Blowing Chunks In Bozburun Turkey

A Story by Greg Escott

Paradise and a public toilet found in Bozburun, Turkey

Blowing Chunks In Bozburun Turkey

A man was howling from the other side of the bay, rousing the muslims from their deeds- to wash up and get down and pray. There must be a schedule, but nobody gave me the time card, so it always sprung up on me. “Pull it out of your wife jackass! It’s time to tell Allah how great he is! Wash it off and get on your knees, you dirty b*****d! Repent!” Maybe they’re singing about something holy, or maybe they’re just telling you about how worthless in the eyes of gd you are. I don’t know, I don’t understand a word of Arabic. I made up little stories for all of the dirty things people were doing, and enjoying, right before the loud speakers from whatever local mosque happened to be within earshot snapped them out of waking life and into subservience.

If I were a practicing Muslim, that kind of daily intrusion would put me right on the edge, and maybe, just maybe even push me over it. As it happened, I was just an infidel passing through, so I kicked back in my chair tried poking at a few olives that were skating around in the oil on my plate. The sun was hot, damn hot, and it was eight in the f*****g morning. I sat next to the ocean that was a kind of blue that you see Photoshopped on to postcards. You can look right down into 50 feet of water and see rocks and fish and reefs and roll right off your chair and into the ocean’s embrace if it feels like you’re too close to passing out. Every time I looked at the water, I just wanted to walk off a plank and wash myself in her deep blue sea.

I was in a mote of a fishing town called Bozburun, in Turkey. Some people there craft grand old wooden sail boats and the rest either fish or serve up fish and beds to tourists. I didn’t have much to do that day, we were going to hang around and swim and snorkel awhile before heading for the mountains the next day for some hiking. Seemed like a nice little town for a cold beer and some surf. And it was.

A little after breakfast, we began walking along the waterfront, which is about a kilometer or two of parked stink pots, yachts, shops and tiny hotels. Kaue saw a park, so we sat down in the shade while he ran up and slid down a hot plate slide about ten-thousand times. You’d think it’d get repetitive for him, but it always seemed to provide a fresh kick and a little shout. An elderly lady came over with steaming tea and an ice cream cone. Because Kaue is charming as hell, people are always giving him free stuff like that. If he needed one, somebody would give the kid keys to a car and tell him to mind shifting from second to third because it sticks. He gets an ice cream cone at nine in the morning, and I get a bitter cup of hot black tea when it’s about 90 degrees and rising. It’s a kind gesture, so I burnt my tongue while he cooled his on a chocolate ice cream cone.

I began sweating a little and I felt a big one working its’ way down the tubes. I ate a lot at breakfast, and whenever I overdo it, I get a big creeper coming on with building urgency that can only be ignored at risk of great jeopardy. “Hurry up with the cone son! I’ve gotta move!”

We made our way to the centre, which is about a dozen shops selling scuba gear, rugs, and trinkets to foreigners. I wanted to find a cheap mask to see under water, but first I had to find a toilet. After paying $5 for a bottle of water I didn’t want so I could use the shitter, the guy pointed to the public john next to the police station. You gotta be kidding me a*****e! I didn’t need to pay five bucks for that kind of tip.

Jutta took Kaue into a shop to look at a shirt and I started checking doors for a passable toilet. Pretty clean, actually… not bad. I found the cleanest one, with a busted latch, and pulled down my shorts to hover over the rim and crunch one off all neat and tidy so I could get back to finding a swim mask. Sweat was streaming down my forehead, trickles down my back, and I thought I was going to bust a vein in my forehead. Settle down. I was doing all I could to not touch the seat, on account of my deep rooted aversion to putting bare a*s on public plastic, when my a*s sounded off like a gunshot and blasted grape shot into the water below. “What the?” Instantly, my mouth was salty and before I could register what was coming, vomit filled up to the tip of my nostrils.

I hit the plastic with a dejected thud and instinctively reached for the waste bin with my hands, flipping the foot pedal with my thumb to get the lid in time for the slurry of chunks spewing from my screaming mouth. I’d just broken every single rule I have with a public toilet in about 1.5 seconds flat. I filled the small waste bin about a quarter of the way in one shot and noted with deep sorrow that the bag folded in on itself an instant before the next round came hurtling out. My a*s was keeping perfect rhythm on the water drum and things were really humming along at this point. The beastly moans and foul sounds kept the whole place to myself. Mercy. Have mercy. I’d eaten far too much breakfast. It kept coming, and I was getting a little worried with the containment levels. I was worried about the poor b*****d who was going to find this steaming mess after it had been cooking in 100 degree heat all day.

I braced myself with my hands on the walls of the stall and took a few moments to breathe deeply and calm things down. That was a critical error. The fumes were too thick and I made a grab for the sloshing waste bin to blow more slurry, damn near topping it off at the brim. Where the f**k was all of this coming from?

You can learn a thing or two about gluttony in a public john, given the right circumstance.

