Disarmed

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Disarmed Page 18

by Izzy Ezagui


  Maybe. For seven years, Yakir was a combat soldier in Egoz, a prestigious guerrilla warfare unit. He advanced to the rank of captain and fought with distinction in the 2006 Lebanon War. All this despite the fact that he'd lost his arm in a traffic accident when he was three years old. He's a legend in the IDF.

  “Well, Izzy you're not Yakir. He had his entire youth to prepare for the military. You've been living with one arm for, what, six months? And it's not even your dominant arm. Not to mention you're on significant meds. You have to stop this foolishness, son.”

  I sit there quietly. Fuming. I say nothing to the man intent on deterring me. But on the return bus ride, I realize NGE's not really my nemesis. No, all he's managed to do is start a new fire under my ass. Maybe that's why Yoav had me meet with the doctor in the first place. To get me to affirm my commitment, bolster my resolve. Well, mission frickin’ accomplished.

  First I have to make sure I'm completely off these meds. This half dose ensures I'm still partway loopy on drugs yet still in a world of hurt—it's the worst of both worlds. But the thought of quitting cold turkey gives me the shivers. I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet.

  THE ROBOT WITH A HEART OF GOLD

  August 2009. Ian Ash knows something about pain. And he knows something about the ways we try to medicate the pain away. The Jewish philanthropist suffered unspeakable abuse between the ages of eight and eleven. I'm sitting on a plush sofa in his four-story condo on the Miami waterfront. Ian's heard about my father's plight, and he's decided to help. In fact, he won't rest until “justice is done.” I shouldn't be surprised. He's all about justice. He recently spoke publicly about his own abuse, and even confronted his abuser, and encouraged hundreds of others to do the same—nearly unheard of in Orthodox circles. With a few key others, Ian spearheaded a grassroots movement to change the “grandfather culture” of Orthodox Jewish communities, which tend to care more about their image than the victimization of their own most vulnerable citizens.

  I worked for Ian's neophyte company for a brief time when I was a seventeen-year-old schnook and he was a twenty-year-old entrepreneur. I worked for his partner. My only interaction with Ian was when he interviewed me in Miami while he was still studying in yeshiva as he began to build his vision. He offered me a customer service position in his online electronics business. That job didn't work out. I got pissed off about something or other—Ian tells me it was over my pay—after just a few months. I gave Ian's partner one week's notice and I quit. Never saw Ian again.

  Until he decided to save my family.

  Ian's father lives in Crown Heights, where he sits on Community Board 9. He gets involved in a lot of Jewish community causes: food for the needy, safety patrols. That kind of thing. He also gets involved in my father's case.

  A rabbinical court in Crown Heights found my father guilty of violating Jewish law. In Orthodox Judaism, a beis din—a house of judgment—consists of three observant Jewish men. One problem in my father's case was that the lead rabbinical judge had no business presiding in any matter related to the real estate development in question—this rabbi held property in one of the buildings. He ought to have recused himself.

  The conflict of interest, among other wrongs and biases, concerned Ian's father. So he asked Ian if he'd meet with someone, “just to hear about some injustice in Crown Heights.”

  “I figured this guy, Eliyahu Ezagui, must have done something wrong,” Ian Ash tells me. “It wasn't for me. So I told my father, ‘Look, if you need a token contribution, I can help. But this is not the kind of cause I'm interested in. This guy was indicted, for God's sake.’ I assumed he must have done enough to deserve what he got.”

  But Ian's father was persistent. So he arranged for a meeting in Miami about the case. Not with my father, who was living under house arrest in my first home, the building in Brooklyn he built for us on President Street. But with an advocate.

  Ian saw what few people cared to recall. My father was extremely charitable. He counseled people having marital issues. He advised estranged parents and kids on how to reconcile. He gave and gave and gave to charities and individuals in need. He'd built synagogues for people, single-handedly, and he had single-mindedly rescued Crown Heights from dire circumstances. Even the mayor acknowledged that. But as soon as the book got thrown at him, almost everyone dropped him like the wrong end of a lightsaber. “This could be me,” says Ian Ash. “Suddenly the scapegoat for people's bad investment decisions.”

