“Christ, Doc,” the young medical lieutenant said to me, as he looked a the ward of 20 patients, “I thought we had eradicated Cholera.”

I said nothing since he was the M.D. and I was simply a Hospital Corpsman.

the dog wants a walk
no energy to put on shoes
we are barefoot

laying on my bed
with thoughts of dying
no…
not suicide
simply dying
giving my spirit back to
God
i have company
my dog
he lays next to me
he does not move
perhaps he thinks
of dying as well
new restrictions
but nothing works
liberty failed
pandemic
abundance of caution
sheep
wolves
shepherds
which one am I
none
one cannot protect
if no one will not…
will not…what
want that protection
my protection or
the wolfs false protection
cannot fight the mask
she wants it more
more than liberty
death is preferred
to the agony of seeing
loved ones led to
a slaughter
quiet is the room
now
quiet is the broken
soul
as it fades
that
even my dog
faithful companion
has left my side
for
death is not his
thought and he
leads the way
for such is the
struggle
of living in the
now
and that now
is no longer
worth it or
worth the mask

Clawing at the air and the belief that I am suffocating, that’s how this particular night-terror ends. And that’s how it ended last night, too.

Neck wounds are a tricky thing, and it was obvious that he had a neck wound. He was sitting against a shattered tree stump when I heard the shout, “Doc, up!”

Since he was still able to talk to me, I helped him lay down where I could make a better assessment of his injuries and apply hemostats. Six or seven in place and the bleeding was under control.

The Skipper had already called for a medivac, so I settled in for the few minute wait that we would have. I checked and double-checked for any random bleeders, but found none.

“How bad is it, Doc?”

“Bad, but I think you’ll live.”

“Feels like half my neck is gone.”

“No, jus’ a flap, a big opening from one side to the other.”

“Gonna look ugly, isn’t it.”

“Hell no, man — the women are gonna be falling all over themselves to see you your sexy war wound.”

Laughter.

The thump of the helicopter rotor blades made their dull echoing appearance somewhere in the sky to the east of us. It would be on the ground in minute or less.

The Marine had his eyes closed and I felt for a pulse. None.

Immediately, I began CPR, asking for assistance from the Corporal kneeling by us. I push the injured man’s head back as far as I dared and gave him a solid breathe.

His eyes popped opened and he looked at me with surprise. Astonished myself, I automatically felt for his pulse again and still there wasn’t one.

“Damn, dude, I thought you had died.”

“Well, shit, Doc – I thought you’d gone queer for me.”

Laughter.

Two US Army medics arrived with a litter and cut the comedy scene with seriousness. They package him for a quick load and go as I gave them all the particulars, including the skinny on the guy’s faint heartbeat.

A couple of days later, I see one of the medics at the FOB.

“How’s that Marine with the neck wound?”

“Dead.”

There was nothing else he could say. There was nothing else I needed to hear.

The remainder of the day I wandered around doing my job in a sort of stunned autopilot, thinking and rethinking of what all could have gone wrong since leaving the L-Z. So deeply lost in thought, I honestly cannot recall eating or even going to the chow hall.

It wasn’t until that night, after lights out, that I had a frightening thought: they missed his faint heartbeat while triaging him. And then I asked myself, “What if he was still alive when they put him in a body bag?”

I awoke later, clawing at the air, in the bag, and thinking I was suffocating.

If 2020 were a song, it would be sung by Yoko Ono.

“Did you hear about the man who dreamed he was eating a big marshmallow?”
“No, what happened?”
“He woke up and his pillow was gone.”

That’s a joke I learned when I was nine-years-old. Funny then, corny now, but still enjoyable in its simplicity.

Fifty-one years later, I have a rather risque return on this same joke. And depending how blue your sense of humor is, you may find it funny, you may not – either way – consider yourself warned.

It was vivid dream, a sex dream, where I was committing cunnilingus on a woman. As I was doing this I recall, inside my dream, tasting what I thought was a dry tampon and that this taste was manifesting as bits of cotton in my mouth.

Waking up a few minutes before my alarm, and still more asleep than awake, I could actually feel small pieces of roughage in my mouth. So I got up and went into the bathroom where I proceeded to rinse my mouth.

