9/5/97

Dependents' Day

With the national birthday but hours away, we were down to the final W's: Where, and When, and Why me?

    "The theme," I began, with a resonance that hushed the assembled, "of this year's Independence Day celebrations," I paused for effect, flared a nostril and gazed from face to uplifted face, "is independence." I hammered the kitchen table and, going up a decibel, hit the crescendo: "Ours."
    A five-year-old kid in the front row rolled her eyes. "Daddy wants to start a new country where everybody stays home on Yom Ha'atzmaut." Her sisters tittered.
    Their mother spoke, and it was like I was dead air. "Barbara said they'd bring the charcoal, the Ingbers promised a salad, I asked the Steinberg sisters to bring the Coke, and everybody wants to know if you're going to behave this time."
    "Why," I asked my dependents despondently, "can't we just go somewhere quiet and, I dunno, get a tan while mulling our nation's accomplishments, or something? Why do we have to do what every other Israeli is doing, at the same time, in the same place?" I felt like Czar Nicholas trying to reason with the firing squad. "Why can't we celebrate alone, in our own way, differently, independently?"
    The wife had a ready answer. "Because that would mean spending the day in Gaza City."
    She had a point. With the country always getting smaller, and the population always growing, and with more houses and roads and shopping malls being built on the limited terrain available for barbecuing, there was nowhere to go but....
    "We could stay home," I said brightly. "Acres of space right here, all ours. And the best thing is, we could have a great time in front of the TV, watching everyone else having a rotten time in crowded parks, in traffic jams, at boring air shows." No one bothered to respond. "So that's settled, then," I grumped. "What do we have to bring?"
    "The meat."
    On cue, 200,000 Jewish men in my city dashed out of the house in unison to hunt for the traditional victuals. I have long believed that those kids standing at street corners hawking flags would do a lot better if they waved chunks of flesh at passing motorists.
    The cheapest place in town is required by law to have a parking lot accessible to no more than six narrow cars, four of which must at any time be trying to get in or out. The discount supermarket had a new feature this year, an admission fee.
    The human stampede to the cow-parts department gives one little time to reflect on how much one should buy of what. With computer-like speed I calculated what a party of 14 was capable of consuming, figuring that nobody would eat more than two steaks, or three hamburgers, or four hotdogs, or three chicken legs, so I snatched four packages of eight steaks, five packs of 10 burgers, five dozen dogs, and as I couldn't tell how many chicken legs were iced together in a pack, and not wanting to risk the embarrassment of not getting enough, I played it safe and took a package per person which, it turned out, was a pair of gams off each of 42 birds.
    By the time I got home, the only thing left frozen was my bank account.
    Having finished the purchases, preparations and protestations, and with the national birthday but hours away, we were down to the final W's: Where, and When, and Why me?
    "The Jerusalem Forest," Wife announced, "Before the crowds, and because you're an Israeli father, so act like one."
    Whoa, there.
    Is that where I've failed her?
    I resolved to do things right.

"YALLA!" I bellowed the following morning as I lugged the TV out to the car.
    My wife watched agape as I strapped it to the roof. "WHAT?!"
    "Yalla!" I bellowed, ignoring her indignation. "Everybody in the car!"
    We drove up to Barbara's house. I honked and honked and honked. "Allo!" I bellowed, rousing the neighborhood. "Allo, Barbara, can you hear me? Allo! Don't forget to bring matches, you hear me?"
     At the Ingbers', I honked and bellowed at Alan to bring a soccer ball, and swore at everyone in his building who bellowed back at me to get stuffed.
    At the Steinberg sisters' house, I turned up the car radio to full volume so that everyone for a quarter kilometer could enjoy the music too. My wife may have been hollering at me, but I really couldn't be sure if it was her or the music.
    Traffic was no problem, because I used the oncoming lane to overtake everyone else. (Hey, I wouldn't want my family to think I'm some freier who waits in line.)
    We found a really nice spot at the Forest, and I chased away the people already there, bellowing that we were there last year.
    I double-parked on the one-lane mountain road, plugged the TV into the cigarette lighter, got out a lawn chair and got comfortable. Now I was certain I was being yelled at. "Louder," I bellowed. "No, not you -- the TV!"
    It is a known fact that the Israeli father's role in these national rituals is limited to driving the family there, fanning the coals, eating, kicking a ball around, and then driving the family back. Napping is optional.
    I waited for about as long as a man should be made to wait. "Nu?" I bellowed hungrily.
    She hurried over with a steak in a pita.
    On principle, I didn't thank her.
    I gobbled the food down noisily and --
    "YEOW!!"
    "Something the matter, dear?" she asked innocently.
    I clawed frantically at my throat. "H-h-h-h-h-ot!!"
    "Oh, that's probably the combination of two ultra-harif pepper sauces I poured into the pita," she explained, smiling poisonously. "You seem like the kind of man who likes it like that."
    We agreed on a truce. Though it took some time to get used to the feeling of a forest fire raging in my digestive tract.

EVERYONE SEEMED to be having the time of their lives. Barbara and my wife sat down to have a good yack, the Steinberg sisters went forth into the forest to troll for single men, six kids took turns making peepee on an acorn to help make it grow, Alan was hollering into his cellular phone to his partner on the next mountaintop, while his wife set out with a garbage bag, saying she wanted to tidy the environment a little. I half expected her to whip out a squeegee and pail, and do sponja until the forest floor gleamed.
    I found nothing to watch on TV but watched anyway, thinking how wonderful it was for everyone to escape their urban routines and experience nature for a change.
    Feeling peckish, I moseyed over to the picnic table, hoping there might still be some food left over.
    There was.
    "Honey," I called, and the respective wife harked. "How much meat did we manage to get through so far?"
    She thought about it for a long moment. "A steak," she said.
    "So when do we eat?"
    "We already did. Now if you don't mind, Barbara was just telling me about her husband's prostate."
    I really didn't want to interrupt, but I was about to have a breakdown. "For this I spent 700 shekels? One mouthful of meat we ate between 14 people, and I gagged on it. You wanna explain why we bothered?"
    "As if you didn't know," my wife said, "that the Steinbergs are on a diet. They only eat prescription nutrients. The Ingbers only eat Glatt kosher, so they brought their own. Barbara's a vegetarian, her husband believes charcoal causes cancer, and their kids are on a hunger strike because you didn't buy lamb. I've felt nauseous all day, not that you even cared, the girls filled up on Bisli in the car because you wanted me to keep them quiet, and you, for some reason, seemed to lose your appetite. So what exactly did you expect?"

AS I LOADED the kids into the car, and the decaying flesh into the trunk, I swore that this would be the last time. Next year in Jerusalem -- at home, venturing into the Great Outdoors only as far out as the balcony. And if anybody wants to eat, they can damn well make themselves a sandwich.
    We spent the rest of the afternoon in the car, grilled by the midday sun, stuck in the traditional Independence Day gridlock. The kids moaned that they were hungry. My wife insisted there must be some uncharted side road that would get us home before she threw up. I was wondering what to do with a year's supply of food that I couldn't bear to throw out, but that wouldn't last another day.
    As I saw it, there was no choice, and the more I thought of it, the more it seemed like a great idea, the perfect solution:
    Another barbecue. Tomorrow.