Dingoes of the Dardanelles

Legends are not born, according to mythologist Johnno Duggans. They’re shat. Legends have to be seeded, Johnno tells me. How’s land seeded? Shit, mate. And if the ground is fertile, them seeded-stories flourish into legends. We’re standing on bloody fertile ground, Johnno says. But Gallipoli isn’t where legends are born, Vic. Gallipoli is where legends bloom. Once shat. 

Johnno can be found at the North Shield, an Australian pub a little left from center of the world. These are the western shores of the Dardanelles, the revered Hellespont, the waterway which splits Europe from Asia. Under these skies, you will not find the constellation of the Southern Cross, yet within the North Shield, the crossed-stars are represented throughout to provide its Aussie patrons a sense of home. Tape-delayed rugby plays on the television overhead. The stereo speakers, silenced only during the muezzin’s call to worship, blasts a set list which includes Men At Work and Savage Garden. This afternoon, the pub is empty but for a couple of cab drivers sipping Turkish coffee. And Johnno Duggans. 

The pub stands, treacherously, at the foot of my hotel. When sneaking past the open doors of the North Shield, I was spotted. Muster up a stool, Vic!, Johnno hollered from the bar. Don’t leave me drinking with the flies, mate.

Good on ya, Vic, Johnno said after I took the seat beside him. 

The Western Australian cricketer-turned-manurer-procurer & mythologist is built like a giant sunburnt cue ball come to life. Johnno’s irises, like the prized marbles of childhood, have lost their luster over more than a half century of witnessed glories & travesties. Mangled hands placed on the bar script his legends with hieroglyphic scar tissue and disjointed knuckles. 

Take Achilles, Johnno says. Back in Greece, he’s just another bogan getting wristies from lonely goat herders. He arrives over here and makes handsome Hector’s face look like a dropped pie. Oi!, Vic, ya think afterwards, Achilles stopped by the North Shield for a victory pint?

Man, I don’t know if there were Hampton Inns at the time of the Trojan War, I say as a reference to the landlord. 

This Hampton Inn of Gallipoli is an especially unholy shit-hole. Not even a waffle-maker to be had. The hotel pub, our North Shield, is a dive so dependent on catering to Western tourists, 90% of the potatoes consumed in Gallipoli are undercooked in this kitchen. The North Shield does, however, have imported bottles of beer, which is important. The local domestic beer Efes, brewed in the nearby biblical town Ephesus, tastes only of disappointment and bathtub fart bubbles (according to my translation of the Turkish label). My recommendation is to stick to the imported beers.

What are ya drinking, mate?, Johnno asks. If you like vodka soda, order the Moscow Mule. There’s no mule, but heaps of Moscow, and Murat will spit in your eye. Murat!, Johnno calls the bartender over. 

Murat never rests. Once the bar closes, he’ll sit behind the front desk as the night manager of the hotel, smoking cigarettes, gazing into the abyss. His face is dominated by his mustache, though 99% of his expression is in his mischievous eyebrows. Mister Victor, Murat greets me. Your friend said you would be here. And here you are, Murat says. Is it so prophetic?, I ask, for me to show my face at the hotel bar? Murat’s eyes narrow and he says, yes, it is prophesy written on your forehead. 

I order a Corona. Murat says, no Corona. He gives me an Efes.

Where is your lady friend, Vic?, Johnno asks. She go on runabout again? Hare & Tortoise, the two of yous. At least she’s jogged-off for good reasons. Unlike me missus. Ellen is taking bloody sailing lessons, he says. Sailing, Vic! I bloody well already taught her to sail. I taught all my lovely bimbos to sail. Ellen and the kids, I mean. She doesn’t need to learn bollocks. She only wants to sun-bake with these olive-oiled Turks. Never marry a Gold Coast lass, Vic. Bloody oath! God only knows, mate, Johnno says, what them fishermen must be thinking as Ellz walks by sunning her bossoms. Ellen. My own Helen of Troy. What did they call the cuck, Vic?, Johnno asks me. Helen’s husband? The Greek who went knocking on the gates of Troy, looking for his wifo? Menelaus, oi!, there’s our bloke. Bloody hell.

The Turks fishing along the seawalls of the Dardanelles probably have not seen a lot of women like Ellen Duggans. Though they’ve seen plenty. The peoples of the Gallipoli Peninsula have been invaded by all sorts of menacing foreigners, not just King Menelaus and Johnno Duggans. When the Persians invaded the city-states of Greece, Xerxes built a pontoon bridge to cross the Hellespont. North of here is where Constantine established his city: Constantinople. The crossroads of civilization, prized for centuries by spear-tipped real estate investors. In the defense of Constantinople, the Byzantines once set the Dardanelles aflame with Greek Fire to ward off Islamic invaders. In the 4th Crusade, a cruise ship full of Franks, out of Venice, sacked the Orthodox Christian city of Constantinople. Byzantines barely managed to lord over the city until 1453, when Mehmet the Conqueror conquered Constantinople. Turks have run these parts ever since. During World War I, the Gallipoli Peninsula was invaded by a joint Australian and New Zealander colonial army. That’s right: the locals have actually seen the likes of Johnno Duggans before – in 1915. But they haven’t seen anything like Ellen Duggans. Not since Helen arrived in Troy on Paris’s arm, if not over his shoulder. 