  Like my father, Ian also gave of himself and his wealth for the betterment of the community, even as he strived to increase the reach of his businesses. “Maybe I need to prove to myself,” he says, “that someone will help his fellow man, will come out of the woodwork to help someone when the chips are down.”

  Who does that?

  “Truth is, I'm terrified by the fact that these people abandoned your father after all he did for them. Well, I'm not going to abandon him—or you.”

  A few weeks ago, I flew from Israel to New York so I could maybe help my father. We needed money for a proper legal defense. Such a sum was extraordinary to me—hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where were we going to get that?

  The two of us huddled on twin mattresses in the tiny front vestibule where I used to play with my Legos, sharing some kind of depressing bachelor pad. Years before, my father had split our old apartment into two. The large part in back, where our bedrooms and the living room were, he rented out. The front hall, he kept for himself, for all the times he had to travel back to Brooklyn for his real estate business. By now the bank had foreclosed, so we weren't even supposed to stay there. One night, he reminded me of a time when I was five, and he used to travel between our home in Miami and his work in New York. “Ma hated the northeast weather and all those roaches in Brooklyn. What's love? It's schlepped on a plane every single week, back and forth, out on Thursday and back on Monday. One night, your mother and I were talking over the phone, and I asked her to put you on. You said, ‘I don't know who that man is.’ Well, that was it. I came home the next day and reduced my work trips to once a month.”

  And then I flew away from him, leaving him in Brooklyn. It was for a good cause, though. Ian Ash's dad sent me to Miami.

  Before I know it, I'm staying in one of Ian's spare bedrooms. He says I was (re-)introduced to him not as Eli Ezagui's son, but just some kid helping out with the case. I was supposed to knock on wealthy people's doors and simply, humbly, ask them for money. Ian gave me a list of wealthy Jews whom he knew personally throughout the city. I don't remember much of this. In any case, it didn't take long before we realized we knew each other from years ago.

  So I went around like a beggar trying to save my pops. In the end, we raised enough capital to get a good lawyer on his case, which I obviously could never have done without the likes of Ian, his father, and other benefactors.

  In the meantime, within days, it felt like I was reuniting with my long-lost brother. People comment all the time that they think Ian and I must be siblings. Brothers, yeah.

  Ian's three years older, yet his life experiences cast him in the role of mentor to me. At the same time, we're both a little lost. A lot lost. Maybe we can find ourselves together. He tells me I'm probably one of the most intense people he knows. Every interaction, every random event in the universe has meaning for me. Too much meaning. He tells me I'm perpetually disturbed. Never at rest. Constantly struggling and grappling. And, much like him, I always focus on what's wrong rather than what's right. “You've got ten great things going for you, but one small thing that's not, and you'll work on that one thing forever. It must be miserable being you.” Who but a brother can diagnose a guy so aptly, and still love him?

  I start jogging around his exclusive little complex. First once, then a few times. Lots of vomit. Before long, I'm doing circuits that total miles. “You know I'm going back to combat, Ian.”

  I can tell he thinks the very idea is crazy. But he never gets in my way, never discourages me.
Even through the withdrawal.

  At Ian's, I keep trying to wean myself off the fentanyl by halving the dose I place on my back.

  Yeah, I'm trying to get off the Duragesic—but a little Jack and Coke tends to ease that transition. Lots of random people pass through Ian's home. One such rando, a guy who's forever doped on boatloads of heavy drugs—let's call him “Munch”—keeps needling me for a hit. We're out one night, and he insists my patch can't possibly be that strong. He bets me that he, of all people, can handle it. He lists all the many drugs he's done in his life—coke, acid, shrooms, E, Special K, some other stuff I've never heard of. I bet him that my patch will floor him. He won't listen. So I cut one in half and hand it to him, 50 mcg an hour.

  The next morning, Munch comes up to me with a goofy grin and a greenish pallor to tell me, “You were right, bro. That patch was so strong, I puked. Oh, man. Some of it's still in my hair. I had to flush that junk.”

  Same story with my father. When I was staying with him, he sneaked into my stash. “I just wanted to know what it felt like to walk around like you. So, I cut a patch in half and stuck it on my back. Oy gevalt!” He vomited all night.

