This was a story I penned in very short time while taking a trip to Masira off the coast of Saudi Arabia. I had a very stressful time at the start of my deployment to Djibouti, as I was the only one on site who really knew how all of the gear went together and was programmed from start to finish. After a few weeks of everything being up and running my First Sergeant told me he was sending me on an R&R trip; when I told him to take one of my soldiers first I was informed it really wasn't a matter up for negotiations. My second or third day there found me with my sketch book looking out at the sea, and instead of drawing this is what popped out. I blame the heat.

---

Of All the Soda Joints

She was the last one I expected to see turning up on a small Army base on a tropical island lost somewhere in the seas south of Saudi Arabia. I had just entered the MWR, looking to buy a beer to take some of the steam out of the sweltering mid-day sun. I almost didn't see her sitting there, alone at a side table, whiling away the time next to a large-screen TV.

At first I couldn't think of what to say or do. After gaping for a solid minute or two, I sidled toward the bar again, but thought better of it. I wouldn't want her first sight of me to be with another drink in my hands; I wasn't about to bring back any old arguments.

So, opting out on the beer, I instead swiped a water bottle from the cooler by the counter and made my way over to the pool tables. While pretending to take swigs from the bottle and watch the game, I surreptitiously eyed her from across the room.

Ok, so that was a lie. I stood there staring at her from across the room the same way a seventh-grader eyes a pack of girls at a dance, wondering how the everyday task of walking across a floor and talking to a person became a herculean undertaking. So many thoughts and memories spun through my mind I was temporarily caught in stasis. I mean, I was the one who called things off in the first place. I was spending so much time and money on her I feared I was becoming addicted. Whenever I tried to steel my resolve not to be with her for a night I found myself only a few hours later curled up with her watching a movie or listening to music or any of a million things at home or in public.

And in the very last place in the world I would think of to look for her, here she was in full color, her delicious curves parked at a table in some two-bit cantina on what passes for an R&R base in today's Army.

Here I was just staring at her slack-jawed like an extra from Deliverance. Straightening my rumpled polo shirt and brushing some sand from my sun-burnt nose, I resolved to walk over to her. I didn't know if I was being weak or strong and I didn't care; beautiful creations like her are not usually found ten-thousand miles away from home.

I was walking up behind her, fearing and hoping how this encounter would turn out, when a cookie-cutter burly Marine fell into the chair and wrapped one meaty hand possessively around her. Too stunned to know what to do, I just kept walking past her and out the nearest door.

I walked down the street for the next hour, heart pounding. I resolved that whenever my tour was over in Africa I was going to look up Dr Pepper again, and see what we might have together.

---

P.S. I really drank a lot of caffeine back then, ok? It made sense to me at the time. :)