Procrastinet

Amman, Jordan - 11/9/2005: Exile in Guyville

filed under: Despatches

A continuing series of periodic Procrastinet Despatches from Amman, Jordan. By Nicholas Seeley.

[Note: this despatch refers to Nick's recent trip into Northern Iraq.]

It’s maybe my third night in Iraq, and I find myself sitting at a poker table inside Fortress America with a bunch of ex-military and commando types. They’re huge guys, grizzled and tattooed like in movies. A few of them still have their sidearms in their holsters. And I’m winning. This can’t be good, I think.

It’s Thursday night, and there is very, very close to absolutely nothing to do in Erbil on a Thursday night. It’s a goddamn wasteland. Erbil leaves everyone sitting like birds on a wire: it’s not so dangerous that it really sets your adrenalin pumping, fight or hide or thank God you’re alive – in fact it’s quite peaceful. Read: boring. But its not so safe that you can range around town with impunity, either. The streets are mostly safe to walk or drive, but there’s nowhere you’d really want to go. And the farther away you get from your guards and your concrete walls, the worse it gets. The potential for danger is always there.

So what social life there is goes on deep in the heart of the fortified American compound, which is where I find myself, playing low-stakes poker in the back garden of a house belonging to a foreign quasi-NGO and filled with these commando types. There’s ten guys crammed around a little plastic table – by turns surly and funny, desperate for anything that will relieve the boredom of life in a walled cell, sweating out the tension of a dangerous job where nothing ever happens.

There’s one drunk-assed and heavily armed American, who seems determined to throw all his money away, and a brit (ex-royal marine, ex-bodyguard, turned humanitarian worker) who’s been drinking tonic water all night, and seems determined to take as much of it as he can. International politics played out in cards. The RM is obviously the guy to beat – already, he’s sitting behind a nice stack of his friends’ money. Everybody here plays more poker than I do. I start off sober, but after 45 minutes I’ve mostly given up on being able to read so many people I don’t know, so I decide to have a beer and relax: I’ll just see out my buy-in and soak up the local color.

The sad reality is that Erbil isn’t much but one giant gossip mill. Nervous guys sit around tables in fortified buildings, drinking too much and arguing about politics: will the constitution be ratified? By who? What will Barzani do? Who has the votes, who pulls the strings, who understands what’s really written on all the little pieces of paper… which aid organizations are in, and which are out.

What’s blowing up.

Things are tense tonight because of rumors of VBIEDS in the area - that’s Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices, i.e., car bombs (I had to ask what it meant too, don’t worry).

“Well, I’ll tell you,” says one Texan security contractor, “I was in Baghdad, and I saw plenty happen there. But it felt different. There’s just a feeling you get when things gonna go wrong, an’ it don’t feel like anything’s gonna happen here,” he says, “not yet.”

“I’ve seen the intel,” drawls the RM, and everyone looks at him. “And the thing is, when things are about to go bad, there are signs. There are things that happen before things start going wrong, and I haven’t seen ‘em.”

Everyone listens to the RM, so they relax, a little. And then there’s a rumble from the street, and we stop playing and look across the garden as a string of armored US gun-vees cruise past the building.

They’re a lot bigger than you expect them to be.

Everyone but me knows where they’re heading. There have been threats posted on some Islamist web site – perhaps even credible threats – against a couple of specific humanitarian organizations. Why? No one knows, really, but now those agencies have Americans with big guns parked on their front lawns. Their front lawns, unfortunately, happen to be right down the block.

A prissy chick from another NGO comes by, looking to borrow some movies, and starts chatting with one of the players, and the temperature in the room goes up a few degrees. Then the drunk American starts shouting about niggers. The Texan tries to calm him, but it won’t help. “There’s plenty of blacks in my family tree,” he shouts, “some of ‘em are still hangin’ there.”

The NGO chick shoots him a look as she leaves, and the RM says, quietly.

“You should watch your mouth in fronta her, lad.” Apparently, this one complained to her NGO’s head office because someone in the organization had had Maxim magazines in the house. She was deeply offended. Tried to get someone fired. The men glare after her as she leaves, unwelcome.

“I don’t care about that bitch,” the drunk shouts, “She can’t do shit to me, I’m leavin’!”

