Yoram's Socks

Yoram’s Socks

Yoram's Palace was a towering two story Gazebo-like building in the Ganhasos, the Horse Garden, one of countless distinctive gardens situated nearly everywhere in Jerusalem. Since the building was not a gazebo, it could only have been a palace, Yoram’s Palace. It was constructed of thunderous wooden beams and posts with doorways on each of its six sides leading into the divine, irresistible center, where you could look straight up and see the sparkling stars at night, or the clearest crystalline blue skies of Jerusalem, all day long. Staring through the top of the hexagonal hole in its crown from the main floor, or looking up from the inside of the covered balcony, accessible by a footbridge, all six senses of every visitor were stimulated and inspired by the dazzling hues and tones of playful sunlight which shone through the multicolored antique windows, the walls of Yoram’s armon; windows to the soul of the deceased activist artist named Yoram Amir, may he live forever. He had fearlessly collected them all, windows from around the world in ornate or simple frames with colored glass or all colors; they were the sort of windows one sees in a mosque or a typical middle eastern home, each hand picked and preserved for over twenty years as he prepared to make his vision a reality. Once he began to learn about the very special and well loved Israeli artist, it became impossible to ignore the influence that Yoram had on his life. Yoram was everything, he was the reason for all that Susu experienced in Israel, Yoram Amir was nothing short of the genius who crafted Susu and it eventually became patently obvious to all that the purpose that Susu eventually shone brightly with was the result of having been led to the palace by Yoram. It occurred to Susu early on that his experiences in Israel were nothing short of extraordinary; if he did not have the sense to honor Yoram and the others involved in his journey, all that he had suffered and risked might have been for nothing, the beauty that Israel had revealed to him had to be measured carefully against the hardships and because everything began with Yoram, Susu was careful to honor his memory and to continue to craft himself in a manner that he was certain Yoram would be pleased about. It was also clear to Susu by the time he left Israel that nothing he had experienced had merely been the result of traveling. Instead, his experiences had been a connected series of Mitzvahs, although Susu was not Jewish and apart from the respect and admiration that Susu would show to Yoram, he gained a deeper understanding of his relationship with what others often call God, though for Susu acknowledging the universality of things and God were identical roads to peace.

Susu had asked Sharon, Yoram’s beautiful wife and the mother of his mischievously brilliant daughter if people had called him crazy for spending twenty years collecting antique windows with vibrantly coloured glass----the deepest, richest shades of reds, greens, blues, yellows and purples set in slightly mind bending frames. She flashed a huge grin and replied "well...yes, but eventually people began to see his vision.” Her shining eyes told a fantastic and instantly compelling tale of devout love and unshakable belief in the magnetic, powerful Israeli artist who was loved by all. Sus was learning quickly that whoever the man was, Yoram Amir had a profound and discernible effect on hundreds of people in the mighty city of Jerusalem. Sharon and their children were most heartbroken of all, though their faces shone unflinchingly when they were basking in the colourful shadows and glittering rays of light that shone through the windows of the palace. He was dying to know the answer although Sharon may have been somewhat unaware of the degree to which Susu hoped to know the more personal details of Yoram’s life since he had only been gone six months then and while Sharon seemed in general to be in good spirits, it was clear enough to Susu that she was most likely distant and in a state of mourning. Susu remained gentle in his approach to learning about Yoram; the man had an army of loyal friends from all over the city and Israel and he was missed by all of them. Yoram was everything to so many.

Not having the honour of meeting Yoram Amir in person was hard on Susu, although before he left, he believed perhaps Yoram and he had somehow become inseparably, inexplicably close. Whenever Yoram was around Susu was bombarded by intoxicating pulsations of what could only be described as love. It became obvious that Yoram was responsible for these sensations. For the days and months and years that followed he would learn to cultivate the love that Yoram was teaching him. He had been gone six months by then, but many including Susu are sure he spent the summer floating through his streets in Jerusalem, teasing out citizens one by one, coaxing them to the Ganhasos to bask in the glory of his life’s work. He was everywhere, though his soul made a stand in Frances Hiatt Park in Jerusalem where Yoram's Palace was on display as testament to his complex vision for a breathtaking holy place and it was holy, or least enough that it invariably made one question what it took for a thing to be holy.

