His soiled map showed ten towns scattered along the 350-mile ribbon of road that stretched through a sliver of Greece to Constantinople, Turkey. He hurried backward, encountering very little traffic but considerable dust, choking and penetrating dust. He slept one night on the ground, the rest in roadside motels. He narrowly avoided a snake, which he estimated to be twenty feet long and as thick as a telephone pole.
As he moved through the land of the Parthenon, the land of Homer, he briefly encountered another American. Robert Edison Fulton Jr. was riding his two-cylinder Douglas motorcycle around the world. He had bought into the notion that although men have dreams of being poets, artists, discoverers, philosophers, scientists, few are permitted to realize any one of them in their daily lives. But in travel he could have them all. He could be anyone while moving through the world. Travel was eternal change, limitless contrast, unending variety. Fulton was full of joy. “Was not this the best of all possible worlds?” he would write. “Was not life worth striving for, fighting for and suffering for, so long as one achieved a destination? This was the land which had cradled ancient beauty which fills the hearts of many men with its inspiration to this very day.”
As Fulton sped along, he caught a glare through the dust. Visibility was terrible, so he throttled back his machine. The glare grew brighter. The sun seemed to be bouncing off some kind of mirror. The figure of a man emerged on the shoulder of the Greek highway.
“There was a sign on the man’s back,” he would write in his book, One Man Caravan. “As I approached, the letters grew enormous: ‘Look out! Look out! Walking around the world backward.’”
25.
Murder Jail
Things began to look bleak for Plennie around day seven in the Turkish jail. He counted the days by the sunlight, and by the muezzin’s punctuating calls to prayer, for the authorities had seized all his possessions, his clothes, passport, money, journal, and his sign, which now worthlessly displayed the Bulgarian phrase for Around the World Backwards—Okolo sveta nazad. He had no proof of who he was and no way to communicate that he was a red-blooded Texan, by God, trying to set an unusual record and to help his family through the worst hard times. He wasn’t even certain whether the city he’d entered a week before was Constantinople or Istanbul. He’d heard it called both. And he had no way of knowing that the inscription on the main gate of the jailhouse—DERSAADET CINAYET TEVKIFHANESI—said “Capital City Murder Jail.”
What he knew was that he had been harassed by authorities at the Turkish border and locked up there several days, until an English-speaking man showed up and asked him what his plans were, what his financial situation was like, and whether anyone in America could send him enough money to get him through Turkey. He had informed the man that his family in America was too poor to send money, that he could do all right on his own, and that he just wanted to pass through the country on his way to Pakistan, then India, then China, then Japan, where he’d catch a boat to California.
Simple.
“You don’t want much, do you?” the man had said.
Plennie knew that when they’d released him at the border they had phoned the authorities in Istanbul, because when he arrived and approached the train station, a handful of police officers appeared in his mirrors, surrounded him, stuffed him into a car, and hurried him to the Sultanahmet Jail. And he knew that he slept at night surrounded by men accused of committing crimes, that every day a half dozen or so new prisoners were packed into the cell. Every morning since he’d arrived, he’d been carted from the jail to a courtroom, where he pleaded and mostly pantomimed to a judge. But how does one conjure up the physical expression for Please let me speak with the American consulate because I don’t like being stuck in jail in Turkey?
His emotions oscillated among anger and shock and frustration. Days ticked by. He gave up trying to talk to the other prisoners. No one spoke English. He felt helpless, victimized, naive. He was about to break. That was when he heard the voice.
* * *
It came from somewhere outside the cell, he couldn’t tell where. And he had no way of knowing to whom the voice belonged. But he recognized the rhythm and the glorious beat of syllables because he had heard the same singsong sounds in Mansfield, Ohio, and Frederick, Maryland, and McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He drew in a breath.
“Are you American?” Plennie shouted.
There was a pause.
“I am,” the voice outside said. “Why?”
Plennie wasn’t sure what to say.
