Why I survived; Israel

I sat on a crotchety old chair, with a small group of Jewish boys, watching an Asian cunt squirt cum onto the camera. Our flight was abhorrently delayed -- how I hated JFK! The group waited, to board the plane, so we could embark on a twelve hour journey to the center of the desert. Often I would speak to my non-Jewish friends about traveling to Israel, not to visit but to live, and they asked me why. They couldn’t understand why three hundred and fifty plus eighteen year old boys and girls would leave the most pampered country on earth to live in the Middle East. Why? We were delusional; we all thought we were going to change the world.

Hadaas sat in front of my porn viewing group giggling and pointing, while whispering those silent curses that only women conjure. Her bunny slippers tapped impatiently, as she shook her legs flailing about her pajama pants. Her orange shirt was a familiar one that read ‘kiss me I am a Zionist’. Then I looked into her embarrassed eyes staring behind me, and I turned around.

Behind my friends and I sat a large ultra orthodox family. The faces and fashion was so foreign to me. The family dressed in strict black and white, and the father sat with his hat pulled down covering his furious face. His peyos-- the curliest side curls-- extended past his shoulders. I learned later that the men used curling irons to make the curls presentable.

I thought it was funny that their children might glimpse at my pornography. I thought it would be a brilliant moment of epiphany for them; sending those poor sheltered children into rebellion as my late family had done. And I knew I would never be like them.

Two months later I ran across the slippery asphalt of an ancient market, like the one in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. My friends Adam and Alex skated across this dingy market with me, rushing as we were for the fifth time in a row running extremely late.

“Adam where did you find your Naots?” Alex asked. Naots were a prize possession for Adam because they were the most popular and comfortable sandal in Israel at the time. I choose not to buy them because they left a layer of orange on the bottom of your foot, but Adam loved them like a boy loves his first puppy.

“On the porch behind the Narg” Adam said. The word Narg is an abbreviated version of the Arabic word nargillia for hookah. Adam, Alex, and I spoke not a single syllable of Arabic, but hypocritically we would call hookah’s narg, we thought it made us more authentic.

“You looked in the kitchen cupboards but it took you twenty fucking minuets to check by the narg?” I said.

“Adam you looked in the cupboards for your shoes?” Alex said.

“I thought Jordan hid em there. He is always hiding my shit; it’s his way of flirting.” Adam said hushed and facing the ground, he was barely audible to us, because his brown mop like ‘Jew fro’ covered his mouth. Alex and I laughed with such intensity I thought I might vomit bloody bile all over Adam’s face. Alex rolled his head a half circle motioning towards Adam, and in tandem we slapped Adam with the force of mild rebuke on the back side of his head. His antiquated black rimmed glasses flew into a brown diseases infested puddle by a fruit vendor.

“Sheckel Melon!” The vendor bellowed like Paverati. Adam grabbed his glasses and gagging he whipped the grime off with his Led Zeplen t-shirt. We slapped him again sending the glasses back into the puddle.

Ten more slides in the market and we arrived at the ulpan building. The building’s yellow paint pealed around the trim. The ulpan building was shameful the neighborhood couldn’t afford to restore it, the neighborhood couldn’t afford anything. I lived with ninety five other volunteers in the poorest neighborhood in Tel-Aviv Schunat Hatikvia—the Hope Neighborhood. Adam and Alex ran into their respective class rooms, for the required Hebrew Classes.

“Vowel Ah plus letter Hey means the word is Feminine” The Hebrew teacher said for the four hundred and twenty fifth time in the span of ten minutes. Then thirty two cell phones beeped. The group leaders sent us text messages for updates and events. The text read ‘Money Stipends are ready at the office come and get it after ulpan.’ I smiled and counted backwards ten, nine, eight, seven at seven my phone beeped again, this time the text was from my new three hundred and fifty pound friend Slims ‘pussycats tonight?’

That night Alex, Adam, Slims, and me walked along the Mediterranean sea, the black waves with foamy white fringes slammed down and drizzled cold salt water onto our clothes. When going to pussycats we always walked on the beach. We could’ve taken a cab, but after one cab ride we realized that the cost was to great, it equaled two and a half lap dances, so we walked instead.

“Tommy Rachel Comstock asked for your number during ulpan today.” Adam said. I stopped, stood up straight, and hyperventilated. “She said she wants you to take her to that bookstore you found yesterday.”

“Who the fuck is Rachel Comstock?” Bellowed slims in his Barry Whiteesq voice.

“The perfect girl” I said.

“Bullshit” said Slims.

“Nah it’s true. Alex don’t you think?” Adam said. Without hesitating Alex nodded so furiously I thought for a moment he would get a concussion.

“Ok…what’s the perfect girl ‘cause my friends in Texas used to say: a perfect girl is one who is brilliant, beautiful, and blows your cock like it’s on fire, and damnit guys I aint never found her.” Alex, Adam, and I laughed because before we met Rachel we believed that too.

“Nah man Rachel’s just fucking perfect.” I said.

“Tommy saw her naked once…last time we came to Israel.” Adam said.

