My Nemesis In Northern Israel

Israeli Rooster

*** Please note this is the 3rd installment of a story on Israel. Please read the previous two articles on Hiking and Uzi's to fully understand the context. Thanks. ***

The first week I slept through it. I was too exhausted from jet lag, ancient staircases built at about a 90 degree angle with a 200 step minimum requirement, and 7 mile fantastic but crazy hikes through various areas in Israel. I didn't know the Rooster was stalking our little dorm room. But he was.

3 AM sometime during the second week I find myself awake. Why the fuck would I be awake? Yesterday was a 5 hour jaunt through a Roman Era cave system in Bethlehem. I should be dead to the world.

Slowly it comes together in a haze and a cacophony - the loud, loud, persistent noise filling our stone-walled room. What in God's name... is that a ROOSTER? I thought roosters crowed at dawn? Don't roosters crow at dawn? That's why they're on farms, weather vanes... this has to be a joke.

Silence.

3:15 AM. I sit straight up in bed as a screech comes in through the windows and seems to inhabit my bones before rattling them and moving onto my head. I look at the windows. They're closed. This is one determined feathery motherfucker, because it takes effort to get that kind of noise through walls and closed windows.

This can not happening because tomorrow we are again waking up at the crack of dawn (when the Rooster should be doing what he's doing now if my childhood storybooks were right) before venturing out on another - slightly insane but awesome at the same time - educational adventure. I need sleep.

It's quiet again, but this time there's hesitation and fear in the air. Is he just resting?

No, he's quiet for the rest of the night. The next morning at breakfast I ask around about the rooster - "Did you hear that thing last night?" No one heard it but my roommates. Why? He was sitting right outside our window. He'd marked us. I eat my fruit in silent thought, the radio, always tuned into national news, just background noise this morning.

The next night, exhausted from a day of debates and cultural confusion, I literally fall into my bunk.

2:07 AM. It's not a cock-a-doodle-doo. Anyone who thinks it is has never heard a rooster crow. It's more like the screeching noise before a car accident. I start to giggle. My roommate in the bed next to me joins in.

4AM. It's been quiet for almost 30 minutes straight. But we all know it's coming again.

No one sleeps much for the next two nights. By then, I'm looking around the room for weapons because in my sleep-deprived mind and drained body, it's him or me.

Day five one of our tour leaders, Eytan, a deeply religious and kind man from South Africa, takes us to the Rooster's "family." Before we leave, he gathers myself and my three suffering roommates and tells us to act like we're really tired so the family understands the depth of the situation. Not a problem.

Only two of us wind up going. I don't remember why. Maybe the others were napping. Or had ear-plugs.

When we arrive, we discover that the Rooster belongs to an Orthodox family living next door and they don't really care one way or the other because - and here's the kicker - they think the Rooster's lucky. Let me repeat that. They think he's lucky.

Look, I'm not unsympathetic to mystical beliefs. I respect them. I have a few myself that I treasure. But I'm sporting under-eye bags dark enough to make me look like I went a round with Mohammed Ali and yawning like I've been regularly deprived of oxygen. He may very well be lucky to them. But something bad's going to happen if there isn't a change in the situation. And I suspect that's why they moved him in the end.

Looking back, I think maybe he was lucky. Not that I want to experience that again, and not that I (admittedly) can look at a Rooster now without picturing dinner, but I will always remember the Rooster of Tzfat. And so will my roommates. He's left an indelible mark on our subconscious, and he brought us even closer together than before. Common enemies tend to do that, after all.

He makes me laugh, remembering him with his chest puffed up before each crow and that beady little look in his eyes. I could've stepped on him and ended his world but he was Israeli to the core. He'd find a way out, and he knew it. And he was protected by a family that loved him on levels they couldn't fully explain.

If that doesn't describe my feelings towards Israel, I don't know what does. So, Cheers! To the Rooster of Tzfat!

I'll bet he would have been tasty.