The Producer Kobi had made everything possible. He may well have been God's right hand. Like so many others who loved Yoram and had been his long time friend, Kobi had spent many years with the great fortune of looking into Yoram’s eyes and saw that there was a great opportunity to honour his life’s work. Susu could only imagine the heart wrenching pain others felt knowing that all their efforts to erect the structure would benefit so many, while only Yoram himself did not have the pleasure of seeing the joy in the eyes of families and friends, travelers and wanderers like Susu, as they basked in the majesty of the palace. Yoram's Makom Kadosh, his holy place, was the central meeting place all summer long for many residents and tourists from everywhere in Jerusalem, Israel and the world. Delighted guests lingered alone or in groups to chat and smoke cigarettes, they played their guitars and drums, sometimes engaged in wild dancing parties after a concert there had caused the beams to vibrate with intoxicating, sensuous sounds and the irresistible whispers of Yoram playfully inquiring, “isn’t this just the best place you have ever stood in?” It was no coincidence that Susu was led by Yoram to the park just in time for the party and as time went on, with the blessing of The Producer and the family he met there, Susu simply had no desire to be any other place but there. He had arrived and for all the tribulations he had endured to get there, he saw no reason that he should be elsewhere. Still, because of the newness of his surroundings and because he was still reeling from all that he had suffered prior to reaching the comfort of Yoram’s domain and with a harrowing landing in Jerusalem and Zula behind him, it took many months before Susu truly understood the bravery of the beautiful men and women who gave everything to make sure that Yoram’s life work did not go unnoticed, nor did Susu comprehend the sadness of his friends as they worked tirelessly to ensure that Yoram made a proper stand in Jerusalem.

Susu had arrived in Jerusalem from Cluj-Napoca, Romania with a plan. He was settling first in the beautiful neighbourhood called Rehavya, in the home of a madman named Avrum who had convinced him to work on the development of a complex fantasy business structured around Kabbalah. It was an ambitious endeavor to redefine the parameters of social media with a view to incorporating the vital and powerful mysticism of the Jewish people which is detailed in the Zohar, the seminal work which posits the foundations critical to the mystical philosophies of the Jews and while it may be argued that such philosophy has been an essentially covert and inaccessible because of the enormous power it has and its tendency historically to drive the practitioner mad its stands as testament to the intellectual prowess and ingenuity of the ancient semite thinkers. An unfortunate turn of events almost immediately led to the deterioration of of their collaboration and the man Susu had flown ten thousand miles to meet succumbed to his own tendency towards psychopathy and although Susu had been in Jerusalem mere days, Avrum discarded him as a friend and collaborator and threw him out onto the streets so that he would be forever become known to Susu as The Mad Kabalahist. The event shook Susu’s faith in friendship and since the result of Avrum’s actions could only lead to total destabilization of his life, so for all of the days that would follow Susu would be confronted with absolute uncertainty, forced into a period of intense transformation. The weary Canadian who had already dealt with considerable stresses in Romania (though the views had been spectacular!) would have to pursue his life in survival mode. During the months that followed Susu would learn a thing of two about unconditional surrender to transformation at the lowest point on Earth, along the shores of the Dead Sea, where by the sheer will of God, he and The Mad Kabalahist would temporarily reconcile their differences, since they both happened to be there during the time of Sukkot. Eventually the truth of Avrum’s maniacal and vindictive nature would be clearly revealed to Susu and while the result of the Mad Kabalahist’s treachery led to such exigent transformation for Susu, the inevitable admission that Avrum had begun engineering such cruelty with a view to destroying Susu as far back as their time together in China was nothing short of a demoralizing epiphany.

