City Girl

22nd Annual Writing Contest Winner

by Leyla Eraslan

We've been running writing contests longer than some of our staff members (looking at you, Weymouth) have been alive. But after a few years of pure fiction, we decided to keep it real. For this, our 22nd annual contest, we asked for a 2,500-word shot of pure, undiluted nonfiction, and this year's winning dose comes from Leyla Eraslan. (Check out runner-up J.C. Lee's "Butterflies and Toiletbowls," online at citypaper.net.) Thanks to all who entered, and dared speak the truth. —Duane Swierczynski

The city's skipping outside my window, like all the dirty CDs kicked under my bed. I'm flicking my cigarette out there, because Philadelphia already looks ashy today anyhow.

I push back against the seat, forcing out grumpy, creaking protests. I lean back as far as the busted thing will go, which isn't far. It's not my car, but I've got shotgun forever in here. Not a pretty privilege or an especially special right, but sometimes it's good enough to know a place is saved for you somewhere. Because I really know it's a big world outside of this little car. The thing reeks of cigarettes, and he doesn't smoke ... my contribution for him to remember me by.

He's driving, but only so he gets unchallenged control of his shit radio. The speakers strain out some smooth processed beat that keeps on touching my skin. Another song I don't know the words to. The music does the talking for us.

My eyes trace the outlines of cracks and tags all over Philadelphia. They're this city's wrinkles, proof of time whizzing past without a second look at the damage. Inconsiderate and uncaring prick, that fucking time. Primitive modern art spraypainted on abandoned walls blend into the everything else of every day. The winding splits in the concrete where people tramped all over; they talk about being late for appointments or missing the bus, but mostly about being lost.

I feel old with the city. I feel like an artifact to everyone after me, like a warning: This isn't quite where I'm supposed to be.

He stops to buy a bottle of water. "Ice-cold," the ratty man working the median is telling us. The driver asks me if I want something. Sure, everyone wants something. But the 16 cents in my pocket is rattling to me that today just ain't my day. My driver doesn't offer to buy me anything. Fine. I guess he figures navigating the Schuylkill to bring into Center City is charity enough.

I pull out the small change. I stare at it pooled in the center of my hand, reflecting back the metal taste in my mouth. Fuck. I'd be rich ... if I was employed. Him, though, he's already running late for the job he never really wanted. Soon, he'll break out that cell phone and call in and fuck off. Yet another damn call out. Doesn't he know that folks are starving for what he's got?

I hand over the 16 cents to the tired water man. I don't have much, but sometimes I'd give anything to give it all up.

We just go on driving.

His cell phone's in his hand, calling in to call out. Vibrations gently shake the window that I'm leaning into, so I roll it down and my eyes gaze on forward to the buzzing thump starting far down JFK. I wonder if they hear it on the other end, the side of the line that's in button-up shirts and Steve Madden shoes and has coupons to Salad Works. He lies, without really trying. From far off still, the music stomps and shouts out toward us through the entire call.

I don't say anything; I'm giving my voice up to the city. It's Unity Day on the Parkway, and it's belting out a blurred message through some massive bass. He hangs up, smirking; the evil genius. Just like that, him and me are free in Philadelphia.

Swarms of bodies crawl through the traffic, fixed and intent on a some pilgrimage through Philadelphian streets. Missionaries hawk shirts with faces, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Malcolm X, Tuskegee Airmen, the icons of equality and peace, for what is probably a small profit. Everything's for sale.

I can't help but snort and roll my eyes when skinny white college kids stumble past, draped all on each other. They're wearing Uggs. Ugh. Are they drunk already? It isn't even noon. Still, they bring back memories of long nights with bad endings that made great stories. Who doesn't have the story about taking the wrong bus to nowhere, Philadelphia? Who hasn't made a mistake that turned out amazing? Who hasn't talked to a stranger? This city is conducive to strangeness.

It's the Khyber's $2 PBRs, the way Wooden Shoe smells, the taste of Lorenzo's, the smile of the artists sitting on Second Street, the sound of that homeless duo that belt out those awesome duets on Market Street. Youth and passion flow free in this place, running all through every street and alley and heart. Anger and love and stupidity all make a mad momentum that shoves people along through their lives, even when they'd rather just fucking stop. Philadelphia can be that slap in the face you didn't see coming, or an unanticipated fuck in the side closet, or shouting to be quiet when you're drunk at 3:37 a.m. Deep down inside, I'm screaming in full sympathy with the insanity of the city. On my quiet ol' outside, though, I just watch and I feel the ripples and reverbs of sound and life radiating from the celebration of Unity in a city of dualities.

On the sidewalks, black women walk past, screaming with laughter at something or someone or other. Muslim women in full burqas float toward the Parkway, pushing strollers. Thin teacher-looking women walk past in those garden shoes. The bodies of little children bobble steadily on the shoulders of their strong fathers, and I think that maybe a good pair of shoulders can make the world better. I want to go where they're going. I want to know them.