“I am an American too!” he yelled. “And I would like to talk with you, if I may.”
“Just a minute,” the voice said. He heard it continue talking, possibly to a Turk, possibly to a Turkish lawyer. A few moments later, Plennie beheld a sight he was quite certain he’d never again see. There stood a man in a business suit, very clearly American. The man introduced himself as E. M. Hedden, assistant to the American ambassador at the US Embassy in Istanbul.
Plennie’s good fortune manifested itself on his face. He told his story and Hedden listened carefully, then told Plennie he would check into the matter. It may take a bit, he said, but he left the impression that he was sincere.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press learned about Plennie’s arrest, and a dispatch from the international desk made newspapers around the world, especially in the United States. TEXAS CRAB IN JAIL, proclaimed the Bedford Gazette in Pennsylvania. BACKWARD WALKER FINDS POLICE ARE NOT, said the Albuquerque Journal. TURKISH POLICE ARREST BACKWARD WALKING TEXAN, announced the Baltimore Sun.
The Chicago Tribune ran a two-column photo of Plennie in Oklahoma on page 12, reminding readers of his backstory and informing them that Turkish police arrested him at the border because “they couldn’t decide whether he was coming or going.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran the story on the front page, headlined WINGO OUGHT TO KNOW THEIR LINGO.
Plennie Wingo, of Abilene, Tex., is in a bad way. If he only knew the “lingo” spoken in Istanbul, Turkey, he might be able to help himself. As it is, he is resting in one of their jails, without a visa, without money, and, apparently without a friend.
Even the New York Times reported the trouble on page 10, on May 6, 1932: TURKS HOLD CRABLIKE TEXAN, WALKING BACKWARD FOR RECORD. The papers said he was “unable to get out either backward or forward.” A few said he had blisters on his feet. One guessed at the harsh treatment in a Turkish jail, though no evidence exists to suggest he was the victim of abuse.
The Des Moines Register took the opportunity to point out an odd but interesting coincidence, under the headline NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET, UNLESS YOU’VE GOT A VISA:
An Afghan and a Texan left their home countries and traveled to the ends of the earth.
The Afghan, at latest reports an inmate of the state hospital for the insane at Clarinda, Ia., was Abdul Raouf, 32, son of a Mohammedan religious leader.
The Texan was Plennie Wingo of Abilene, in the Lone Star state, at latest reports Thursday night in a jail at Istanbul, Turkey.
Afghanistan, as a matter of geography, is located some 900 miles east across Persia from Turkey. And Iowa is some 450 miles north of Texas. But Plennie in the east and Abdul in the west have much in common.
When Abdul was traveling across Iowa in a bus last November his western fellow passengers couldn’t understand why he knelt on the floor and recited his foreign prayers five times a day.
Jailed for causing a disturbance, he was examined, declared insane and committed to the hospital at Clarinda.
Plennie Wingo of Texas was walking backwards around the world when he came to Turkey. The Turkish people couldn’t understand that.
Easterners, whether Turks or Afghans, probably wouldn’t understand such American and western customs as flagpole sitting or dance marathons, not to mention the lesser diversions such as peanut pushing or pie eating competitions.
Little wonder then that Plennie, who didn’t understand the eastern and foreign necessity of visas, was jailed by the Turks who didn’
t understand the western and foreign idea of walking backward around the world.
When Plennie finally heard back from Assistant Ambassador Hedden, it was bad news. The American consul, an older man named Charles E. Allen, was not interested in helping and wanted no involvement, Hedden said. The old man thought the stunt was meaningless and dangerous, and that anyone who set out to do something so stupid should expect to take care of himself. Plennie tried to point out that he was quite capable of taking care of himself if he was released, and he had 3,509 backward miles to prove it.
Hedden was determined to learn the charges on which Plennie was being held. He reported back to Plennie that his charge was twofold: he didn’t have enough money to get through Turkey, and his reverse walking was a nuisance and a public hazard. If he wanted out of jail, he needed a responsible, credible person to sign papers swearing to take care of him and make certain he was not violating the law.