Fortunately Susu met a slimy character named David who took great interest in Susu and on the basis of his language skills in Mandarin Chinese, within an hour of his recent horrifying encounter with The Mad Kabalahist wherein Avrum threatened Susu’s life, he offered to go into business with Susu. David, a tall thin Israeli originally from Great Britain, clearly had a silver tongue and while on one hand David’s proposal seemed a touch outrageous, in many respects it presented all the potential of a completely legitimate and lucrative opportunity. Susu was offered the chance to leverage connections he had made in business and government in China and in other countries of his choosing to develop contracts globally in waste to energy projects worth hundreds of millions of Euro. Were his efforts to lead to successful contracts for their new startup Susu would receive a third of net revenues; it suddenly appeared that Susu had encountered the biggest turnaround imaginable and if he succeeded, he would become a very wealthy man and Susu had no intention of failing. So with considerable speed Susu began opening doors to several countries abroad and the weeks that followed exciting and tangible developments began to take shape in Romania, Turkey, Australia and China. Susu had nothing whatsoever to lose and no time to waste and with his drive and determination led to a meeting in Bucharest with the Prime Minister of Romania and other big shots. Susu had enormous talent in business and was clear about the potential of their project to generate millions and secure a stable future for years to come, but it was not to be; in a tragic turn of events the wind died and the sails of the deal stopped billowing and shuddering. Merrill, a mediocre lawyer from the USA, David and Susu’s other partner, was faced with the tragic loss of his father, who suddenly died. Merrill immediately flew to America prior to their hard earned meeting in Bucharest where they were to sign the deal. According to Jewish tradition he would enter a period of mourning for no less than seven days. In actuality Merrill mourned his father for five whole days prior to taking a holiday in Spain. In either case, since the result was that the Prime Minister of Romania was blown off and Susu could not safely negotiate the terms of a contract of such scale alone and because David was simply too broke to fly to Romania with him to save the deal, the project was scrapped and Susu was blamed for everything.

Meanwhile home for Susu was as far from the beauty of Rehavia as a place could possibly be, instead he had become stuck in a zula, (Hebrew for an unspeakably disgusting squat) alongside a pair of brothers who seemed to become more dangerous each day, since they had been enduring an agonizing life of poverty, homelessness and hunger for many years. He was less concerned about his own issues in life when he began to understand just how destitute both Edon and Gilad actually were, while at the same time he was entirely grateful to Gilad and his thief brother, though he was aware that he would have to leave and soon since he had become aware of their intentions to extort him for money. Despite this, since Susu had become aware that the brothers would typically wait for nightfall to beg for food in the streets, he did his best to provide the boys with a degree of assistance in the form of minor amounts of money to facilitate a small degree of reprieve from their torturous existence, though it had become clear that he was only feeding a diabolical scheme they were hatching to rob him and it was entirely plausible that his life would be seriously endangered should they actually get the chance.

Before he heard the faint voice of Yoram drawing him to the park to soak and heal in the light that shone through the walls of the palace, Susu spent hours in the filthy zula, victimized by atrophy in real time, routinely waking from restless sleeps covered in a fresh coat of stale paint chips that had peeled from the ceiling and walls as if they too had disdain for the walls of what had become nothing short of a prison for Susu. He lived in a frustrated and anxiety ridden state, hopelessly staring through the bars fixed inside the cement window in the crumbling building on Agripas St. He lived in perpetual fear of the gigantic rat, which he suspected would eventually come for his feet as they hung over the edge of the unsanitary, thankfully elevated mattress he would crash out on when he could no longer stay awake. By then the obviously criminal roommates had succumbed to the desperation their miserable poverty had been spawning since they left their home in Yemen as youths to live on the streets of Jerusalem. Susu had to leave the zula, whatever it took. Then one morning when business with ‘the partners’ was truly finished and the grimm brothers seemed long gone, a deafening calm found its way into the horrible dungeon Zula. Susu grabbed his bag and courage and allowed Yoram to steal the show. Ganhasos. Makom Kadosh.

