13/07/2006

Where were you when the war broke in

I have those stories in my life, about where I was when Rabin was murdered and when another minister in Israel got murdered and where I was when the second intifada started or the Taba bombing in Sinai, the way that some moments becomes significant not only cause what I'm experiencing but for what's happening in the world at the same time. Those moments that the boundary between global and personal dissolve and I realize I'm living in this world and effected by it.

And now I have a story about where I was when the war broke, on the day that it was exactly 2 weeks before my flight to New York and I was having the worst anxiety attack of my life, it was the 5th day of it, of not eating and not sleeping well, of being disturbed by every noise and every movement and being scared about the move, about the New York noises and new surrounding and not quite knowing how things works in a new place. Being overwhelmed and sick and wanting to die, wanting to disappear. I was actually feeling a little better just the evening before but then it took me 3 hours to fall asleep and I was feeling so bad the next day, so bad.

And I was reading the news on the internet and listening to it on the radio, as people up north was going down to spend the night in bomb shelters and some guy got hit my a missile on our side, and Israeli soldiers were entering Gaza and Lebanon, and all I could think of was the noises that tanks and bombs and missiles make and how this is the first day of a war. I was reading about 200 dying in a train bomb in India and an alert in the New York train system cause of it and about something going between North Korea and Japan, and no where in the world felt safe anymore and I was feeling like there's nothing that can ever get better.

I stayed late at work, then going out of the office building the weather was warm and there was barely a breeze, I walked to the bus station, the longest time of being outside I can manage those days, and then I took the bus with the Audio book and drawing just a few lines in my sketchbook I started to feel as if things might get slightly better again. I was scared to go home, to the sounds I'm hearing there, the dog that keep barking and the wind chime and music from the other apartments. But I was also looking forward to finishing the day, talking a little to him and going to sleep hoping to fall asleep real fast.

There was music from the bar down stairs but I know i usually don't hear it and they close in about half an hour or so, I couldn't hear the wind chime but one of the neighbors was listening to music, all and all, maybe an OK night, I thought from the street, but as I was nearing my entrance door, I heard someone on the entrance to the building. It was some Junky, he looked all skinny and fidgety, was pushing the Intercom buttons and begging to someone to let them in. He wore shorts, a messy shirt and flip flops and like some people carry a pencil or a cigarette above their ear, he had a syringe. He looked like a movie type cast of a Junkie. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to go in, the street was noisy and I had a long day, but I couldn't, I called the police.

The woman on the other line said they were sending a unite. I waited, in the meantime a girl came out from the building next door and took a weird look at the junky and I told her I live in the building. She waited for a second then another girl showed up on a scooter, and handed the first one a big red bucket, they started arguing about laundry and shit, I wanted them to go, the sound of the scooter made me nervous as well as them yelling in the street, but they didn't. I just stood there trying to disappear. Then, about 10 minutes into their fight, I heard glass breaking. The junky broke the glass door in the entry of the building and got inside. I called the police again and told them he broke in, they said, again, they were sending a unite. I didn't know if I should go inside the building, I thought about my passports and a almost 2000$ in cash I have in the apartment now, I didn't know if he was entering to break in or to get something from someone he knew. I called a friend of mind that lives in the building to tell him to lock his door but he wasn't home, he was in a bar.

After 15 minutes he came out, he wasn't wearing his shirt, and I tried taking a good look at him to describe him to the police when they show up. He had blondish hair and sun tanned skin, he wasn't wearing his shirt, he had a tattoo on his arm and on his chest, his arm was covered in deep scratches that was bleeding, from breaking the door with his arm. He walked away and took a turn in one street. A moment later the police unite arrived, I told them I called them and explained where the guy went and what happened. After I gave his description, I saw him come back from the other side of the block, he just walked around and came back. I pointed him to the cops and they started asking him questions, his answers were really confused, the cop came over and told me the guy's harmless and just wondering around. I showed the cop the broken door, and then he went and talked with the guy again asking him about the scratches on his arm and the blood on the floor. He started shouting about willing to make a bet, that if this is not his blood the cop would need to give him 200 shekels, he set on the floor by the police unite, then stood up again, and started trying to forcefully open a car's door while the policemen were taking his name and ID number.

