The Cucumber Fairy

Today in Istanbul, the place to be was a particular corner in some neighborhood whose name I've already forgotten. It looked typical enough when we stopped for orange juice. (There was a chicken crossing the street, but it wasn't a very busy street. Stuff like that happens when you leave New York.) But then we noticed that on the other side of the street a man was killing a rooster. As a meat-eater, I can't really be incredulous, but if nothing else it was an odd choice of venue. He was killing the rooster right in front of a stopped taxi. The driver got out of the taxi, walked around to the front, and wiped around the headlights with some kind of rag. We didn't see the crime, nor did we have the language skills to question any of the witnesses. But the only explanation that makes any sense, to me anyway, is that the rooster was crossing the street and the taxi hit it but didn't kill it and then the other guy stepped in to put it out of its misery. Across the street from the rooster situation was a cucumber truck. The whole neighborhood seemed to be buying cucumbers out of a truck full of them from an older guy and his 10ish-year-old helper. Back near the rooster were two guys at a little table playing backgammon and peeling cucumbers for people who would then put salt on them and eat them. In the lot behind the rooster and cucumber peelers were a lot more chickens and some ducks. There was a cat, but he took no interest in the birds. One of the ducks was particularly interested in another duck. I'm not sure if they actually consumated the relationship, but one duck was on the other duck's back biting its neck for a while. Really biting its neck, like maybe ducks are into choking. The adorable old beret-wearing Turkish man sitting nearby didn't know what to do with two American girls cracking up over ducks fucking. Anyway, we decided we needed to eat raw cucumbers like the locals, so I went to negotiate with the cucumber truck guy. I tried so hard to explain that I wanted one cucumber and not one kilo of cucumbers, and I thought the cucumber truck guy and I were understanding each other, but still I ended up with a whole bag of cucumbers. Turkey isn't that poor a country, but I would have felt rotten throwıng them away. So I spent the rest of the afternoon giving them away. I gave some to two different old women asking for money, and some to a little girl playing some plastic instrument in the street for money; all seemed grateful. I tried to use them to barter with a dessert vendor; he was much less impressed. I 'gave' some to a guy selling salted cucumbers when he wasn't looking. We gave the rest of the bag to a homeless-looking man and went to dinner. We saw him again a few hours later, sleeping in front of a building, sans cucumbers. I hope he put them to good use.

We also saw some mosques, which were beautıful; and a cistern, which was dungeony-creepy-cool; and a plate of baklava and other desserts shaped and colored into a likeness of Barack Obama. I like it here.