The second that Scope mouthwash touched the tip of my tongue I winced in pain, but I continued rinsing anyway. At the end, I saw little flecks of dark fiber in the basin and upon inspection of my tongue, a large reddish raw spot on the tip.

I knew immediately what had happened.

By this time Mary was up and straightening her side of the bed. I quickly joined her, attempting to hide the large wet spot on my pillow.

But she saw it anyway and asked in a not-so delicate tone, “What the hell happened to your new pillow case, Tom?”

Trying not to seem too flustered, I quickly lied, “I was dreaming that I was eating a huge marshmallow.”

Nothing much had changed from the years I’d actually been in the military. Going out at night, ‘taking a walk’ beyond the safety of the perimeter, the corpsman handed out pills meant to keep everyone alert.

Now, like then, I never found the need for them.

The smallest noise not recognized would amp me up more than I could almost bear. And then I’d find myself hoping that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed it.

And should a couple of rounds be fired off in the distant dark, that same darkness would be there, kneeling on my chest. I had completely forgotten what my fear tasted like: bitter, metallic, guilty.

Back then, I carried a rifle. On this tour, I had only some pens, two notebooks, my elderly Canon AE-1 and 35 canisters of Kodak film.

There would be no killing for me on this tour. However, I knew I was a prime target and that didn’t leave me feeling any more comfortable.

This part of the world was familiar to me as I’d been here before. But it was also more deadly now then it had been, when I first touched boot to it.

Before my military escorts picked up me along with their four other guests, I found myself asleep in a smallish, dilapidated motel room that cost me ten-bucks American. That first night I was so exhausted that I simply dropped out.

The next morning following a cup of kahwah, some crisp pakora and a bowl of spicy lubya, I wandered around a three or four block area. It was a welcomed relief to see US forces populating the street corners, adding some sense of safety to my well-being.

That second night, amid sporadic small arms fire, I found I couldn’t sleep. So with my room window open and moonlight shining in, I studied the old map that hung above my narrow bed.

‘Old’ because while it was of the same country I’d once been a secret guest of, and again found myself in, it was in Cyrillic script . Though I couldn’t read the script, I knew it from my previous experience.

The universe has a way of rendering some persons safe, I’ve learned. That’s why this narrative is so short.

It is easy to catalog of bits and piece of overheard ‘before and after’ conversations:

“I can’t wait to get me some.”

“Shit, you’ll be too scared to even lift your weapon.”

“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

Silence.

“I was so scared I shit myself.”

“Yeah, and if that’s the worst thing either of us do, we can count ourselves luck.”

“You mean you were scared too?”

“No, I mean I shit myself too.”

Laughter.

But the hard  thing is the memorializing life when the chips come down.

The four other and I rode in a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected light tactical vehicle or MRAP. And like so often is the case, military vehicle’s are subject to SNAFU’s and this one simply stopped running and we were forced to wait for another ride.

“Contact!” a Marine shouted as we were off-loading our gear.

Scrambling, I found the far side of the road and a thin strip of land strewn with small boulders. Where everyone else raced off to, I had no idea.

The flash was enormous, the sound deafening. So loud was the blast that it left my ears ringing for the next three days.

One killed, two injured, including one of the journalists. While I was sure I had a concussion, the reporter lost his thumb and the first three fingers to his right hand, leaving only his pinky intact.

As the Corpsman worked on the Marine, I tended my civilian counterpart. Once all hostilities had been squelched, I learned everything I’d brought with me had gone up in the ensuing blaze of the MRAP.

Within the hour, we were enroute to the FOB that we had left earlier in the evening and while the two more seriously injured were flighted to a larger, better equipped facility, I was taken to an uncomfortable gurney, given a medical once over, followed up by a full head-to-toe physical, two days later and shipped out of country.

What a bust. No story, no concussion, and only ringing of the ears, which had already subsided.