  Yeah, get to know your stoner son, Pops.

  Ian and I open up to each other in a way that neither of us has ever done. I always felt close to Aaron Brik, but maybe we were just too young or too inexperienced (or a little embarrassed or uncomfortable) to really talk about important stuff, to be this raw. Anyway, Ian and I realize that each of us is trying to figure out who we are and what we're doing in the world—and we're both at a point in our life when we're willing to admit that.

  Having said that, I see Ian as more like a machine than your typical human specimen, whereas I'm a hot mess—and not the sexy kind. This is not to say that Ian doesn't feel. He does—more than most. Maybe it's a response to his molestation as a kid. He became very calculated in his behaviors and his speech. If you ask him a question, he'll actually wait and think before giving you a planned, articulate response.

  Ian isn't inherently wild. When wild does happen, it's a premeditated decision. For example, he understands that I'm going through hell and wants to ensure that I thoroughly enjoy my visit. When we hit the clubs, instead of dancing, he does high jumps on the dance floor. Or he repeatedly shouts random nonsense on the street—“Shmendral! Shmayunki!”—just to see how people will react. Weird stuff, but all very deliberate, computed in advance.

  We spend about a month together. He rolls out the red carpet, pulls out every stop in his effort to show me a good time, despite these activities lurking far out of our respective comfort zones—or specifically because they lurk there. We hit the hottest parties. I'm like Turtle from the show Entourage. I drive Ian around in the Porsche and, on occasion, when the hour gets late, we end up at a strip club. He pays strippers to climb on top of me without warning. And I'm always flustered, because (a) girls, and (b) multiple girls. “Um, yeah, hi…That's my lap.”

  “You're in strip club, little man,” says a blasé Russian dancer. “Where you want I sit? On face? We don't do this thing here.” She swings around, and her dark ponytail smacks me in the eye.

  Classy.

  I turn to Ian, trying to see him through my surviving optic nerve. “You do this, man?”

  He nods, motions with his gaze toward something above and behind me as another pair of hands—slender and spray-tanned—grasp my shoulders.

  Da heck?

  “Hello, baby,” says another robotic Russian stripper. This one's blond. “You very handsome, baby.”

  “I, uh…”

  “You need relax, little man,” says Ponytail. “You need wodka.”

  Ha. I'm pretty sure I know this chick's cousin, a bushy-eyed doctor in Tel Aviv.

  “I—”

  “You quiet now. I dance.”

  Ian's laughing beside me. I silently mouth the word, “Why?” My entire body's stiffer than Jack Dawson chasing the Titanic to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

  “Because,” he says, “you're going back to combat. So…”

  “So?”

  “So you need to figure out how to grasp multiple objects simultaneously. You know, with one hand.”

  “Really, man? Really?”

  “Just trying to help.” He winks. “Little Man.”

  FIVE-FINGER DISCOUNT

  Not since Aaron Brik have I had such a friend, the kind who'll go out of his way to shine light in my darkest hour.

  Orthodox school policy: no “treif” books, no games, and absolutely no music. For the love of HaShem, it's 2002, not 1802! I'm OK heading to Tucson without a crate containing K. A. Applegate's oeuvre. I can leave my Wii behind. The only chink in my armor has been carved near the heart by one Avril Lavigne.

  Avril's music intoxicates my thirteen-year-old brain and body the way I imagine heroin must. I physically cannot hold myself back from bringing her CD to my new school in Arizona. Some courageous/criminal kids might smuggle cigarettes, liquor, or porn. I bring Avril Lavigne as my sole contraband, jammed in a secret compartment in one of my suitcases. I get away with it, too. For a while. A few glorious months pass before my dorm counselor discovers Avril's album spinning inside my bright-red CD player. I have fallen asleep to the song “Complicated,” and my rude awakening occurs when The Man un-complicates things by cracking the CD in half.

  Now I'm jonesing. I need my Avril fix before I lose my grip and go postal on this place. During our class's next weekly visit to town, I sneak into Target to re-buy her album, Let Go. There she is in her overlarge coat and smoky eyes, her hip out and arms crossed, the whole city blurring behind her. As I'm taking it all in, I feel eyes on my back.

