8/11/99

Whores

    I had a little adventure the other day that I can only interpret as God's way of saying SHADDAP ALREADY!
    A visiting journalist was placed in my care for a few hours. Susan Nolan, 50, a community reporter from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, embarked on a whirlwind tour of the country and wrote a voluminous journal on the sites, her insights and -- by the time I got finished with her -- sex in the Holy Land.
    I better explain.
    Susan's passions were aroused before I even met her. She fell in love with this country. OK, it happens all the time, so what.
    This woman was all asparkle when we discussed where we should go. She was at the end of her trip, and yearned to see and do so much more. Late on a Saturday night, we agreed to do Bethlehem the following day, and then, on a whim, she asked me to take her to the Mediterranean, to Tel Aviv. It was 11 p.m.; I'm old enough that I didn't have to ask my mother. I said yes.
    I picked her up in Modi'in and, prophetically, I warned her that we'd probably get lost, but eventually I'd find her some sea.
    I'm a mountain man, I know my way around the peaks and valleys of Jerusalem, but put me on the Coastal Plain, I actually have to stop and ask passersby which way the water is.
    Skimming along the Ayalon, Susan talked passionately while I read road signs, hoping that someone had finally had the sense to post a sign reading "EXIT HERE FOR BEACH."
I know that eventually, I have to get off the highway and make a left.
    Which I did.
    Unerringly, I got us right to the beach.
    Tel Baruch Beach.
    I had never been there, and there was no sign proudly announcing the place, but after a few shocking moments, I knew exactly where we were.
    Tel Baruch, you might know from hearsay, is our notorious playground for whores.
    I should probably mention at this point that Susan is deeply religious. She's Roman Catholic, she goes nowhere without her rosary beads and crucifixes and Bible close at hand. And you know me: this year marks the 30th anniversary of the last time I put on tefillin.
    Susan thinks of God, speaks of God constantly. It's not irritating, actually, because she's good-humored (she appreciated the irony of "Baruch" meaning "blessed"), she's not preachy or proselytizing, and certainly not closed-minded. In fact, throughout her visit she was staying at the home of an Orthodox family.
    But I'd rather hear about other things and not just God, God, God. And if God's will brought us to this place, I think it shows He feels the same way.
    Considering that we were planning to walk in the footsteps of her Savior, this was quite unexpected. Neither of us, I assure you, had ever seen a prostitution parade before, and it had a definite impact on our conversations the rest of the way: we could hardly talk about anything but.
      I KNEW the sea was thataway somewhere, and when we saw a cavalcade of cars heading down a dirt road, I took an educated guess and fell in line. It was well past midnight, and I pointed out to Susan the vibrant nightlife of this City That Never Sleeps.
    Then we saw, in our headlights, a woman strolling lazily amid the circling cars. She was in her underwear. We saw another, and she wasn't wearing underwear.
    Oy. Wrong beach!
    But Susan was electrified, the journalist in her suppressing the holiness. Oddly, I was the opposite: moral decency overwhelmed my journalistic inquisitiveness. I was sweating, embarrassed, I wanted to flee.
    Susan was in gleeful hysterics. She wanted to interview the hookers, open car doors and question the men. I jokingly suggested she get out of my car and walk about, just to see what happens, and to my horror she thought it was a great idea. I couldn't be sure that God would save her from herself, so I did; I said no way.
    We were transfixed by what we were seeing, this seamiest of netherworld activities you know exists but never dream you'll find yourself in the middle of.
    And in the middle of it we literally were. We fell in with the slow, gyrating traffic, like gliding buzzards circling over carcases. The only illumination was from the cars' headlights, eerily sweeping across the whores ambling in the stony dust.
    The girls eyed us, their expressions hard and ugly. I realized they were not accustomed to a man arriving fully equipped with a woman. And without even seeing Susan's crucifixes, they knew this chick was no trick, certainly not from their turf. 
    Another giveaway, it seemed, was my car, my "oldmobile." Every other car was late-model. There were vans and (suitably) flatbed trucks as well, but no old geezers like my 15-year-old Renault.
    Eventually, Susan and I had to act. No, no, not like that: act like journalists.
    We debated which whore to choose. There was a tall one dressed like a belly dancer, with an incredible body, but looking as if someone had screwed the wrong head onto her: she had a mean, grizzled face and masculine voice; there was a short, dark one, with no apparent qualities; a fat one with her jumbo mammaries propped but completely exposed. Then a car, its windows steamed, disgorged a fleshy platinum blonde with (as Susan noted in her tape recorder) exaggerated lips, hips and nips.
    We lowered our windows, selected our prey -- The Incredible Body -- and pulled up alongside her.
    Stupefied, and perhaps stupidly, we came out with the simple truth. I smiled pleasantly and said, Hi, there! We're journalists and we'd like to buy you a cup of coffee and hear your story.
    Well! You'd think she'd be thrilled to be interviewed, by not one but two respectable newspapers.
    "If you pay," she said.
    "How much?" I said, swallowing hard.
    "A hundred shekels, 10 minutes."
    I thought a little humor might soften her a bit. "I don't think my newspaper would pay me back," I said amiably, "and you probably don't give receipts." (Honest, I really said that.)
    She did not smile. "The tape recorder. That's your receipt."
    Out of the darkness, Susan was suddenly assaulted by -- forgive me, there's no other way to describe this -- a thrust of tits in her face.
    Jumbo Mammaries quoted us a price of 50 shekels, proving that it pays to shop around. But on principle we were not willing to pay; on principle, she wasn't willing to give herself freely.
    We tried Lips-Hips-And-Nips, and -- a breakthrough. Her repulsive face creased into what we interpreted as a friendly smile. She called me "motek," but glared threateningly at Susan.
    "Ten minutes, 100 shekels, and I tell you everything. Great story." I asked if perhaps free coffee might be enough. (I could get away with that on my expense sheet: "coffee for interview.") I think she was offended. "Time is money," she quoth brusquely, then added suggestively, in broken English: "Some clients, two minutes, not so much money." But what I needed from her would take much longer. I declined.
    By now disgusted with us, she muttered "goodnight, motek," and walked away.
    I don't take rejection very well, but when three prostitutes reject me one after the other, I'm most displeased.
    It was apparent that word about us had spread, and we sensed we were not going to be tolerated there anymore. There was, to be sure, an all-businesslike attitude here, and we began to feel uneasy, even menaced.
    Reluctantly, we left.
    After again misguiding my oldmobile to two more whore arenas, we finally found ourselves among the city's Beautiful People, ordered dinner from a pleasant waiter who could not believe where we had just come from, and then took off our shoes to stroll in the surf. Eventually, we sat and wiggled our toes in the silky sand, and talked until dawn -- talked about God, but mostly, the ungodly.
    Then, blinded by a shimmering sunrise, we drove home.