52 MEN 52 WEEKS/ 33 TUNCA ÖĞRETEN
Confrontation / Insolence!
Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish
I don't know how to start this article. No, of course I have things to tell but I am hesitating on "which confession I should make to earn your hatred", "which one of my wrongdoings I shall confront".
I was 20 years old. Same as every night, we were laying low on a street corner, talking with other "true young men" like me on how we swaggered and brazened it out like the other day when we beat a husky man senseless just because he looked askance at us.
I saw Ahu during one of those storytelling sessions... Ahu, a university student who left her parents' home a week ago and settled in a different city.
I saw her all the time after that night... Who knows, maybe I kept my eyes peeled to see her. She was beautiful. She was aware that I was looking at her. I think she was also into me but the skank was playing hard to get.
One night, she appeared with her short dress again around the corner. I started to follow her... I don't remember whether I followed her or her tantalizing hips that appeared under her dress. We passed a couple of streets like this... Then, in front of our benzo addict scamps' haunt, the house that was dilapidated after the passing of its mistress Greek Rena, whom my father said had lost her husband at an early age and was rumored to "serve" all the men in the neighborhood, I grabbed her arm.
I heard the sound of a breath. No, she wasn't startled... She knew it was me grabbing her arm. She wanted it too and I recognized this hysterical voice from the porn movies I watched!
Without letting her say a word I pushed her in through the broken door of Rena's abandoned house. Her eyes were cold as ice, like blind. I kissed her lips, she remained silent. I slid her skirt and felt up her thighs, she didn't move. I got hard!
Then, suddenly her lips moved: "Don't".
Muted, like the scream of an insect. "Don't!" I was surprised...
She put her palms on my chest and pushed weakly.
I was frustrated. "What do you mean 'don't' you bitch! You've made me follow you all the way here, now you play the moral girl?", I shouted. She trembled with my every syllable. Don't get me wrong, she liked it!
I wanted to lay Ahu on the stones covered with cigarette butts... She resisted. I punched her in the mouth. It was dark. I could not discern whether it was the blood seeping through her now split fleshy lips or the tears running down her eyes that wetted my hand.
She was on the ground now... I slid her underwear off, I entered her. It lasted short, I came straight away. I felt ashamed. First, I heard a faint sobbing, then screams as shrill as the sirens that wailed in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on the city. I got scared. Was it because she did not enjoy it? Or was she making fun of me? I threw another punch. She did not keep quiet. Then, I threw one more punch, then another and another... Her voice died away, but my fury was alive. No one could humiliate me like that. First, she made pass at me with a short skirt for days, then, made love to me and then made fun of me, eh?
I put my hands around her throat and squeezed. I squeezed and squeezed. The faint light of the street lamp reached inside the dark room and fell on her honey-colored eyes. Her eyes were open. But she was not looking. I bended over her and put my ear near her lips, she was not breathing.
It was how it was... What came easy went easy! They who lived by the sword died by the sword. The whore had it coming!
***
Do you feel uncomfortable? Don't!
If I can sit at the computer one night and write such a story; if these things have filled the tunnels of my brain, if this is what the soil I live on promises me... Is it not essential that I sit and confront them as well?
Aren't we required to confront not only the things that we brought into action, but also the "cases" of our geography that "inspire" our stories?
At the end of the day, don't our weenies, which as kids we are told to proudly show our uncles, start to turn us into masculinity addicts at a very small age? Doesn't the password "My son, watch out or your father will get angry" crack open the door of "Stop talking, you bitch" after many years?
As I have said, we have to confront not only the things that we have done, but also the sins that have filled our imagination.
And I have to confront not only the acts of Tunca, but also the acts of the one who murdered the 4-year-old Leyla and dumped her naked body by a stream, the one who raped and burned Özgecan, the one who strangled and slayed the musician Değer Deniz, and the one who abused children in the dormitory of a religious order... I have to confront the acts of every creature in this country who destroyed women and children with his manhood. (TÖ/ŞA/APA/SD/TK/IG)
* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses