S C E N E (XXVIII) 

TEL AVIV, STATE OF ISRAEL, 2001 ce 

*** 

The Crusadrers called this place the Outremer. Between 1095 and 1250 there were eight major crusades and dozens of lesser ones. Somewhere in between, Constantinople was sacked by the Christians.  A territory twice the size of the current state of Israel was carved out brutally, then crumbled apart in a Jihad of attrition. 

 Incidentally, they say Abraham settled here from Iran. Joseph dreamed here. Moses evacuated his entire people here from out of Egypt to here. The Phoenicians launched a trade empire from here. Jesus was born here. Died here, maybe came back. Rome occupied and fought three wars here. Mohammed spent the night here. The Turks occupied it for 500 years and the British for 50. The Levant is the crossroads of the old world. A place of miracles. A place of Canaanites and Philistines, of real and imagined Israelites. Judeans, Samarians, Palestinians, Israelis. Sand people, desert people, people of trade, scrolls, war and identities inscribed in the blaze. Identities, pluralistic identities that are stiff necked, fanatical, and zealous.    

This place is furnace those forges religions. It cooks the brain and browns the body. It puts G-d’s words in the minds of believers. It bakes belief. It festers fervor. The Levant and Mesopotamia have been the homeland of every major world prophet besides Buddha and the mouthpieces of the Hindus. 

If Hashem, if Allah, if the Godhead, if the singular divine, or perhaps the pagan Gods, the Hindu Gods, the lesser prophets and the spirits; may guide and speak to the world of man; here, they speak far louder. Here they etch the word of G-d on the tongues of men; then unleashes the into inglorious combat.  

It is getting about as hot as I am told it gets out here. The place is violent pressure cooker for prophets and ultra-violence. Bet Ashanti was keeping food in my belly and providing me a cot near a fan. If things went missing at least they did not go missing with a knife to my throat. My CD player, my belt, and some loose shekels all seemed to disappear down a black hole of faceless theft. My inner Jewish accountant said the meals and cot were worth it and to ride it out a few more weeks.  It was just so fucking hot outside. 

Those weeks in July of 2001 were a loud bang killer on all. There were more bus bombings, more mass shootings, more reprisals, and more death on the public transit. The Europeans were condemning the Israelis because they kept taking out little kids in their not that smart bomb attacks. Americans condemned “the terrorists” while doing nothing more than keeping the money spigot flowing. That blank check on aid, well it goes to more guns, tanks, and rockets used on the Palestinians.  

I hustle my art seven days a week in front of the Opera Towers. A mall slash condominium complex on the sea. On the tiyeled and against the beaches. On the boardwalk. I was selling my art faster than I could restock by redrawing it to be fair, though not selling it for very much. I was turning out sketches on demand. It was hotter and hotter by day and the Zachariah show was going strong. Then, every other day, something blew up somewhere. Usually there was rock throwing, and ball bearing vest blasts, there were tanks in the streets there was death and occupation, but not in Tel Aviv for the most part. The whole country is a small place, as said, like New Jersey, like two hours across and eight up and down, and each day, death in the blazing heat, the iron heel of occupation versus the defense of the nation. Two very palpable narratives, under pressure, then a bang. A protest and a bellow in a megaphone in Arabic or Hebrew, in Russian. A bang, a ratatatatatat. Maybe from the outside it all looks like fitna. Like occupation. Like a holy war. On the ground, a pressure cooker. 

I made a day trip to Pardes Hanna to bring Anya some flowers against my better judgment. She is a dead ringer for Izzy Vitz’s part Lithuanian part Japanese ex Jackie Niche back in New York, but with bigger tits. She wasn’t just a leisure agent. She was also an emergency medical technician for the Sheroot Leumi, which was a sort of do-community-service-from-home-to-stay-out-of-the-army jump off for females and the patriotic religious.  

This was hardly a leap into monogamy. What in the world does a seventeen-year-old know about that. We’re little animals. She didn’t seem to want more of me than I could give. Anya didn’t speak enough English to get deep about it, but she’d bat her eyes and ask me to take her to New York one day soon. This giving her flowers thing was a madhouse idea after a month of dirty drunk sex. Some nights we sat on the boardwalk with piles of stacked up beach chairs. Whenever I was up her way, we promptly fucked all over her ever-absent mommy’s house. Made love rather, if I had not been doing so much vodka drinking. 

I haven’t kissed a girl sober in a very long time. Not Daphne Collins or the other one in England, not Hadas and certainly rarely ever Anya.  In less than a week she had fallen for me. So, I feigned some lovemaking, some ‘slow fucking’ as Izzy once had called it. I came three times that first night. On her breasts and in her mouth and in a condom. I moaned ‘suck my dick’ and some dirty-talk language getting head in the big steel bathtub. The girl lay with me in the dark at her mother’s small apartment in Pardes Hana and she begged me to take her to New York once her time in the national services was completed. She showed me a pistol and a ton of ammunition her ex had stolen for her.  

She has great breasts. I’m socialized like that I suppose. And if I am the American pretending to be an Israeli, she was certainly doing a bang-up job working to not be from here. She had come here from Karaganda by way of Tashkent in 1990. Often, she practiced reducing her accent to nothing with the TV and mail order accent-reduction tapes. She wasn’t Russian but wanted to model there. She was cute enough, but she didn’t have the starvation frame. She is a curvy little former Soviet. In America, you’d call her a ‘Russian.’ Here too, maybe, but she was half Kazakh, half Uzbek. Unlikely any part Jew.    

I told Bet Ashanti’s madam that I was meeting an uncle in Haifa for the weekend. I hitchhiked up to Pardes Hana to get with Anya instead. She had quite a few boyfriends bopping around to stare me down, but that didn’t stop us from kissing and fucking all night and whispering things about running off country. We filled her ashtray with three packs of butts, and I got so caught up in the moment that I failed to see how quick this girly had taken to me. She is my comfort girl, and I am her golden ticket out of this military colony should I ever choose to leave. Under pressure, like everything else.          

*** 

I meet people quickly and develop intense relationships in my line of work. If it really works at all. It’s a sad little hustle. Maybe on a busy Saturday night I can make 200 shekels; that’s barely $50 US. It’s called hustling art on the street in a foreign war-torn colony.  

You take an intelligent person, and they see this big art stand with pictures filled up with Commie imagery, carnal orgiastic renditions, biblical allegories, and current events. You break into some topic a picture you like alludes to, only to meet a young kid who defies every idea you have about Americans. That sort of explains how I was getting down.  

I took a whole lot more numbers than I called. Numbers to get fed, to get fucked, to finish a good conversation, and even offers to take the Zachariah Artstein show on the road to quaint and quieter inner country locals like in Ashdod, Acho, and well healed Herzliyya. The American Jewish colony, in the colony. There were also young kids my own age that wanted me to paint murals in their bedrooms and rap in English for their friends.  

