Selen Ozturk — Three Stories

Goulash

I’m in line getting beef jerky and this kid in front of me’s yanking his dog still enough to tell the lady at the counter his approximation of the Spanish word for cigarillos. His dog’s bald and beige and muscly with an inbred berry face jammed in a tire neck, lolling this slabbering tongue around. It’s eating my knees so the kid starts yelling at my knees. It starts howling at my boots from all the yelling and I turn out to split and I huff close on the glazed eyes of this guy behind me, who steps back a step. He looks like he’d drop his pack of Schlitz if I just glared. Matter of fact I’m glaring.

I say Sorry. I stop glaring. I say How’s your day going? I smile.

The kid’s confronting the lady now as to why the little cheap lighters cost more than the big ones. I pull out my phone and turn it on and just put it right back in my pocket to defuse things with the guy and me. My phone says it’s exactly midnight. I don’t reckon a good day’s going for anyone buying Schlitz at midnight, or beef jerky. But I asked the guy.

Anne made the best beef goulash. She left me for a cardiologist at work and now all I cook is opening jerky.

Guy has a jowly nose face like a chubby Nixon. 

He says Well. Well, to say honest, I’m going to a wake. Wake that’s two people. My boss died. A jerk. No way around that. No buts on that point. He was a stone prick. But he was retiring this week. Ron and I’ve been wondering about that.

He raises the pack of Schlitz. He’s got these uncircumcised elbows that jiggle.

His name’s Sam.

I mean I’m sure there’s better goulash out there. It’s just pathetic looking for it now. But so then the best will always be Anne who shat on my heart.

The kid’s pulling bills from a hole in his collar.

Sam has such white, short-but-straight-up-long, hair, digital white, fuller than mine.

I wouldn’t buy him Schlitz on Christmas morning. But after midnight weird and fated-feeling acts have temporary license. So Sam shoves in front and blocks my hand with his and puts down his own money. Then he goes to the fridges in the back and comes back with another pack of Schlitz and says Join us.

Anne started nursing school when I was out of work. I could do better than mopping under urinals but I didn’t want to.

Ron’s is the metal squarey gray house across the street, like a bad architect’s.

Even before that, she whined a ton I wasn’t ambitious, but she’d moved in to begin with because she loved I didn’t care about much money.

I learn Ron’s an at-home husband to a lady away at a conference, and Sam works for the city answering phones. They met in a pool league but Ron left to work on writing. If there’s a kid in the house it never comes out.

We’re half through the first Schlitz pack when Sam says Warren was the thickest tightass I’ve ever had the displeasure of working for. Only great day since I got hired was when he said he was leaving.

We’re drinking suddenly very slowly at the kitchen table. 

Sam says He groped half the building the twenty-five years I’ve been there. Women, a guy, maybe children if we’d hire them. He loved his family. Some, that changes nothing, huh, Ron? Just a happy tyrant, Warren. 

Ron tips his Schlitz at Sam and looks at me straight and somber as a cartoon. 

Ron says Whole years I know Sam, not one word for Warren he don’t bitch, bitch, bitch. 

Ron says This morning he calls begging he can’t go to his own boss’ funeral alone. I say what’ll Warren do, write him up from hell? But I do what a friend does. Then tonight he calls, he can’t just be alone tonight. 

Sam says Pulmonary embolism. Brain bleed. 

Ron says You know what Warren’s wife says at the funeral? Whole time, no one says how he died. “Let’s not focus on what happened at the end,” she says. “Let’s talk about the good things he’s done.” I tell Sam, holy shit, your family man put his own lights out, and Sam says no way.

Sam says Aortic blowout. Saddle embolus. 

He drinks between each.

Ruptured spleen. Hemorrhage. Aneurysm. Happen to you, me, this kid. One pop. Anyone. Dead while you’re still living. Nothing so shitty in Warren’s life he’d want to end it on his terms, Ron. Quarter-century I’m under him. He chased Lisa for years, Ron, while she was with another man. Took her son in as his own once that guy left. No family picture I saw Lisa had no smile on, and he showed all of them to us he didn’t grope.