Pussycats has a rope line, of brown and putrid green, that was placed in front of the club with the assumption that people would line up to enter, but we never saw more than three people waiting to get in. We walked up to the line spread our arms out for the search. Two Russian men taller side to side then up and down slide their hands around our pants and shirts. No matter where one goes in Israel, to enter a building they do a search. Terrorists like titty’s too I suppose.

“Welcome to Pussycats” a metallic voice says to loud and thundering techno music.

“Boris, can we please go? The showcase is starting.” We ran up the stairs, like three year old boys run to the ice cream truck. The DJ introduced one stripper at a time, and a room full of men salivated like it was a buffet line.

“Tommy, its Levi.” Adam said. I saw Levi sprinting from the back of the club and he tackled me with the hug of a juggernaut. Levi wore a green IDF t-shirt (Israeli Defense Force), glove snug light blue jeans, and Noats.

“So how’s the army?” I asked.

“Atrocious, and awesome.” Levi said.

“What do you do there?” I asked.

“Checkpoints I’m going back on duty tomorrow, you little bitches should come.” Reluctantly we nodded our heads.

Nine A.M. the next morning Alex, Adam, and I rode a bus to the west bank. None of us slept the night before; pussycats always fucked our sleep cycle. Adam yawned, stood, and stretched.

“Sit down!” yelled a half dozen of the soldiers on the bus.

“The bottom windows are bullet proof, but the top ones aren’t.” A solder explained tapping the top window with his M16.

“So Alex what are ya doin for Shabbos tonight?” Adam asked.

“I have family in a settlement just outside of Ramalah.” Alex said.

“Alex blow off this Shabbos and come to the party in Ashkelon.” I said.

When we got to the checkpoint Levi waited with his M16 hung haphazardly behind him. He wore army fatigues, and his eyes drooped with purple bags surrounding them, he looked like a raccoon.

“Hey man.” I said.

“Guys I’ll break in two hours just chill over there for a bit.” Levi said.

“Okay…hey Levi mind if we toak a little while we wait?” Alex asked.

“Nope, but save some for me.” Levi said. So we sat on an island of grass in the hottest and most barren place in Israel, and watched an endless line of cars drive through the check point. Two and a half bowls later, Levi and the other soldiers began to scream. The entire unit crowded around a compact white Saab.

“Who’s in the car?” I asked.

“Two old lady’s in the front seat, and I think there someone else in the back.” Alex said.

Levi opened the back passenger’s side door and grabbed a fourteen year old boy out by his hair. Screaming and cursing he pointed at the boys t-shirt, but the Arabic was so far away I couldn’t decipher it at all.

“Hamas!” Levi screamed.

“Oh no that’s a Hamas shirt guys.” Adam said.

“That kids gonna die.” I said. With an ugly and awful fury Levi began to punch the boys face with his M16. Swift and ruthless the entire unit joined in beating this boy incessantly. We ran.

The Jewish Sabbath begins Friday night at sun down, and Adam and I got on the last running bus before it started which took us from Ramalah in the West Bank to Ashkelon which is on the border between Israel and Gaza. A young yeshiva bucher (an orthodox bachelor in Rabbinical School) paced on the street with his peyos dangling in the wind. The wind kept knocking his hat into the air exposing his black velvet kippa (skull cap). He had a laughable attempt at a beard patchy with 65% of the hair on the left side only.

Like the death stars tractor beam he stared at us as we approached and said, “Come to my yeshiva for shabbos.”

“No thanks I am an atheist.” I said.

“There is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.” He said. We walked into the apartment building on West Hashgacha Protis Street, and climbed the stairs to the top floor and entered apartment Av. 206.

“Do you believe that Tommy? There are no atheists in fox holes.” Adam asked.

“No, it’s a soporific cliché.” I said haughtily with my nose in the air. Room Av. 206 had a low concrete ceiling with large orange and yellow blankets hanging down, two sofa’s, a wall mounted flat screen HD t.v. and a wet bar. Adam and I separated and greeted disappeared into a crowd of our friends.

I moved to the wet bar, which was full of half empty bottles of cheap liquor. Two bottles of Russian Vodka, two bottles of Everclear, twenty bottles of red Galil wine, and one lonely bottle of taco taco—a tequila flavored liquor. I poured myself a tall glass of wine and a double shot of taco taco. Shooting the taco taco my stomach clenched and burned like gonorrhea. On the balcony Rachel Comstock paced, whispering into her cell phone.

“Your gonna die!” Slims yelled into my ear, and I dropped my wine into the sink.

“Slims what the fuck?” I said.

“So what were you staring at?” Slims asked. I motioned with my head towards the balcony and Rachel Comstock.

“Yeah that bitch is fucking hot man you should introduce me.” Slims said.

“Don’t call Rachel Comstock a bitch, or I’m gonna drop bombs.” I said. Slims furrowed his brow rolled his eyes and poured a shot of vodka.

“Want one?” Slims asked.

“Nope I’m drinking taco taco-- the champagne of tequila flavored liquor.” I said.

Sirens screamed around us and flashes of red conquered the room. I had never before heard a bomb warning, or a bomb. The first explosion wasn’t all that terrifying, but I was terrified it wasn’t the bombs it was the scream. Anyway I don’t remember running to the bomb shelter.