“What are you doing here man! No one wants to be here. Everyone wants to live in New York!” 

I never did as well sell as when I worked the tiyeled. It was July 4^th and the masses were out in force. Bands played salsa music on small bandstands set up on the boardwalk. Street hustlers worked on games of Three Card Monty. Teenage girls looking for a quick summer buck sold all sorts of glowing toys to small children passing by as little boys hustled couples with flowers and Polaroid pictures. There was a whole culture of street hustlers that worked the tiyeled. I was one of them. I had been in Tel Aviv about a month since leaving the Ein Dor kibbutz and moving to Bet Ashanti, home for runaway teens. I sold my art every night. Five shekels here, twenty shekels there. It was just enough to eke out a desperately thin existence on ice cold Mayim, crunchy falafel, Zaatar cakes, and Noblisse cigarettes.  

My new business partner, the half Russian boy named Ditri Massoud, would watch the stand as I worked the crowd. I mingled in and out of the great crowds shouting in Hebrew,  

“Bo tista-clu al omanute sha-li!” or “Come look at my art!” 

Ditri is twice my size and had lived in the desert town of Be’er Sheva. He had borrowed the equivalent of nearly a thousand dollars from the local Romanian mob to finance and stock his stall in the market. The enterprise had been less than successful, and he had fled to Tel Aviv to avoid the consequences of owing dangerous people too much money. It is a very, very small country so they’d catch him eventually. He didn’t speak English so that our communication in my garbled Hebrew was limited, to say the least. His English was limited to “Yes,” “No” and “You are friend of Ditri”.  

Ditri owns two pairs of clothing. He slept in the sand under one of the many beach pergolas. He was barred from Bet Ashanti for a reason that was never really explained to me. Greek mentioned that he was violent and crazy. Ditri was a bulky kid with curly blond hair and Mongoloid features. He was very loyal. Whenever someone tried to steal from our collection plate as the gangs of arsim often did, Ditri would chase then down and clobber them something awful. Maybe he is really violent, but it all works to my advantage.  

During the heat of the day, we share a bottle of Coke-A-Cola and watch the waves crash gently on the beach.  We spaced out slightly because of the heat exhaustion. I don’t know if I would call Ditri my friend per se, for I know precious little about him, but he serves nicely in our new symbiotic relationship as street hustlers.  

My best customers are the American and English tourists vacationing in Israel for the summer. That’s because ‘the ZA show’ works best when your English is good. Most of them stay in Jerusalem, hyped up on some propaganda-induced spiritual experience. Jerusalem is the brainwashing capital of the world as far as I am concerned. I haven’t even stepped foot in it since I’d arrived back in the country. Secular Jews visiting for a week always run into some Dos or Hasid who will give them a crash course in the workings of the Old Testament and get them hooked.  

The religious Jews, the Dosim and Hasidim, are on the national dole.  These two groups are more offensive than the other groups of religious Jews because of their penchant for rock throwing and religious rioting. They neither pay taxes nor serve in the IDF. Most importantly, they never buy art. They don’t even stop to look. It’s good they don’t look because the Tetranomogram, the ‘Yod Hei Vav Hei’ gets incorporated quite bit and they’d flip shit over that.   

Israelis do not have any true or actual need for a thing like pity, or street art.  

It’s not that they don’t like art, but they really need some persuading to buy it from a street vendor. To make a living from a street stand, one must know how to work the crowds, create a market, and deliver a desirable product. This country has little time for charity cases, which is what I get perceived as most of the time.  

My best sales pitch is to young girls who are fascinated with the American expatriate who loves a country no one seems to want to live in. Maybe that is a misinterpretation on my part. It just seems that each Israeli I talk to dreams of living in New York. While many people stop to examine our goods, the bulk of our money comes from the tourists and from the regulars. A regular is someone who lives or works by the tiyeled and will drop money anytime they see us out. To survive in this game, you need your regulars.  

Ms. Svetlana Tchaadaev is perfect example of a regular. She’s an American-educated Russian trust-fund baby, which is just a code word for her daddy being a Russian mobster-robber baron. Ms. Tchaadaev carries on romantic flings with the artists and bohemians of the Tel Aviv subculture. Despite the fact that she is independently wealthy, she works as a flyer girl for Mike’s Blues Bar just up the beach. I’d been doing the same thing for Mike’s the night the Pasha club blew up.  

Ms. Svetlana normally shares her beers and meals with me and always buys a picture. We try to steal yellow beach chairs from the lock up on Jerusalem Beach before they are chained together for the night.  She sits with me and helps me in the hustle. She is shady as hell. Ditri never seems to like her. She always tries to get me to sell her my passport. 

There are other far less problematic regulars, like curly, blonde-haired Ethiopian Lina, who even though she was born in village without running water or electricity seems more Americanized and hipper in fashion and sensibility then most Ashkenazi Israelis. Abby and Rachel are the ‘two birds’ from Golder’s Green, students of Rabbi Akiva Tatz. They bring young men from Jerusalem to meet with me to spar on issues of Talmud and religion. These are the people that keep Ditri and me in water, meal money and smokes. I am the sale-man, and he is the strongman. It is like any Russian business except in ours the salesman gets to call the shots.   

Although I consider myself a Resistance Artist, the truth is I am barely making ends meet. On a terrific evening, generally a Friday or Saturday, I might bring in close to 200 shekels, the equivalent of fifty dollars. The money I save is earmarked to take my girl Anya out to dinner when she comes into the city to visit me. You might say I am becoming like a normal person. Bit by bit by bit, less like street trash. Anything left over is earmarked toward pens, sketchpads, vodka, ice-cold mayiim and some more cheap Noblisse cigarettes.  

It is necessary to keep yourself looking presentable when you hustle. You can’t have the buyers think that you are begging for the money. It is important to communicate that you are a skilled artisan, a poor and hungry skilled artisan, but nonetheless incredibly talented. When I feel humorous, I compare my art to Van Gogh and Picasso when they traded paintings for food. I convince my customers they are making a serious investment and that one day these sketches I make will be worth a small fortune on the art market when I cut off my ear for a woman or go out against fascism in a hail of bullets. 

My art stock consists of three types: political cartoons, dream-based consignment pieces, and commissions. “Give me any idea you have an I’ll draw it in 5 minutes.” 

My favorite works are the political cartoons surrealistically drawn with black Uniball pens on 8 ½ by 11 papers. Normally they start with a cartoon version of myself blowing away the ‘pigs and capitalist traitors of the Iron heel.’ Then with that image somewhere in the page I drop in any number of red flag hammer and sickles, bare-naked women engaged in carnality or war or both. Then with a slightly finer pen, normally a Uniball Fine Point, I stencil in the message of the day, which could be anything really, but is normally anti-war, anti-state, anti-religious and Israeli issue themed. Finally, I write bold needlessly proactive messages. The phrases are always in English, but sometimes in a, shall we say artistic, rendition of the phrases in Hebrew, Russian, or Arabic.  