Sam adds Don’t see you complaining your wife has no smile on, Ron. Or works so hard. 

Ron says Neither does she, Sam. Could learn from that, Sam.

Sam says You’re no Fitzgerald, Ron. I’m not but I know that. 

Sam says The difference being, Ron, I live off no one to churn out shit. I probably lay more floozies in a year than your wife even thinks of telling you to bend over in five while you don’t finish how many books.

Ron says I want something greater than you guys can even read. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. You know who wrote that?

Sam says Million it ain’t you, Ron. 

He turns to me. Whole time they’re railing across the table and I’m in the middle under this low lamp that lights up barely none of us. 

Never asked your name, Sam says. I deeply apologize.

I can’t think what Ron wants that I can’t read. His kitchen smells like that kid and his dog.

Tell me, kid, Ron says. When was the last you got laid?

Last year. Anne.

Last year, with hair like you, says Ron.

Ron, says Sam. It’s January third.

Look at his eyes, says Ron. He means last year, last year. No fucking juice. This fucking Anne, she give you juice?

I can’t think of saying anything but she made the best beef goulash.

I say She married a heart doctor.

Anne gave me juice, I say. She liked Russian books and made the best beef goulash. 

Well, there’s your problem, says Sam. Russian.

I say I mean in English. The books.

All I know of Russia is they love killing their best, says Ron.

I think we'd all do pretty well in Russia, actually, I say.

Goulash ain’t hard, says Ron. Goulash is meat and noodles. I’ll make some makes hers taste like crap from a Russian ass, Sam. You hungry, Sam?

Ron stands and starts forcing open cabinets.

Sam tears open the second pack and hands me a warm Schlitz for each hand.

Ron says All I have is Hamburger Helper. 

He’s slurring so all his H’s are silent. He’s standing on a kid’s stool.

Sam says Ron, sit down. Sit down, Ron. 

Ron says Spaghetti. Course Goulash is Hungarians. Can of fried onions. Chekhov’d never think of such a thing. No Fitzgerald. He’d say use it all. Like you, Sam. I say only what’s beautiful. Box of macaroni. Béla, Béla, Béla Kun, spare the goulash, Béla Kun.

He’s frying Hamburger Helper in a pan with a lot of loud oil now. 

Sam says I think Béla Kun was a wonderful man. Murderous pinko but at least he did what he believed in.  

Ron takes the empty fruit bowl off our table and fills it with water and pours it in the pan and dumps in the macaroni. 

He says Name one thing about Béla Kun other than he’s from the goulash place. You just couldn’t. You know he did good things. But that’s all you know about him. Are you comprehending what I’m trying to tell you, Sam?  

Last year, huh, Sam tells me. He hands me a third Schlitz. Ron walks over and I hand it to him. He cracks it and walks back to the pan and pours it all in.

This is how they made it during the war, he says. That’s all I know about using it all.

Which fucking war, Ron, Sam says. One thing when you’re a kid, Sam says. He levels his Schlitz at me and says You’re fifty, Ron. It’s time to buy a soccer ball or a dog before your wife realizes what she’s propping up. 

Ron’s back is turned. He takes three plates from a cabinet and sets one down before me, and two at two empty chairs. Sam moves one of those before him.

Ron rips a paper towel into thirds extremely slow, so I hear each ply tearing. He neatly folds each part in half and tucks each square beneath each plate. He walks back and jangles a lot of tinny metal in a drawer and shuts it shut. 

Let’s not focus on what happened, he says. Let’s talk about the good things I’ve done. Go ahead, kid. Or else, what, you’re saying everyone’ll wait ‘till I’m dead too? You’re shit.

He hands me and Sam a fork and knife, some metal and some white plastic. 

He comes back with the pan and dumps a little pile of goulash on my plate and Sam’s. He dumps a pile on his that leaks off all the edges of the plate and stains the light wood table nearly black.

