Habima Sq, Israel, Samantha Fox reporting:
Pitter patter, pitter patter came down the endless rain on this cold night. We trudged towards our destination hardly inspired by our bleak surroundings. I had no expectations and little desire for the evening. To accompany my male friend and his three other lady friends for the night would be mildly amusing at best and tiresome at its worst. My male companion was taking me and three other girls out for the night, but I secretly knew I’d be the first to go. I gave myself 45 minutes as the rain bounced off our foreheads.
My companion and I arrived to Helena, which had a sign designating to be called Apropo, to be met by a large crowd standing outside. Another female companion joined us. I lost myself in conversation with her and forgot to care that we were standing outside with a goal of being admitted into exclusivity. Suddenly a voice yelled out our male companion’s name..and viola, we were in. The night was getting interesting.
The mood inside the packed bar with the sawdust floors was riveting. I was transported for a minute second back to the look alike bars in the dry prairie Texas towns. But this bar was no diminutive hang out for bored college kids on a Tuesday night. I absorbed its class as my body surrendered to its warmth. The wooden floors, were not a necessity of cheapness, but a throwback to the pottery barn of culture. Maneuvering our way through the thick smoke-congested crowd, we found our companions on the other side of the large rectangular bar and joined them on the chic barstools. Quick introductory kisses, and genuine fun began.. The atmosphere was contagious. The only thing missing was Tom Crusise and O’Flannigan to mix our drinks in acrobatic demeanor.
Our new female companions immediately embraced our presence. As we animated the conversation about such nonsense as the politics of the day, one of the females leaned across two stools and grabbed my wrist with an unexpected viper grip. As I ceased to notice the noise of drunkenness surrounding us, I simultaneously wondered if she was leaving finger prints and where the weak point was in her ferocious grasp. Finding none, I wondered if I had really learned a thing in the past few months? Was just dream? Or was it real? What is Real? But I digress.
The rest of the night passed in a whirlwind. It was a night of firsts. My first shot. My first circulation of the wrong number to unsuspecting men. And then I realized it. This entire room of people, acting what can only be described as moderately hip, was Jewish. There was no pretense. We all understood. Through my growing buzz, I watched the room flirt, observed the glazed looks on some of the faces and felt my own growing tiredness.
Time for the night to end. But it wouldn’t. I waited with growing impatience as my male companion engaged in the last wisps of conversation with the viper. The wisps, I suddenly understood were poisonous, and then suddenly her aggression was upon us both over a trumped up charge. She wanted to avenge her friend, and I was the unsuspecting target. Revenge and honor were at stake. As my irritation rose and viper’s hisses grew louder, I felt the strong-arm of my male companion on my arm pulled me away and led me out. His cell phone rang and rang. The rain came down. The smoke followed us. The night ended.
(Yonatan Frimer contributed a word here and there to this article and this parenthesis at the bottom that you are reading right now)
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