There is little color in any of my work and the sketches take on a variety of subjects, but generally they were quite dark and violent in their depictions of Israeli or American social ills. Lots of ‘Join or Die’ type themes with the 14 big Israeli ethnic groups. If color does get used its either black or red Sharpie fill-ins, highlighter color-ins of people’s eyes, or gold etched inlay on edges to simulate shadow. 

The lowest I go on these pieces is 20 Shek a pop, although Ditri made a bunch of Photostat copies one day from my archive sketch book, and I loosely colored a few in. These we sell for just 10 Shek, or a comparable offered price, because frankly, a photocopy costs Ditri only 10 Agarot to bang off.  

My dream-based work is all in pencil on thicker matte paper far larger in size. These sketches are from the vivid dreams I used to have about Mike Washington and the Pale City. The gun battles against the screaming Zombie hordes, the underground railroad, the flying machines, the redheaded girl, the Old Man and his game. All of these take at least a day to render. Since traffic is so slow during daylight, I fashion most of these pieces then.  

These sell almost right away for 100 Sheks or more. I can crack out the political stuff on demand, but these take longer as I have to remember them.  Most of the customers fixate on the controversial statements of the political work. It takes a while, an hour even of conversation before a customer turns their attention to the dream pieces. If it was a good conversation and the offer price exceeds 100, I never haggle hard over the sale. It’s all just small talk. 

What were all these so-called good conversations about? Well, I guess they were kind of about philosophy, or politics, or theology, or vibes, because what I knew about any of those things. Maybe they were also about art and making art, in a sense about freedom. About so much carnage in such a small place. About Judaism, maybe the heat and pressure were speaking for me a lot of the time.  

It would have been impossible to be talking that summer with all that Intifada going on unless we were also speaking about the future of Jews and Palestinians.  

I don’t think whatever I learned, I didn’t then bounce off someone else later in the day. I think maybe all the cigarettes, all the heat, all the violence was bearing down on us. I felt that maybe they all said things to me in English, they wouldn’t say to others in Hebrew, Arabic, or Russian. I was the perfect outsider. A young, skinny vagabond totally out of place, yet, with the passport of the empire. From the economic capital of the world. Speaking in Amerkanski. Speaking in tongues. Speaking behind art, so none of it was real enough to fear entrapment, but it was so novel, it could be harbored, it could be trusted. These perfect strangers went to bed with me, they put me on their couches, they brought me to their villages and military outposts. They invited me into their homes. Perhaps, because I am not threatening. Perhaps, because I am like a lion cub, you just don’t feel alarmed. The Resistance Art stand circulates all over, and with these little talks, these little one night all night conversations; I develop a primitive analysis of the nation I seek to be a part of. Then, I repeat the analysis back to more strangers. I sell a few more sketches, I sleep around. I move from place to place, with Tel Aviv as my base. Sleeping and eating in what is little more than a youth shelter. When they cry, I cry, when they smile, I smile, I smile and laugh along with all these different strangers. And the pressure builds, the heat builds, the pressure and heat and make 5,000 years of imagined identity speak though me: and I end up saying, we have more in common with the Arabs than the Americans. We have more in common with the Persians than the British. We are not colonists; we are from here. We are not Europeans; we are from these lands. If we continue to war with the Palestinians, we war with our selves. This place is a dangerous war colony, based on how it was designed. How it mutated with American money and ideas. Our solution is to be confederated with the Arabs and Persians; our only salvation as a people can come by an identity, a consciousness that is rooted in our Middle Eastern Judean soul. Reject that soul, we are a war base for the empire. We are only serving New Rome. I sometimes I talked about other things, well maybe often I made small talk. I do not speak Hebrew and Arabic, or Russian. I try and speak from my soul. I try and reflect on the enormity of my people’s history; we cannot win the war we are fighting; we war with our own people. The Palestinians are our people. You cannot win a war against yourself.    

I make and sell Art, and it’s the way I sustain these kinds of conversations.   

I have other artists work too. The twenty odd pieces always on display are generally half mine and half consigned stock, other things give me to try and sell. The consigned pieces are from a variety of young Israeli artists who admire my tenacity at salesmanship and are curious to see what prices their work might fetch on the open market in Israel. They were generous enough to let me keep 30% of the sale, for they could see I was destitute. Most of them go to art school in Haifa and my trade inspires them of the future they hope for in Williamsburg and DUMBO once their Sheroot Lummi commitments are finished. Just under half my earnings come from selling the Israeli’s their own children’s art. By the end of June, I was representing over twelve Israeli artists, one Ethiopian, three Arabs, two Russians, three Mizrahi, two Ashkenazim, and one dos, the derogatory word for the religious now added to my vernacular.   

Commissions are where my living truly comes from. Most of the time it is a goods-for-services swap situation. I paint a small mural for a haircut or charcoal portrait for a bath when I am hitchhiking about Galilee. I am just ‘eking out a very base existence, but Bet Ashanti put a roof over my head and two meals a day in my belly. 

The staff there thinks that I work as an overnight busboy; otherwise, I’d have to be in by midnight. Because the other kids are such freeloaders, they appreciate my working and let me slide. My entire cycle has been reversed. It’s too hot to do anything during the day and I can’t stand the sun anyway.  

I sleep on the bottom bunk in one of the two boy’s rooms along with about twelve other kids. Most of them don’t speak too much English. Those that do hold day jobs and I rarely see them. 

Bet Ashanti is a place for runaways, misfits and ghetto trash. It has been associated with a series of scandals over the years involving, but not limited to accusations of drug dealing on behalf of the residents, accusations of child molestation on behalf of the residents, high rates of Army desertion on behalf of the residents upon reaching age 18, and it had recently been in the papers when its owner and founder was accused of raping a 17 year-old female resident. That most of the boys are in street gangs, that no one goes to school, and that the mayor of Tel Aviv was under some public pressure to shut the operation down, nothing seemed any worse here than say, sleeping on a street while hungry.      

As far as I can tell there are a lot of rules, but only three that truly matter. The first is no substance abuse, at least not on the premises. No drugs or drinking anywhere near Bet Ashanti. But these kids are all drug addicts and smoke hash all day on the beach. The second rule is-no fighting. No one is allowed to fight anywhere near the Shanti House. But that’s also a stupid rule for kids who are members of street gangs and all manner of shady shit. I watched the Greek break some guy’s jaw in a prizefight he took me to a day ago. The last rule is-no stealing. People are not allowed to take stuff belonging to Bet Ashanti or the kids that live there. One would think these rules sort of go without saying, but in fact there is seldom a time when these kids aren’t doing drugs, fighting, and stealing.  