I say I think it’s time for me to get a good job, and do good things, Sam. 

I say I mean you must know someone with the city, if you could ask anyone. I could even answer phones.

Sam says You could even answer phones. Give the salt, Ron. Ron, where’s the salt.

Ron’s the only one eating. 

He says Warren put his lights out and you think I should buy a soccer ball.

Sam stands and starts trying cabinets.

Anne, says Ron. You’ll get another. If you think it’ll ever be good as the one before, and that one good as the one before that, you’re shit. You just are. It could go on good longer. You fight less or, you, nearly never. But whoever first called it baggage, that was a writer. Why it all eventually hurts with everyone, why, why can’t one thing always be fine, you haul that until you pop.

Ron says Then we can all say “Oh, aw, oh, let’s focus on the good he did.”

I try thinking of reasons Ron’s uniquely failed, that he could think that way. In truth, he’s great-looking for his age. Wiry all over but his chest, with his hair feathery and brown. I try considering how I could politely leave. 

Ron hands me the last Schlitz.

He says This is the last Schlitz. You comprehend what I’m telling you? You’re our last hope. I’m kidding you. I’m threatening you right now. I’m cursing you as a loving father. 

Hope, Ron, for what, says Sam. Kid, Ron hopes. Cut loose, kid. Just take it easy while Ron hopes. I won’t say what you should do but that certainly is what to do.

Ron says Would you rather be permanently beautiful or completely right, Sam.

I strain to see if it’s really lightening out the window or my eyes have swimmers from the strain. I didn’t realize my eyes were strained.

Ron says The issue with getting laid is it can’t just end there or else there’s something wrong with you.

Sam says I’d rather be completely right, Ron.

Eggs in Practice

Depressed, I realize I've never done anything perfectly.

There’s what’s perfect, a math ribbon stretching each fold upon the other past the past. And there's what everyone calls perfect—da Vinci, mutual orgasm, Djokovic, Apollo 11. I mean this.

But I’m a lazy painter, gun-shy spasmer, klutzy athlete, an engineer of nothing, and, depressed, limited to simple acts. But the thought of trying to perfectly walk, breathe, or crap depresses me further. And writing’s a wash. I'm not sure writing could be perfect. What I’m writing about, only the rest of it is there.

I eat. But I'm even less sure I can eat perfectly, dribbling and stuffing or understuffing to crap and need more.

I do cook. It's said there are such things as “the perfect soufflé,” “the perfect steak,” et cetera.

Not having left my house in days, eggs are the best I could cook perfectly. Because it can’t be said, “the perfect boiled frozen peas.” It can but it can't. The same’s true for the perfect boiled eggs, or fried, because everyone likes theirs differently.

But while some like The Starry Night versus Las Meninas, both are said to be perfect in a way eggs over easy versus those over hard are not.

But one can cook a perfect omelette. It's said the French have always done it, and now the Japanese. This is one situation in which my being a Turk is not unfortunate. Because it’s not said, except maybe by the French, that a non-French person can’t make a perfect omelette.

In school one day I learned about deductive reasoning. 

All eggs and butter are food. Omelettes are eggs and butter. An imperfect omelette is runny, dry, or burnt, therefore.

It’s said practice makes perfect. One thing certainly wrong with me is I don't have much eggs or patience. Patience comes from nothing, in practice. Though this is something no one says. But nothing's more evident. Where could patience come from if it’s lacking?

There’s nothing I've done perfectly, or at all well, therefore.

But if that were true I wouldn't, for instance, have a house to cook in. But I certainly believe it's true. Besides, I rent. Therefore, I really must feel depressed today. And patient.

The first egg, I wait too long for the butter to foam. It just browns and blackens in a dwindling pool.

The second, when I use the first, I learn the problem is the stove-heat was too high, as the crisping whites bubble around the pale stiff yolk before I can burst it.

