Monrovia, 2010

to sell a fruity cocktail on a rooftop bar I gave it a burly name: bruiser. another was tough guy. there were Marines around and this helped them know what to order amidst our tropical martinis. we wouldn't close until everyone was done. late sometimes arm wrestling preceded worn photos of distant kids or Iraq would be abruptly with us and its motif of misread threat. dread again after the vehicle's lights and occupants had been extinguished. mortified to have been ill-informed. for example. then we were beyond the event horizon. the rude mass that ruptures become. cars drove as miniature phantoms along the bar soundless and empty of combatants. palpably carrying little kids. these marksmen drydocked in gatehouses in a cycle engineered to shuffle them bent back into the deck they came from. our unfounded fears needing negative space. gauging gorges of bomb cauldron. unbecoming villains. a perp walk out of wounding. that was me. someone said of an incident bad enough to have a household name. there were war criminals around. that was in the air. in our ice cubes. it made you feel like a decent guy. whatever that soldier thought as he worked his weekly way through our scotch bonnet vodka, I never learned. nobody else would willingly take a sip of it. and nothing around him seemed to move. it did let his eyes water.