The momentum Susu gained when he submitted to the vibrations of the palace that enveloped Frances Hiatt Garden and all of central Jerusalem, was unmistakable. He would sit with The Priest and take his chances with the Arab Comedian named Turkey, who had not yet given him the name Susu, but mockingly called him ‘businessman’ instead. In the Middle East, sitting with a friend relates almost exclusively to intimacy. One does not sit with a person without engaging in deep and meaningful conversation on a range of topics; when we sit with our loved ones, we deepen and grow the love we share together. Love in the Middle East is a primary purpose in the lives of friends and family, it is not a reward for getting close to someone, it is the means to deepening love.

He was learning a lot with The Priest since he had been feeling out the park for several days, prior to making his stand there. He had been walking by the park on his way to David’s favourite coffee shop and he caught a glimpse of a soul in a deep morning meditation and he thought to approach the man. Evyatar was a quiet and peaceful Israeli and though at the time Susu had no real understanding of the turmoil in The Priest’s soul, he immediately felt safe and understood that he would not be mistaken to trust him. They had sat together several mornings in a row and during the initial moments of their friendship he learned that The Priest was a talented and intelligent man, nonjudgmental and compassionate toward his fellow human. Sus had no idea at the time that for a person like himself who was in need of a friend who possessed the knowledge and wisdom to guide him wisely and lovingly through the complicated twists and turns tossing and jarring him about that there was not a better man than The Priest for the job. Susu would have to submit to new ideas, as if he were a prisoner on a rollercoaster driving him towards a forced metaphysical metamorphosis. As the days went on and for all the year that followed The Priest proved to Susu that his submission to new ideas would not harm him in the slightest way and Susu felt safe with The Priest for all the days that followed and they became brothers for life. Eventually Susu learned that Evyatar lived a life like anyone else in Israel. Young men and women in Israel serve in the IAF. Though not typical of a Cohen, The Priest had been in heavy combat and Susu learned to appreciate and fear the Priest, who had the eyes, intensity and lethal potential of a Bengal tiger, though he was consistently calm, collected and meditative. Susu would never know the degree and extent to which the Priest facilitated his ability to occupy the park for nearly two months, nor could he figure, at least at first, if it had been The Priest who made it possible for him to work cleaning the park and doing his part to protect and honour the Ganhasos and his precious palace. In the end, he learned that it had been the Orthodox Jew, Hagai, who had gently focused, piercing blue eyes which shone with the light of love and seemed to contain all the wisdom of Israel and Hashem. Nevertheless, eventually all things would go through The Priest.

