29/4/94

True Love on Trumpeldor Street

A sweeping, soapy saga of the young and restless in Ashdod and beyond.

(The scene is the kitchen table at 2 Trumpeldor Street in Ashdod. Mirit Ben-Kishke is proud of her kitchen, black ebonywood with jungle florals, tastefully renovated by Dudu, the mysterious but handsome Tunisian widower. Sarit, the next-door neighbor, is visiting.)

Sarit: Milk, no sugar.

Mirit: Take a cookie, it's imported.

Sarit: Like my hips. So you were telling me.

Mirit (sipping black Maxwell House with the limited-edition designer label autographed by a famous dietician): Right. Then I told Gabi I must have a new kitchen. And a maid, black like my Aunt Mindl's in Palm Beach. I knew he had his eye on a new Porsche, so we made a deal. He had to sell a factory, but it was worth it.

Sarit: What can I say? It's very nice.

Mirit: "Nice"? Just "nice"? Thirty-five thousand dollars, that's how nice, not including Lolly. We shipped her in from Fiji. Her skin-tone matches the counters perfectly. She didn't know a thing about kashrut.

Sarit: Mm. So how's your son Benny?

Mirit (deflated): Parole denied.

Sarit: You think he didn't do it?

Mirit: My Benny? We have money, what does he need to rape somebody for? And a Gruzini, no less. Trust me, it was a frame-up.

Sarit: You're still blaming the government?

Mirit (nodding forlornly): And the PLO.

(Cut to: The Prime Minister's Office. The entire cabinet is assembled around a dunam-sized oak table. Not everyone is wearing a tie.)

The Prime Minister: So it's agreed: Gaza can be independent in five years, we tell the Syrians to shove it, Shas can sweat, the health bill remains as is, we don't invade Bosnia until we get the new F15s, and Benny stays in jail. Shimon, call Yasser and tell him we'll meet his demands.

(Music swells. Commercial break.)

(Fade in. Extreme close-up of bushy eyebrows furrowed in thought. Poor makeup job fails to hide traces of psoriasis. But this is irrelevant. Pull back to show full face of Judge Effie "Psycho" Psolomon. His chamber is lined with books. His top drawer is filled with dirty magazines. He is pensive.)

Judge: Impossible.

Rizzo Rabinowitz (a lawyer): I tell you, he was framed. Revenge against his father. His father voted Likud. He was warned, but he didn't listen.

Judge: I need proof. Can you dig up his voting slip?

(Dissolve to: an enormous storeroom with hundreds of boxes full of a million little voting slips. Rizzo Rabinowitz is methodically dusting each ballot with an amateur fingerprinting set.)

Rabinowitz: God, I hope he wasn't wearing gloves when he voted.

(Fade out. Fade in: A prison dining room. Benny, blond, blue-eyed, hairy and muscular, a Hollywood hunk with an expression somewhere between unshakable determination and puppy-dog melancholy that makes you want to both salute and cuddle him at the same time, is eating supper. Schnitzel and rice. Sitting around him are a dozen blonde, blue-eyed prisoners, all of them women. They are porno starlets from Bat Yam now finding God with the help of a Habadnik.  Some already have their hair covered. By an accounting mistake Benny has been sent to a blonde, blue-eyed women's prison. Everybody in the scene is unbelievably gorgeous.)

Benny: Pass the harif.

Prisoner #1: Get it yourself, schweinhund.

Benny: I didn't do it, I swear. I never touched the girl.

Prisoner #2: Your old man voted Likud, didn't he? Didn't he?

Benny: Oh, that....

Prisoner #3 (pulling out a switchblade): Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet, as John Donne was fond of saying. Prepare to die, sucker.

Benny: Couldn't this wait until after Shabbos?

Prisoner #3: A good man's grave is his Sabbath. John Donne again. Sorry, gringo, the minyan will have to do without you this week.

Benny: Minyan, shminyan. Hapoel is playing Maccabi. I can't miss that.

Prisoner #3: Death has a mean way of disappointing life's anticipations.

Benny: Donne?

Prisoner #3: No, Orbaum.

