A Lesson on Hitchhiking
t began as a good day. I walked longer than usual, through the part that I normally hitchhike, simply because walking felt right. It was a sunny mid-afternoon. I trekked up the long steep hill of Beşiktaş Meydan, where everyone else was ambling downhill. I stuck out my thumb with an Izmit sign at the start of the first bridge, where signs and arrows pointed to Ankara. A motorcyclist back-tracked to speak with me. He wasn't going to Izmit, but he agreed to take me over the bridge, which excited me a lot.
Poised like a celebrity-supermodel-rockstar in sunglasses upon a shiny black and silver vibrating throne, I had fortunately packed my bag lightly enough to not have to worry about a thing. "I can try to only hitch motorcycles the whole day", I thought. It wouldn't be a far ride to Izmit, and it would nearly eliminate the possibility for awkward conversations. Hitching motorcycles is truly free. "Even if nothing else good comes out of today, at least I got to ride on a motorcycle across the bridge!" I thought to myself.
In total, I rode on 3 motorcycles that day, plus one car, two trucks, and a van. I never made it to Izmit, though. At least not then.
The second motorcyclist picked me up at the start of the highway, near a bus stop and left me just a bit farther down, at a petrol station: a perfect place, if anything. He was slightly annoying, tried to stir up conversations with me about how güzel (beautiful) I was, and when I wouldn't have any of it, he simply let me off at that petrol station, which seemingly corresponded with his exit-ramp, snapping a photo of me with his mobile phone's built-in camera and honking a friendly "görüşürüz" as he sputtered off.
I took the inevitable 2-minute toilet break and got acquainted with my surroundings. Some of the cars on the nearby highway were even going slowly enough to stop for me. One of them did, so curiously, I approached. He was going to Izmit? Maybe. It seemed so. He was somehow ambivalent, but I entered, figuring I could use his cell phone to call Taşkin and negotiate where he would take me to.
The driver was maybe mid-40s, give or take, seemingly harmless, a business man perhaps? Generic, by any standard. The type of face I'd easily forget; it looked like anyone else's to me. He was soon explaining why he left the highway at the next exit; he was going to the doctor to pick up some medicine. I told him I'd get out right there, then. In a neutral tone, in an average-paced Turkish, he explained that it would only be 5 minutes, and then we'd be back on the highway again. Why was I going to Izmit? To see a friend. My boyfriend? I looked up "erkek" in my pocked dictionary: "male, boy, man, husband..." "Evet. Erkek." I smiled, assured that he would understand.
He hadn't been speaking slowly enough for me to make much of his conversation, but he wasn't threatening me nor trying to flirt with me, either; simply, making small talk. Ordinary. He rolled down the window several times to ask pedestrians for directions. The car, which looked brand new, but kept stalling every time we went too slowly, ascended a series of hills until the left windows carried a bright vista of the sea and the princess islands. He received an incoming phone call, so briefly, and after hanging up, I inquired again about the status of his phone. Out of credit? No, really, can I try? I tried to make a collect call to Taşkın, which didn't go through. Ok, fair enough. I tried making a regular call-- it really was out of credit. I simply needed more patience.
We arrived at the "doctor": a white-painted single-story run-down concrete clinical building with blue iron bars on the windows. A hand-painted sign read "URDU GIDA" both horizontally and vertically above the door and beside the windows. I took the opportunity to casually research these new words in my handy pocket dictionary. "Urdu" meant army, and "gida"? I could only assume that it was some kind of hospital or treatment center for soldiers and army personnel-- a special military hospital, perhaps? -- although there were no other signs of anything even remotely militaristic around. Not even a single Turkish flag. I recalled a conversation with a 30-year-old alternative-minded Turkish woman from just a few days prior, in which she described why Turkish nationalists were the worst types of men; that they encompassed all of the negative and backwards mentalities of machoism, sexism, violence, aggression, patriotism, fundamentalism, racism, and xenophobia, simultaneously. "Was this man a nationalist?" I wondered. "Or, was he really in need of medical help and could only find some special inexpensive drugs at this small clinic?" A generic-looking father helped his very young daughter down the stairs of that very clinic. Innocent. A memory of the small Planned Parenthood clinic in Central Jersey that I had visited twice or thrice entered my stream of thought: It was small, one-story, brick; an ordinary building in a decrepit neighborhood; could have been in a third-world-country; could have been this building, in fact.