“Makes it hard on the rest of us, you actin’ like that,” someone else says.

The table goes quiet for a while, as everyone focuses on their cards. People drop out one by one, and finally the drunk makes it off to bed.

“He’s not always like that,” someone explains, when he’s gone. All the usual reasons. He’s been here a while. He’s having family problems. Seen too much. Not seen enough. A million reasons why guys start getting a little wild, stuck inside concrete walls in a war zone, in a city that doesn’t even seem to offer any hookers, much less women, much less men, much less a conversation about anything other than what’s blowing up where, and how hopeless it all is.

The conversation goes on through all the usual lines. Allawi’s really fucked up, he can’t go anywhere from here. The United Nations coming was the worst thing that ever happened to Iraq. This NGO wanted to hand out copies of the constitution in Kurdish, ‘cept they didn’t even realize there was three different dialects, the dumbshits.

At one point, the Texan looks up at the RM, and says “You oughta know, we don’t blame you boys for what you done in Mosul, blowin’ up that prison. We’re all gonna feel the fallout from it, no mistake. It’s gonna make things harder for everyone, but ain’t nobody blames you. You had to get your boys. We’d all a done the same thing.”

My head is spinning a bit.

And this, of course, is when I start pulling cards that even I can’t lose with. The pile of chips in front of me grows. I’m having a heck of a night. Okay the stakes aren’t very high, but the guns give it a bit of extra flavor.

Soon the table is down to the last four or five; the people who didn’t just come for the food. They’re all much better than me, but we’ve already fleeced out six people, so everyone’s riding a bit high. I get one guy’s bluff figured out, and pull in a couple good hands off it. The cards just seem to keep falling my way.

Last hand of the night is five draw. I start with a pair of jacks and three hearts, and bet slow. The RM bets the limit, and he never does that unless he has the cards. The Texan is staying with him, so is the fourth. I figure I should fold, but I’m up enough, so I decide to see the draw. After a moments consideration I ditch the hearts and keep the jacks; I figure I got a better shot to improve that than pulling two cards in a flush.

We draw.

The RM goes high again. Whatever he’s got, it’s good. I slow play again, but the Texan raises, and the fourth folds. I see the raise, and re-raise – not quite the max. The RM and the Texan both stay.

The Texan puts down a straight, a bit worried. He knows the RM has us dead to rights, and sure enough he shows a full house, kings over something, and reaches for the pot. I don’t say anything, I just lay my cards on the table. The Texan notices first, and his eyes get kinda big as he reaches out and catches the RM’s hand.

“Holy crap,” he says. The RM stops for a second and looks at my cards.

“Wow,” he says, with a sage nod as he pushes the pile my way.

I’d have come out way ahead however the hand turned out, pulling in that last pot hits me like four shots of Jack Daniels. When there’s nothing to do, little things get important.

I’m still buzzing as we walk through the streets of the American fortress towards the Exit.

The Exit isn’t so much a bar as a house that’s never been cleaned; but they serve drinks and a guy plays karaoke on Thursday nights, so it’s where everybody goes. On the lawn outside, a hose runs perpetually, and the grass around it is a sodden, muddy puddle in the middle of a desert country.

Like everything else here, it’s filled with men with guns. The only woman in the whole place is the prissy NGO chick. The karaoke is terrible. I have a drink; then another. Somehow, I find myself talking to an enormous Colombian security contractor – and I mean the size of a house, with arms the size of small trees and thighs as big as my waist, but he seems like a nice guy. He tells me he doesn’t like my tattoos, and I give the standard answer.

“Well, that’s all right, since it’s my fookin’ arm they’re on.”

We have a laugh, and we chat about football hooligans and martial arts and body modification and tribalism, and someone from Company F starts buying us all shots of tequila. The Colombian drinks his with lime, I take mine straight, and we rag on each other about it.

The room is hot, and full of guns and shouting and bad music, and the conversations just keep getting louder and edgier, as the men get drunker, and realize there’s not a goddamn thing to do except drink until they fall down, or try to hit on a woman who thinks Maxim is a crime against humanity, and somewhere, perhaps, I lose track of time, or it loses track of me, and then suddenly I’m standing at the bar, and the enormous Colombian is pressing his face into mine, and screaming:

“You wanna step outside? Huh? You wanna go outside?”

