Money for a Taxi (A Story to Top Them All)
My hand instinctively brushed my abdomen, checking to make sure I had my money belt on me. It was met with the soft feel of skin under clothing around my waist. Oops. I must have left it in the hotel. I looked at my cheap Target watch. It read 21:31.
*click*
I stopped breathing.
*click*
I exhaled and picked the camera off the little cement pillar to examine the timed, 4 second exposure that had just been taken. It looked good. It looked really good actually, but this was no surprise since my subject was Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. It is difficult to take a bad picture of the Blue Mosque.
I wrapped a dirty T-shirt around the digital SLR and thrust it back into my little backpack. Slinging it over my shoulder, I walked around the west side of the mosque to look for a better angle. “Yes please!” a vendor called to me. ‘Please no,’ I thought to myself. It seemed that everyone I’d met in Istanbul was trying to sell me something. Sometimes people seemed genuinely interested in simply meeting foreigners and practicing their English, but invariably I ended up at a carpet shop with the befriending party expecting to make a hefty commission from anything I bought. Where were the genuinely nice Turks I had heard so much about? Rumor had it that the Turks are the most hospitable people in the world. One traveler said that he never needed a hotel in Eastern Turkey because people invited him to stay with their families. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ I thought.
A handsome man was walking along and we made eye contact. “Hello,” he said. “Hi,” I replied out of courteousness, though I really did not want to end up in a carpet shop tonight. “Where are you from?” “USA” “Oh! America! Welcome.” “Thank you.” “My fiancée is from England. How long have you been in Turkey?” “Oh, maybe a week and a half.” ‘Here it comes,’ I thought to myself, ‘It’s carpet shop offer time.’ “So what have you seen in Istanbul?” That was the first time anyone had asked me that. Could it be that there are Turks who aren’t involved with selling carpets to foreigners? He began to list sites I should see. They matched the list made for me by an Istanbul native I’d met in Cappadocia. “The best bars are in Taksim Square.” I’d heard this before. Everything was checking out about this guy. “I live behind the Blue Mosque. I’m just headed to Taksim now; you want a ride?” “Yeah, alright, sure,” I replied. The fact is that you need to place some amount of faith in people when backpacking. Becky and I had taken rides across towns from strangers and stayed in strangers’ houses who advertised their pensions at the train station. There had never been any problem. I didn’t make the decision lightly. I was replaying the entire conversation in my head looking for anything that might tip me off to malicious intentions.
“That’s my car.” He said, after several minutes of walking. It was a nice car, which made me feel much more at ease. If this were some shady character praying on tourists wallets, he certainly wouldn’t have a $35,000 car. I got in and we raced to Taksim. It felt a little like the Turkish Indianapolis 500. I was somewhat used to Turkish driving by now: the lines on the road are guidelines, not rules, and cutting people off is a Turkish pastime. We drove past Taksim Square, and my heart fell into my feet. “Um… wasn’t that Taksim?” “Yeah, I just need to turn the car around. At the next intersection he pulled a fast U-turn and pulled over on the side of the road. We got out and walked into a bar near the corner.
We sat down at a booth, and I was relieved that we had made it. The bar was small and nearly empty. Good Turkish music was playing. My friend, whose name I knew but have since forgotten, ordered some beers and left for a moment. The beers came out and he returned. “Cheers,” he said. I smiled and the glasses clinked. I took a sip of the beer and set it down.
Two well-endowed, white girls carrying small red drinks sat down, boxing my friend and me in. The girl next to me introduced herself and said she was from Ukraine.
My insides shriveled. ‘Oh God.’ This was a scam. I had heard about it happening in Budapest. They were going to charge me astronomical prices for the girls’ drinks. I’d figured out it was a scam just after sitting down in the bar, but I knew this was not early enough. I was toast.
“I need to go to the bathroom.” “I don’t understand,” said the Ukranian. Now I was sure it was a scam. “The toilet.” “Sorry?” “Toaleta. veh tseh,” I said, using the Slavonic pronunciation of WC. My friend, who I now knew was not a friend at all, motioned to her, and she stood up. I slung my backpack over my shoulder, and the waiter motioned towards the front door and to the left. Two men stood, blocking the door to the outside. If they hadn’t been there I’d have run for it. I sheepishly walked into the bathroom. Needless to say I didn’t actually have to pee. ‘What am I going to do.’ I looked around the bathroom. There was a tiny window that I couldn’t fit through. I took a deep breath and stepped back into the bar.
