a daddy. The punk who hits him survives though.” He sighed again. “Five minutes after that I have to go down to Kadıköy; a wino on the docks is going to have a heart attack. Now wait a second...” He looked at the paper. “That’s right, then I have to cross the Bosphorus. A whore in Beyoğlu... What?... Haaa haaa haaa! A huri? Oh, that’s a good one. I’ll have to tell the sisters about that. But anyway, then I have to go to Etiler, and so on and so forth. Ah, but if you’re asking what’s going on in the world, now that’s a tough one to answer. There are tons of officials, and they’re all fully booked.

“Oh! Wait! I’m sorry,” Cheese said suddenly, interrupting himself. He covered his mouth in feigned surprise. “You still don’t know what’s going on here, that’s what you’re asking about. Oh, sweetheart! Innocent babe in the woods! But c’mon... you’re on to us now, right? C’mon, say it.”

Several moments passed before Tufan finally managed to croak out the words, “I... I’m... dead?”

“Bravo!” replied Cheese.

“B-but...”

“See there, the ambulance has arrived.”

Tufan spotted the vehicle parking along the coastal road, about fifty meters away. Its lights were off. You could only tell it was an ambulance because the orange light on top shone beneath the streetlamp. They weren’t in a hurry, of course. That’s why they’d taken their time, cruising to a halt, no siren. Tufan watched as two people waltzed out of the ambulance, opened the back doors, and took out the stretcher.

“You mean... I...”

“I mean you, boy,” said Cheese, placing his hand on Tufan’s shoulder. “You took a bullet in the back at the end of that chase a little while ago, as you jumped onto the breakwater. And the guys who shot you have been waiting by your body over there.”

At a loss for words, Tufan turned to Ekber Amca.

“Ekber Bey had a heart attack ten minutes before that, and collapsed into the sea. Someone’ll find his body in the morning, I suppose.”

“Cheese, son,” said Ekber Bey, as he stood up, using his hands to push himself off the ground, “I want to ask you something.”

Cheese smiled. They’ve always got questions. Sooo many questions. He folded his arms. He looked at the old man approaching him, and then at the dealer. “Yes, Ekber Bey,” he said... No, I’m not the one who’s going to do your account. Yes, you can rub the heads of people walking in the streets, they’ll let you do that... Sure, why not?... Nah, it’s not that bad. Of course, it depends on how things add up for you... No, I have no idea when Yeliz is coming; they only give us the lists of the people we have to pick up... Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. Work, you know. Ha ha ha! I’m lying, of course. Why would I want to stay and chat with you guys? Well, you know, I can’t always act as formal as they want us to, but then, who can, right? He looked up again. Besides, even He knows this job’s unbearable if you play by the Book all the time... What’s that?... Yeah, right, of course, of course, it’s around here somewhere. Whatever.

Tepebaşı

Some days you just want to fuck shit up. Spread the misery around. Louse up somebody’s life. Even the score. Find an unsuspecting, but not undeserving mark and dump a truckload of shit on his head. Because you can. Because some perverse mean streak needs exorcizing before it contaminates the whole of your being and you in turn do something horribly ruthless to a public building, a strip mall, a shopping center, a city block, an entire neighborhood, the necropolis you’re stuck in and all the mindless zombie breeders and their greedy offspring who roam this parasitic planet as it spirals toward its imminent extinction, when the bomb in your head wants to explode in your hands and take a couple hundred thousand people with it. I get ugly like that sometimes.

I was burned out, bitchy, and bored. Again. Had a couple of hours to kill before the train to Athens would signal the close of a month-long low-rent aimless ramble instigated in a spastic fit of dementia. I started the journey suffering under the delusion that my rotten moods were the by-product of stagnation and lethargy exasperated by routine and monotony. Doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do to earn a living, to pay the rent, to keep the lights on and the wind out, the same job done over and over again for any period of time becomes a mind-dulling prison sentence which sends sensitive nerve endings into a St. Vitus dance of agitation. Brain dead but spastic. Numbed of all but the most negative emotions. A harvest of superhuman willpower and extreme focus the only defense against a scorching desire to flail arms and legs blindly like a punch-drunk boxer shadowboxing in the dark, hellbent on murdering the invisible enemy which has become an all-encompassing surround. As if allergic to the air itself. Day in, day out will do that. Truth was, I was just as much of a miserable cunt when there were no responsibilities, deadlines, headlines, nosy friends, or dying relatives to ruin my day. Bitter. I was praying that a break in my routine would break me of my bullshit.