  It's Aaron Brik. I glare at him just long enough for him to be sure I haven't forgotten the jumping cactus fiasco of a month ago. I get to the sliding glass doors with my hard-won booty, and, lo and behold, my dorm counselor, anticipating this rookie move, is standing sentry. He busts me for possession with intent of use before I can even leave the store. Again, he snaps the album in two—this time with the case and all. Who is this guy, the Hulk?

  That night, fuming and pouting like a little girl who's had her Avril Lavigne album snatched—twice—I hear footfalls approaching. Then a Brik-shaped head pops into view above my bunk. What does this schmuck want? He plops a chunk of square plastic on my chest. “She sounds like crap anyway,” he whispers, and walks away.

  No one has ever done something like that for me before. For the price of a stolen CD, Aaron Brik buys a lifetime supply of my undying loyalty.

  A SHOT IN THE ARM

  August 2009. Back in Israel. Ido Dan's borrowed room. Lights off. Door closed. Moaning and sweating. Nightmare images. Random flashes of contorted faces. Vivid hallucinations, evil clowns, mind gnomes, and Hitler's German shepherds. Body heat so intense I need to fling off all the covers—then instant shivering so strong I have to struggle just to reach down and pull the covers on again. Each movement—wiping my forehead dry, scratching a phantom itch—feels as long and difficult as running a 10K. During the rare moments my body and Phantom declare a temporary cease-fire, I veg out on a marathon of 30 Rock, but after a few minutes, I remember nothing of the plot or Tracy Jordan's antics.

  Shachar's mother insists it's time to cut the American drug addict loose.

  It takes her a week to pull the pin. Finally, Shachar, tears drying on her cheeks, says, “We love you, Izzy, but it's time to go. You have to do something with your life, and that's not going to happen as long we're enabling you.”

  “The devil makes work for idle hand,” says Phantom, unhelpfully.

  “You're kicking me out?”

  “We're setting you free. You don't need us anymore. Go live.”

  “It's the drugs?”

  “Well, that isn't helping, dear. What if something goes horribly wrong? We can't be—”

  I get it.

  Back to Jerusalem, I go. Back to my mother and sisters. As the poppy wanes, the Phantom rises. I'm in such throes
at the end of August 2009, Kobi suggests we go to the beach, to keep my mind off the challenges of withdrawal and pain. The beach where I meet the woman of my dreams, and she discards me after I save her life. In the RAV4 on the way back, still high on adrenaline, I turn down the stereo, shush Phantom, and dial General Galant. I have his private cell. The difference between the American military and the IDF writ in bold print: Can you picture an American GI ringing up General Petraeus? “Heya, Dave. I was wondering if you could help me out with something…” Or, “Colin. Yeah. It's Izzy…” You might think it's somewhat provincial, but no one's ever accused the IDF of being a second-rate fighting force.

  “Hello?”

  “Can you really make this happen, Yoav?”

  “You work on yourself. Get better, mind and body. I'll work on this end.”

  “When?”

  “Let's talk again in six months.”

  “Six months? But I'm ready now.”

  “Then you'll be even more ready then. And we'll be more ready for you.”

  I'm thrilled by the general's all-but-promise. But this wait's going to feel like a prison sentence.

  HANDS AT TWO AND…

  December 2009. The words “suspended license” flash at me—in bold red letters—from the self-service kiosk in the war zone of the DMV in downtown Miami. I'm surreptitiously trying to hide my injury from the prying eyes of petty bureaucrats.

  “You self-absorbed, two-armed douche-nozzle,” I curse my younger self. “Why would you leave your license in such disarray?” During my final weeks in the United States, before gallivanting off to Israel to donate my arm, I got ticketed twice by eager traffic cops for minor infractions. First for an illegal U-turn—a man's gotta poo when a man's gotta poo. Then for missing a stop sign—if they expect people to see it, they've got to prune the foliage once in a while.

  Instead of dealing with these tickets. I left them for Future Izzy to worry about. Granted, younger me could not have predicted that I'd return to Florida minus my steering wheel's ten o'clock.

 

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