The third, I break and mix it raw. I wait over a low flame until I surely believe if I wait longer to fold it, it’ll stick brown. In fact it’s so undercooked the egg falls in wet flakes through my fork when I raise it, then the flakes set in solid tatters when they hit the pan again. I'm writing around the same faint causeless sadness which is always changing through the way it’s said.

My fourth try, my third egg, my last, is neither dry nor burnt nor runny. Eating a therefore perfect omelette, I realize I didn't salt it.

It’s not said one can't salt a perfect omelette after it's cooked, from all I know about the French and Japanese. I know nearly nothing about the French, but I know if they have something to say on this matter, I'd certainly know it.

Salting is cooking, in practice. Everyone salts to their own taste. 

But the perfect omelette, being perfect, is to everyone’s taste.

Therefore, salting a perfect omelette is and isn’t cooking it.

Perhaps this is why, eating it, I’m still depressed. To say nothing of how van Gogh felt, failing to sell The Starry Night. Though even an awful painting is more immortal than perfect eggs. I could’ve cooked the most perfect omelette, and no one will talk of it the way everyone talks of The Starry Night. Though no one calls it the most perfect painting.

Except maybe the Dutch.

In fact, van Gogh’s last words were “The sadness will last forever.” Therefore it’s in my best interest to think the Dutch are generally mistaken.

It makes me sad to think I’ve now done something perfect and I’m still sad.

In fact, the Dutch word for peeling eggs is “scaring.” As in to shock them with cold water.

I couldn’t for the life of me know how I know that. Not for my life. And now my omelette’s cold.

I don’t think one could peel any egg perfectly. No matter how cold or carefully one peels, some shell always gouges the hard white heart and takes a part off with it.

Klight in August

No one here’s so old they look pathetic slurring at each other for another jello shot as I do trying to leave fast as I came and they swamped me. 

“Hi! What’s the meaning of all this?” I ask a woman who looks just like me but taller, fitter, fuller-haired, longer-haired, and she blocks my way from the bar. Everyone’s swishing against and past each other’s long black silk school robes while golden tassels, some white-powdered, swing off everyone’s caps.

She says, white-faced, “Where has he gone?”

She says, red-faced, “How did he do that?” 

She hands me a backpack to watch over while she finds this guy.

The bartender tells me the guy in question—The Incredible Hank—has vanished after performing the most outstanding trick—everyone here agrees—anyone’s ever seen.

At least three of the seven kids puking outside owe their puke to keen awe and not jello, adds my bartender with a warm leer that transforms him into a temporary friend of gross and usual yens.

Here’s the incredible thing Hank has done.

He asked anyone to approach who loves anyone who’s died. My lookalike approached, citing her high school boyfriend Cody, who fell off his neighbor’s roof while taking down her Christmas lights last August. Hank asked her for her phone. He didn’t unlock or look at it. He warmed it with his palms and closed his eyes and held it quietly and gave it back. Whereupon she got a text from Cody asking—after a misspelled I klove you, my bartender explains—that she name it after me lolol.

More kids swamp me before I ponder this. I leave the backpack with the soberest one and undertake to pee. The women’s room is swamped and is, from all the snuffy squealing, I suppose, the source of the white powder. I take the big stall in the men’s and when I’ve wiped and stood to zip, I see I’m unalone.

Two stalls over, a huge pair of glossy purple oxfords are plumb still.

I say “Hank?”

I say “How did you do that?”

Hank is tearing toilet paper, spooling more off the dispenser, and ripping that.

He says “Which part?”

I say “This is no jesting matter, Incredible Hank.” 

I say “Can I think of someone I love? If I can think of anyone, can you tell me why we have almost no brilliant fond words between us and what more they could be?”

Hank grunts to sit down, clothed—there is the soundless sound of trousers bunching on the porcelain—and I sit raw-assed.

Someone comes in, shits in the stall between us, washes his hands, and leaves.

Cody’s neighbor was a dying but able widow who hadn't asked him to take down her lights. He'd just seen them up there every night, unblinking in the heat, and thought someone should.

***