“You get me out of here,” Plennie said, “and you may be sure I will back on out of Turkey just as fast as I can travel.”
But Hedden was unsure. The diplomat didn’t know if he could afford controversy if Plennie got into trouble again, especially now that the press was watching. Another dispatch from the AP circulated widely in American newspapers, giving a fuller account of the legal struggle, saying the authorities were dragging Plennie each day to the passport office in an attempt to sort out the matter.
“If they’d only let me go backwards, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Plennie told the reporter. “But I get all tuckered out now when I have to walk forward. It uses such different muscles.”
Plennie eventually told Hedden that he had some money tucked away, enough to get him well out of Turkey, but he hadn’t known whom he could trust. That was partly true, and it worked. Hedden agreed to sign the papers and he made arrangements for Plennie’s release. But he could not convince the Turks to cough up Plennie’s passport. It was outside his purview.
“The consulate might do that much,” he said.
When Plennie walked out of Capital City Murder Jail, he finally got a chance to look around the vibrant old city, where the alleys were packed with chattering street merchants and rug salesmen and the minarets atop massive mosques rose into the sky. The stately buildings followed the contours of a hillside, and busy streets wrapped back and forth down toward the cerulean Sea of Marmara, and the Bosphorus Strait, which bisected Europe and Asia.
Up on top of the hill sat the Hagia Sophia, and nearby the Hippodrome, dating back to 330 AD, when Constantine the Great, victorious in battle over his rival and the undisputed emperor of Rome, moved the imperial capital to the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, which became Constantinople in his honor. His son built the cathedral and you could still see the Roman skeleton poking through its Islamic skin after a millennium. The Hippodrome had been Constantinople’s political and sporting arena, and Constantine had covered its infield with treasures taken from other conquered lands in the empire.
The city fell to the Ottomans in 1453, and during the fighting there was in the sky a full lunar eclipse, and the bodies of Christians and Turks floated like melons on the sea under the orange moon. The siege was all that remained of the fifteen-hundred-year Roman rule, the last gasp of the Middle Ages. The end came for the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. It had aligned with Germany. Its territory was divided up by the Allies. The West had just recently started calling the city Istanbul.
Cities fall. Empires fade. History favors the persistent.
Hedden pointed out the United States Embassy, the American consulate, and a nearby YMCA with a vacancy; then he insisted that Plennie take ten dollars so he felt like he had at least one friend in Istanbul.
Plennie marched up to the consulate to take a shot at getting his passport back so he could get out of Dodge. But Charles Allen had gone for the weekend, and Plennie soon found himself laying his case out to the vice-consul, a friendly younger man named Loften Moore, from Chicago. Plennie was curious about Allen’s negative attitude. Moore told him the boss was older, a former schoolteacher and principal before he joined the foreign service, and he was not the frivolous type. He said his boss thought Plennie’s stunt was foolish. Moore, on the other hand, thought the journey was pretty gutsy.
Plennie told Moore he’d come back when Allen was in the office, and the two shook hands.
On his way out he noticed a well-dressed man sitting in the foyer. Plennie took him to be Italian on account of his complexion, but he spoke perfect English. The man said he had overheard Plennie’s conversation and he was interested to know more. Just as Plennie was about to whip out his journal, the man cut him off and told Plennie to meet him in his hotel the following day, at two o’clock sharp.
* * *
The next afternoon, A. R. Ceretle showed Plennie to his four-room suite in the Vila de Pera Hotel. He was a smooth talker, cordial and gracious, and evidently very wealthy. He told Plennie his name was Albert, but friends could call him Al. He fixed them both a drink from a well-stocked bar, then offered a short tour of the posh suite as he talked. He said he was a native of Naples but had a sister in Barcelona, and his business was wholesale department store merchandise. He showed Plennie two sample rooms that were full of shiny new furniture, beautiful rugs, lamps, and modern interior decor. As they moseyed around the suite, Ceretle told Plennie he liked to do business in the morning, then shut down and enjoy himself in the afternoon and evening. He often entertained merchants and prospective buyers over cocktails in his suite. He knew nearly every language spoken in Europe.