I didn't want the junky to see me talking to the cops, but at some point the police man pointed at me and told him "someone saw you break into the building" and I was really afraid he'll come back tomorrow since he knows I live there. Eventually they decided to book him, they asked me to go to the police station and issue a complaint, they couldn't even take me there - they had to take the junky in the car, so I walked there, it wasn't far away, but with all the dog barks, people talking, cars and music it wasn't a pleasant walk at all. Eventually I made it, my friend called me and told me he was coming to be with me, but I got into the building on my own. It was pretty empty, but full of white noises and beeps and radio connection sounds, the voices of people carried down the corridors and echoed. I through the huge lobby and then by elevator the creaked into the 2nd floor where the Investigator works. There was a crowd of people in front of one of the doors, all talking about the news, two squad officers in cargo pants, black T-shirts and guns were just bringing in a tall goofy looking guy with thick lens glasses who looked a bit retarded and the investigator started questioning him. Some other guy went into the room, It was really hard to know who are police officers and who were criminals, that aura of violence came from both.

The guy who got in had the investigator sign some papers for him telling him to come again tomorrow and that he's restrained from going back to his wife's apartment and to come to the other police station and talk to some other officer, he jokes with the investigator, he looks like one of the guys, they are all male, in some male bonding scene full of laughter and togetherness, 'm he only female in the room, in my glasses and fair skin and total inexperience in the law scene, I feel more of an outsider then the criminals does. @ guys comes over, one's wearing a baseball cap, hiphop jeans and a big buggy T-shirt, next to him stand a dark skinned guy in tank top and shorts, they both looks like criminals but then i notice one of them's got a gum and a pair of handcuffs in his belt. He's a cop, the other one's a criminal, they looks exactly the same.

I stand outside the door till my friend come over. Then they ask us to go sit outside, that we are in their way. We sit by the elevator, my friend's stating to fall asleep, I just sit there, listening to the noises, to the tall weird guy with glasses starting to cave in in the investigator office, asking what are they going to do to him. Every now and then I wonder back into the investigator's office and ask him when can I get in and get the same answer "there are only 2 investigators in this shift, they didn't even had a coffee break, he'll be with me once he finish this, he's with a suspect and can't break in the middle" I hear his muffled voice, the guy's in cause he was caught buying drugs, they are trying to get him to tell on the dealer, but I can't tell if he does or not, his voice is whiny and on the verge of hysteria.

My friend push me to go and tell them that if I don't get to see someone now, I should go but I don't want to, I'm scared that if I don't press charges they'll let the guy out first thing in the morning. A couple waiting to complaint about something being stolen and an older man that had his car broken into, they both stay a few minutes then realize that they can come in tomorrow when there's more personal. We wait. My Friend asks me what i want to eat, I don't but he goes out and get up a couple of small pastries, he's pushing me to eat, He asks me "how many meals did you have in the past few day" and I say "Non" he tells me that a week long with no food and anxiety is considered anorexia nervosa, that I'm in denial, that I'm indulging myself in the anxiety cause it's a comfortable familiar place. Eventually, I eat one of them, slowly, each bite is a struggle. He tells me I need to tart staking the pills the DR. gave me, that I can't go to New York feeling like I do cause I'll ruin the relationship, I feel so bad, so week, the world's so scary, I'm at the end of my ropes, I agree, I tell him that tomorrow I will take one, he tries to talk me into taking two. I feel so bad that I'm preparing to agree on everything. "You look really shitty" he say "I'm sorry to say, but you look like a skeleton" I know I don't, I don't think I even lost weight on this one, but I'm looking into my reflection in the tinted window, my eyes look sunken and blood shot, my skin looks pale with a few zits I picked on, my hair's dissolved, I look old, not even tragic or skinny, just sad and sick, I don't even look like me.

I promise him I'm going to eat tomorrow, that I'm going to take two pills, as I struggle to eat the other pastry, it's oily and it's making me feel bad, the taste of potato and wheat and salt's too massive, too much of a sensorial overload, I want to throw up, the food's making me feel cold from within, and weak. I lay my head on my knees and start sobbing, just a little bit. Then i go around the corridor and check if the other investigator is free, she's sitting with a young Arab guy and checking his papers, apparently he was working in Israel territory without a permit. His employer, fat, in orange T-shirt and a golden chain had also been arrested. Someone comes in with the workers belonging packed in two duffle bags and one big plastic trash bag, he's going to be deported back to the territories, I pick up shreds of conversation.