By evening I had only seen a few of my regulars. Greek, the Russian kid from Bet Ashanti had dropped by to show me his new girlfriend. Svetlana had passed by on a flyer run. There were other familiar faces, but no regulars. It is very cool for an evening in mid-July. Business has been good, and the collection pot is up to about 90 shekels. I had made an additional 100 shekels yesterday that I hadn’t gotten to blow yet on one of my girls and the still water. The colorful paper notes were tucked neatly in my billfold. New Israeli shekels, the good old ‘N-I-S’ currency looks like fucking monopoly money to me.  

*** 

The evening is coming to a near close, as far as any so-called “working” is concerned. The bands have stopped playing and the crowd has thinned out to a trickle. Drunken revelers are dancing in the moonlight. There is a fight going on across the street. As it nears 2 am, I begin to consider closing the shop. I have close to 150 shekels in my pocket, a small comparative fortune. I stand up to stretch.  My hands are sore from the non-stop drawing I had been doing all evening. I pop my knuckles and light up a Noblisse. This is perhaps my thirtieth stoag of the day. I tend to smoke I great deal when I am on the job. Placing the crumpled green packet into the cargo pocket of my ripped and baggy khakis, I palm Ditri a fifty note for his troubles. 

“Thank you, Ze-Hariah,” said Ditri, for to him this was a great deal of money. 

“You are friend of Ditri.” 

“Take it easy, big guy.” 

The big oaf gives me a hearty pat on the pack that almost knocks me flat on my face.  

“Ditri now to sleeping,” he says. I had to hand it to him. His English is improving, as is my Hebrew. I was starting to understand phrases and bits of conversation and could get my point across if I had to. Most Israelis learned English in high school and could hold a conversation. It was the Arabs and the Russians who refused to learn English. There were exceptions but few that I encountered could understand what I was saying. Ditri bargained for me in Russian, but Arabic was lost on both of us, which is odd him being half Bedouin. I had recently considered doing the sign in Arabic and Russian to broaden my clientele but kept forgetting to ask someone to translate it. Ditri was virtually illiterate and could neither read nor write in Hebrew or Russian.  

Svetlana could do it for me in Russian, but she despised anything that revealed her actual and not imagined heritage. She would feign ignorance to not speak or write her native tongue. She had invited me for late night drinks at the Blues Bar and I had made enough money to easily cover my expenses for the week, cigarettes, vodka, and more art supplies.  

I am quite proud of myself for making so much money and decided to celebrate at the Blues Bar over a pint of Maccabi, which isn’t as good as the piss water Gold Star and can’t hold a candle to a Stella, but I guess I want to be down with the tribe. It is close to 3 in the morning. Ditri has found some corner to fall asleep in. I am just putting some last touches on a large pencil sketch. 

I make a final count of my money and start packing up the pieces into my bag. I start with the 8 ½ by 11’s, peeling the tape off the back that hold them to the enormous tabletop I use as a display board. I have neatly inserted three of the pieces into my binder when I hear a voice behind me. 

“So, what exactly are you selling these people?” Her voice sounds like old Brooklynese. 

“I make and sell Art,” I respond without looking up, “the finest street art in Tel Aviv if not the entire Western World. Except for maybe Barcelona where the street art is well, fucking good also.” 

I turn around to face her and lord, is she beautiful with long flowing brown hair and a smile to disarm any man. I catch her chest like a second later, but that smile caught me off guard for a minute, because I just don’t really look at that in a girl ever. 

She is just a little shorter than me and looks like a natural hustler. She looks elegant and she can hold her shit down hard like a killer. Like a stripper putting herself through law school, things aren’t always what you degrade them to be. 

“It is pretty good, kiddo. You’re wasting time being in Tel Aviv, but you knew that of course.” 

“I was about to close! You’re lucky you caught me. I wouldn’t want a girl like you going home without a piece of Resistance Art.” 

“I bet, you say cheesy shit like that to girls all night and they throw their phone numbers at you because the color of your passport is dark blue.” 

“Actually, I leave for Cairo in the morning, and this might be your last chance to buy one.”  

“Right. Cause it’s not like you’re here every single night of the week,” she responds smugly, “and incidentally the Taba border crossing with Egypt is closed at the moment because they found four tunnels across Rafah, they were carting rockets in through.” 

I laughed with her for a second. At each other and ourselves. “You’re just really, really absolutely charming miss what can I call you?” 

“Maya. You may call me Maya Soriya Rose.” 

“Is Rosen short for Rosen?” 

“It’s just Rose.” 

“Zachariah Artstein, is what I call myself.”  

She looks dead at me and smirks, “I don’t think that’s your real name at all.” 

“I don’t think you really told me yours.” 

A pause between us. 

“What’s in name? Buy some fucking art,” I laugh.  

“How much for that one?” 

She points to a pencil sketch of 40 rebels holding the walls of Jerusalem with swords and rifles and spears against a massive army of the undead. At the center of the drawing stands a bloodied fighter waving a grey banner as he empties his pistol into swine depicted police forces attacking the rebels within the city.  

“That one’s called ‘The Tragic Little Hero’s Last Stand at the Golden Gates’.” 

“You made that name up just now on the spot.” 

“No, I swear I put a lot of thought into naming them because of how, truly deep they really all are.” 

“No, you just made that name up now. I mean it’s good. I’ve seen your work before, but I never got a chance to get close enough to look and talk to you about it.” 

“Yeah, the crowds are getting bigger and bigger these days.” 

“Crowds? I was referring to your seemingly constant flirtation with mindless frekhot.” 

“Flirtation? I just want them to feed me and fuck me.” 

“If you were just a little prettier, I’d swear I met a long-lost brother,” she laughs. 

“Quite. It’s a smallish tribe though. I’ll tell you what, you tell me your real name and I’ll give you the piece for any price you declare. 

“My real name eh, for a discount? I thought you were a businessman, Zach.” 

“I’m in the business of telling people things they only thought they’d get to hear in movies and romantic novels.”  

“Where does the resistance come in?” she says noticing my sign. 

“I’m resisting starvation.”  

“So, what you’re selling is communist-propaganda-meets-an-elaborate-pick-up-line?” 

“Yeah, that sums it up if you wish to cheapen and devalue nearly everything, I believe into a sound bite.” 

“I see you have this speech carefully worked out.” 

“Maya, you don’t spy on me, do you?” 

“Someone as ravishing as me gets spied upon but does not spy on people herself. I’m just acutely honed at deductive reasoning.”  

“So, you’re a psychic detective moonlighting as a stripper, eh?” 

“Maybe I’m just a law student moonlighting as psychic detective who likes to take my clothing off.” 

“Yeah, so what’s your real name, Maya Rose?” 

“A better question is what you’re really doing in Tel Aviv. You know, when you’re not being a hipster.” 

“Darling, I’m glad you asked. I think that there is no such thing as the devil, but if there were, and the devil was the head of a large, militarized state, his greatest trick would be making people believe they had something other than themselves to blame for the evils of the world. The wool pulled over our eyes and iron heel upon our necks are kept there by our belief that we shouldn’t do anything; that the fault lies with some huge and powerful other and not in our own lack of will.”  