My days as an embedded reporter were finished and I found myself homeward bound. As I sat in the window seat of a commercial airline, crossing the blue-green expanse of Pacific ocean, I found myself daydreaming and wishing that I had ‘procured’ that old Soviet map, squirreling it away in my duffel bag as a memento of my failed adventure.

cloth mask on my face
protects me from Covid death
my feet are cold

Thousands of employees in Nevada lost their jobs when businesses shut down mid-March. While most other industries have been able to resume some level of operations, Gov. Steve Sisolak has indicated that the state’s brothels are “not on his radar” to reopen.

Services allowing physical contact around the state have been allowed to resume service, with tattoo shops, estheticians, and massage parlor open since May. However those in Nevada’s legal sex industry say they feel they’re being ignored.

Nevada is the only state to allow legal prostitution, but state laws requires such activities to take place in a licensed establishment in a county with a population of less than 700,000. Clark County is the only Nevada county to exceed that population count, while six other counties, Carson City, Douglas, Eureka, Lincoln, Pershing, and Washoe, have outlawed legalized prostitution. Among the 10 counties where brothels can legally operate, none operate in Churchill, Esmeralda or Humboldt.

The Mustang Ranch Brothel was closed in 1999, but owner Lance Gilman reopened it in 2005 and currently employ 49 people. Those full-time employees include security, kitchen staff and chefs, bartenders, housekeeping staff, cashiers and “parlor hostesses” who manage in-house operations.

However, in addition to the 49 staff members, there are several hundred legal sex workers who work at the brothel on a rotating basis. Legal sex workers are independent contractors and not employees, and this status has made it more difficult for those workers to receive supplemental benefits while out of work.

Unemployment benefits have not been immediately available to independent contractors during the first months lock-down, and although the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) was eventually extended to workers with this classification in May, but not all legal sex-workers have been eligible this assistance though. Furthermore, the brothels, themselves were not eligible for the Small Business Administration loans that many businesses took advantage of earlier this year.

Gilman, however did manage to secure Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for the Wild Horse Saloon, the restaurant attached to Mustang Ranch. Additionally, Gilman’s business was eligible for federal small business grants distributed by Storey County.

Storey County, where Gilman is also a county commissioner, is the only county that participated in the grant program.

Yet even after receiving the PPP loans Mustang Ranch employees had to be furloughed and contractors were denied the supplemental income from these loans. And without unemployment benefits, many women in the industry are turning to creative options to make up for lost income, including phone sex lines and cam work.

Sisolak has said that he doesn’t know how people would social distance in a brothel, stating instead that it is up to brothel owners “coming up with a plan,” however every submitted plan has been met with silence from the state.

Gilman first submitted reopening plans in May to the COVID-19 Task Force and the Local Empowerment Advisory Panel which is supposed to help develop reopening guidelines for Nevada businesses. He also submitted a letter, with the plan attached, to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. However, Michael Brown, the office’s executive director, responded only by saying the reopening request, might “be considered at a future phase in the State’s re-opening plan.”

Gilman’s reopening plans includes procedures for screening employees, customers and contractors, limiting the number of customers and contractors in the building, sanitizing procedures and mask use requirements, and procedures for containment in the case of a positive test or failed screening. His proposal would also allow the brothel to operate without physical contact, essentially allowing the non-sexual escort services currently allowed by the county to take place within the brothel facility.

And while the bar would also remain closed to customers, the kitchen would be able to prepare food for guests, which would then be packaged and delivered to rented rooms. The letter also indicated that the brothel had been implementing safety protocols prior to its official shutdown.

“We took temperatures at the door with trained personnel, we took temperatures of every employee and every working lady prior to starting their workday every day,” Gilman said in the letter. “We use gloves, alcohol wipes and all forms of sanitary protocols. These are everyday standard procedures.”

Meanwhile, hundred’s of jobs and million’s of dollar remain lost to Storey County and others as the state struggles over what needs to be done regarding COVID-19 and legal brothels.

“Who would be calling at two in the morning?” his wife hissed as she reached for the phone.

Awake now, he listened.

“What?!” she exclaimed. “How should I know – we live 400 miles away from the ocean!”

She slammed down the phone.

“Who was that?” her husband asked.

“Some woman,” she answered.

“Well, what did she want?” he asked.

“To know if the coast was clear,” she answered.

Really awake now, he simply laid there.