The Ride
It was 6:30 on Friday night before I realized I was supposed to be out the door and hadn’t washed or put on real clothes.
We’d been invited to a friend’s place for macaroni and cheese, so I wasn’t too worried about my lack of formal dress. My one pair of jeans had been covered in paw prints and were now washed and hanging out to dry, so I left the house in leggings, with no makeup and my hair in a bun, Django looking equally dishevelled.
The taxi situation in Istanbul is something that could merit its own documentary, but I will briefly summarize: it sucks. If you order one and they come and can’t find you in under a minute, they’ll leave. They’ll tell you there is a traffic jam because of a football game that doesn’t exist, then take you on back roads and charge you extra. There are stories of abuse and fights when foreigners won’t pay a suddenly quadrupled price. But I was late and exhausted, so taxi it was. He only overcharged a bit.
I had a joyful evening with my buddy, an American and has lived here for 10 years and whom I was introduced to through a friend, drinking wine and eating and talking about everything under the sun. Django seemed in good spirits, and all was well until it was time to go home. No taxi would stop. Empty ones sailed past. Drivers pulled up by the side of the road and shook their heads at me. It was 1am, and this went on for at least 20 minutes. I started to panic.
“Are they not stopping because I have a dog?” I asked a guy waiting next to me.
He laughed. “They won’t take me either.”
He crouched down and said hi to Django, and told me how much he adored animals.
“I’m sorry,” he added, “you are hot, but it was your dog that got my attention.”
He didn’t have a creepy vibe, so I decided to accept the compliment.
I decided to walk home, which would take about 45 minutes. He offered to accompany me— “not in that kind of way,” he reassured. He kept trying to carry Django when we went through busy areas or places with street dogs.
“No,” I kept saying.
Django doesn’t like being carried most days, but after the vet and the scary dog in the incident, I wasn’t letting anyone else near him.
Reggie was his name, and he was “approximately 33 years old” and loved to travel. He explained that all his friends seem to care about important jobs and money and cars and nice houses, and how he didn’t get it—a sentiment I more than understood.
“If I had a car, I would’t have met you,” he added, but not in that kind of way.
We walked through the city, across parks and along the crazy busy Decarie-like street, which was now quiet and peaceful.
We approached my place, and I thought, “Oh god. Now he’s going to do something like ask to use my bathroom, and I’m going to have to say no and it’s going to be awkward.”
“I’m going that way,” I said, at the bottom of my street.
“Will you be okay?” he asked.
I said I would. I thanked him for walking with me. He apologized for talking so much.
“Could I… get your number?” he asked, hesitantly. “I will take you for the best coffee in the world.”
I thought for a minute, and then gave it to him. Twenty minutes later, he texted to see if I’d gotten in okay.
“Thank you make my night more beautiful and thank you for the ride,” he wrote.
I haven’t heard from him since, and that is totally fine. It felt like one of those little reminders, from the universe/God/the Great Chicken in the Sky. That people are kind. That things work themselves out. That not all Turkish men are sexist or pushy or both. And, most importantly, to figure out how to use public transport.