Soldier's Paradise...

The waitress dropped off the third pitcher of Bloody Mary and four chilled, pre-salted glasses. Within seconds, all glasses were topped off, and I was holding yet another filled glass of red, bitter, vodka-laced greatness. My head started to swirl after the first round. By the time the second was downed, I was feeling quite unprofessional. When the third found its way into my hand, I was in love with this woman who was referred to by her friends simply as “Bloody.”

With the plastic, fake, and “more of a formality” contracts negotiations luncheon over, I stumbled out of the overly extravagant bistro and hit the D.C. sidewalks just as the 2:00pm sun was highest and was scorching the panhandling bums in the nearby busy intersections. I limped along the bustling walkways, swerving in-between suited and sweaty members of congress, civil rights protesters, and D.C hipsters enroute to their beloved underground gastropubs. I stopped at a branch of Chase Bank, and I leaned my shoulder against the rough cast concrete exterior of the mighty financial castle. From my jacket pocket I pulled a pack of Camels and I lit one appreciatively. I rolled and turned my shoulder blades to the bank’s wall, and I watched the movies reel playing out before me.

From the instant the lighter flashed a spark to the moment the paper tube of tobacco burned out and started to melt the fiberglass within the cigarette’s filter, there must’ve been a thousand characters that acted their way across my view. Some sped by with cell phones stitched to their ears; others gawked and pointed me out to their collogues as they drifted past my gaze; but, most almost slithered by, mindlessly, zombie-like, entrenched in their fields of day-to-day, their bodies surviving but their souls suffocating.

I lifted myself from the stench of the Chase branch, and I pointed my index finger to the four-lane intersection at my twelve o’clock. I marched towards the neatly choreographed automobiles and crosswalks, and I made my way to the painting-like scene. I used parking meters as crutches and city mailboxes and rest stops. I found the crosswalk button and employed it. Noting the indicator to “Walk,” I stepped into the pedestrian way, and I froze. The cars, heading perpendicular to me, revved and lurched and sped through the intersection and far off into the great expanses, well away from D.C. and all her man-made madness. I FROZE.

I remembered Amanda and the smell of her neck; I remembered the sweetness of the lake house and the crickets that sang into the dimming New England light; I remembered frailty, defenselessness, and imperfection; and, as I flung my loosened tie into the busy roadway, I remembered the great wild ferns of the fields of my youth.