Boqer Tov! The morning of his arrival in the park, there was Sticky Bazooka, who had earned the title after a covert mission into a pink paint factory in Marrakech had gone south and he was forced to take cover inside vat of paint, madly firing his Bazooka at fifteen rebels. When his Bazooka would no longer fire, stuck from all the pink oil based paint, he was forced to use it like a sticky club in a bloody, toxic pink fight to the death against fifteen armed rebels. The morning of Susu's arrival at the park, he was greeted by Sticky Bazooka and he would later discover that for as dangerous as the legend of Sticky Bazooka might have been in Marrakech, he was very much a fluffy, love-filled marshmallow. That morning, he enjoyed Shakta and fascinating conversation with Sticky, who possibly volunteered as a guard of the Ganhasos, though as a guard he was one of a crew, including Ohad the tall thin scholar, master Sheshbesh player, Sergio the Georgian Philosopher of unshakeable moral character, Ori, a young man with three secret weapons: his long-time girlfriend, herself a master Sheshbesh player, his sharp, unbreakable mind and a will that could not be prevented from trying again to win at Sheshbesh. Along with The Priest, there was Yuri, the lovable and formidable lover of beer, great conversation, beer and techno. Shift by shift, guard by guard, for a total of two solid months, Susu was a fixture in the park. At first he was embarrassed, worried he was the laughing stock and afraid that no one would understand his decision to inhabit the park. He had such high hopes of success. Susu’s life had been a series of lessons of an often cruel and unfair nature and he was truly exhausted. Meanwhile at the Ganhasos, he was making new friends and becoming family with the guards of the Makom Kadosh, the Producer, Sharon and many others. They treated Susu with dignity and respect even brought food and drink and for concerts and parties he was welcomed with loving arms. In SheshBesh, he reigned as unforeseen champion, though Hagai the Hasidim, was dangerously invincible alongside Ori’s most lethal weapon, his fabulous fiance, who performed Turkish Masse on him seven times consecutively. He became the Ganhasos’ honorary custodian and Susu rejoiced in the role proudly and gleefully. Susu learned to whistle and sing while cleaning trash, which had no doubt been absentmindedly forgotten by the hoards of Ganhasos guests, since there was no one who would dare to pollute the sanctity of a holy place. Whenever duty called he would linger in the Makom Kadosh-----religiously, reveling in the palace’s heartbeat: a soothing soundscape with tranquil bells, chimes and gongs, fused with a melancholy piano and hypnotic voices, engineered to rejuvenate a human soul by reverberating through speakers positioned in every corner of its womb, the Makom Kadosh’s vast and boundless interior. He poured all the love and concern he could muster into Yoram’s holy place. Eventually he could not deny that his was the finest home in Jerusalem and there, even without a roof over his head, he found friendship, family, love and belonging and above all, peace of mind. It was a series of all the formative lessons of a healthy childhood that turn a regular human into a quality individual. They were all the lessons Susu had never had growing up in Canada. Such pivotal moments and the people who selflessly taught them were everything to Susu and everyone there knew it.

During his time there, Susu watched and helped as the park was readied for the party of the century, the crowning of the Yoram’s Palace, where a six-sided wooden crown that might have housed a small family, with spectacular windows set on all sides, laced and strapped with wood, was to be lowered and set on atop the Yoram’s Palace by crane, in front of hundreds of exuberant spectators. The buzz through the crowd and the excitement reached a fever pitch. There are a lot of terrific parties in Jerusalem. That night a solid group of friends from all over the world effortlessly ignited the globe. Susu learned the word madhim, a Hebrew word for something even more fantastic than your run of the mill Jerusalem party. Layla tov!

Boqer Tov! Since the crowning party was the main event for the palace and potentially, the kick off to its first international tour, after the party all the festivities began to wind to a close and the palpable silence in the park seemed an eerie indication of the uncertainty facing the palace. Everyone involved knew that something special had taken place in Jerusalem and it seemed unlikely that anyone would forget it, but no one was confused about the uncertain promises of the future. Nothing affirms the precious nature of our lives as powerfully as change.The morning after the party there was Sharon beaming with light and by the time Susu ran to her open arms for a love filled hug he had momentarily forgotten his anxiety over his desperate laundry situation. Sharon, who had come to know Susu’s heart by then, seemed to have anticipated this, or perhaps had already caught the scent and she suddenly offered to let Susu wash his dirty clothes in her and Yoram’s home up the road. With gratitude and humility, Susu enjoyed a warm and compassionate breakfast and soaked in the tenderness of Sharon’s eyes, swollen with love and loss, bravery and devotion and while the laundry’s wash cycle took an eternity finishing he learned about Yoram, intimately revelling in joy and wonder, basking in the flavours of his work displayed everywhere. Being without clean clothes he wore Yoram’s peculiar socks, his shirt and pants, which had graciously been offered and he rejoiced in the scent of Yoram Amir, sipping black coffee. Weeks later, scratching his mosquito bitten ankles, still nestled in Yoram’s socks and finally in proper dwellings, Susu reflected on the magic and magnitude of those moments and he knew his dear friend Yoram was laughing joyfully, beside him every step of the way.