“Spoken like someone with soft, soft American hands. I don’t know what any of that means. Give me something more definitive, Zachariah, ‘cause I’ve heard this shpiel before. It’s 3 am and you’ve got only a couple minutes to make this sale.” 

“One need not make the masses aware, nor arm them nor give them doctrines on dreams that do not feed their children. The working people who have long been taught to hate and kill each other over skin tones, invisible friends, and flag patterns don’t need to feel unity beyond the communities in which they live. But if these could see such a stand and a story demonstrated for their children’s children to remember and repeat; then they would have that one crucial thing the workers republic will be founded on.” 

“Controlling the means of production?” 

“No. The new republic is a thing to be founded on autonomy and hope.”  

“I assume this is where you hope to make your little stand.” 

“Here’s what I know. Give these Palestinians a little land. Re-absorb the Palestinian Diaspora into a combined Jewish-Arab nation and separate our shul from our state. No Rabbis and Imams allowed in Knesset. Accept that being America’s whore is far worse than failing to retain the ‘Jewish character’ of this nation. Since the Palestinians are a political football, the other Arab states use to keep us weak and the other Arab states hate the Palestinians anyway, a Pal-Isra solution makes sense since all Christians basically hate Jews So in a nutshell, I’m here ready for the revolution.” 

“First off, my Zachariah, you’re damn well divorced from the political reality of the world in which you live. But that I can dig. Israel can barely support those living here now. There isn’t enough land and there isn’t enough water.” 

“Propaganda dear.” 

“Second, this is the JEWISH homeland. We can’t just turn it into another secular country ‘cause we’d lose the one place Jews can turn to escape persecution.” 

“Rhetoric.” 

“Third, what makes you think these people actually want to share the land in the first place?” 

“Because in the end they’ll realize that it’s better to live side by side than to keep killing each other’s children in a turf war no one cares about but your average New York Times reader.” 

“It’s been over sixty years of war, and no one seems to have learnt that lesson yet.” 

“This can’t go on for much longer.” 

“I beg to differ. We can kill each other indefinitely. The US will never turn off the gun spigot and the Palestinians can hold their asymmetric war another couple hundred years unless the Israelis do something to make them look like Germans, which they won’t.” 

“My Kazakhi girlfriend advocates gassing them all at camps in the Negev.” 

“Says something about your tastes in women.” 

“Listen, I came to Israel to start a new life. I believe that in the end there’s got to be some way to make peace in this land. If I didn’t believe that then I would have to leave. 

“There are other reasons to be here like fast girls, nice beaches and a good hustle. How can you be so naive about the world and live in Israel, the most divided nation on the planet? Not exactly the best place to demonstrate peace and tolerance. If ya’ had not noticed, we live in a state of constant and unending war.” 

“Where better for me to be? In America people don’t understand the concept of fighting for an ideal. They’re fat with the glut of their own apathy.” 

“Fair enough, but enough people want war in Israel to make this conflict go on for decades more. There’s never been any actual peace in this country. It has been a big non-stop war for the last sixty odd years. We’re sitting on the wall of a war field, a vast experimental powder keg upon which our kind gather half their number.” 

“And one day it’ll explode.” 

“Explode? Maybe you do not watch the news, but it explodes nearly every day.” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“I’m not sure I do.” 

“Before there can be peace, there needs to be a conflict big enough to show these people why they shouldn’t fight indefinitely. Most Israeli kids don’t want to dress in a uniform and impose curfews and checkpoints on the Palestinians. I find it real hard to believe that every Palestinian wants to be a brick thrower or a shahiid. Everyone wants peace, but all the leaders can think of is how to get a bigger piece.” 

“The Jews never went out and deliberately murdered civilians.” 

“Except in the case of Baruch Kappel Goldstein, Sabra and Shatilla. OR Deir Yassin! Suicide bombing is counter-productive to the Palestinian cause, but it’s the only method they feel that works. They have ten thousand rocks for every Merkava Tank we have. For every ten thousand trained soldiers in the Tsvah they have one young person willing to blow themselves up as a martyr.” 

“And you want to give in to them. You want to hand then the keys to the temple and expect them to let us live here.” 

“I didn’t say we give the land away. I said, we share it because it’s not fully anymore ours than it is theirs.”  

“Ha. Priceless American idealism. I agree with you, Zachariah in my heart and principles, believe me I do. I just don’t see a possibility of hope for these people.” 

“We are these people.” 

At that moment she looked at me and smiled again like when I first saw her. There was a moment of silence as we stared at each other anticipating each other’s response. She reached into her pocket and took out a purple NIS fifty note. 

“I don’t know if you’ve completely sold me, but here are some props for having the right ideals. The real name’s Emma but don’t call me that in front of other people when and if we hang out again.” 

I removed the piece from the display board. I handed it to her and her eyes ran the gamut of its details. 

“I know I’m giving you far less than it might be worth.” 

“Throw your number in and I’ll pretend I’m not disappointed.” 

I rolled it up and handed it to her. She smiles and hands me a business card and writes a cell phone number on the back of it. I look over the card Emma called Maya Rose handed me which looks like a club flyer, laminated small blue and white. It said in English: -THE DEEP-. 

“What’s The Deep?” 

“It’s a nightclub. Drop by on a Thursday and we’ll make sure to sort it out.”  

“Sort what out?” 

“If we are working for the same side of the cause. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Adonaev.”  

What a lady. How did she know me by my government name? 

*** 

I have a three-day rule when I get a girl’s number. It’s from the movie Swingers. You can’t seem eager. So, there went Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I sold every piece I had that weekend. I hung out in a café in Yaffo with Anya all day Tuesday and called Emma that night. She told me she was running around promoting at a ton of parties and could not give me any attention. She said it was best for me just to come to the Deep alone on Thursday at about midnight-thirty. Then she could hang out with me all night.  

I had made plans to move out of Bet Ashanti. I wanted to see more of the country, and the terms of the bread and a bed were constraining logistically. And I was tired of the war of attrition going on to keep my property from being stolen. So, I said good-bye to Gilead and the Greek and packed up all my gear and left. I moved into a room at the Mughrabi Hostel on Allenby Street five blocks from the Opera Towers. I rented a cot for 33 NIS sheks a night, which was manageable.  

I closed early that Thursday night so I could make it to the club at some reasonable hour. For me closing early was closing any time before 11. No one even hits the clubs until around midnight in Israel. In New York you’ve done three bars already by this time. I suppose it’s the heat that keeps the nightlife hard, cool and strictly nocturnal.  

