These students walk past my body, one foot passing sideways in front of the other; their fingers weave themselves in through the metal fence containing my under-construction works as their eyes scan the colors that plaster my once depressive veneer. One girl writes “this is the physical form of segregation” and she looks at me willing to cry. Her red hair matches the orange paint meant for my décor that fell upon her notebook and she smiles, feeling humbled and lucky each time she looks down at it. As the city’s breeze bounces off me and lands on her, I feel connected with this young woman, if only for a moment as she smiles and walks past me, onto the other side.
As my friends fall upon the others, she reaches for me. There they go: bouncing among each other as the wind taps them lightly, I see them as a dollied camera might as her light fingers bring my flat orange body to her round pink lips. It’s late, the Birthday Girl’s sleeping, she must go quickly and quietly and she asks me to cooperate and do so with as few peeps as possible. So I prepare myself and she begins to fill me up with air. My skin stretches and expands, feeling sharp and good. As she finishes, she tugs to keep the air in, ties a quick but not silent knot and drops me so that I fall bouncing among the rest.
Dust covers the surfaces their closed-toe shoes shuffle across. It feels like an exfoliating massage on my seventy year old concrete skin, crackling more with every set of visitors. It’s a service I perform: a teacher of history who’s lived it himself, my students learn from my biographies and every day is show and tell. Their sweaty faces crinkle in uncomfortable amazement and the hand of one student, red hair and wide hips, keeps rising to ask another question, the antique dirt from my walls speckling her curious fingertips, which trailed about my glow-in-the-dark paint moments before.
Her white sweaty, somewhat dry elbows throw themselves into my smooth gray concrete exterior because my dizzy construct disorients her as it’s meant to. The red and white sticker marking her locational existence sits softly on her breast, which still moves as she tries to walk straight through the gridded labyrinth of exile. She takes pictures of and with me, trying to figure out how something that looks so straight can be so cross. She tells me I make her feel drunk and as a friend, I’m not sure how I should take it, but she laughs as she falls into me and I decide that it makes me feel all right.
Comfortable feet fall upon solid-packed ground holding a condensed history of human suffering. A girl in a happy tie-dyed skirt looks at me, cocking her head with sad eyes and solid mouth, and sends me a serious question. Are you okay now? she asks me, grazing her fingers across my tarnished peeling paint, it really did happen here, didn’t it? It did. I saw it all, but I’d rather not discuss it as concentrated discussion maintains to be my entire existence. Let my brown dusty, quite serious face crack at a joke rather than at the intensity of my truth. Let’s just talk. How are you?
Every night I’m greeted by the young crew of Berlin, throbbing in their drug-induced intensities or alcoholic matrixes, seeking someone, anyone, to heighten their buzz. A group of four Americans chatter by, reading my name, and laughing hysterically at its trashy appeal. “This is the place we were told about!” one of them says, anxiously looking at me with her makeup-framed green eyes and excited smile. Their freunde join them, taking them inside, where my vibrating walls move to songs like Johnny B. Goode and Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody and they start moving their feet.
Before her pen glides across the surface of her notebook to write down something seemingly fascinating to her, like borders or identities, she grips my flimsy plastic frame with her hands and brings my orange bubbling birthday body to her lips for a bit of a sip. Her eyes get wide every time she swallows, as she places me back down on the table; I think maybe she’s shocked to be drinking something like me in the morning and in class. Maybe she thinks me to be only orange juice and is surprised by what I contain. She listens to lecture with a sweet look on her face, interested and intently noting particular remarks, but each time she does so, she eyes me with a sly remark, and we laugh between us in the secret we hold.
Mommy, that man looks funny! He’s moving his hands around all kinds of weird and who are all those people listening to him? One girl points at me laughing and says “Jungle Book on his shorts!” Mommy, what does that mean? She has red hair like sissy. I like jumping around with you and Daddy but people always look at us. I don’t care. Jumping is fun. That funny man is still talking. He’s wearing green. I like green. I think maybe next time we go outside I’ll wear every color of the rainbow. Would that be okay?
Hard plastic black little wheels roll across my shiny floors. Some are in a hurry, some take their time. A group of tired, computer-obsessive American students congregate around my American burgers (fit for a King) and my free outlets. They talk and laugh. I like when people stay for a while. One girl sits in a grey sweatshirt hunched over her bags, trying to sleep, her hood covering her face. I think she’s sick. I’m sorry for her wretched existence: she’ll have to be checked at customs…
They all paid to get in; a few did so grudgingly, not wanting to drop a worthy coin into the hands of a tired Turk in order to do their business. Few see my first two stalls and eek: there’s no toilet. It’s just a hole. Fuck, they say, until their friends point out another option. So she lifts up her dress and down her underwear and she looks around while she’s going and notices there’s no paper in sight. Fuck again. “Kelsi?” “Yeah?” “Do you want some toilet paper?” Her face lights up at her friend’s psychic question and I’m sure she would have hugged her right then and there if my walls hadn’t been in the way. She rejoices over the small things, like using the bathroom the way she wants. Here, it happens every day.
Okay… so she’s American. Isn’t she? She sure looks it. I’ll try. Hello! Well, she looked this way and smiled. She’s stunning. Great, we’re on the right track. Hi, lady! She just said “hi” back and she’s walking toward me, she’s eyeing my products. Do you like what you see? I’m hearing a “yes” and now she’s asking how much that bowl costs. Bowl… five lira… Are you a student? Fantastic, she is! For you, special student price! Fifteen lira each! She’s looking pleased and her money’s falling into my hands. Thank you! Another one! It’s sad I don’t even feel badly about it any longer.
I feel a little bit like a balloon on days like this, when Turkey’s sweaty and busy population crams itself into my moving body, pulsing at every stop as people unload and load themselves. Some seem intense and claustrophobic like this one woman in mustard-yellow with large pink lips. She is absolutely not Turkish, as she looks unhappy every time she is shoved around, but I can see that by the end of the line she’ll get the hang of it. Her hot hands have hustled help however her hostility has hindered. She’ll make it. Everyone does.
This girl sits on the steps leading up to the movies as she smiles at me, resting her up-turned chin on her airplane-scented hand. She eye-contacts every passerby and happies each and makes mental note of every car which passes over me, most likely each on their way to Kottbusser Tor. This girl seems mind-numbingly happy as she just sits, breathing Berlin air, waiting for her friend to join her, just as happy and just as content. I wonder what they’re doing and what pulls the corners of their mouths up so high as Berlin’s wind moves through their bodies. I may never know, but I’m pleased just to be watching them.
This is essentially the best job ever. I work hard one day a year and I’m unbothered for 364 days after that. Today’s my one day so you’ve caught me on a busy one. I can only say a few words. I’m heading to Berlin at the moment to grace the girl in the flowing red dress. She’s drinking mimosas and eating the breakfast her friends made for her: baking power-less pancakes. They’ve called them pandough. Today’s her day as it is with everyone I’ll visit for pay on this one day of work. I’m on my way to sprinkle joy on her and grant her clear skies and a warm day. Anything she wants. You’ll see how it works if you follow me. Let’s go!
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