I sit and wait, the officer comes and take the tall retard looking guy, he's got a silly moronic look on his face, looking both intensely high and scared. They bring in the guy that probably sold him the drugs, at first he keep saying "someone's framing me, I wasn't there" then the police office say that he's writing "refuse to answer questions" in the form, and that this will cause him damage later on in the investigation. They speak quietly for a while then the suspect breaks and say out loud "what can I do, this is how my father taught me to be" then he keeps on saying he didn't drove that way, that he drove a different way.

It's late when I finally go in and see the investigator, she's a woman, thin, with dyed brown and blond hair and I'm shuttered to think she's several years younger then me. She already have a paper with the policeman complaint and the name and details of the suspect. I tell her the story and she type it into the computer. I tell her the guy was a junky, that he had a needle behind his ear, that he broke into the building and I don't know if he broke into my apartments or not, she types it and let me read it, on her report it sounds a lot less scarier then it really was. She's telling me that he's probably crazy and I'm saying that no, he was just a junkie, he was just under the influence of drugs or in need of drug. Right before I go out, she say to the police man "I'm not going to interview a drunk, he's going to be disgusting" and the policeman say "I'll bring him up so you can have an impression from him" I already know that this guy's going to be out on the streets again by tomorrow.

We walk home, it's 2:30, the streets are still packed with teenager in fancy cheep dresses going out of clubs, the moon is full and large and the streets looks bright with lights, on the street near a closing bar, 4 people sit, one's plying a guitar, I'm thinking of all those noises, of street art and staying up late and life concerts, everything i loved just a short time ago and now I feel I'm too old for this, that i want to move to someplace quite and without so much noise, and then I'm thinking about dogs and babies crying and wind and tress and I realize there' no place quite and protected enough for me to feel safe in.

I go home, I take a pill and try to finish the bottled ice tea but go through only about a third of it. It's pretty quite, not as much as I wants it to but pretty quite. I talk with him on camera, telling him about my crazy night. I don't feel he understand how badly I felt, I don't feel anybody ever will understand how scared and anxious I was that night, that day, that week.

I go to bed and it still takes me some time to fall asleep. In the morning I wake up feeling really bad, I want to go back to sleep but I can't i lay in bed wanting to die and listening to the noises of my land lady from downstairs swiping shreds of glass from the stairway.

Comments

oh leeloo, be strong.
please try to eat, please, you can't go on like this. you know all the things i want to say, so i'll just suggest you buy some chicken soup powder and drink it every several hours. it can help you and it doesn't take much time to prepare and it's low on flavour. if you can't eat normally you HAVE GOT to drink it.

you need to be strong and try to function normally (in basic needs like food and sleep) so you can have a good flight and to be phisically strong when you meet ned.
you are lucky to have that friend who cared for you in the police station.

if you won't eat, i will have to take serious actions like, like, like unleashing steroid pumped bears with err, lasers coming out of their eyes, or, uh, yea!, seige your apartment (heavilly stocked with tanks of soup) untill you let me in, or else i'll start throwing stocks of fattening foods and alfajores coockies, through your window (or through the broken door). be ware. ;)

this war is making all of the israelis desperate and hatefull, and im one of them. im more desperate than hatefull.

yours
chicken soup.

err, sorry,
Drekko frest.

Posted by: dark forest | 15/07/2006

הי.
תעשי לי טובה ותני לי אישור שאת בסדר.
שלחי מייל או משהו.

Posted by: dark forest | 16/07/2006

isn't it fate salvaging you from the chaos of war because very soon you will be moving to a place where you will spend war-less days with your significant other.

i know that's kinda selfish of me to say those things but who really needs war. not that we want them but it's just frustrating when these things happen.

the people here are going nuts over north korea's test missile lunch. i am not worried a bit.

Posted by: deity | 17/07/2006

You are very beautiful. Take care of yourself. You are in our thoughts. Many in America stand with you.

Posted by: Sassy | 20/07/2006

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