He pointed out his bedroom, which had two full-size beds, and then a living room, and a kitchenette. Natural light filled the room. Plennie was dazzled by the reception room, and primarily the bar. It was good to be out of jail.
When the tour was over, Ceretle wanted to hear about Plennie’s trip. He listened patiently, pouring drinks, asking questions, and examining Plennie’s clippings.
“It is just amazing what a person can do if he sets his heart on it,” he said. He mentioned Plennie’s troubles, what he had overheard the day before at the consulate.
“Mr. Wingo,” Ceretle said, “why don’t you check out of the YMCA and share this apartment with me? I will be so pleased if I can do anything to help you.”
He sensed Plennie’s awkward hesitation.
“Maybe you would prefer to join me a bit later,” Ceretle said. “You do whatever seems right for you.”
That was Saturday.
* * *
“If you were allowed to go on through…would you attempt it?”
Charles Allen looked across his desk at Plennie. This was on Monday. To go on through meant to walk backward to the land that the Western maps still called Persia, home to one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations, with settlements dating back to 7000 BC. It was an area beset by war and conflict and pestilence, but also life. There was Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, the Garden of Eden, the birthplace of us. There were hundreds of terrible ways to die and hundreds of glorious things to see.
“I sure would,” Plennie said. There was but one way in his mind to go.
“Well,” Charles Allen said, “I am not going to okay it.”
Plennie felt like he was falling downstairs. The man who could stop him was doing it.
“I would not be any part of it,” Allen said, “because there are places in these countries where there are no roads at all, just desert, jungle, mean people, heathens, wild animals, snakes.”
Allen was no neophyte. He had worked nearly twenty years in foreign service, in Adrianople, Algiers, Nantes, and Damascus. And he’d done three separate stints in Istanbul. There were unrest and civil war in and around Persia, and a country in the throes of chaos, Allen said, and he would deny Plennie a visa without a legitimate reason for passing through. He also knew that Persia was one of the most isolated countries simply because of its geographical features. It was the size of the entire southeastern United States, and the high c
entral plateau that made up the bulk of the country was almost entirely rimmed by lofty mountain ranges, and their crests were often snow-covered. The rest of the region was home to large, choking deserts.
“You have proven your point,” Allen said, his eyes fixed on Plennie. “You have walked through the walkable countries. I tell you, Turkey is doing you a favor by compelling you to abandon your walk at this point.”
There was nothing more to say. Plennie stood to go, forward, not feeling like walking backward now.
“A man entering would be doomed,” Allen told Plennie. “It would be impossible for him to survive.”
26.
Going Back, Forward, Upright
When the Ottomans sacked Constantinople, the warfare sparked a massive migration of Greek scholars to Italy. The immigrants were orators, teachers, humanists, poets, writers, printers, musicians, astronomers, artists, philosophers, scientists, politicians, architects, and theologians. They had soaked up knowledge and experiences in the Middle East, on the lively edge of the Orient. They brought with them to Italy books and texts, and they served as revivalists for intense Greek and Roman studies, for perfecting the things they knew were good and pleasurable, and their work, in turn, led to the Renaissance, when men were more than themselves, when they strived to achieve greatness and to touch the hymn of heaven. That’s the bright side of the fall of an empire. Sometimes a hand is forced and the correct card is played, and men return home with ideas about how to live life more fully.
“I think it’s a wise decision,” Charles Allen had said, and Plennie had bowed his head, understanding that he was out of options. He resigned himself to his new fate. He would return home, and he would be a changed man, better than when he had left.
The Man Who Walked Backward Page 21