İsmail Güzelsoy wrote: To live without being out of tune

The sleeves of his grass-green and fuchsia-colored sequined vest were loose and flowing at the elbows. The collar of the vest, like a double-breasted jacket, was buttoned with sharp protrusions. A handkerchief, a slightly darker shade of the sequined fuchsia, hung artistically from the top pocket, catching the singer's every movement with the spotlight's bright light like a flash.

The man's movements, his facial expression, and the glittering clothing he wore all betrayed a surprisingly exaggerated self-confidence. The orchestra's outfits, while similar to his, were adorned with matte black sequins. The guitarist's left half took advantage of the spotlight, while the rest of the orchestra were lost in the dim light. Even if you looked closely, you couldn't make them out clearly. No matter what you did, you couldn't see anything other than the slightly older singer, yet as far as I could tell, no one was listening or watching him.

The radiant singer had meticulously studied the famous performers of the time and masterfully imitated their stage performances. Indeed, his movements, the occasional moves to excite the audience—the "Hep beraa-ber!"s, the octave rises, the bare-voiced singing that silenced the orchestra—were, believe me, more magnificent than Zeki Müren, Muazzez Abacı, or Barış Manço. Everything was magnificent, but the man had no voice. His terrible, wine-stained voice wasn't even sufficient for one-octave songs; he was constantly off-key. He tried to motivate the audience from afar by quoting "Hele bir Birlikte!"s to cover up the sounds he couldn't produce. The guitarist would increase the volume of the piece to muffle them where he paused, and even the drum passages that erupted from the shadows behind filled in the areas where his voice wasn't sufficient.

As I recall, I was a senior in high school. My mother forced me to go to a relative's wedding I didn't know. Wedding halls were among the places I hated most. It was during the busy times when we felt the effects of the coup the most. How fun could a wedding be when two or three police officers or security guards entered every ten minutes to patrol the area?

I looked at him and the audience in surprise. I use the phrase "audience." No one seemed to notice him. I examined the individual tables and the long row where the bride and groom sat. Even the children playing tag on the floor commanded more attention than the man. It was a strange sight. The talentless singer had dedicated everything to attracting attention, and to his credit, he had gone above and beyond, but it was simply not working. There was no sign of surprise or disappointment on the man's face. He seemed to have accepted the situation. He had no connection with the people there anyway. He was addressing an enthusiastic audience in a large music hall he'd conjured up, probably something like the Maxim Casino.

“Are we having fun?”

Buzzing…

“Is our couple having fun too?”

Buzzing…

"May God bless you all. Now, children, shall we play something for the beautiful bride and the handsome groom?"

Buzzing…

The man's attempts to connect with the room were pointless. No one saw him, heard him, or paid any attention. If you'd turned around anyone leaving and mentioned him, they'd probably have said, "I've never seen anyone like him."

I felt bad. Who had put the guy there? Why was he insistent on embarrassing himself with these ridiculous throat tricks? Frankly, he couldn't even bring himself to be embarrassed. Had someone once said to him, "You have a beautiful voice"? Who were they? I have no answers to any of these questions. All I could think was that whoever put him there hated him. It must have been a setup to make him a laughing stock.

I went home. I lay down and slept so as not to cry.

Three months had passed. One evening, I remembered that unfortunate singer and wanted to see her again. I'd tried to forget her for three months, but for some reason, suddenly, while drinking my second beer, an irresistible urge drove me from the Civciv Beer House, boarded the Gaziosmanpaşa minibus, and arrived relatively late. I searched myself the entire way. Why was I doing this? What was the reason for this urge to see that disgraceful state of being? I didn't have an answer, to be honest. It was delirium, an impulse I'd hidden even from myself, a curiosity… I didn't know, I still don't know, but when I got there, I realized I didn't feel as bad as I had the first time. Was my relief the knowledge of what I was about to encounter? Was I trying to see myself in that disgraceful state of being? Maybe! Did all of this have something to do with the devastation we'd experienced? Maybe! I don't know. I stood in the doorway, watching the scene intently.

This time he wore a jacket embroidered with yellow thread, with strange protrusions resembling epaulettes, and decorated with indigo blue sequins on the cuffs and collar, and loose trousers decorated with gold stripes on the sides.

"I'm waiting for your way

Months long, caaa…”

Buzzing…

I went to the restroom at one point. I gave a generous tip to the flannel-clad, flannel-clad restroom attendant, who was sitting bent over on a stool by the door. She looked at me intently, as if about to say something, and then smiled as if she'd seen an old acquaintance. She had only two teeth on her upper lip. Her smile was warm and genuine. There was a weariness in her eyes that was hard to describe but easy to understand. The smile on her lips didn't reflect in her gaze. We stared at each other for a moment, like two friends who'd run out of things to say in a long conversation.

“Who is this singer?” I asked.

The woman gestured for me to come closer, like a cartoon character, and said something, but I couldn't hear her over the man on stage. When I cupped my ear and leaned in again, the woman said, a little louder, "He's the boss."

"Your voice is awful," I said, sitting up. The woman was shaking with laughter, slapping her knees. She was saying something silently, just with her lips, but I could understand what she was saying. She was repeating my words.

“If the boss doesn’t hire a good singer here, why?”

I thought I'd thought about it, but the expression on the woman's face told me the words had just flowed from my lips. The old woman had stopped laughing as she tugged at one end of her headscarf. The intro to "Don't Mind, Heart" had begun. It was a calm electric bağlama. Knowing I could hear her clearly, the woman lowered her voice a bit and said, "There's that guitar player..."

"Yes?"

“That voice…” he said and kissed his fingertips together.

“Is it very good?”

"It's wonderful. It's not like that. If he sings this song, you'll cry like a child... That's right!"

“Why doesn’t he just tell her?” I said.

“I don’t know, my child, I’m checking the toilet,” the woman said while offering me cologne.

As he walked out the door, the man was shouting at the top of his lungs: "Hands up! Hands up!"

Buzzing…

My therapist friend told me about a striking case last year. "Thanks to the community offering exam questions," he said, "I got into medicine." Later, with the community's help, he became a specialist. He even attended a special program in Germany.

“Your tongue swelled as you pronounced the man’s specialty,” my friend said.

"I have no choice but to commit suicide. Please help me!" she cried, throwing herself on the therapist's table and remaining there for a while.

"Why? What's wrong?" asked my therapist friend.

"I don't know anything... absolutely nothing. I mean, I don't even have general knowledge. What can I do at this age? Who can I ask now to learn the things I should have learned long ago? Please help me!"

I asked my therapist friend: “So, what did you do?”

“Please see a prosecutor immediately, there is nothing I can do for you,” he said.

Lack of merit is ethically awful, yes, but it doesn't make much sense functionally either. Don't punish your child by giving them things they don't deserve, my brothers and sisters. It's a shame. Not to the other side, not to you, not to this country... Injustice isn't something that happens once, fulfills its purpose, and then disappears. Injustice is like a cancer cell. It infects every tissue it can cling to, until nothing resembles it remains...