Monday morning started with already elevated blood pressure as I
concentrated through all the booms and pops of the celebrations from the Muslim
holiday on the other side of the city. It’s not so bad when you know that this
acoustic backdrop is festive, but considering the proximity to the recent war
and continued tensions in the area, I can think of more calming accompaniments
to the tappings of a keyboard in our office.
I went for a walk around mid-afternoon and noticed a variety
of incongruities that perked my attention to some sort of something going on. The traffic patterns had been altered around
the base of the Old City; and a parachute hung in the air in the distance . At first glance, it simply seemed to be a strange choice of location for the sport, but it turned out to be
tethered about 150 feet in the air by a barely visible strap. My boss explained
that it was a security measure – they use parachute military instead of blimps
for aerial surveillance. I wondered if he had balloons and a painted face or
maybe was dressed like Santa Claus (that’s logical, right?).
Usually when I do a loop past the Dormition Abbey on Mount
Zion, I pass groups of older Russian Orthodox women with delicate scarves
covering their hair, tourists from South Korea clicking photos in front of
David’s Harp, or groups of Jewish families dressed up for a bar or bat mitzvah
at the Western Wall. On Monday, I passed a kid with a bull nose ring and jeans
holding on for dear life just below his ass and a dude wearing a gray t-shirt
with yellow splotchy letters that said My
idea of balanced is a beer in each hand. Neither of these offended me, but
they were nevertheless a jarring introduction to a new demographic taking in
the consecrated scenery of the Old City.
I should have figured it out sooner, but it wasn’t until I
heard the distant growls of gunning engines (and our director came to tell us
that the office was closing) that I learned a Formula One racetrack had been
set up at the base of the Old City and would be doing figure-8s along the route
between my home and my office. Despite my profound connection to the
Appalachian hills - where racing actually got its start running liquor during
the Prohibition and still has a huge following – I have pretty much always
despised everything about race car culture. My encounters with racing mostly
center around Bristol, Tennessee, where I simply acknowledge its existence and
move through as quickly as possible – taking extra care not to get bowled over
in the passing lane by some yahoo with no muffler and a Bud Light in his hand.
To be fair, I’m not judging all race car fans individually –
it’s also my fear of the commanding influence of stupidity that takes over in
large crowds of people. ESPECIALLY considering that we live in a politically
charged environment already and are now cramming thousands of people like
sardines into the perimeter of less than a kilometer with engines and emotions
revving. (Awesome opportunity for creative coexistence, or just needing a spark
for the gasoline? Yes.)
Also consider the environmental factor: I can think of
no more efficient yet meaningless way to burn fossil fuels than doing laps
around a track – aside from maybe lighting up oil fields outright. And the only
sound more obnoxious than the incessant honking already plaguing the roads of
Jerusalem would be to add exponentially louder engines and more aggressive
drivers. In short, I hate racing and the thought of being around it made my
skin crawl.
I’d been hoping to leave the office before the hullaballoo
got started. But given that our timing was slightly off, Lucy and I wound up
leaving the office just as the race began gearing up. We could hear the motors
roaring past the Old City and turning up the main drag towards Bethlehem. We
took a longer route home and cut up behind the mall nearer to the City Center
to try to skirt the course, but we missed by about a block and wound up at the
main junction with a huge projection of the drivers coming around the bend and
about 400 people all crammed into the four corners of the intersection. One car
zoomed by, but didn’t slow down enough and skidded around the turn, coming
within meters of the barricades where teenagers were perched with their
lemonades and camera phones. I realized that the only way to get home was by
crossing the rickety scaffolding staircase that led to a footbridge over the
track.
Scores of other people had stuffed themselves into a makeshift line to
get across, but were bottlenecking as they lifted bikes and baby strollers and
pausing to watch the race. Lucy, whose father had not taken her to football
games as a youth and hence not taught her how to ‘shoot the gaps’ in the crowds
(nor who was about 14 seconds away from a panic attack like yours truly), got
caught in the line. I knew she’d catch up with me eventually and I crossed and
came down the other side without looking back. Waiting for Lucy, however, meant
that I was standing in the street just behind the barricades, during which I had the delightful
opportunity to watch the environment-leech-sound-polluting-waste-of-every-possible-resource
epitomes of human over-consumption come screaming towards me at death-defying
speeds before slowing to turn and thunder past some of the most sanctified
sites on Earth. I would've rather spent that 5 minutes pulling out my
fingernails, but managed to continue breathing, which sometimes is all you can
ask. We finally escaped the crowds and made it home in record time.
This
city is full of surprises. I think I read somewhere that next week they’re
doing a mobile Biblical petting zoo in the park – lions, lambs, serpents, the works….
