Oh, for the days before smartphones...

All yesterday, Ben kept updating me on the miserable time RTT was having in Israel. RTT and Ben are, apparently, in constant contact by text. Oh for the days before smartphones, when someone would get on a plane and then you could just forget about them for two weeks.

The security people grilled RTT for two hours at JFK. Trumble? That doesn’t sound like a Jewish name. You say your mother’s Jewish? And her name is DiLucchio? That doesn’t sound like a Jewish name either. So where in the suitcase did you say you hid the bomb again?

The suitcase never made it off the plane in Tel Aviv.

“Well, no,” I said. “Obviously. The suitcase is still in New York. Being disassembled by El Al’s security team –“

“That poor kid. Getting stuck without sleep in the airport because the plane was so late and losing his luggage –“

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “Losing a suitcase filled with jeans, teeshirts and underwear is not a fucking showstopper. I bet they even sell jeans, teeshirts and underwear in Israel.”

“The group is hours late, and they’re taking it out on him because he needs to fill out the lost bag form –“

“What do you mean, ‘They’re taking it out on him?’”

“They’re glaring at him and shaking their heads –“

“So fucking what?” I screamed into the phone. “Honestly. You need to back off.”

“I think you’re missing the point. They’re about to head off into the wilderness and he hasn’t got so much as a clean teeshirt of a pair of socks. They’re driving to Golan tonight –“

“He can fucking wash the teeshirt and socks he’s wearing,” I continued screaming. “I bet the other guys on the trip would be happy to lend him a teeshirt and a pair of socks. This is not a big deal. Yes, yes. It’s really inconvenient. But you know the first law of travel is that you never pack anything that you’d really care about if you lost it. I told him that. I also warned him that Israelis don’t fuck around when it comes to security and that he’d probably have problems establishing a case for being Jewish. Although I figured he’d have problems getting approved for the trip. In fact, I wrote to my mother’s cousin Susan Blumenstein for back info on the family so he could cite it –“

“Did you get it?”

“Yes, I got it. My grandfather’s two grandfathers were Polish rabbis who didn’t speak a word of English. My grandmother’s family was more German than the Nazis, and figured the Jews that stayed in Germany must have done something terribly wrong to get Hitler so pissed off at them –“

“He’s been up for two days now. I’m afraid he won’t be able to sleep –“

There’s this thing Ben does. It’s kind of difficult to describe. When he loves people, he kind of crawls inside their heads, appoints himself as their protector somehow, and this actually results in a bizarre kind of codependence in which the people he loves get crazier and crazier and crazier. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it. He did it with me for years. And now he’s doing it with Robin.

I wanted to scream at him again: BACK THE FUCK OFF.

Yes, travel is filled with uncomfortable experiences, particularly in the actual transiting phase of process. It’s also the most entertaining, fun thing you can possibly do on the planet – at least, I think so – so if you like to travel, you learn to roll with the punches.

Maybe RTT will end up not liking to travel. I don’t know.

But he’ll never even give travel a chance if Ben is always on the other end of the smartphone, texting, You poor thing. That’s so awful… I can’t believe…

Plus there was that other thing like what happened to me on the train: If I think RTT is somehow upset or in pain, then I’m upset and in pain. If I close my eyes, it’s like I’m sitting at a table inside his head staring at him and he’s furious, confused, terrified, and I can’t do anything about it…

I suppose that's my own brand of maternal codependence.


RTT will have a great trip and be fine. I know it.