Or: How I drank the most expensive beer of my life and pissed off a Turkish prostitute.

 

The prostitute threw her leg up on some sort of platform behind the bar in a huff, perhaps to suggest one last opportunity at the goods before she summarily kicked us out of the bar. “Go,” she ordered. Her English is absolutely awful, but it was the most comprehensible thing she said the entire night. “No drink, you go.”

We went. With the place actually starting to fill up and the bouncer obviously eyeing us angrily, it seemed prudent.

That was about 20 minutes after I had an actual, physical tug-of-war fight with her over a $13 plate of pistachios. I will repeat that: a thirteen dollar plate of pistachios. That I managed to muscle away from an angry Turkish prostitute. A plate sparsely covered with a single layer of pistachios, that I quickly grabbed and held on to when she tried to steal it away from me. A vain attempt to assert control over a situation by a man who had long since been bent over and taken to the cleaners.

Let’s go back for a minute first, though…

“That place has to be a whore house.”

That’s what my Spanish roommate, Bryan, said as we walked past Fantom Bar on last Wednesday night. It’s only 2 blocks from our apartment on a dark street. The exterior of the place is also dark. Red lights, red bricks, no windows.

Against Bryan’s wishes, we actually walked in on that Wednesday night after a couple beers at a restaurant full of 50 year-old+ Turkish men. I wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. There were a couple guys inside and all women working behind the counter — definitely not Turkish standard operating procedure. I asked how much a beer was and they said 10 Lira — about $7.50. It was too rich for our blood, so we left. It was intriguing, though. What’s the point of this place?

The first thing I did when I got home was Google it. The search lead me to find out that Fantom Bar and the two other bars like it on our street (Bonjour and Golden Gate) are called pavyons. The internet told me that a pavyon is a seedy Turkish bar with a scantily-dressed all female staff that caters to strictly male clientele. The girls sit around, possibly dance, and you can buy them drinks — assumably for the privilege of their company. However, it did not give much overall detail, nor did it explicitly say if pavyons are actually whorehouses or not. How divey is divey? Are these places just for hanging out? Buying women? What’s the point?

The internet had failed me. Actual research was in order. And I couldn’t wait: this had awesome written all over it. Mysterious dive bars playing Turkish pop music. Old Turkish dudes likely chocked full of good stories sitting around smoking cigarettes and nursing expensive beers. The seedy underbelly of Turkish nightlife awaited mere blocks from my flat!

Bryan was not convinced.

Three days later, after a wrench got thrown in my plans on Saturday night, I came back home to find Bryan in his pajamas; comfortably sitting at his laptop and relaxing. I grinned at him. “Okay, Bryan. This is it. It’s Fantom Bar night.” I declared.

Bryan clearly had little interest in the endeavor. “Man, I don’t know. I’m all relaxed. I don’t want to go there.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to come. I can go by myself. I only want to have one beer there just to see what this place is actually like. We’re not staying. We’re certainly not paying for any ‘services,’ if they even exist. I just gotta know. It should at least be funny.”

He grumbled. “Just one beer,” I goaded.

“Fine. I’m only going because you shouldn’t be going there by yourself.”

Turns out it was a damn good thing he came with me – I might have ended up washing dishes (or something worse) otherwise. We went in thinking we’d get out for 20 Lira for two beers; expensive, but worth it for some answers and laughs. That, however, is not how it went. I even brought 60 Lira to be safe — about $40 and WAY more than my dwindling daily budget allows for food and drink.

“Don’t buy drinks for the girls,” he said to me as we left our flat.

“Oh, don’t worry. Absolutely not.” I said confidently.

The red door loomed. We waited for the door guy to come back across the street to the entrance and open the door for us.

In we went.

The only room we could see is small. There are two bars, red lights, and thick clouds of cigarette smoke in the air. Stairs in the back lead up to the a second story. The DJ stands next to the door with a CD player and an electric keyboard in front of him. A couple guys that work for the bar mill around in nice pants and dress shirts. The smaller of the two bars had three or four old guys sitting at it with plates of food and drinks in front of them and five women behind the bar. The larger bar had two other women behind it. We walked about six feet and sat down at the corner of the smaller bar.

The range of women working was all over the map. Some were older and fat, most were average, and some were cute-ish. It was in line with the 30-second walk-in preview we’d seen on Wednesday night. Except for one.

She was silly hot. A beautiful face and curvy body to match. Prostitute-suggestingly tight black top and black shorts. Playful, sultry smile — when she wasn’t pissed off, at least. Yadda, yadda. I glanced wide-eyed at Bryan and mouthed, “Good grief.”

