destruction and coffee talk

Sunday, my day off. After sitting around the pool talking with the contracting guys till late in the evening I’d planned on sleeping in. But around 0600 the insurgents woke us up with their little bundles of joy flung over the river. I rolled around in my blanket trying to go back to sleep but two loud, close explosions that rattled my trailer like the tinny pop of a squeezed beer can made me roll out and throw on my helmet and body armor.
I stepped outside, a cool morning, almost chilly since I wasn’t wearing a shirt under my flak vest. There was a heavy plume of black smoke, so heavy I don’t know why it didn’t fall to the ground instead of raising into the the air. Something big and close had been hit. We’re supposed to stay in our trailers during an attack, putting our mattress over our bodies. But I walked to the bunker. I’d rather die under God’s open sky than inside a mobile home.
After an hour the ALL CLEAR sounded and my friend Angie and I walked over to see what had been hit. There was a big crater in front of the palace. The burnt out humvee which had bore the brunt of the blast sat 50 feet from one of the billeting tents. We got really lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it.
Afterwards I sat out at the pool, drinking coffee, reading, and writing on my political manifesto which I will publish soon. Despite the morning’s activity the pool and grassy courtyard under the palms was crowded. If you’ve got to go to hell go there with a tan.
Last night I attended a charity book signing for the Iraqi Women’s Shelter. The book was Tamerlane, written about the conqueror by that name. He accomplished a lot of killing sounds like and never lost a battle. The author, Justin Marozzi, spoke a few minutes then turned it over to the events organizer, Major B, a pretty lady with clear skin and blue green eyes, not much older than me, who in real life is an attorney in Nashville. I lolly gagged too long deciding whether or not to buy a copy and just as I reached to pick one up some dude yanked it from my fingertips saying, “That’s mine.” I had a mild flash of rage but instead of ripping out his jugular with my hand I grabbed a Heineken out of the garbage can full of ice and walked into the shadows to talk to other people.
Later I talked to Marozzi about his writing process. He said he could never hold a regular job while writing a book.