I've heard him many times before. Walking around the neighborhood, hollering something to draw attention. And despite his daily tour and incessant wailing, I could never understand what he was saying--is he collecting junk? talking about vegetables?--until yesterday. I left the house at 8:28, still in a fog of sleep. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, a teenager sauntered by with a tray of gevreks (the Turkish equivalent of the bagel--only waaaay cheaper and more common and CAKED in sesame seeds) resting on his head.
He hadn't finished his first holler before I recognized him. It's you! You're the one disturbing the neighborhood's peace. Every. Day. At about 8 am. I sped up, wanting to evade his path. When I was a mere meter in front of him, I could sense an immanent holler. The air behind him was sucked into his massive lungs and experienced a momentary vaccuum right before he wailed.
"Sicak gevrek." (Hot gevrek.)
God it was loud. Sort of sing-songy but unappreciated since I was still technically asleep. My hollerer kept hollering.
"Gevrek geliyor!" (The gevrek is coming!) I walked faster, joining the few other people heading to work. No one looked particularly excited about the hot, coming gevreks, let alone rush over to him to buy their own piping hot gevrek before all the gevreks are gone. In fact...
"Sicak gevrek... bir lira... Gevrek geliyor!" (Hot gevrek... 1 lira... the gevrek is coming!)
... Everyone else was ignoring him, too, rushing away, trying to avoid the blast of sound emanating from his fit, soon-to-be-man lungs. He should still have been in school. Maybe he's practicing to be an imam, I wryly considered. He could do the call to prayer without the frigging megaphone broadcasting to the neighborhood.
I kept my pace up. After awhile, he stopped hollering about the gevreks being hot and simply kept repeating that the gevrek was coming.
Eventually The Hollerer must stop and set up his tray somewhere like all the other gevrek vendors. God only knows where he stops, but he uses my neighborhood as part of his route to the eventual resting point. It's a trade-off: Would I want him anchored to my corner, hollering all day, or would I be happier with his current morning route? I don't know but I'm just glad it's not me doing the hollering.
2 comments:
Look at you: measuring in meters already! Are our awkward, incoherent units of measurement not good enough anymore?
No! Our measurement system freaking sucks! The worst part is when I'm trying to teach "How tall are you?" to my students and I answer "I'm 5 feet 3 inches." After the look of panic and dismay subsides, I find a girl who's about my height and get her to tell everyone what "our" number is in meters.
... "Teacher, feet?!!?!?!" ...
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