You know, Vic, Johnno says to me, I too used to live in Florida. What?, I say with perked ears. When? Decades ago, mate, he explains. I was taking the odd sailing gig, having a lash-up around this salty globe. Strewth!, mate. One time, I got a job as cook, manning the galley of a pleasure boat sailing transatlantically to Spain. Fuckin’ sorted, mate. Leaving with posh pleasure cruisers out of Palm Beach. Prep three squares and crack open a few tinnies, sleep beneath the stars, no dramas. We set sail and we’re popping bottles of the champers when I realize, not a single sheila aboard! All the pleasure boaters strip down to their bathers and start dancing to ABBA. All blokes! I said, “bollocks this!”, and jumped overboard. Vic, don’t get me wrong, mate! I am all for blokes to bugger whatever they like. Consensually, of course. Debauch away, mate. But I am not spending a week cooking brekkie for a bloody rugby scrum of an orgy. 

How far out to sea were you when you went overboard?, I ask. 

At least a mile, Johnno says. Bullshit, I say. You jumped overboard a mile from land? I’ve been rescued by the Coast Guard off the coast of Florida, I say to Johnno. No sane person voluntarily jumps into waters that far from shore if their life doesn’t depend on it. Never mind the sharks, the Gulf Stream would send you to the coast of Britain as crab food by month’s end. 

Johnno laughs, saying, in Perth we’re better at growing strong swimmers than sane persons. Murat, another round! Whiskey for me and me auld mate, Vic.

So, what?, I ask, you swam to shore?

Johnno ignores me as he smiles at the barkeep. He says, Murat, tell Vic your honorific title for me. Very important jewel. What’s it, Murat? Tell Vic.

Murat delivers the whiskeys and he says, sadrazamin sol taggagi. Sadrazam is grand vizier, yes? A very important man in Ottoman Empire. Sadrazamin sol taggagi is his very precious stone. 

That’s me, Vic, Johnno says. Turks love me, don’t they, Murat? Someday, Vic, you might be the precious stone of a grand vizier like me. I can only hope, I say with a shrug. Johnno Duggans laboriously stands from his seated position. Man the station, Vic, I’ve got to use the loo. Don’t look at the poetry I’ve been jotting on this napkin. But if you do, you better fuckin’ like it, mate. 

The whiskey is nice. Neat. Irish. It washes away the taste of the Efes. With the voice of Johnno ringing in my ears, I entertain myself by gazing over the latter century photographs on the walls. Knowing their clientele, the pub has grainy pictures of ANZAC troops hunkering in the trenches at the Battle of Gallipoli. There is a picture of Kemal Ataturk, father of modern Türkiye, as he commemorated the foreign soldiers who fell at Gallipoli. Those Aussie & Kiwi boys are now also the sons of Türkiye, Ataturk said. 

Also on the wall is a recreation of the world from the 16th Century. I recognize the map immediately. Gallipoli is the birthplace of one of history’s greatest cartographers, Piri Reis, an Ottoman admiral. This print is from his famous 1513 map of the world. In his map, Piri Reis references surveys taken by Columbus during New World voyages. Which is curious. The Ottoman Empire of the 16th Century was at war with Spain. Sultan Suleiman the Great had advanced his army as far as west as Vienna before Europe pushed back. Spain, with their plundered riches from the New World, were the chief financiers of the defense of Christian Europe. If not for the conquistadors’ genocidal mania in the Americas bringing home the gold, Ottoman Turks could have taken over Europe. Rome would have fallen to the Sultan. Then Paris. Point being: Spain was in no position to voluntarily handover Columbus’s maps to an Ottoman cartographer. What’s more: Spain lost the maps of Columbus entirely. They cannot be found. Hints of Columbus’s charts only exist in the maps created elsewhere, such as the 1513 map of Piri Reis. 

Which pulls at a fascinating thread of possible hidden history… Did Turkish spies slip into Toledo and steal the maps of Columbus? 

I order another Efes and pick-up the cocktail napkin with the Australian’s inked chicken scratch. It is not what I expected. The poem is a tribute to Johnno’s great-uncles who never returned from the Great War. It’s thoughtful. Not jingoistic. Any ill sentiment is not for the opposition at Gallipoli, but rather the generals who sent troops into battle. “Dingoes of the Dardanelles” is the working title. Wild Aussie ghost dogs howling in the night, trapped on the wrong side of the world. It’s mostly a rhyming exercise. Johnno is stretching when he rhymes “solemnly” with “wallaby”. Later, he describes a frozen corpse as a “purple Turk” and then in the next line discusses the “Sykes-Picot circle jerk”. I laugh out loud. It’s a clever bit of political satirizing. 