The Deep is in the heart of Tel Aviv near the monolithic white tower of the Ministry of the Interior. It was an underground hotspot nestled on a dark side street. It was known for its wild queer after hours parties but was now run and operated by Black Israelites. Emma worked as a promoter and a partner. For every 25 people she brought to the club, her boss Andrew put five hundred shekels in her pocket. Apparently, Miss Maya was the top promoter. She was able to bring in roughly 125 people every Thursday. As I arrived at the entrance, a well-dressed Israeli Ashkenazi stood at the door with the guest list. A group of drunken Russian frekhot was trying to get into the club free of charge. They argued in Hebrew, as I waited behind them to get in. The street was empty besides the girls, the gatekeeper and me. A Black male with a diamond earring in his left ear emerged from behind the red curtain. At first, I assumed he was Ethiopian, until I heard him talk. 

“WHAT the hell are these trifling bitches goin’ on about now?”  

It was the first time I had heard a trace of an Ebonics accent in over a year. 

“Excuse me,” I interject. 

“Can I help you, cracka?” says a young black thug with the enormous diamond earring from the land of Zirconium. 

I hadn’t heard that since New York. 

“I’m looking for Maya Rose, she said I was on the list.” 

Like a fabulous ghetto St. Peter this Middle Eastern gangster looks at his list scornfully. He shakes his head looking tired. And then Maya emerged from behind the curtain. 

“Dizzy, this one’s with me,” she says to him and takes my hand. Past the black velvet rope we go down into a catacomb below the streets into a place that was once a blast shelter. The cavernous basement is packed wall to wall with Israelis who are black and brown. This bunker is dimly lit with red lights and strobes flashing to the beat of the music. There are huge black couches against the walls and white swings installed at the edge of the dance floor. The DJ is spinning Old School American Hip-Hop music.  

I take a seat at the bar with the young woman allegedly named Maya Rose. Other than her I’m the only alleged Caucasian in the place. 

“What are you drinking?” she asks me. 

“Gold Star.” 

She waves down and whispers something to the bartender. I try to pass her some NIS shekel ten spot coins, but she looks at me like I’m crazy. 

“Beers on Andrew,” she says. 

“Andrew is the guy who runs this place?” 

“Indeed.” 

“An American?” 

“Israelite. Andrew, and half the other people who work for this club are Black Israelites from a little city in the Negev named Demona where they keep the nuclear weapons.” 

“You mean the Ethiopian Jews.” 

“No, there’s an enormous difference between an Ethiopian and a Black Israelite. One’s humble and from Africa and one will call you a cracker and has a nasty jump shot.” 

“Where did they come from?” 

“Chicago mostly. That was about forty years ago. There’s maybe a couple thousand of them 

living in Israel now. Some like Andrew have neither Israeli nor American citizenship. The state of Israel still doesn’t believe they are in any senses actually the Jews.’ 

“State of Israel doesn’t believe a lot of people are Jews.” 

“It deports them whenever it can. Andrew built up the Deep’s rep for the past year or so as a haven for Israeli Blacks who want to rock out. Ethiopians don’t have too many of their own places and I’m sure you’ve seen what happens when a Black guy dances with a White or Russian girl.” 

We drink and dance a bit more and I call her Maya in front of couple dozen ‘Black Israelites’ I get introduced to. She introduces me to everyone as Zachariah. I was thrilled to see something like this here. I’d seen some racist shit in the past few weeks of Tel Aviv nightlife.  

I finally get introduced to “Andrew the Hustler”, the man behind this little operation who introduces himself as Avinadav. In a manic little rant about names while rolling up a spliff, he tells me ‘Everyone calls him Andrew, but he’s been thinking, dreaming really, that it’s better to use his ‘Hebrew name’ and not his ‘Babylon slave name.’ He is related to a good many people here. He is the big brother who came to the big city and made good for the rest of them. He comes across as generous, maybe to a fault. 

It was really after hours now, like 5 am, when very few people can be coherent; when Maya and Andrew called Avinadav, and this Jamaican Rasta guy Bradshaw and I are hanging out in the courtyard across from the club as Andrew rolls up another spliff. It was the first time I’d seen weed being smoked in Israel.  

“I mean, I’m not saying that a Black guy can’t go to the GSPOT or the GAT RAMON or any other jump off rave psyche trance party. It happens, it does. BUT, if they wanna kick game to some Ashkenazi or Russia sister then its problems nine of ten. I mean shit, this Eretz isn’t South Africa or Southside bad, I mean it’s not legislated. I’m just sayin’ all my girlfriends not from the community in Demona are Yemeni girls. They know about being Black before the Ethiopians and us got here in the 70’s. Shit, they think of themselves as Black. I think of um like Puerto Rican actually. I mean the Black man will always be everybody’s favorite nigger. But the Palestinians are givin’ us a run. I mean racism ain’t shit next to holy war. I want chu’ to know I’m not fucked up and high and I’m just wired a bit ‘cause I couldn’t sleep last night. I mean I talk, talk, talk but I feel like you got some shit to say kid.” 

Both Andrew and Maya call me kid or kiddo, but neither is much older than me. Maya is 18 and Andrew is 26. 

“There’s hate based on race and a hate based on religion, but those are just pretexts for political leaders to consolidate powers. Likud and Avodah and the governing coalition can play ball for years by keeping everybody divided. I mean the Russians, Yemenis and Ethiopians all live in the same shit neighborhoods and go to same run-down hospitals, but they can’t wait to fight each other over any stupid thing. The Palestinian Christians, Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank and the so-called ‘Arab Israelis’ are not even different peoples, and they can’t even work together on the uprising. Bedouins and Druze are Arabs but have more in common with the coalition government than with each other. For a nation of eight million there’s quite a bit of disunity.” 

“We unified over beatin’ back the other Arab states. Even Palestinians true hate the other Arabs. The Jordanians butchered um in ’71. The Lebanese butchered um in ’83, and any person with a brain knows they aren’t gonna give the Palestinians a country once the Jews get ‘driven into the sea’. Egypt would take the Negev and the Coast until Ashkelon. Jordan would take the West Bank to the Sea, and Syria would swallow up what was left. Like a football those Palestinians get thrown around to be a thorn in our side. Fools.” 

“Nu, you consider yourself an Israelite then?” I ask him. 

“Even if they don’t consider me one. I mean I ain’t even got US citizenship. I grew up in Demona. I was born in Demona and I ain’t even got a valid todat zeeoot. I’m a resident alien. Don’t even get me started on our troubles. It was worse before. The state has at least somewhat accepted we ain’t goin back to America.” 

The brother with the diamond earring and black suit whose name I didn’t catch joined us. He was one of Andrew’s partners and also a cousin. He’d called me cracka when I arrived. They looked alike, same build and complexion. His name was Disrael, Dizzy for short. Andrew kept with these manic, politico-spiritual rants and his cousin looked tired and wanted to cash out. The Jamaican; Ian Bradshaw and Maya barely said a word. They just listened. I guess she was sizing things up. Andrew was both articulate and wildly knowledgeable about theology and political science. Maya never got drunk even though she never stopped drinking.  