He takes a turn away from the crazed, happy crowds, and I'm craning my neck back as the sound of blasting, happy bass dies away. We head toward City Hall. I look around to see all the architecture of my city. I'm eyeing up those artful columns and elderly arches that gracefully compose the quiet, old elegance of the place. The works of art sprinkled on the city gleam, and I think of antique ornaments, rusting but impressive, pinned the blouses on young, proud ladies. Philadelphia reminds me of those silent film starlets who never made it to talkies, but they maintain their beauty and sophistication forever in black-and-white photos. The glory has faded, but is still everywhere. So much classier than the chain-smoking, nail-biting, makeup-smeared girl could ever be.

It's all entirely separate from the murals we flow past — pretty pictures plastered up over rotting hope, like the makeup I apply every morning, careful and careless at once. The junk I smear on that he never comments on, and maybe never really covers anything. The vibrant colors of the murals cry out something, a desperation for equality, or just balance, a strive for strength and a love of community. There's that, but I feel something else in the street art. Red blood lipstick. Black fishnets on peach skin. Purple velvet and amber overflowing champagne and white stains. Each stroke squirms on the concrete for attention, like a tattooed teen expressing herself. She and I and Philly feel that gurgling growl in our hearts and we all ask in the brightest, sexiest ways we know how to be completely filled up. Love, we beg, or the next best thing ya got. Fill us up.

When he hands me another tape to pop in is when I realize the only sound is how loud we aren't speaking. My mind sizzles and simmers in the summer afternoon. I grudgingly shove the sounds in the little radio, putting in his real passion. I look back to the mesmerizingly lonely murals that say more to me than the driver.

Maybe because he was busy selecting the next cassette and wasn't paying attention, we seem even more turned around. We're headed all the way up Broad, watching the city slow down and slump. When we start winding our way through North Philly, we see tired houses hunch and lean on each other in sympathetic dilapidation. Sick doors puke out jumbled porches and dry yards. I suck the smoke deep in, burning away my insides. The dirty toys of neighborhood kids are paralyzed and catatonic, kicked over in front of houses. It's hard not to imagine smudge-faced children here the same way, all frozen up in the summer sun. I can see their large, vacant eyes seeing a world that's empty for them. The corporate streets piled high with lucrative chains don't touch this filthy place, afraid or disgusted or both. We pass a tiny florist stand, and for a second, the smell of lilies and roses overtakes the smell of decay and cigarettes.

He turns a corner and narrowly avoids an urban wanderer, decked out in the customary costume of too many sweatshirts for summertime. I almost eke out a sound of warning, but he sees the man and doesn't need me to alert him. The man barely notices and doesn't even consider a shift in path. Where are you headed, I wonder. Are you determined to be good and lost, like us? You and me, I think, everywhere we go we're in the same damn place. I lean my head against the warm window and watch the sun sink into Philadelphia, brimming into her cracks, the places between the bustling building filled with pointless offices and the packed schools with students studying the science of surviving life and the museums with questions and the make-believe answers of art and the places of silence where this man carries on his useless journey. Tell me your story, man, and I'll tell you mine. I'll tell you how old I've grown in my young age, and how irreverent my maturity is. I'll tell you how ugly my pretty parts are, and what a beautiful, disgusting mess I am. I'll talk about how my poverty is a condition of wealth, and how I can afford anything with no money. I'll tell you how we're everything and nothing, this city and me. She's where I belong, inside myself — almost alone.

"Well," he sighs. He twists up around to orient himself. "We're completely fucking lost."

"I know."

Judges' Comments

"City Girl" does what all good stories should: place you squarely in someone else's brain, and allow you to see the world through that person's eyes. And what a city this girl sees. She employs a steady stream of evocative city images and concrete (almost mundane) details that nail you squarely in place ... and make you squirm, right along with her. —Duane Swierczynski

The story itself doesn't quite have the twists and turns that'd normally raise a pair of journalistic eyebrows (it's life, in all its tedious glory, which, I guess, can have more twists and turns than any of us expect), but there's something about the writer's voice that grabbed me before the end of the first paragraph. You can feel the frustration sliding off the pages. It's genuine (both in emotion and in its representation of ashy Philly), heartfelt, vulnerable but self-assured. All I know is I hope City Girl's boyfriend doesn't read this piece; she'll have some splainin' to do. —Brian Hickey

Some teachers are fond of telling students that crafting so-called "vignettes" — stories that bank more on style, voice and approach than a clear-cut intro, body, climax, denouement, etc. — is playing with literary fire. I think this story is a great example of how that's a bunch of crap. The author proves that you don't need epic twists, overarching symbolism or deeply affected character development to masterfully frame modern Philadelphia for what it truly is — a beautiful place that'll spit on you for saying so. —Drew Lazor