Within ten seconds of sitting down, the hot one was leaning over the bar directly in front of me making eyes and introductions in some of the worst English I’ve experienced on my trip. We’re still not sure what her name is; she definitely said it, but she is almost impossible to understand.

“You, Turkey,” she stated, pointing at herself. Then pointing at me, she asked, “You?”

This took me until much later in the confusing conversation to figure out. When she meant to say “I,” she would say “you.” She also said “you” when she actually meant “you.” It was a muddled mess and the only way to figure out who she was referring to was to look at where she was pointing.

“America,” I answered.

“AMERICA!” With dollar signs in her eyes, she giggled and got closer, leaning further over the bar. “I will not be had!” I thought naively. We would get our beers, chill for a bit, get some answers, and that would be it.

We ordered two beers, which were brought quickly. They put a plate of pistachios next to us. Bryan immediately said, “Don’t eat the nuts. We’ll surely have to pay for those, too.” Some girl was attempting communication with him (he always initially gets mistaken for Turkish), but she spoke no English and his Turkish is minimal at best. In the mean time, the hot one was flirting with me like it was, well, her job.

They kept asking us for drinks, as expected. We kept saying no. 20 Lira, tops. Stick to the plan. Attempts at conversation by hottie continued. Her average sentence length was two words. Typical questions were thing things like “You dance?” “You from?” “You hotel?” “You home?” Several times she stood up and gestured to her body asking, “Turkish girl good?” or “America girl good?” A new record! 3 words in a sentence! If you didn’t think broken, pre-K retard English could actually be flirty and sexy, you should probably check this place out. She manages.

Eventually, holding an imaginary glass in her hands, she pretended to clink my beer saying, “Cheers!” Not sure by this point what to talk about that she could actually understand, I turned to an old stand-by: language. You can keep a conversation going for hours asking, “…And how do I say XYZ in your language?” Repeat answer, laugh at mispronunciation, discuss, rinse, repeat. Simple. Thus, I asked her, “How do you say ‘Cheers’ in Turkish?”

“Cheers?” she asked.

“Yes. How – to – say – ‘cheers’?” I slowly repeated.

Somehow, some part of this meant that I was buying her a beer. I attempted to say “no,” but with a flash of her hand, a cold glass of beer was brought in front of her. Great.

If she was flirty before, she really turned it on now that I had “agreed” to buy her a beer. Her face was typically touching mine as she leaned impossibly further over the bar and blathered utter gibberish in my ear. She would touch my hand or my arm. Bryan tells me I looked mostly cool and relaxed, but I felt awkward.

Bryan’s mute girl wanted a beer, too, but Bryan had smartly sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. The international “Fuck off, I’m not buying you a beer” stance. I could feel her staring at me. She came over and asked for a drink. I kept saying no. Turns out Bryan, who had brought zero Lira with him, had told her “Ask Nathan; he’s the money man!” Bastard. Not aware of this, I tried to deflect her back to Bryan. She eventually left.

By this point, “my” girl was standing up on a bar stool behind the bar, holding on to the glass rack for stability, and dancing. In these situations, my rasied-by-mom Indiana upbringing typically goes on auto-pilot and I make it a point to only look at a girl’s eyes. I know I’m supposed to be ogling her tatas, but even in a damn whorehouse, I’m self conscious about being that guy. Maybe I look cooler for it? Doubtful. Probably just gay.

Hot girl kept cheersing me – an obvious “drink faster, whiteboy” tactic. I tried to take baby sips of my beer. She said again, “You hotel? You home?”

“What?”

“You hotel?”

“No. I’m not staying in a hotel. I live near here.”

She didn’t get it. Vocab was too advanced. She plowed unflinchingly forward, adding a word. “You, me, home.”

Ah-ha! There we have it. Finally. The proposition. “No, no,” I said, attempting a friendly smile. Bryan helpfully chimed in, adding, “He doesn’t pay for it.”

“You, me, home!”

She threw back the rest of her beer, took the last cigarette without asking, and I looked at her a moment then spoke with Bryan in Spanish about the situation, ignoring her. She kept touching my arm and eating the pistachios. There went the plan to avoid paying for them by not eating them.

“You, me, home!”

“No, I’m not taking you home.”

“You drink,” she said, pointing at herself, “You drink, then home. One drink. Then fuck. Home.”

This went on for a bit. I think she was implying that she was mine for the price of buying her one more drink. Riiiiight. Dangle that carrot, girl. I believed her as far as I could throw her.

“No. No. Not gonna happen.”

“No? No turkish girl good?”

