The Western Wall

"Grab a yalmukah" someone scowls at me at the western wall and points towards a glass recepticle filled with cardboard. I must put the cardboard on my head so I can walk closer to the pile of dirty bricks Jewish people bow to day in and day out. The cardboard symbolizes my connection with the dude upstairs who never talks to me. I put it on my head and it flies off and hits the man next to me, who's mid-prayer. He doesn't say anything. I try to fetch it and as I walk, my shorts come slide slightly down my legs. The Western Wall can see my underwear.

I go up to the bricks with my cone dunce hat and stare at them. They're filled with dirty notes meant for God and not my eyes. Behind me, a filthy table is peeling, and there are worn bibles sitting atop it. The dude next to me is entranced by the book he's reading, and he's swaying his body back and forth and muttering to himself. So are the people next to him. Anywhere else, I'd call 911 but the Western Wall simply sits and accepts.

I wander behind the Ethiopian boys who are standing in a line with string hanging out from their sweatshirts. They're the black Jews here. You can find them mopping the floors in every restaurant in the country.

I find the only open chair and sit and watch the teeming, writhing masses with a man with dreadlocks and his male friend.

"Shit's crazy," I say.

They don't respond.

A bearded man is putting away his Talis (which is also supposed to remind people that there's a dude upstairs) and he sees me out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey, are you on Birthright?" He asks me, pointing to the lanyard around my neck which proudly indicates that I am a dumb American tourist. He asks me where I'm from and I say "Seattle." "Ah," his eyes glitter. "Do you know the Levitans?" Jewish Geography; an international past time. "Why yes of course, I respond." It's true.

The man asks me more questions about my Jewishness with varying displays of interest and mental fatigue (he's been bowing a lot). I feel like the blonde rich sorority girl during rush. I am being courted. I am fresh meat, ready to convert.

Turns out the man has spent time in Seattle (in a rock band! that broke up!) and he came here and decided he couldn't leave. His bearded friend emerges from talking on his cell phone. He looks like a hairy bird.

"Before you leave, we have one thing we want to do," the hairy birdman says to me, grabbing my hand and linking hands with his friend and five other random strangers who instantly emerge from behind me, forming a circle.

"Mashiach! Mashiach! Mashiach! AYAYAYAYAYAYAYA! MASHIACH! MASHIACH! MASHIACH! AYAYAYAYAYAYA!" The men spin me around in a circle, and my pointy dunce cap goes flying into the wind like a rouge saucer. My flip flops get flung into the center of the circle. I'm being pulled into the air, part of the writhing masses.

"You've got to come back on Friday," a man says to me. Apparently, there's even more grabbing and flying and rogue dunce caps on Friday.

When we stop, I collect my belongings and leave the men who have just grabbed me, like they're strangers, like we've never met at all.

I keep the hat.