My driver returned with a harmless nondescript bottle in a harmless nondescript semi-opaque white plastic bag, which he promptly waved before me, then stuffed into the glove compartment. We took off again, rolling down the hills the car had climbed earlier, past school children on their ways home. I was aware of our minor communication barrier, and ever the more, remained alert as to our direction, that of the road signs, and his mild conversation. The radio, some song, Was I a student? "Öğrenci misiniz?" No, not exactly, Sanatçım, artist. He asked if I was hungry, if I had eaten. I didn't care for anything, and tried to convey that, but he stopped at a convenience store anyway, and bought us each a can of cola. I didn't want to drink it, but to be polite, I took a few sips from mine, and produced a series of ever-so-silent burps. I don't drink cola.
The highway began again, and his conversation shifted to other topics: money, the usual questions, I figured. Hitchhiking isn't so normal, anywhere, whatever. I continued to watch the road, trying to discern our geographical position, our direction. It seemed as if we were driving in circles, and I didn't want to back-track and wind up in a loop of big-city rush hour traffic. But, at some point, he made a clear turn in what, according to road signs, was the wrong way.
"Nereye gidiyorsun?" ("Where are you going?") I began to ask, again, as if I had just then entered the car for the first time. He remained silent for a few seconds, then started to say something about Izmir. But I wasn't going to Izmir; I was going to Izmit. "Izmit," I corrected him, aspirating and annunciating the T sound at the end, so he would hear his Freudian slip. "Izmit'e gidiyorum."
He began talking about other things again. "Otel?" "Yök." Hadn't we been through this already, I thought silently. I reiterated the existence of my friend in Izmit.
It was as if the man's character had changed suddenly. A little parasite crawled into his ear and ate holes in his brain. I wondered where he was actually going to and what he had actually been thinking when he picked me up.
Nonsense; his temperament was no longer calm and unassuming. He was talking about money "Para", which coincidentally, is the same word as "Stop!" a command, in Portuguese and Spanish (as well as "for" in both languages). "Param çok," ("I've got a lot of money.") he stated, patting his right pants' pocket with his palm. His hands were large, ape-like. He had the physique of an American football player or phys ed. teacher: not merely overweight, but the right mixture of chub and muscle to be brute and forceful. I thought of my sweet, skinny, petite boyfriend back in Istanbul, with his thin, graceful frame and soft, smooth dark skin; how beautiful he was, he used to be swimmer. I smiled to myself at the thought of him. So often on the road, men have asked me if I have a boyfriend, have questioned why I travel alone, and for once, I did have a special someone back home. It was not a lie: Yes, I have a Turkish boyfriend, who cares about me, and yes, I love him, too.
The car's speed steadily decreased as the driver's menacing demeanor rapidly increased. He obviously couldn't focus on multiple levels of reality at the same time. But this was our own shared reality: that car, which would stall if he went too slowly, that somewhat deserted stretch of highway with signs for the airport but no sign of Izmit, and an off-ramp approaching us at the right side, clearly out-of-use and under-construction: we swerved into its its freshly paved entrance. It was a blatant turn in the wrong direction, and to show my awareness and reinforce my authority over his poor decision, I sharply repeated my interrogation, "Nereye gidiyorsun?"
He had ulterior motives that I would not settle for. His eyes narrowed to slits as we slowly continued, along what formed a land-bridge over a second, busier road lined with a handful of small service stations. In the near distance, a woman covered in a long black dress and hijab teetered gently along a mound of dry crumbly clay earth that sloped down from our level to the road below. The driver was uncertain yet angry, talking of sex in a frustrated manner, gesturing with his hands, patting his wallet, making more gestures, nervously and angrily at the same time. He wasn't going anywhere specific. He was looking for a nowhere-sort-of-place off the road, to pull over to, to take advantage of my small, defenseless body. I commanded him, "Yök, lütfen... dur," in a clear voice.
The car hit a small ditch, and I forced his eyes to meet mine. He exhaled a in a roar, shifted, and we inched in reverse. I was negotiating for him to let me out there; he was negotiating for me to remain in the car, both grinding our teeth in exasperation. I thought of Pippa.* He auto-locked the doors. I manually flicked my lock free with my thumb, and he glared at me with the gaze of a carnivorous animal about to pounce. He was shouting some words whose meanings were irrelevant to me; I could only translate the aggression behind them. Our car was barely moving at that point, and in plain view was that road below, with its offer of petrol station safe-havens. I grasped the door's handle and let it fly open.
