grape covers

by Eray Erkek

He held the ladder steady. The damp floor with hose water covered his surroundings, green and brown like bruised skin. Heat gathered in the rungs he was holding. The hose gave one sigh beside a wilted tomato stalk. His mother’s straw hat cast a small shadow over his face from upstairs.

“Can you hand me the bag darling?” she said, reaching down without looking.

He passed it up. “Mama,” he said. “Did you see Havva? Asiye’s daughter?”

“Of course, did you like her?” she said, sorting through the leaves, picking the broadest, cleanest ones.

“No! She’s older than me mom, please,” he said, trying to see her through to sunlight. “I saw her at the bus stop yesterday. I think she started prep school.”

He waited. “She looked… uptown,” he added, not confident in the word.

His mother’s voice floated down. “Well, I hope she keeps her head straight. What was she wearing?”

He looked at the hose feeding the tomatoes with slow drips. “Crop top. Pencil skirt.” He was smiling. “She let her hair down too,” he said after a pause. “I don’t get how girls wear those long skirts in this heat. No way I would.” He made funny movements to get her attention.

She looked down and shook her head. “Like you could wear any skirt,” she said.

He ignored her. “I’d dress ten times better than any girl in this town, mama.”

“Close your mouth and hand me that bag.” she said, “Take this one first, boy,” she dropped a full bag. He passed up an empty one.

“But like, can you imagine me, wearing a skirt for a second?” he continued.

“I don’t want to, you’re a boy, son.” She said in a harsh tone.

“Please mom, it would be so funny!” he gently shook the ladder. She kept her silence. A smile appeared on her face but faded right away. He saw the small curl in her face.

“Mom! See? You know that I’d look ten times better than those girls in a skirt!” he stepped back to a spot where his mother could see him and struck a pose.

“Hey! Stop playing around and hold the ladder.” She flung her arm downward with one hand gripping the ladder.

He stayed silent for a while, waiting. Wind moved through his long hair, pushing strands into his mouth. He reached for a pale young leaf, smooth and veinless. “Can you take this one too,” he said, offering it up.

Her hand hesitated. “You know,” she said slowly, “for the first three months, we thought you’d be a girl.”

“No, I didn’t” he said.

“We even bought some of your clothes pink. Had to return them when they said you were a boy.” Her lips lifted.

“Well, I’m not surprised.” he said. “That’s why you make me do chores like this, right?”

His tone was teasing, but his eyes didn’t match.

“Oh, you were always a little man. Never played with the boys. Always hanging around the women, the mothers, trying to understand what we were talking about.”

He looked away. The hose had stopped. The mountains in the distance shimmered.

“Did you hear about Adem? They say he’s coming back to the town to see his mother’s grave.” She asked after a while. “They say he changed his… Oh, the city changes people so much. Don’t come back like that when you go to college, son. You hear me?”

“Yeah, mama, I hear.” A blue minibus drove past the garden. A tall woman’s silhouette was visible through the window.

“Probably he’s in that one” she pointed at the minibus with the tip of her nose.

He looked down at his body. A shirt, shorts and slippers. His father’s clothes made him look smaller than he was. His fingers rested lightly on his knees, long and narrow.

“Mama,” he said, still looking at his body. “Why are we doing this?”

She stopped. Hands on hips. She looked down at him.

“I mean, how many leaves do we need?” he asked. “How long we’re going to keep doing this?”

She didn’t answer at first.

“Until the leaves cover you. Head to toe.”

Photo of Eray Erkek

BIO: Eray Erkek is a student in Hacettepe University, Türkiye, American Culture and Literature department. He’s interested in Queer and Cultural Studies. He’s also the founder and coordinator of undergraduate student journal “Pax Americana”.