“I want to leave.” “What’s the problem?” said the man who had led me to the bar. “There’s a BIG problem. I want to leave.” “Yeah, ok,” said the man, “but we must pay the bill.” “Big surprise,” I said under my breath. He stood up and walked to the back of the small bar. “The bill,” he said to another. The thin waiter showed a silver plate with a bill on it. 660YTL was circled. 660YTL meant about $400.
This was a problem. I had 50 lyra and my student ID in my wallet. Everything else was in my money belt: credit card, debit card, more cash. I didn’t have enough on me… except my camera. ‘God, what a mess.’ I started for the door of the small room where the action had moved. Four people were blocking my way. One of them shoved me hard back into the room. “What the hell???” I shouted “What is this?” Walking out the door was apparently not an option. It was time to negotiate. I turned back to the man who was repeatedly saying “the bill, sir.”
“No way,” I said, looking at the 660YTL scribbled on the bill. The man holding it stated simply, “That is the bill.” “We’ll split it,” offered the man I’d met. “I had one beer!” I shouted. This actually wasn’t true: I’d only had two small sips of a beer. “But the girls…” the man said. “I stood up when they sat down!” I said, pointing my finger at him. “I will pay for my beer only. How much was my beer?” The Turkish men looked at each other. One of them responded, “Fifty lyra.”
My stomach unclenched slightly. I had a 50YTL bill on me and that was it. I thought I was in the clear, but I wanted to make sure. “If I pay you 50 lyra, will you let me go?” My sentence was straightforward; it left no room for miscommunication. “Yes,” the man with the bill said. I turned my head towards the man who had tricked me. My eyes locked with his. “I trusted you,” I said in a voice that would make any normal person writhe with guilt. I thrust the 50 lyra note into the man’s hand and walked straight out of the bar. “Sir!” I heard behind me. I didn’t look back. I had my camera on my back and I was on my way home.
Cars flew by me as I walked along the pavement through the warm night. It was a little after 10:00PM—not late by Turkish standards. I thought I knew the way to Sultanahmet, but I asked a street vendor to verify. “Use taxi,” he said. “I have no money,” I replied. He motioned the direction of Sultahnamet with a chopping motion, indicating that Sultanahmet was extremely far away. I had an hour walk ahead of me, but this didn’t bother me. I didn’t have anything better to do.
I’d walked for nearly a mile when a boy with a bandage across his chin stepped in front of me holding something clear in his hand. Two smaller boys stepped to either side of me. I realized that the 15 year old in front of me was holding a broken bottle. I was being mugged. He grabbed my right wrist and said something in Turkish. I suppressed the urge to laugh. I had no money whatsoever. With my free hand, I pulled out my wallet. “Hayir lyra,” I shrugged. They examined the empty wallet and looked at my student ID. They gave it back to me—apparently student IDs were not hot commodities on the black market. The 13 year old cronies dove into my pockets and pulled out a top and string, a business card from a carpet shop, and the key to my hotel. I laughed and said, “That top cost me like two lyra. You want it? I’ll sell it to you. Iki lyra? Iki lyra?” One of the smaller kids smiled and had to suppress a laugh. The other little crony started working on my watch. I laughed even harder. “You want my watch? I’ve been trying to find a new one for three months.” He slipped the Velcro tongue off and held the watch in his hand. “That thing used to scratch my girlfriend. The Velcro doesn’t work. The beeper goes off too early. The light doesn’t stay on long enough. I’d have given it to you if you had said please.” I doubted that the vagrant kids understood a word of my English, but I was talking anyway. This mugging was a joke to me.