Prisoner #1: Wait, #3, I have an idea. Let him listen to the game. With a friendly wager: if Maccabi loses, he croaks. If they win, he lives. 

Prisoner #2: I like it.

Prisoner #3: Very sporting.

Benny: I don't know. I hear Mizrahi's left knee is sore....

Prisoner #2: Wanna put some money on the game to make it more interesting?

Benny: I only have 50 shekels.

Prisoner #2: Let's make it a reverse bet. You put your life on Macabbi, but your 50 shekels on Hapoel. That way you don't lose everything. Fair?

Benny: Wow, that's rough. I live and die with Macabbi -- but I could really use the cash.

(The four prisoners confirm the bet with a handshake. Benny invites Prisoner #3 back to his place for a nightcap. Scene dissolves as the two are sitting on his straw mattress, reciting classical Malay poetry to each other.)

(Stay with this: the plot, like good celery soup, thickens...)

(Fade in to: a suite in Tunisia. A gnomish, graying man with a scratchy beard and wearing fatigues and a designer keffiyeh is pacing nervously. There is a thick black strip across his eyes to conceal his identity.)

Gnomish Man (to a cadre of bodyguards, henchmen, thugs, mugs, manicurists and assorted hitmen, one of whom, Izzat, is a half-Palestinian, half-Italian Israeli spy): Hapoel must win. Does Peres know?

Izzat: Affirmative, Abu-Gordo.

Gnomish Man (exploding:) Call me "Big Daddy" one more time and you'll be in charge of street-sweeping in Jericho! (Izzat is contrite, but everyone else is howling in laughter) C'mon, guys, this is serious. We all know why Benny's been clamped. That Gruzini girl's been paid?

Izzat: I gave her a check.

Gnomish Man: Which account?

Izzat: The Oppressed of the World Savings Bank, in Teheran. The manager okayed it.

Gnomish Man: Excellent. And Benny's girlfriend Sahlab? Has she vacated yet? (Izzat shakes his head. Gnomish Man flies into a sputtering rage as the scene dissolves.)

(Street scene in Jericho, in front of the Hisham Palace Hotel, where Sahlab is renting a room. Her room is to become the living quarters of the first president of the State of Palestine, whose proclamation has been put on hold until the room comes free. Sahlab, a second-year student at Jericho Tech, has been seeing Benny on the sly for four years. Only she knows his secret.)

(Flashback. Sahlab in her rented room telling all to Benny. A thunder storm is raging, which puts the intifada on hold for a day.)

Benny: I love you.

Sahlab: Motek. (she kisses him hungrily.)

Benny: When there is peace between our warring peoples, we shall get married.

Sahlab (pulling away): But your parents...

Benny: My Dad's cool. He hires Arabs, you know.

Sahlab: Then they never told you...

(Music swells. Bass and electric oboe.)

Sahlab: ... Your real father is...

(Thunder. Lightning. A masked man bursts into the room.)

Masked man: Don't tell him!

Sahlab (hysterical): Yes! He must know! Benny, your real father is a Palestinian!  

Benny: Don't be silly. He has a moustache, but he's Polish.

Sahlab (sobbing): No. It was all a dreadful mistake. Your parents were honeymooning in Switzerland. Your father had a secret account there. Your mother was going downtown -- postcards, pantyhose, a cuckoo clock for her uncle Sigmond -- and she was short of cash. She went to the bank first. The wrong bank. The West Bank --

Masked man: It's a lie!

Sahlab (blurting): -- The West Bank Sperm Bank of Zurich Inc.! A PLO front for the propagation of our people in the event of annihilation by your people! Benny, your real father is ... is Yasser Arafat!

Benny: But my mother always uses the automatic teller.

Sahlab (hoarsely): Benny, Benny, don't you understand? You are the rightful heir to the Throne of Palestine! Savior of Gaza! Lord of all the Jerichans! Take this land, Benny, for it is yours! This very room shall be your presidential suite one day, and I shall keep it warm for you.

Benny: But I like it in Ashdod.

Sahlab: No, you mustn't go back. They'll be waiting for you. They'll frame you....

(A discordant clash of cymbals. Organ, as scene fades to black.)

(To be continued, providing I get a raise in salary.)