Attempting conversation with her was pointless. More Spanish talking with Bryan. She interjected again, this time pointing at me, “You drink?”

Bryan told me how to say “no money” in Turkish again, which I repeated to her, “Para yok.”

What a difference two words make. She changed from a warm and sensual face to one that read like, “How dare you waste my time, you lowlife cheap son of a bitch.”

She walked away and stopped looking at us. Our drinks were finished by this point. Within a few minutes, she came back and forcefully slapped the bill down on the bar in front of me saying, “Money.”

It was 80 Lira. Holy shit. That’s a bit under $60 for three beers and one plate of pistachios. That’s about a fifth of what I’m paying for rent for an entire month. Our beers were 15, her’s was 30. The damn pistachios that we had not eaten were 20. With a now dwindling trip budget, it stung.

I had only brought 60 Lira with me and Bryan had no money. “It’s 80, man. I don’t have this much money. Shit.”

Fortunately, our apartment is literally two blocks from Fantom Bar. Bryan went home to get money while I did my best to hold down a fort that was getting increasingly cold. The bouncers eyed me. The girl only spoke with me to say the word “Money!” or ask about Bryan, “He where?”

While I waited for Bryan to return from what seemed like an impossibly long walk home, I tried my best to look amiable and relaxed. A big diesel dyke-looking woman, the only female patron in the bar, had sat down in the seat next to me and she started talking to me in slightly less deplorable English.

Pleasantries were exchanged with the Diesel Dyke and then, at length, I understood that she was trying to ask me what I was doing in this place. (Good question.) Why hadn’t I told the hot girl my name? (I had – we just can’t talk.) I tried to explain simply that I was just curious to see the place. Not here for sex. Upon asking what she was doing at the bar, she told me that one of the girls working is “her girl.” I don’t know if that means she is the girl’s pimp or that the girl is her girlfriend, or some combination of both, but I thought it best to not ask for further details, smile, nod, and say, “Wow! Very nice!”

Wondering what the hell was taking Bryan so long, I ate a pistachio and wished the hot girl had not smoked my last cigarette. The Turkish guy at the end of the bar who had been yelling “Viva Espana!” earlier starting gesturing to the pistachios. “Oh, sure!” I said, offering him the plate of pistachios. Hot girl saw this.

He took some pistachios and I set the plate back down in front of me. Hot girl came back and angrily said something about the pistachios and then said, “Money!” again.

“Just wait. He will come back.”

She gave some angry retort in Turkish and then made for my $13 plate of pistachios. I acted fast, grabbing the other side of the plate. A test of wills ensued as we pulled harder and harder on the plate of pistachios.

“Hey! These are 20 Lira!” I yelled at her. She yelled something back in Turkish.

With one final pull, I yanked the plate away from her, pointed at the bill and set them back down in front of me. With sharp, angry movements, she grabbed a handful of my pistachios from the top of the plate and threw them directly in the trash can. Viva Espana Guy and Diesel Dyke laughed.

Finally, Bryan returned with money and a pack of cigarettes he’d bought to get change. “Here,” he said, offering a cigarette. “Thanks.” I felt like Walter in The Big Lebowski. “I’m staying. I’m finishing my coffee. Enjoying my coffee.”

We paid the prostitute her 80 Lira and sat there as I told him what happened while he was gone. We lit another cigarette and sat at the bar, ordering nothing. More old Turkish men were starting to come in.

I assumed the plate of pistachios was the last straw with the prostitute, but then she surprised me when she asked, “You phone?” She wanted my phone number after the pistachio-tossing hissy fit? Really? I didn’t have a phone, so I said, “No. Email?” “Yes,” she replied, handing me a pen. Wonders never cease at Fantom Bar. The bouncer was right there the whole time eying me suspiciously as I was writing my email address for a prostitute. Maybe he thought we were trying to make a deal outside of the system. Sorry, buddy, this one is only out of sheer morbid curiosity and probably a bad idea to begin with.

Bryan and I decided to test the system; sit there and smoke until they made us leave. The hell with ‘em all. It didn’t take long.

We talked to the door guy on the way out for a bit – nice guy – then went home, laughed, and reflected.

In the end, I’m still not one-hundred percent sure if it’s a whorehouse or not, 99% sure, but under no circumstances am I willing to actually test the limits to find out. Nor do I have the cash or inclination to go to the other ones for more research. Speaking Turkish is clearly a prerequisite for not getting screwed in a place like that.

Ultimately, my part was 45 dollars for two beers — one of which I did not order or drink — and some bar nuts, which I also did not order or eat.

The opportunity to fight with a Turkish prostitute over a plate of pistachios? Priceless.

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