By sunrise Andrew, Maya, and I are having breakfast at dawn in an outdoor café on lower Allenby Street.         

“So, you a change maker then? That’s a damn good thing ‘cause I’m a change maker too. Something has to give or break because it can’t be like this much longer. To fathom one day one of us bringing a kid up in this balagan. Unthinkable. I mean the three of us, we ain’t gonna see change. We’ll see some fight, see a lot of death, but nothin’ we can believe in. But you gotta lay a foundation for the future generations, gotta give your kids something better to reach from if they weren’t born that tall.”  

Andrew chuckles, “But really now, both of you need to try and call me Avinadav even if the others won’t.” 

I nod and light one of Emma’s cigarettes. Did I call her Maya in front of ‘Avinidav’ even when he called her Emma? Like me she responded quickly enough to both. 

“So, what brought you back to Israel, Maya?” I asked her.  

“I’m not sure really. People are obsessed with this notion that God has the power to dole out property rights,” says Maya, “but I’m mostly hear for the beaches and nightlife. 

“Sure-as a pillar of salt once was a woman, God willed this land to us,” interjects Avinadav, “If you ask some Israelis, they’ll tell you that God promised us this land. Ask a Muslim they’ll say they’ve always been here, and it is Allah’s will that they remain. Christians want to take the whole planet anyway. Muslims too, but pay attention, God gave us this stretch to be for the Hebrews.” 

“Hebrews?” I ask. 

“The title of our twelve tribes taken collectively.” 

“You mean the Jews?” questions Maya. 

“That’s not the proper way we’re called,” he retorts. 

“I don’t get it. It’s semantics. Jews, Israelites, Hebrews. What’s the difference?” she says. 

“When the tribes came back from exile in Babylon there were only three tribes left, Judah, Levi and Benjamin. The rest were lost in Babylon, which means they intermarried, got inter-raped, converted or never came back. Judah, which is also the tribe that Yeshua the messiah and King David come from, rose to prominence. Levi was the priestly tribe and Benjamin, they all had red hair and now they look Ethiopian. When the Romans fought the Hebrews around 60 CE in the Bar Kokhba Revolt and wiped out twelve Roman legions, the Romans knew these weren’t a people to fuck around with. Judah was the largest tribe so when Masada and later Betar finally fell and the raping and second temple burning and Diaspora all began, they derogatorily called our proud Hebrew people the ‘Yahuds’ or Jews. It was like nigger, a slur imposed in bondage. Now think about the etymology. ‘ISH,” is kind of like. “ChildISH”, kind of like a child. “JewISH”, kind of like a JEW. I’m a Hebrew. You two are Hebrew. Not only is Jewish a watered-down degrading title, but it also implies that we are all from the tribe of Yehuda. But we could be from Gad, or Manasseh, or Ephraim or Asher or any of ‘um. It’s like the Nigerians. WHERE THE FUCK DID, THEY GET THAT NAME FROM, I WONDER? The damn ever-colonizing Europeans. The Romans gave us that name. But it is not our true name.”    

“I don’t really care whose land G-d says it is as long as the violence eventually stops,” cuts in Maya. 

“Do you still believe in a G-d, Maya?” Avinadav asks her point blank. 

“Every other Friday, I reconsider the matter.” 

“Pardon my candor, but what has G-d done lately for us?” I mutter. 

“That’s a loaded question if I ever heard one,” she says. 

“Yeah, but let’s answer it anyway,” Avinadav says. 

 “Well Zachariah, I suppose not a whole lot. But if there is a G-d, who are we to interpret Its actions?” Maya puts in. 

“Its?” I ask. 

“Hey, if you guys wanna rename whole religious ethnic groups, I feel free to de-masculinize the almighty.” 

“That’s fine, fuck the dumb shit” smiles Avinadav. 

“Look, to me G-d isn’t like a be-all-end-all safety net. You don’t get blessed by just believing in him, It. You must trust Hashem works through the actions of good people more than miracles,” Maya responds. 

“AND surely there will be more miracles coming!” declares Avinadav banging on the table. 

“I’m not ruling out the existence of a G-d. All I’m saying is that maybe It’s given up on us,” says Maya. 

“How do you figure?” Avinadav demands again attracting the attention of other people in the café more for being Black and loud than for just being loud. 

“What if G-d decided humanity just wasn’t worth all the grief we cause. What if it looks at us as a failed experiment and stopped devoting time to divine interventions and the like?” Maya says. 

“I’m with that opinion,” I say, “I don’t find it so hard to believe.” 

“So, you think G-d has just bailed on us?” Avinadav asks us. 

“Yep,” she smirks. 

“Don’t blaspheme and sound ridiculous at the same time,” Avinadav mumbles in a grin. 

“Well let’s not hold our breath on that one. I’m just doing my part working on that miracle in case God holds out.” 

“What kind of miracle, kid?” Avinadav asks. 

“The miracle of a revolution done right.” 

“I like that. The kid’s articulate and totally insane,” Avinadav weighs in. 

“I like that about Zach, too,” she says. 

“Most people do I bet. Do you ever wonder the purpose of it all, Maya?” Avinadav asks. 

“The purpose of what?” 

“The purpose of G-d sending this kid our way?” 

“Guys, I’m really not that much younger than either of you.” 

“It’s totally random. He just wants to nail me,” she smiles, “There’s no purpose, Andrew.” 

“Avinadav.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Guys, I’m sitting right here.” 

“If there is no purpose and there’s no greater meaning to it all, it is pointless to be alive. I mean the things he says are the things this country needs to hear right now,” Avinadav says to Maya. 

“He’s just young and you believe in Hashem too aggressively. I’m a cynic, from Spain by way of Montreal. I like watching you two talk though.” 

“Cynics are fallen idealists frustrated with the failure of their original ideals,” I interject. 

“Excuse me?” she utters, “I would like to say I still believe in the potential for a better world, but lately I’ve begun to doubt whether humans would actually tolerate a better world.”  

“Our kind is pretty fucked,” Avinadav reflects openly. 

“Only mostly fucked. There’s always a potential for change making,” I say. 

“I’m not discounting the fact that there are a few good people out there, but certainly not the majority. And few like less than a dozen in the country that would join what you are talking about. Most people just want to go about their lives and not have to think big thoughts about brave new worlds and the governing factors behind the human nature and if God taps people to participate in history or a higher plan. You’re making demands that never get answered, Zach. Sure, people come up with relatively comprehensible concepts explaining certain things about our existence, but even Socrates was working in the shadows of a cave,” Maya responds. 

“What’s your point?” I ask. 

“It’s hard to keep the attention of the masses. There is something wrong with the world, but the good people, the rebels you hope to find aren’t interested in employing the right tactics for change,” Maya continues. 

“What tactics would you employ?” Avinadav asks me. 

“The most radical ones I could find,” I retort. 

