Free I Have Iraq in My Shoe by Gretchen Berg

floor, keys were on the dresser, and next to the bed was a huge full-length mirror. Definitely Warren’s room. The other available bedroom, opposite his, was darker, smaller, and just sadder. I wondered if someone had died in there. There was a tiny balcony outside the room that was a mere five feet from the next-door neighbor’s balcony. I did not know the next-door neighbors and wasn’t in a commune-with-the-neighbors kind of place just yet. I was still getting used to the idea that I was in Iraq and needed as much of a figurative security blanket as I could get.
    I called Warren on my new, university-issued cell phone and asked, “Can I have the room that your stuff is in?” He paused for a second, but then responded with the usual, “No problem!” I didn’t even care if he didn’t mean it. That fucker owed me. I quickly moved all of his stuff to the sad, dark, foreign-neighbor–balcony room. Why didn’t he just have his room in Adam’s villa? Adam was a boy! I wasn’t! I didn’t understand this. Adam didn’t understand it either and, again, just shrugged when I asked him about it.
    My mood brightened a little when I pulled my bags into my new, bigger, brightly lit room. Adequate lighting, hooray! And a full-length mirror! I dug around in the hockey bag to find my fancy Bose iPod docking station, plugged in my iPod, and began the Herculean task of unpacking. The combination of my music and the sight and feel of my clothes, magazines, toiletries, and general crap bumped my mood from brightened to brilliant, and I was truly happy for the first time since arriving in Iraq. As Janet Jackson sang, “Everywhere I go, every smile I see…” I lined up all my shoes in a little parade in front of the closet, so they were all there, smiling back at me.
    I went to sleep that night having unpacked enough to make me feel much more at home, but the villa was still very foreign. Knowing the two drivers were downstairs, I made sure not to drink any water before going to bed, so I wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. To reach the bathroom I had to walk out of my room and down the L-shaped hallway, which was nakedly visible from the downstairs entryway. I double-locked my bedroom door with the key and stuffed a dirty shirt along the crack at the base of the door.
    In the moments before drifting off to sleep, I had massive pangs of homesickness, and I missed my kitty cat, Herb. He was a seventeen-pound black Maine Coon mix, a very affectionate breed, and he would always press his fat, furry little body up against my torso, sigh deeply, and settle in for the night. I didn’t have anything other than a small, squishy pillow to snuggle up with, and the pillow didn’t purr.
    Herb had managed to express his vehement displeasure at my leaving. He was a smart little guy and any time I pulled out the suitcases, he knew I was going away. The second I turned away to pull something from the closet, Herb would jump into the middle of the suitcase, or bag, and park himself there, in a fuming manner. I could tell he was angry because his eyes were slightly narrowed. Herb couldn’t talk, but he was a master of communicating in bodily elimination.
    As I had unzipped one of the hockey bags while unpacking, a faint waft of urine passed under my nostrils. Dammit, Herb! Bending closer to the top part of the hockey bag, I confirmed that Herb had indeed peed on top of the bag. I panicked, thinking that the urine may have soaked through to the clothing that was packed on top. I didn’t want to be the new English teacher who smelled like cat pee. The hockey bag material was pretty industrial, though. Sure, they needed to be sturdy to carry all that hockey crap, but I’ll bet a few of those hockey players had vengeful kitty cats at their houses too, and no one wanted to be the pro hockey star who smelled like cat pee.

    *  According to Wikipedia, Ali Hassan al-Majid, military commander and chief of the Iraqi