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Final Last (continued from preceding page)
soft-spoken and it was easy to believe him when he said his prices were fair and he needed to make a liv- ing to support wife and children.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get him to go below $80 for any of the dresses I liked. That was his last, final, ultimate price and he refused to go a penny lower. He had dresses he’d sell for $40 but they seemed shoddy and poorly made.
So finally, after about an hour of this, during which time no other customer came into the shop, I told
him I’d had enough: no more haggling, no more conversation. I was leaving. At first, Abu Musa took this as one more attempt to get the price down, and he did come down a tiny amount. I told him there was no way I could pay that and walked out.
Once I was out of Abu Musa’s shop, there seemed to be increased tension in the air: Israeli soldiers had massed at nearby alleyways and young Arabs were also gathering. Had I stepped into the middle of a confrontation?
While I was standing there, deciding which way to go, I heard Abu Musa’s voice: “Koos omak!” he hissed at me. “Koos ochta!”
Hearing these raw Arabic curses aimed at me, I felt the jangling of a combative nerve. Without thinking, I whirled. “La puta que te parió!” I hissed back at him. “La puta que te remil parió!”
We glared at one another for a split second: two gladiators at an impasse. A standoff.
I looked around: Israeli soldiers... Arab kids lining up with rocks... and Abu Musa glaring at me. The air was pregnant with potential violence, so I picked out a route, and got out of the Old City as quickly as I could.
Loiederman has been a journalist, merchant seaman, TV scriptwriter (Dynasty, Knots Landing, Days of Our Lives, Father Dowling, Guns of Paradise, etc.), kibbutz cook, deli owner, documentary film producer, and writer. He’s had more than 200 articles and stories published in the L.A. Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Penthouse, Jewish Journal, The Forward, and many literary magazines. One of his nonfiction stories, "Before Me Today," was included in the Hollywood anthology, The Way We Work. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014 and 2015, he is co-author of The Eagle Mutiny, a nonfiction account of the only mutiny on an American ship in modern times, published by Naval Institute Press.
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