And it’s a bit like a bad dream, because I have no idea what has set him off, or why he’s upset, or if he’s actually pissed or just screwing around, and I’m so surprised that the only thing I can think of to say is:

“All right. Let’s go.”

As I follow him out onto the muddy lawn, I’m thinking: great, he’s about nine times my size, and he’s some kind of commando, and he’s still carrying his nine millimeter. Well, at least this isn’t going to last long.

He turns to face me and I ask, with genuine curiosity, “What’s up?”

And I get a funny feeling of déjà vu. Something about this is so familiar – and then the enormous Colombian leans toward me, weaving a little, and, as if to prove that the universe is laughing, and everything you do comes full circle somehow in the end, he says:

“C’mon then. Hit me. As hard as you can.”

Somebody is definitely laughing.

And part of me is still wondering why this guy feels like picking a fight. I’m wondering how I can not get killed tonight. I’m surprised that I’m not more terrified – I wonder if I’m really drunk, but I don’t think so.

“No,” I say.

“C’mon,” he says, “hit me,” and, with the same sense of playing out a scene I’ve been in before, I reply again:

“No, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

I’m not gonna run and hide from anyone who’s got a problem with me, no matter how big he is, but I’m sure as hell not going to hand this guy an excuse to use me for target practice. I’m dumb, but not that dumb. He looks at me, befuddled.

“If you wanna set some rules and spar, then let’s go,” I say. “How do you want to do this.” He just glares at me.

“Look,” I say, “you can call me a coward if you like, but I really can’t just deck a guy I more-or-less like without at least a reason. I’m not capable of it.” Not anymore, I think – but I leave that out.

Now I’m starting to get scared – not because he’s going to beat me up, but because maybe he isn’t. He’s just staring at me, like someone who’s gotten off a train after falling asleep, and suddenly isn’t sure if he’s really there yet. I wish he would either hit me or go away, already.

“Look,” I say, “if you got something to say to me, go ahead. Otherwise, we’re done here.”

The Colombian slowly turns and wanders back inside, and I stand on the lawn for a moment, wondering if I won or lost – and what. Then I go back in, too, and head for the bar. As I get myself another beer, I’m surrounded by guys from Company F,

Gossip, gossip, gossip. All the usual questions. Are you all right? What did you say to him? Why’d you go out there with him, anyway?

I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.

You gotta excuse him when he gets like that. When he gets drunk, he just looks for fights. He’s been here a long time. He’s having family problems. Seen too much.

I’m quickly getting tired of this. Look, I say, I don’t know what it was all about. He wants beat me up, he’s welcome to give it a shot. But I’m not starting it.

Don’t say that. Don’t provoke him. You could get hurt.

That’s how it goes, I snap back. People start fights, people get hurt. I don’t know how to have a fight with a guy without trying to hurt him.

Shhh… don’t say this stuff. Just stay away from him- don’t look over there – don’t make eye contact.

“Why?” I snap back. I’m not going to run away from some liquored-up psycho who starts fights cause he can’t find a hooker. “If he wants to hit me he’s gonna hit me, and I’ll try to stop him, and I probably won’t be able to, and that’ll be that.”

I take my beer and leave the bar, disgusted with this place and these people. There’s something nagging at my brain, something just doesn’t seem right, though I can’t put my finger on it. I have another drink, and I think another, but the encounter with the Colombian has rubbed all the glitter off the evening. I leave the Exit and sit in the garden, drinking in the warm night air, listening to the men inside: gossiping, intimidating, jockeying for position on the top of this shit hill. The prissy NGO chick goes home, and I still sit there, drinking.

Is this all men can do when you take them out to the edge of the nowhere? Start fights and then gossip like women about who’s winning them? Human behavior in a bell jar. Wasn’t there supposed to be some reason why we were out here, other than this? But whatever it was I was looking for, it isn’t here, and I find my head is spinning way too fast, I’m tired and angry and disgusted and then I’m on my knees, vomiting over and over into the wet grass.

- Nicholas Seeley, 11/9/05

Posted by rjt at November 9, 2005 10:32 AM