A little taste of the kind of weird things that occur in the life of an average EFL teacher in Istanbul......
A COMPOSITE DAY OF ATAKOY 9

It�s a Tuesday morning sometime in early 96. Graham�s in the bathroom, laughing like a pissed gorilla �cos he�s got in there first. Martin�s in his bedroom, fighting through the weary tangles of sleep and old underwear, while voices echo and bounce round the foetid shaft known laughingly as an airwell outside his window. Paul�s in the kitchen, cursing everything and everyone around him - a way to get rid of the nighttime creeps. Talking of nighttime creeps, something slides off the Gimp and pulls of a manky yellow blanket, revealing Big Sweetie Petie, starting his manic monstrous giggle. It�s a grey morning - not the best in the world (1). Aircraft stagger and veer through the sky lowly: Pissed- up Aeroflot pilots, flying on one eye, a bottle of vodka and aiming at one of the airports they can see. Paul finds a vaguely clean plate and cup, and makes a vague breakfast of half-toast and tea. People drift into the living room in various states of dress, undress, shavenness, unshavenness, hangover, pillover, lifeover, amusement, anger, dread, joy. It�s time to go. The boys fall out the front door, pile into the lift. Graham farts, Paul snarls �That�s the most coherent thing anyone�s gonna fuckin� say today� and they get out of the apartment, weaving through the neat rows of blocks of Atakoy, Anywhereville. They force themselves onto the crowded Dolmus, next to the coiffed and perfumed women who whine when a window is opened even a crack, pass their money up to the driver who reminds Peter of a brutal, flatnosed pig and off the ramshackle piece of shit, coloured pus yellow, fucks. Ten minutes later they�re at Dilko, where Necdet wags his munchkin head at them, and Yeliz flashes off her tits, although they all wish Sinem would do the same. Jean greets them with a �Hehh!� and in the staffroom talk is about the upcoming holiday, and where everyone wants to go (2). John�s ranting, trembling and burbling in the corner, hands like aspens. Mel and Tabby are whining loudly, Clare seems to have eaten a bucket of lemons, Antonia�s quietly boning up, and it�s off to classes. Graham�s giving it the full noisy, happy treatment on the ground floor. Next up, Paul�s doing an exam, giving him the chance to catch up on some reading and look down on the world below, the life of the ordinary Turk wandering round the streets (3). He walks briefly out into the corridor and looks across at the main building, where he sees Martin sitting on a desk, the girls in his class making sheep�s eyes at him. Why don�t I get any decent biff in my class, he wonders idly, not aware of what�s about to happen in his own life. He looks down from Martin�s class, and sees Big Pete cajoling his students by hitting them on elbow and shoulder, causing them to rock visibly. Lunchtime comes swiftly, but with it no money: �In an hour or maybe this evening�, Necdet smirks. �Wankers� Mutter most, as they head towards the nearest Lokanta. Paul, Graham, Martin and Drysdale enter the Koyum, where the moustachioed boss, the moustachioed chef and the moustachioed donerci greet them warmly, then provide plates of hot delicious rice and dead bits, followed by a glasses of sweet tea and cheap Turkish fags that spill flakes of tobacco across the table. Drysdale, over tea, talks guns, describing in minute detail a scene from a film and how the actors used their weaponry wrongly. After lunch, Paul and Graham both have lessons, the �afternoon specials� with housewives with too much time and money and not a clue how to spend either (4). This goes on until 5, when there�s a two hour wait until the evening classes and all hands on deck. Necdet�s handing out the money, calling each person into the office individually and handing over an envelope stuffed with rapidly-devaluing Turkish Liras, a great whopping fistsized wad of money that looks like it�ll last forever until you get to the end of the week. Some people complain that they�ve been done out of money - the usual suspects. � Razzle time tonight - let�s get tooled up on raki and gin� grins Martin. Two hours to go before they can get out of this place. The teachers teach impatiently, furiously, wanting all to be over so they can get where they really belong - the bars and pubs. Finally, it�s 8.50, and everyone rushes for the exits, and bounds to the Fish Bar, where their miserable host, Toad Mehmet, awaits with cynical eyes, dangling cigarette and constipated body. Tables are drawn up, beer served, fags lit. The fags are imperative to keep the stench of the place out of the nostrils. Teachers from other schools join them, and debates ensue (5). Kevin from Antik turns up - he�s off his tits and yelling some folk music at equally drunk Irish Jimmy, who falls off a barstool the minute he sits down. �Blackadder� Martin, a Martin not previously mentioned, starts whining on about his girlfriend. Tamer strides up the stairs into the noisy melee and gropes the first mentioned Martin, While Big Sweetie Meatie Petie is telling anyone who can be arsed to listen how he quite likes his nightmares, Clare is wrinkling her face at everyone, and how everything�s disgoosting, Michelle from Antik is rapping away in idiomatic Turkish and Irish Neil, not Queer Neil, is practising his taxi driver speak and Mad Mark Petrovich is growling about how damn fuckin� good he is at languages, and how much dope he�s gonna fuckin� score tonite. Mel is doing her paranoid London twat bit, when the call �To Taksim!