I mopped myself up, waded through the dense chemical air and burst out into a sharp daylight. The ocean breeze hit me like a blast of down feathers and I felt right in the world again. There’s nothing like that second wind. You feel like a million bucks, ready to run a marathon or swim across a channel. The slate is wiped clean and anything is possible.

I thought that maybe I could double back and refill on breakfast.

I was delirious.

I found Jutta and Kaue and mentioned I had a small problem, but it was alright now and we could go looking for a mask. Jutta’s face was unreadable, so I assured her all was well, I just needed some water to wash the burning from the back of my throat. Five bucks later and I was ready to go. The sweat began beading on my face again, streaming down my back and feeling unnatural. I felt like s**t. Things were starting to spin in jerking movements and the rolling waves that once seemed like a wet dream now looked sickly to me. I averted my eyes from the ugly water and reached deep for the will to go on. The well was dry.

Maybe I should head back quickly and lay down for a minute or two. Kaue can’t move worth a damn when there’s parks around, and there was about three of them between me and the hotel, so I knew if there was any chance, I had to go solo. I said goodbye and started at a quick zigzagging pace. I was about 300 meters into my run for safety when the mouth watering salty taste came flooding back with the force of a surge channel.

There’s no mistaking it. You can go ahead and try to suck the saliva back down, hoping it will go away, but there’s no chance. There never is.

You’re fucked man.

I was on a wide sidewalk, and although looking back, it’s possible that I could have simply turned my head and shot that sucker into the drink like I was spitting out a wad of tobacco juice into an oversize spittoon, but I decided against my better judgement to try and hold it in.

A honeymoon couple was about ten feet away from me, sweetly walking hand in hand along the harbor front in the morning sun to burn off the evening dew, when my cheeks were filled to capacity and rising. My brain screamed no, but I felt my guts heaving another shot up to spite me, so I reached up with my hand in that desperately futile attempt to stem the flow. An arc of brown and orange bile streaked across the brilliant blue sky before them and splashed down at their feet. All I could see as I hit the ground was their legs carrying them away to shelter from a hurricane of vomit.

I crawled over to the edge of the wharf between two big charter sail boats and heaved another torrent into that beautiful blue water. A howling moan rose up from my throat just before I let another jet fly. Normally, it brings relief, but I felt even sicker when I saw a school of tiny beautiful fish swimming through the swirling brown goo in the ocean.

I lurched off of my knees and looked up at the people sitting on the back of the boat, previously enjoying what looked to be a fine breakfast. I gave them what I thought was a friendly nod. They stared back at me, wide eyes and open mouths with half chewed food.

I looked back down the sidewalk toward the hotel that seemed like it was about a thousand kilometers away.

My head acted like a big magnet, pulling me closer to the hotel. If I just kept one foot in front of the other, I knew I could make it back. Just keep the head in front of the body and you’ll be ok. Just keep the… I slowed to a stagger, finding no salvation in the strangers that gave me a wide berth, so I pushed on, feeling like the guy from Platoon who is stumbling out of the jungle and being shot full of holes.

I blacked out and came to when I was heaving myself up the stairs of the hotel, climbing past a peculiar portrait of Ataturk, whose eyes followed me through the corridor.

We picked the only hotel with three stories, of course. It was old, and it had a vicious winding staircase of marble that seemed very retro and authentic when we first arrived. I swayed heavily and I was going to keel over and crack every tooth out of my skull on the way down, but the bannister kept me upright every time I plowed into it. I made it to the door of our room, got the key in and threw my shoulder into it once… twice… bang and on to the floor. I lay there, curled up against the door jam for a good half hour or so before Jutta and Kaue made it back.

Not wanting to alarm my son, I picked myself up off of the floor and flopped into bed. Ice cubes. I need ice cubes. I need a f*****g drink. I’d drink the whole goddamn ocean if I could, just get me a big enough bendy straw and leave me to it. It was as if the Sahara had picked itself up and crawled right into my mouth and down my sun baked throat. I’m dying, and I need a drink of water. For the love of god, just a little bit of water. I rolled from side to side with these thoughts until Jutta came back with some ice and a big bottle of water.

I tried drinking a cup and it sent me instantly to the toilet. My back side had priority, and moving quickly enough, I was able to clean up just in time to swing around and throw my guts into the mix. One cup came in, and about five came out. I repeated this twice and couldn’t for the life of me figure out where all of this water was coming from. I stammered back to bed and put an ice cube in my mouth, got right back up and let another torturous round loose.

I passed out, and when I came to, Jutta was standing over me and said there was a doctor waiting downstairs. He drove me in his little car to a rough little clinic behind the town and I collapsed on to the gurney. He asked me a bunch of questions, but I could only understood half of it. We’re going to give you a little poke in the arm here. What? He jammed a big needle into my arm and hooked me up to a bag of dope that dripped down a tube suspended over my head. I lay there for an hour as bags were changed and fluids were being pumped into me. Beside my head was an overfilled can of old stinking medical waste.