My good shirt

I have one button-down shirt in my closet, and a birthday coming up on Aug. 20, five days after the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. To be honest, I have more than one button-down shirt, but the orange one is the only one without any stains and in decent enough shape for me to wear to events like a book-signing, a morning talk-show appearance or my cousin’s bar mitzvah.

“The good shirt,” my mother calls it, if only to tell it apart from my other shirts -- the bad ones, tattered and up to no good, lurking in my closet. But in times like these, times of bitter conflict and turmoil here in Israel, when the settlers and their supporters have taken over the color orange as the symbol of determined resistance to the withdrawal -- handing out orange ribbons and stuff to every passerby -- even an ordinary shirt, it seems, becomes a firm position.

Last Wednesday, on my way back from a bookstore reading, a fat, bearded guy accosted me. He was wearing an orange yarmulke. Clutching me in a sweaty, loving embrace, he said: “Do a mitzvah, brother, and lend us a hand with the stickers.” In his chubby hands he was holding a wad of stickers emblazoned with the slogan “Jews don’t force other Jews to leave.”

Well, being partial to shows of affection by total strangers, but also believing that sometimes, when they overstep the bounds, Jews do in fact have to force other Jews to leave (or at least nudge them in the right geographical direction), I found this request somewhat disconcerting.

“I can’t do it,” I confessed to my smiling political rival, adding with a typical show of civic courage: “My wife is expecting me at home.”

“Brother,” the sweaty fat guy went on. “Dear orange brother, please give a Jew a hand. It’s a sacred duty, after all.”

“She’s not well,” I persisted valiantly. “Not well -- and pregnant. The doctor has ordered me not to leave her on her own.”

“She’s not on her own,” the fat guy winked. “The Almighty is with her, and now he has sent you to me, right out of heaven. Here, have some.”

And before I could clarify my agnostic views and their ontological implications for the degree of my spouse’s aloneness in the company of the Creator, a thick bundle of stickers landed in my orange shirt pocket. “You do Arlozorov Street,” the bearded one commanded, “and I’ll do Ibn Gvirol. And may Providence be with us.”

I smiled awkwardly, nodded and took off. When I got home, my inquisitive wife showed a special interest in the stickers protruding from my shirt pocket. When I tried to explain, she immediately demanded that I throw out the shirt.

“But I can’t do that,” I said in my defense. “Not this one. It’s my good shirt.”

“You’ve got other shirts,” she insisted. “You can always wear the black one.”

“I look much better in orange,” I pleaded, “and besides, the black one has a tahini stain on it.”

“So you’ll have a tahini stain,” my wife snarled dismissively. “This is a life-or-death situation, you know.”

Our Arab greengrocer was on my side. “Why throw it out?” he asked. “Who cares if it’s orange? Just because of this disengagement plan, am I supposed to stop selling carrots? It’s just a stupid color! It was here before and it’ll be here long after we’re all gone. Who’s gonna tell us what color stands for what?”

Reassured by the insights of the greengrocer and a sweet half-watermelon I’d just bought, I set out for home, head high. But as I approached the pedestrian crossing, a pale guy recognized me. “And you call yourself an intellectual,” he snooted.

He had a cigarette between his lips and a disposable cup of coffee in his hand. “You think you’re a writer?” He pointed at my shirt pocket, behind which my orange heart was supposed to be beating. “You’re an occupier, that’s what you are.”

“No, I’m not,” I countered. “I got it on sale last summer. Sixty-four shekels. Way before they started talking about the disengagement. People still thought of orange as a sensual, young color back then. No political affiliations whatsoever.”

“Go sell that crap to someone else, you right-wing fascist schmuck,” the paleface said, barraging me with swear words -- and half a cup of coffee. “I saw you yesterday on Arlozorov Street with those stickers in your pocket.”

My wife says coffee stains don’t come out in the wash. And even though I’m not sure I believe her, I’ve decided to forgo a second opinion, and to throw my good shirt in the garbage. These are tough days we’re going through now, and I guess it’s not the right time for good shirts.

And so, with no media coverage and no condolence calls, I’ve become the first victim of the disengagement. Just a fashion victim, true, but still. When they have the next sale, I’ve already promised myself to go for vomit yellow, mildew green, mud brown or any color repulsive enough to guarantee that no political movement will want to occupy it, ever.