� goes up, and our motley heroes arise ready to hit town with their great clumps of Billy pictures. They get as far as the door before they�re told to pay the frigging bill, which always seems to be for far more beers than they could have possibly drunk, but is probably far closer to the truth than they could estimate. Chrissake, they�re fucking English teachers, not Maths teachers, aren�t they? Finally they slide through the streets to the road past the bus station (6) and into the waiting yellow dolmuses that will take them to the many pleasures of Istiklal Caddesi, Taksim, Beyoglu. The driver grins wickedly, stabs up the music, which is about as close to real Turkish Music they�ll get all night(7). The dolmus rocks and trundles up the Cevre Yolu, music blaring, our boys shouting, weaving through the mad traffic in its mad weave that all drivers in Istanbul adopt for the sake of survival and the fathering of children. Graham says something like �Istanbul�s a really boring place, when you think about it�, which leads to an argument with Paul, who automatically takes the opposite view whenever there�s an interesting argument in view, simply for the joy of arguing. Everyone else thinks he�s a bit of a wanker for this. The argument subsides as the Dolmus pulls into the back street that serves as the entrance to the entrancements of Pera. �Where now?� �The usual�. And so Martin, Graham, Paul, Peter, Andy Drysdale, Tamer, Carol, Michelle, Neil, Irish and Queer, One of the other Martins, Johnno, Andy Tingler, and others too innumerable to count because they�re all drunk, descend upon the Eski Kemanci. The beer�s cheap, the music loud, the insides suppurating and writhing with Western rock, rap, grunge and everything in between (8). A Turkish Rock Chick, Ozlem Tekin, whose single and video was released a couple of weeks before is propping up the bar, tanked up on pride, recognition and vanity, and vampirically attaching herself to any interesting male she can find. Johnno homes in and in a mix of broken Turkish and English, gets himself laughed at. Martin manages to grab the bog, and never has a toilet deserved this name as the toilets in the eski kemanci as these do, and micturates down the its throat, its gaping black stinking bloody maw. �Jesus�, he thinks, what are we doing here?� Others are beginning to think the same, which leads to a tactical retreat to the Yeni Kemanci, where the bogs are at least a bit more amenable to being pissed on, and there is dance floor for moshing on. Drysdale gets in first, thrashing his beardy head around and bouncing off anyone foolish enough to get in his way. The music is all grunge and Britpop/rock (9), everything with a happy chillin� feeling. Everyone crowds round the bar, or plays billiards. Big Sweetie has disappeared with some wench - he�s last seen wandering hand in hand with her in the backstreets, the rutlands, the fuckalleys. the shagpits of beyoglu. Our noble heroes, however are getting peckish, so they slip out of the yeni kemanci into the happy arms of the nearest chicken kebab vendor, when Martin says �Casino, anyone?� to general groans then �Yeah!�, so off they bugger once more in the same yellow dolmus which brought them to this vale of sorrows, Turkish music mocking them (10), Paul, Graham, Martin, Andy Drysdale, bickering and laughing. Christ they�re wankered, but still hungry, hungry for food and booze and living and laughing and trying to fill their boots full of wonderful glorious dancing wild life and joy before they become mortal and frail. Magically, they become suited, booted and passported by dint of authorial privilege and the driver, with his wicked Black Sea smile, drives them to the entrance of the Crowne Plaza Casino and wishes them �Bol Sans� . They all fucking hope so, but the main target is the breakfast bar, the cigars and the booze. Martingo and Drysdale, bluff and grim as his name, quickly take up seats by the bar, while Grimbo wanders from machine to machine, winning at first, the losing everything. Paul just loses, and kicks the poker machines. They all gather round the wonderful electronic geegee thingy, and provide commentary (11). They all end up down on the evening, and decide to head back to the flat, starting to feel like buggery, like tramps who rut on some manky bit of cardboard (12). They find an amenable driver and end up in the flat fairly rapidly, where Paul breaks out the wine and Graham breaks out the blackgammon, saying �You can�t beat me you wankers! Wa-hey!!� Paul and Martin indulge in stupid face competitions to the backing music(13), whilst dangling a rabbit mask by a piece of string from the window and gobbing onto the cars below. The mood starts to calm a little. Martingo collapses on the sofa, and is promptly covered in shaving foam and compromising vegetables and photographed for posterity and blackmail. Talk turns to love , joy and mistakes (14) and who our roaring boys would like to shag from the current crop of female teachers, students and secretaries. The booze is beginning to run out by now, everyone is knackered, even The Incredible Howling Upstairs Neighbour, who has serenaded them accompanied by Mick Jackson�s �Thriller� for the space of the last year, has gone quiet. Someone puts on the Divine Frank (15) , which they listen to while spilling wine and vodka over the carpet, which is still covered with little mounds of salt from the previous day. Said are Paul�s attempts to mop up the wine. They�re bloody everywhere. Graham and Martin idly, sleepily, toss their dice and somnolently flick their pieces round the backgammon board. Drysdale starts doing his big bear yawns, then promptly goes to the Gimp�s bedroom, where he chucks his hearty load. He asks to stay over, so it�s time to wake up the Gimp (16), the resident manky, miry, piss-reeking, vomited-upon and above all pink mattress that is reserved for the lads� most esteemed guests. Paul and Graham manhandle it into position - namely on top of Drysdale, while making high-pitched giggling noises. Time for sleep now: The booze is all run out, dawn will soon struggle through Istanbul�s evil clouds. Martin makes it to his room, falls over and asleep. Graham hunkers down in the sofa bed in his room, under as many blankets as he can find. Paul strips, puts on the radio in his room, music first soft, then strident and proud (17/18), gently playing. He looks out the window, his brain fuddles through the day and he wonders once more why he�s there, what he�s doing, why he�s so utterly lonely. He looks out onto a world where every window with everyone looking out is a mirror to his mired and drunken thoughts. After all, he thinks finally, we�ve all got to be somewhere, so why not here, why not now? and his eyes close into the stranger darkness.
11.11.01