At Elmer's Bar in Connecticut

It’s Karaoke night at the only bar within walking distance of Central Connecticut State University. The air is beyond frigid outside, even for these New England types. As I approach the entrance, crossing Route 175, the atmosphere feels like a walk-in freezer. The smokers congregate outside the door, huddling into each other and puffing quickly. Billows of white smoke emerge from their lips like cannon fire. I walk past them, saying hello.

Inside, the patrons shove themselves into the crammed lounge and bar area, lining up three deep at the bar. They scream at each other over the music or stare into their bottles and say nothing at all. Someone is singing Journey, again. A drunken chorus reverberates as almost everyone repeats the lines – a cacophony of slurred and off-pitch chanting. It feels warm in here.

Not very much time has passed, and I’m already feeling as buzzed and good as everyone else. I only make 100 dollars every six weeks as a resident assistant of the nearby freshmen dormitory, Vance Hall, so I order Long Island iced teas. It’s the strongest, cheapest drink I can think of and I don’t like waiting three deep in tight spaces. It tenses my nerves.

The other resident assistants in Vance Hall like to play a game with me. I bet them 20 dollars if they can sneak into my unlocked room and take a picture of me before I awake. Their shadows under the doorway are enough. By the time they place their palms on the door’s handle to twist, I’m sitting up and watching them. I still haven’t come down from that combat high – that warrior frame of mind.   

I’m with my friends at our bar and we’re feeling fine. I like being an RA because I’ve found a family outside the military. I’ve found a new group of friends to live, work, and play with, sharing one hundred percent of our time together – just like that brotherhood and camaraderie I enjoyed in the Marines.

Suddenly, someone’s whispering into a microphone. “Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor…”

“FLOOR!!!” the would-be singer yells and my momentary peace is shattered. It’s a performance of Drowning Pool’s Bodies, a song which suddenly, I realize, offends my sensibilities.

I’m picturing Corporal Salazar’s body being ejected from the Humvee when the suicide bomber crashed into his patrol. I’m watching his body arc to the ground and bounce, before crashing against the rocky Iraq sand. I am seeing him bleed out. I’m watching hopeless faces circle him as he dies.

I’m no longer warm – my mind and body are on fire instead. I sit down at a booth and curl my face into my locked arms.

While everyone else keeps dancing.

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