What’s the verdict, Vic?, Johnno asks on his return. I have a question, I say to him as I hold his napkin. When denouncing Churchill and the British generals, you rhyme “g’day mate” with “bidet fate.” What the hell is “bidet fate”? Imagine Vic, Johnno says, if your entire destiny is blowing water up assholes. Bidet fate. Me thinks Milton coined the term. Or Alighieri. 

Brilliant poem. It’s Homeric. 

Fuck yourself, Vic!, Johnno jokes, it’s only homoerotic if you make it homoerotic, ya filthy buggerer. 

Finish your story, I urge. You couldn’t have possibly swam back to Palm Beach. 

Ye cunt of wee little faith, Johnno says. I bloody-well did swim to shore, but not directly. I had to swim south a few miles ‘til the currents weren’t bloody mad. I beached near Lauderdale, but without my wallet, passport or visa. Vic, mate, I had nowhere to go. Didn’t know a fucking bloke, did I? But we Dugganses are built on Vegemite and brass, mate. Sturdy stuff. Ask me great-uncles buried in these hills. I did what any pioneer lost in a strange land would do. Found me a rich widow. Started a new life. Got a job selling cars. Strewth! Here’s the best bit, mate. Six years into my Ft Lauderdale life, I get a visit from Internal Revenue wankers. I was being accused of tax fraud. “Yous ain’t Johnno Duggans”, they said. “Johnno Duggans is dead.” Bloody oath, Vic! After I jumped overboard off Palm Beach, them pleasure cruisers reported me lost at sea. The United States government considered me dead. When my name came in on tax audits, IRS says, “bollocks!, this can’t be!, this cunt’s been dead half a decade!” Ha! Fuckin’ bloody-well showed them, Vic, didn’t I?

How’d you get out of that mess?, I ask. 

Administrative nightmare, Vic, Johnno says. They finally believe me, give me an ultimatum. I can marry one of my girlfriends to get a green card or they’re going to boot me back to Aus. I took the ticket to Sydney. Didn’t look back. Met Ellen. Been looking back ever since. 

Speak of the devil!, Johnno says as Ellen Duggans walks into the bar, and the devil appears!

Christopher Marlowe wrote of Helen of Troy having a “face which launched a thousand ships.” Well… Ellen is no Helen of Troy. There’s no thousand ships launching for her. But under different circumstances…, yeah, I’d throttle-up a jet-ski for Ellen. When I first met the Dugganses, Johnno privately assured me his much younger wife’s legs go all the way up. Take me word for it, mate, Johnno said to me. I’d rather yous not verify for youself. Right? Even if she’s inviting ya. Johnno then laughed in the nervous manner King Menelaus once jested about Helen.  

How ya going, Vic?, Ellen says as she sits down at my side, away from her husband who remains on my other shoulder. Johnno hasn’t scared you off yet?, she says leaning forward. I can feel the sun’s heat radiating off her chest from a day spent sailing. She’s close enough I can taste the salt in her hair. Ellen says, you shouldn’t spend such time with dodgy pensioners, Vic. You should find a playmate your own age, she says. 

Vic is looking for proper mentorship, Ellz, Johnno says in his defense. He adds, if Vic wants to be a legend in his own right someday, he’s got to spend time learning the ways of heroes. Ellen laughs at this. Johnno calls over the barkeep, Murat!, me auld mate, come explain to me missus the honorary title you’ve bestowed on me. Listen here, Ellz Bells, listen how me legend grows. 

Murat, hesitant, shifts his eyes between Mr & Mrs Duggans. We call men like Mister John sadrazamin sol taggagi. It is a very important role, Murat says. What’s it mean, Murat?, Ellen asks with skepticism. Tell it truly. Murat’s eyes leave her, glance at Johnno before resettling on Ellen. The words mean “the grand vizier’s left testicle.”

Perfect. Ellen hoots a laugh. Oi, the legend is growing alright. Beauty!

Bloody hell, Murat, Johnno says with a frown. Leave a bit to the imagination, mate. 

I ask for my tab. As I settle accounts, I listen to Johnno rationalizing, mythologizing. Listen Ellz Bellz, he says, without the left testicle, there would be no right. Only testicle. What’s the singular of scrotum? Scrota? Grand Vizier can’t be having imbalance of a single teste, Ellz. Not when you’re in the myth-making bizzo. Always said it, haven’t I? Always said, legends aren’t born. They’re ejaculated. Can’t be seeding legends at half-scrotal power, Ellz.

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