[The following is the second half of an investigation that was begun last week.]
15
With a single eye, he spied clouds pass over the sickle moon, its lunar radiance dripping over him intermittently.
Unable to remember all of what led to that moment, he closed his eyes. He tried to gather his memories and thoughts, to examine them in the light of the moon, but they kept scattering, dispersing as though they were marbles; they went tumbling off the cliff of a cloudy mountainside.
Then the moon itself was finally concealed and he thought of his roses:
Where had they gone?
16
He heard his name being called and did not respond.
The silence grew louder, and his eyes remained closed: countless roses began to engrave themselves in the blackness of his eyelids.
Then once more, his name was called, barely piercing the shell of quiet that had encased him, hardly interrupting the petals that were etching themselves into his eyelids in deep cuts. Silence enwombed him and his name came again––and again; each time more muted, each time carving a petal, each time more strained and distant.
Then for a time he did not hear his name being called anymore. He did not hear.
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In time the silence subsided.
Gradually, he began to hear the noise of the adjacent street, of the alley cats and rats, of talk and music from the bar, of his heart beating, of the wind pushing tarps and towels high above him on abandoned balconies.
The roses, as though from the wind and surging noise, dispersed on his eyelids, moving in all directions, away, leaving behind purple trails and glowing dots.
He swallowed the blood that had filled his mouth.
Then he heard his name once more.
“Anis.” He opened his eyes.
17
Tarek was bleeding from many places and even as he called to Anis, he did not seem to be aware of himself doing so.
Anis struggled to pick him up, to wipe away the mud and blood from his face, to force him to sit down; but Tarek kept slipping out of his grip.
“Anis,” he would whisper as he slipped to the ground over and over again.
Once more he thought of his flowers: where had they gone?
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Eventually he stood him up, supporting all his weight, and walked slowly toward the door of the bar that stood at the end of the alley.
A steady beat and a watery melody dripped out in a dim red ray of light.
18
As they approached the door of the bar, Anis began to have doubts. Yet each time he halted, he would look at Tarek’s unmoving and bloodied face then push further on.
Like a snail and its shell.
Suddenly the door of the bar swung open and a man came out amidst a flood of music holding a bag of trash. He set the massive bag on the ground.
The door shut behind him and the music instantly gave way to the sound of bouncing glass and aluminum as the man dragged the bag toward the dumpsters at the top of the alley
Anis stopped moving and was unable to say anything to the man as he approached. He stood in his place, Tarek’s weight on him, observing the bag of trash being dragged. It was ripping and stretching in different places.
He watched the black plastic mass get dragged on the rough asphalt, filled with trash, leaking from all sides.
He saw the trail it left behind it, glistening in the light from the street.
Then the man, who at first paid no attention to the boys, came close enough to see their faces in the dark.
“What happened to him?” he asked Anis.
Anis didn’t answer. The man stood facing him for a moment before picking up the bag of trash and hurrying with it to the dumpster, trickling fluid as he went. The bag landed like thunder, spraying an arch of fluid onto the wall of a building, as he hurried back to the boys.
“Come,” he said.
He helped Anis carry Tarek, closing the door behind them once inside.
19
The room was red, suffocating, and filled with more people than Anis expected.
Music blared and the voice of the woman singing seemed to slither out of the bodies of the people seated and standing around the bar; with their eyes, and through the smoke and talk, the music beat a nail through Anis, pinning him like an incised worm, cut open, but still breathing.
“Get these kids out!” a man screamed through a woman’s curly head.
He had his hairy hands holding her.
Anis suddenly realized that Tarek was not beside him anymore, that he was placed on a stool at the bar and that the man who brought them in was wiping his face with wet napkins; yet each time the man let go of Tarek, he would slump down onto the bar.
Then two women stood up from a nearby table and Anis forgot Tarek for a moment, struck by how much he could see of their legs and their saggy bellies. He even forgot about the man that screamed to have him and Tarek sent out, to whom the two women were now saying:
“They’re only children, what are you scared of? One of them is hurt, poor baby.”
“He looks dead,” a voice said from a darker part of the bar
Anis allowed his eyes to watch the women move toward the bar. Arriving, they stood behind Tarek with their backs to Anis. They were talking quickly and touching Tarek, their bushy hair – one blonde and the other black – bouncing each time they spoke.
Anis could not hear their words and he could no longer see Tarek. He could not even see the man that was cleaning him up.
He allowed his eyes to settle on the four ovals beneath the waists of the women.
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The music was relentless and Anis could not tell whether they were helping Tarek or not, and he suddenly felt very dizzy again. He remembered what he had drunk earlier and he realized that his stomach was still glowing with it.
“Get these fucking kids out of here now!” the voice came again.
Some men came in and other went out, brushing past Anis without heeding him.
Anis, peering through the smoky air, wanted to get closer to see what they were doing to Tarek, but he was reluctant to leave the entrance area of the bar.
“Get them the fuck out of here now!”
