Slayer of Galilee

I was at my parents' house last week sorting through old boxes of stuff and I came across a story I wrote in fourth grade. "The Sidewinder Adventure" is about a day in the life of a snake living in the Sahara. The animals it hunted were a gerbil, a kangaroo rat, an ostrich, and a baby snake. In the end he only killed and ate the other snake. In third grade I copied all thirty-two entry on snakes out of the encyclopedia and handed it in as a book report. My teacher was totally baffled since she never assigned a book report. I love snakes.

In 2001 I took a huge trip to the middle east spending a month in Egypt, a week in Jordan, and three weeks in Israel/ Palestine. While in Israel the second Intifada began and things got intense. One evening I was laying on the floor of a friend's apartment watching Simpson's reruns when tank fire began. I had no idea what to do but panic. The concussions so loud they were shaking the windows. "What do we do? This is insane!!" "Don't worry about it. It's like two miles from here. We're totally safe. They are firing in Gilo they won't come up here." I sat back and prayed they were right. Later that week I was planning to take a bus into Ramallah to check out some Turkish baths. The day that I was researching the bus route I was to take that same bus exploded. I settled on a rental a car. I convinced Jamie to take off work and be my guide for a week.

One night Jaime and I drove into the hills of Galilee to find some hot springs. We showed up without enough money to get in and none of my persuasive powers worked on the local Israelis. Defeated, we got back in the car and headed back to the place we were staying. As we left the parking lot I spotted a huge snake coiled in the road at the top of a hill. I knew someone would hit it so I parked the car so the headlights were on the snake. I hopped out and walked slowly up to it. The thing must have been at least five feet long. Jaime was scared but didn't know what was going on. Tanks were firing two miles from his place and we didn't miss a joke on the Simpson's but a snake in the road was scary! I really wanted to get the snake off the road so I began to look for something to move it.

Just as I left the headlight's beam a second car pulled up to see what was going on. The driver had his window down and saw the snake. "Don't pick it up. It's dangerous." I didn't believe him and moved closer. This time I noticed that it was bleeding from its side. It had been slightly run over and was coiled in defense. Now I really had to get the thing off the road. As I walked closer the guy in the car yelled "Don't get to close! That's Palestine's most poisonous viper." (actually named zefa) That's that all that needed to be said. The idea of moving the snake left with the guy's taillights rounding a far off corner.



"Jaime, we got to kill it. It's just laying here dying. I'll run it over with the car. What do you think? I have a Slayer tape with
me."

We both got in the car and looked squeamishly at each other. I gave a little speech about how it was dying and most likely in pain so we had to kill it. We sat for a second wondering if we were going to do it. I put on first song side one, War Ensemble, one of the all time best Slayer songs. As the guitar kicked in I floored the car in neutral with my foot on the pedal waiting for the massive drum fill as my cue. When the main riff kicked in I slammed the car into first, spinning the tires, and full on destroying the viper. We both yelled as we felt the bump under both tires. I didn't let off the gas and we flew down the road nervously laughing in disbelief. We both yelled and laughed for atleast ten minutes. I had just killed Palestine’s most venomous snake listening to Slayer in the region where Jesus began his ministry. It seemed so perfect for a metal loving Christian.