Swiftly came the blows to my skull. Those large ape-like monster hands beat down on me, and each time sent shooting pains that rattled through my core. One large hand grappled for the door while the other wrapped completely around my upper left arm. I fidgeted and fought back, the way I had fought my father as a child. I would not allow myself to stay in that car, on the road to nowehere. I unlinked the thick fingers that encircled my left bicep, noticing how easily they could have torn apart my thin cotton clothing. Those fingers, that arm, and its hard elbow again beat upon my small body, but my right hand again pushed open the doorway to freedom. With my lightly-packed bag on my right shoulder, and my feet kicking him and pushing me out like a springboard onto the new black pavement, I was yelling furiously all the while "Dur! Dur! Dur! Dur!" ("Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!") It was all I could say.
He didn't stop the car and chase after me, and all the same, I didn't look back to see what might have happened. I went straight to the edge of where the land-bridge began and descended the slope of clay earth to the road below. I watched a 20-something female clerk watch me through the plexi-glass window of the first petrol station as I approached. No, she didn't speak English; No, she was not willing to let me use a telephone. There was no telephone, she informed me. She was lying through her teeth. Any business that exists has some sort of phone somewhere, even if she doesn't have access to it; it exists. Moreover, I was sure that she must have had at least one or two mobile phones lying around in her handbag, as well, alongside the 8 pounds or so of eyeliner that she applies on every 15-minute cigarette break she takes...hypothetically.
She continued to watch me in the same bewildered manner as I exited and rather helplessly threw my case onto the menagerie of employees that approached me. There were the first few in uniform, whose grease stains were testament to their work, and then the other few, whose button-down collared shirts told that they were either managers or clientele, though probably the former. A single one of these button-downed creatures stood out from the rest and gave me a knowing glance. "Merhaba," I was trying to be as friendly as possible without crumbling to pieces like the clay earth that I had just trampled down. "Do YOU speak any English?" He was smiling and not entirely coherent. "Biras?" ("A little?") "Telefone?" He led me up to a flight of stairs to the main managerial office, as I tried to explain my story, hoping he might latch onto a few key words like "otostop", "attacked", and "help".
At the first two tries, Taşkın's phone didn't respond. However, Mert, my sweet boyfriend back in Istanbul, did answer his phone. He was shocked, troubled, concerned, and at my request, translated my story back to the manager (whose name was Ersin) and added to bring me some ice for my injured head and water and çay to calm me down. By the time the phone was handed back to me, I was already in tears. "Are you crying?" came Mert's soft, apprehensive response. "Yes," I couldn't help myself.
"Oh, honey, I'm really worried about you. Does it hurt really bad? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
"Yes, it hurts, but no, I don't need to go to the hospital."
"Will you continue to Izmit now, or come back to Istanbul? Why don't you just come back? I love you, you know, and I'm worried about you now..."
I hadn't had a second to think about it until that point, "I know you do, but I don't know, now, I really don't know what..." I really didn't know what more to say, but speaking with him gave me such relief. If anything could comfort me, he could.
By the time I spoke with Taşkın, it was nearly 19.00. Ersin's shift would soon end, and he could give me a lift back to the highway on his motorcycle. We had been having a discussion thanks to automatic translation software built into his desktop, and he printed me a map of our location, some 20 kilometers from the broad city-limits of Istanbul. I didn't want to give up, but at the same time, I had nothing to really run from. In Izmit, there was a good friend and a free springtime festival, but in Istanbul, was someone I loved.
Mert's body was warm, but his hands and feet were cool. After expressing, once again, his concern for me, he asked me how I arrived. "Hitchhiking," my response sounded ironic yet unsurprising. His head lowered to our feet in a bent half-laugh, half-sigh. He raised himself again to look me in the eyes. There we were: safe, at home, as if nothing had happened, and at the same time, both trembling, both shaken, and both relieved.
Amylin
*the "Pippa" in paragraph 17 refers to: Pippa Bacca http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippa_Bacca
An Italian female hitchhiker who was raped and murdered in Turkey in Spring of 2008, in Gebze, a small city just outside of Istanbul, on the way to Izmit.
photo source: Wikipedia