Beirupdate, please

At least by day I hear this is Lebanon or welcome to Lebanon or we’re in Lebanon like some ironic but proud excuse for idleness or insolence and today A, an American, schools me further by rolling her words through her breath as though talking to a boy when she tells me eeeverything is a game in Lebanon and I don’t understand but she’d do well to tell me why I don’t want to. Working again a local man almost breaks when I speak of males near here. Do you have someone I’m asked. Do I have. Then he says please please don’t listen only make your own opinion and he says I have a friendly face when he disappears. As I linger at the bar a young man comes to me with his face in his hands and rubs his hair and shirt and wails for his brother. Just for supporting them he says not even fighting just supporting. He’s been in jail in Damascus for six months. If I hear word tomorrow he says that he is dead I will go and fight for the free army. Who am I he asks. I do nothing. Together we drink jack and smile at the TV but when he leaves I want to go with him. When M comes later she waltzes round the room with knives before your very eyes and I’m resigned this could turn Friedkin so I whip her to the ground and tell her don’t fall. What if I’m already falling. Then I break your heart. It’s already broken. She traces the words in my notebook to remind me why I’ll never love again.