Even The Colonel Laughs

Colonel Grandpa insists his first grandson be born in Istanbul.

I am about to be born. Colonel Grandpa Ismail insists his first grandson be born in Istanbul and not in our town, he doesn’t trust the hospital there, doesn’t trust the doctors there, he doesn’t trust anything, he is very serious, all the time. Just like my father he too is certain I’m a boy, I gotta be a boy, it just feels that way, so much that boy clothing has already been purchased weeks before I am due. Grandpa takes the whole family to Cihangir to a birth clinic. It is the middle of April. It is the late seventies, bell bottoms are matched with long mustaches and sideburns, my father looks like a cross between Frank Zappa and an Italian shoe designer. My mom’s been thinking she’s going to have a strange kid, the last few months of her pregnancy has been hellish. Elvis has just died.

I’ve been kicking and punching so much inside her; she already knows I’m stubborn and difficult, there’s no other option, here comes trouble. She hopes she’s wrong and all pregnancies are like this. Grandpa circles the building as dad walks up and down the hallways of the clinic, they don’t talk to each other, they haven’t in a long time. Early morning of the 16th, I exit mom.

I scream so much the nurses are overwhelmed. I disagree with being born, I am objecting already. I have a full head of pitch black hair, my head is as large as my torso. They tell dad I’m a boy and he’s relieved. Grandpa is on cloud nine. Mom is tired. I look so much like dad, his best friend walks in and asks mom if she put carbon copy paper on his penis when they did it. They all laugh. Even the colonel laughs.