The man finally stood up, pushing aside the woman that had placed herself on him. Anis saw that her breasts were exposed, but he quickly looked away.
The women that were standing behind Tarek suddenly turned toward Anis. They walked toward him, their legs quivering with every step, their bellies swaying from side to side. Anis saw their breasts bulge, veiny and pulsing.
“You have to go outside.” They said this softly over the sound of the music.
Anis saw, off the left, a woman stand up and dance before a seated gentleman. The gentleman was drinking from a glass filled with ice. He was slapping the woman’s bare thighs with a stick.
An old man walked around on the other side of the room singing to the music.
“Kick the dead one out as well,” the voice yelled jokingly. “Filthy kids! They only came in here to look at tits and ass, you whores. Kick them out before I come and give them a beating.”
Arms and breasts closed in on Anis.
20
A moment later he was standing outside in a daze. It began to rain.
The door opened behind him and the music flooded out again.
Tarek was being carried out.
“He should be okay, he is just drunk,” said the man over the music. “Maybe the rain will wake him up.”
Anis found this hard to believe but he nodded his head. The man then went back inside and the music was muffled once more.
The rain gradually increased.
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“Tarek …” Nothing.
What’s wrong with him?
“Tarek?”
21
He managed to drag him to the top of the alley.
Panting under his weight, he finally dropped him against the wall of a building on the sidewalk of the main road.
Three cars sped by, filled with people, blasting music. A fourth drove by more slowly with a single person in it; he cruised past Anis and Tarek, inspecting them closely as he passed. His eyes mainly settling on Tarek.
Anis tried not to look at him as his car passed.
Then Anis heard the bar door open and close. He didn’t turn around to see.
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“Come with me, to my car,” a voice said behind Anis. “I know a doctor. I’ll take you there.”
Anis remained quiet and slowly turned to face the person that was speaking to him. He saw a fat old man smiling oddly at him in the rain.
Anis could hear music coming from down the street in both directions.
“Where?” Anis asked, but he was already following the fat old man to his car. Tarek was thrown over one shoulder, his face oozing blood and wet with rain.
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The man laid Tarek in the back seat, covering him. Anis stood by the front passenger seat door, but did not get in. After placing Tarek, he pulled himself out of the backseat and he looked over the top of the car at Anis, raining falling on his face.
“Get in.”
Anis didn’t look at the man. He simply reached for the door handle. Once inside the car, the man opened his door and swung into his seat.
He turned the ignition and the engine roared.
Rain pattered on the windshield.
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A memory of the last time Anis was in car like this, in the front seat, suddenly came to him as the car sped off.
22
“What happened to Tarek?”
How does he know Tarek?
“I surprised you, Anis.”
Shoes.
“You don’t remember me? Shame on you.”
3,000 liras.
“You are a terrible shoeshine. Maybe you should find something else to do.”
One, two, three.
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“Don’t you speak?”
The sound of the rain on the windshield doubled in volume just then.
“You didn’t even talk while you shined my shoes.”
He turned on the radio.
“Maybe it’s is better that way. If you don’t talk.”
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“Do you go to school?”
School.
“You should. It’s not good not to go to school.”
“I used to go to school …”
“––But now you have to make money?”
Anis nodded his head, looking out of his window at the passing lights and street signs. He saw some people walking in twos and threes, some people in or out of cars. He saw other cars. He saw a police station. He felt that he had already seen it during this car ride.
“Do you want money?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, do what I tell you.”
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Anis was shoved out of the car at the same place where he was picked up.
The rain was ceaseless.
He had a black eye.
His clothes were torn.
The car sped off with Tarek still in the backseat; he had not moved once.
23
He remembered his flowers.
He began searching for them in the dark, but his left eye was throbbing and almost entirely closed. He could hardly see, but he kept searching.
He needed those flowers; he needed to smell their damp and cold smell.
The rain came down like led.
He was stumbling on the ground, cutting himself on shards of glass, his hands covered in filth, digging through trash. Anis was frantic for the roses. He needed to find them. He was thrashing around in the trash and the filth, in the dark, with the bar blasting its music in the distance.
He was trying to remember how many there were. Why couldn’t he find them anywhere, not a single one. He searched the entire alley, every inch. He prowled, coming and going. He began to obsess. He needed them.
He got into the dumpster. It was filled with fetid liquid. He tore open the bag that came from the bar. He smashed grass bottles and crushed cans with his feet. He couldn’t find his flowers. He climbed back out.
The flowers are gone. He screamed at the thought.
He got on his knees and held onto the wheel of the dumpster. He stuck his head under it, squinting through one eye as rain and filth splashed up onto his face. He couldn’t see whether they were there or not. Anis kept squinting until finally, he saw a flower. He saw a flower. He saw a flower. He found it. He tried to move the dumpster but the wheels were locked. He grew impatient. He tried knocking it over but he was too weak. He finally got on his belly and slid his body underneath the dumpster. He finally reached the flowers. His grasped the bouquet. He curled his body underneath the dumpster.
And it rained until morning’s acidic light.
idiotic investigations 