“Such as?” 

“You know, something that tells the people that the rebels aren’t fucking around. Like kidnapping the representative or majority shareholder of the McDonald’s corporation in Israel and blowing his brains out on national television.” 

They stared at me for a second, then at each other and then they went on. 

“Spoken like a true fucking zealot,” Avinadav states. 

“And what the fuck would that accomplish,” she asks me. 

“It would tell Israelis we won’t eat the processed-treif shit America sends us to chow on,” Avinadav chimes in coldly. Maya takes off her glasses and gives us both a ‘you’re both talking like terrorists’ look as she lights another cigarette. 

“And then for your second little miracle?” she says under her breath. 

“We’d take the old city of Jerusalem with a few hundred fighters then proceed to blow up the Kotel, Dome of the Rock, and Church of the Holy Sepulcher so nobody had any misconceptions about how unholy this war was gonna get,” I say coldly. 

“That one I like more,” Maya says, “And for a grand finale Jesus could back with a fleet of gold-plated tanks to relieve your hunted and abandoned fighters?” 

“We’d retreat into the Negev, then deeper into Sinai to regroup, unite with the million Bedouin in the desert and capture the major southern cities with the aid of Iran. Then via a coordinated general strike and massive defection within the army, we’d take the central districts and cut the country in half before closing in on the capital.” 

“Ah, well Mr. Hubert, what would you do about the Palestinians and other Arab states that would love to hit us while we fight amongst ourselves,” she chuckles, “Aided by the Islamic Republic of Iran, of course.” 

“Who’s Mr. Hubert? I’m quite insulated from Western pop cultural references,” says Avinadav glibly.   

“She’s mocking me again. He wrote Dune.” 

“Dune?” he shrugs.  

“Islamic Star Wars,” she says. 

“Oh. Missed that entirely,” he responds, “Go on.” 

“Well, it wouldn’t work unless Palestinians were involved from the beginning within the rebel leadership. We’d have to smash Fatah and their Al ’Aksa Martyrs Brigade because they’re secular, corrupt puppets. We’d have to eliminate Islamic Jihad because they’re too fundamentalist or at least drive them into merging with Hamas.” 

They are both staring at me speechless. 

“Our obvious ally the socialist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine would help us hem in Hamas. Hamas, who will soon emerge as the premiere representative of the Palestinian Intifada will have to be brought to the bargaining table by pressure from a revitalized Popular Front and their patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hamas, ironically enough, will be our closest ally, the only Palestinian player to fully mobilize their people for this endgame.    

“When we ‘smash’ the IDF, Knesset and American interests, of course,” utters Maya. 

“As I said, after the south and the Sinai are in the hands of the rebels, much of the IDF will desert to the confederated rebels after the general strike. The Knesset and their American supporters will order the IDF to end the strike, which will seal the fate of the Jewish State, America’s 51^st. 

“How the hell could you even dream of allying with Hamas! They want to kill us all.” Maya scoffs 

“Because they’re led by Muslim fundamentalists, which means they won’t be co-opted by the secular Arab dictatorships that are American proxies. They hate the leaders of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and the Emirates more than they hate the Israelis,” Avinadav cuts in. 

“And that’s sort of my point. “You want to unite a lot of people who are fundamentalists about what they believe,” I say. 

“Then like magic, and a lot of miracle magic is involved in your plan, these groups fall in line into a leadership council, then a governing body called Pal’Israel?” Maya scowls in disbelief. 

“Well, it would be ‘Pal’Isra’ if you wanted to be more unified in the national title,” states Avinadav, “but everyone knows that’s just called Zion anyway. That will never fly with the Arabs though, calling it Zion I mean.” 

“Then it will be called the Confederation of the Middle East,” Avinadav declares. 

“What’s in a name?” Maya smirks, “When we have such wild imaginations and so much unused magic.” 

“Well, anyway whatever you build on the Hebrew side you gotta build in Gaza and the West Bank as well as anywhere with large Palestinian and Jewish Diasporas like New York, Baghdad, Paris, Dearborn and Tehran. When the revolution comes it will begin with direct action, proceed to a general strike, a revolt in the defense forces and then a rapid move to realign the new nation with Iran, China, and Latin America.” 

“So, like Beirut in 82?” she says. 

“More like Tehran in ‘79 but replace Shi’a fundamentalism with populist nationalism founded in human rights and democracy.” 

“I think it’s sexy when he says violent radical shit, don’t you?” Maya says to Avinadav. 

“Real sexy,” Avinadav says.  

Andrew the Hustler is thinking hard watching a younger whiter version of himself talk dangerously. Maya has put back on her huge black sunglasses and is sipping on her coffee while smoking a Marlboro menthol cigarette. A waiter brings out a large platter of hardboiled eggs, a pitcher of orange juice, another of Turkish coffee and something sort of like hash browns and Israeli salad, which is diced cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions. We’d all be eating from the same plate. 

“What’s the plan then, boys? You’ve fallen in love. I can see it in your eyes,” Maya says to us. 

“Well then, Zachariah. You got some big crazy fucking ideas. G-d sent you to us. That I know. I got the means! She has got the will when she’s willing. We can talk all morning but fuck the dumb shit, as I like to say. What you playin’ with here?” 

I am smoking deeply from one of Emma’s Marlboros. Just like London, ain’t no Newport pleasure in the Holy Land. 

“I’ve been dreaming for a long time about making a stand, about a small group of people showing the world that we need not live our lives like slaves lashed to a rolling engine of war. This I know in my heart. If we can rally the wretched of this broken land behind a banner of unity, then a land of tears and blood will yield the milk and honey promised.” 

“Bottom line. What’s step?” Avinadav asks.  

“I don’t follow.” 

“What’s the first course of action that might involve us and what’s your final objective?” she asks. 

“I need unrestricted access to the Deep for meetings and storage of equipment. I need multiple safe houses around the country to recruit from. And your help designing and translating a basic manifesto into Hebrew, Russian, and Palestinian Arabic.” 

“You can have meetings in the club, just do not run up the bar. We can get your places to stay in every major city as long as it’s short term,” says Andrew. 

“But what do you want long-term, Zachariah? What are we conspiring to do? I want you to say it a simple sentence so we three can digest the severity of what we plan to set in motion.” 

“Say it once and never again ‘til it’s all made real,” Andrew says. 

I smother my cigarette butt in the cheap grey plastic ash tray. 

“Our aim is to overthrow the government of Israel. Then liberate the entire Middle East from its Oligarchy.” 

“Right on. I’m in,” Avinadav says his eyes never blinking. 

“Well, somebody’s gonna have to make sure women don’t get cut out as usual when the freedom starts getting handed out,” Emma grins darkly, “I hope you got some good magic, kid.” 

“Or someone’s on our side that’s proactive with the miracles,” I say. But, what Maya is thinking, is that that then was the very morning they all signed up to be killed.