You first see her around the pool. You are all refugees from the shooting waiting to get out of Florida. She is being held up by the hotel people. It is the kind of grief you have never seen and that is when you know she is one of the victims of the shooting. She goes away and that's when you decide to get a drink. It has been a long day and there is nothing to do but wait for your flight in two days back to Chicago. So you go into the hotel bar and a man walks in with red eyes and the bartender says he can have anything he wants and that the hotel will pick up the tab for his room and order dinner. He just mouths thank you.
You take your drink and someone asks him just then. Were you there. Yes. My father in law was shot through the eye and it went through his brain and out the back. There is silence. Was his wife there? My mother in law has passed. You don't know what to say. The small hotel bar is quiet. Even the bartender has red eyes. You take your drink but the heaviness is so bad you go back to your table and pull out that Cuban cigar you picked up in Honduras. Anything to get rid of this.
And then you see them again. The woman who lost her mother and maybe her father is in the middle surrounded by family. They are a silent procession around the pool with their suitcases. They are leaving for a hotel closer to the hospital. So that is what a shooting really looks like. You finish your drink and light your cigar because nothing can dull the horror.
Madam President
You take your drink and someone asks him just then. Were you there. Yes. My father in law was shot through the eye and it went through his brain and out the back. There is silence. Was his wife there? My mother in law has passed. You don't know what to say. The small hotel bar is quiet. Even the bartender has red eyes. You take your drink but the heaviness is so bad you go back to your table and pull out that Cuban cigar you picked up in Honduras. Anything to get rid of this.
And then you see them again. The woman who lost her mother and maybe her father is in the middle surrounded by family. They are a silent procession around the pool with their suitcases. They are leaving for a hotel closer to the hospital. So that is what a shooting really looks like. You finish your drink and light your cigar because nothing can dull the horror.
Madam President