But then the main kid let go of my hand and grabbed the strap of my backpack, which had my $1200 camera in it. ‘Oh hell no,’ I thought. I tore into the highway screaming “GET AWAY FROM ME!” at the top of my lungs. I had just missed a pack of cars, and the next batch of cars wouldn’t reach us for 20 seconds. The child’s eyes were wide with alarm. His bottle arm swung back and then forwards. My hand met his arm and I jumped into the air, softening the blow to my stomach. I felt pressure when it collided with me, but no sharp pain. I heard the tinkle of glass on the road; the bottle must have broken when he jabbed me. He went running, and I ran a few steps in the opposite direction. I looked over my shoulder. They were gone.
I laid one hand on the cement barrier between my side of the road and the other. With my other, I lifted my shirt to inspect the damage to my stomach. There was only one real cut. Blood was swelling in it. I pulled the skin apart. The cut was only skin deep, it didn’t go through to my muscle. A car honked as a group of cars sped by me. When there was a gap in traffic, I stumbled across the highway to the side of the street. I felt as if I were going to collapse under the weight of the night’s misfortune.
A taxi pulled up next to me. The driver leaned across and opened the passenger’s side door. He said something in Turkish. I pulled out my wallet and held it empty for him to see. “No money,” I said wearily. “Police,” he said and motioned for me to get in again. He must have seen what happened while driving the other way. I sighed and stepped into the cab.
Three minutes later we pulled up to a police station. The fluorescent-lit main room was inhabited by four policemen. None of them spoke English. I showed my cut to one of them, and he looked alarmed. He fetched a cotton ball to soak up the dripping blood. If studying in Prague honed one skill, it was the ability to speak slowly with simple words using plenty of gestures. I explained through a game of charades that three kids with a broken bottle had mugged me. Four more police officers arrived, and none of them spoke any English, either. They beckoned me into a police car and said, “station.” I sat down in the dark, rear seat, and they drove back onto the main road where the mugging had occurred. The driver pulled over and the two police officers in front got out. I followed suit. I walked with them into a five-star hotel, where they began talking to the receptionist. “What happened?” he asked with polished English.
Since I had a translator, I decided to start from the beginning. I told him about the bar that had ripped me off. The officers asked via the receptionist what the name of the bar was. I realized I had not bothered to remember the bar’s name. “I don’t know, but I can find it again. It’s about 4 minutes up the road from here.” He translated what I’d said, and before I could tell the officers about the three boys that had jumped me, they were ushering me back into the police car.
My eyes were glued to the rear-left of the car. Street after street raced past. I began wondering if I would actually be able to find it again. Then I saw Taksim Square ahead of us. It would be passing us soon.
“THERE! BAR!” I shouted with excitement, pointing at the red fluorescent-lit sign. The car pulled over, and the driver motioned for me to wait. A few minutes later a police van pulled up behind us. They moved me to the van. I had to move body armor out of the way to sit down. ‘Christ, are we going to raid this place?’ I thought to myself. The van screeched away from the sidewalk and cut off another car in true Turkish form. We made a U-turn and pulled over near the bar. The policemen next to me asked, “how much?” and handed me a pen and paper. I wrote down 50YTL, but I shouldn’t have. If there was one thing I could change from the whole night, this would have been it. This had been my chance for revenge. It was my turn to scam the scammers. I had half the Istanbul police force with me. I should have written down 660YTL. Or more. But I didn’t.
“Fifty lyra? I am police officer! This for 50 lyra?” He seemed frustrated that his time had been wasted over only fifty lyra. I shrugged. I was a little offended, to be honest. I wanted to say, ‘I didn’t ask to be taken back to the bar. Besides, it’s the principle of the thing. I was shoved around in a back room. And your country wonders why tourism is down lately. Asshole.’ But I didn’t. A man who I recognized from the bar leaned over the window. He handed me fifty lyra and asked, stupidly, “where are you from?” Stupid questions deserve stupid answers: “America,” I said plainly.
The police car drove away and pulled up beside a man on the corner. We all got out, and the random corner man translated for the police, “What do you want now?” I told him about the kids with the broken bottle but how I had had no money after being scammed at the bar. He laughed, and I was glad I wasn’t the only one who found the situation so ironic. “So what do you want?” he asked again. “Um… just to go home I guess.” “Do you have money for a taxi?” I felt my pocket. “Yeah,” I smiled, “I do now.”
poslal za Kevin: středa, srpna 09, 2006
