Living in Israel (standard:adventure, 1841 words)
Author: giborim	Added: Apr 17 2003	Views/Reads: 3420/2227	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
My trip through the forbidden side of the arab quarter in Israel.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

air.  We went in the first store and started browsing all the different 
trinkets that were for sale. 

There was literally every piece of shit I could imagine there.  They had
chess sets hand crafted from wood with intricate detail; crosses made 
of every different material you could imagine, wood, metal, gold, 
silver, even yarn.  There were also more postcards, thankfully I 
already had my fill of postcards I would never send. They even had 
those postcards that had a fat lady on them and some snide remark about 
wishing you could be here too.  There were lots of camels for obvious 
reasons.  I picked up one a wooden camel with a piece of cloth on its 
back and reigns made out of plastic, spray painted in gold that was 
already chipping.   They had dolls and china and the thing that finally 
caught my eye was a wine set.  It had the pitcher and four wine 
glasses.  All the glasses were stained glass in such beautiful colors.  
I needed one.  RANDY! 

Shit I had lost him while distracted by the ways to spend the money
burning a hole in my pocket.  I looked all around, now starting to 
panic.  I think I must have looked worried because a man who, in my 
mind seemed to about eight feet tall and angry as hell, came up to me, 
“You like the wine set?” he asked.  I was confused.  What wine set?  
“Huh?” 

“Is beautiful wine set? I make you a deal.” 

“No, I don't want it. I was just looking.  I need to go find my friend”
This was apparently the wrong thing to say.  He didn't seem to agree 
that this was a valid reason to not spend money in his store.  I tried 
to squirm out the door past the large man but he persisted about the 
wine set. 

“How much you want to spend?” 

“None,” I replied. “I don't want to buy anything right now I want to go
find my friend.”  And with that I squirmed past the man and walked down 
the alleyway deeper into the Arab quarter looking for Randy. 

Thankfully, I found him.  He was in a shop about five stores away.  I
ran up to him and pushed him.  Wrong move.  He spun quickly and stared 
at me but that was ok, it was the reaction of the Arab man that made me 
nervous, when a young girl not only touched a boy but physically hit 
him.  I knew at this time we were not the preferred customers that 
would receive the lucky fifteen percent off. Letting me off with an 
evil eye, Randy turned and continued his shopping.  “Where were you?” 
he asked.  “ME!” I tried my best to keep my voice down “ I didn't leave 
the store you walked out without telling me”.   “My bad” he said.  I 
wanted to tell him about the man in the other store but decided not to 
look suspicious by whispering so I looked around the store.  This time 
I was being careful not to touch any of the gizmos or look too 
interested in any of them.  This store seemed to have the exact same 
inventory.  It would be like going to the mall and all the stores only 
carrying one brand of jeans and a gray T-shirt.  Nothing seemed 
appealing.  Nothing seemed different.  I was getting bored and annoyed 
with the Arab man who was still staring at me.  I hadn't felt this way 
since I was in middle school when shopkeepers would follow me and my 
friends around the store waiting for the moment one of us would pocket 
something so he could call the cops and then getting frustrated when we 
walked out never misbehaving. 

We walked down the walkway a little more before Randy came to the
conclusion that it was all the same stuff.  We turned, and Randy told 
me he wanted to look into buying a chessboard.  I was ready to go but I 
agreed.  We went into the closest store we could find it in, and he 
picked up one of the pieces.  Before I could finish my flashback from 
my earlier experience, the store clerk was standing practically on top 
of us asking what we wanted.  His breath was rank, and I didn't want to 
stand there any longer so I pretended to be distracted and walked to 
another spot in the store careful not too wonder so far that I couldn't 
see Randy.  I could see and hear the entire thing although to this day 
I don't completely understand what happened. 

Randy and the store clerk were talking prices and bargaining which was
normal and important etiquette.  And then Randy motioned to me that he 
was ready to go and I assumed that meant the man and him couldn't agree 
on a price.  “We will try somewhere else” Randy said to me.  God, why 
did he have to say that. 

The man took offense to this line of course and put his hand on Randy's
shoulder, from my perspective this looked like a friendly gesture but 
to Randy this was a threat.  He shrugged his shoulder to get the man's 
large hand off him and this was a total insult.  The man looked pissed. 
 Randy and I booked it, and thankfully, got out of the quarter without 
running into the shopkeeper I had pissed off earlier.  I could hear the 
Arab man Randy pissed off yelling at us down the street but thankfully 
the Jewish quarter is almost right next to the Arab quarter and we 
crossed over and walked past a solider.  I smiled at him.  I am pretty 
sure he had an idea of what we were doing and why we were in trouble.  
But if he did, he didn't say a word.  He just smiled back, and Randy 
and I rejoined the group, never discussing the situation.  No one had 
even noticed we were gone. 


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