We stood there for another minute listening to Dodonge pontificate on the sacrifice of our boys in Homs and Damascus and Hama, rattling off place names he could be sure everyone understood. His eyes welled up with tears. Those tears would sell a lot of books tonight. Then Mafiha came back with another poem. This time he was likening peace to a mother waiting for her soldier-child to return home. The mother is by the river drawing water while the sound of guns echo from the other end of one of the two great rivers of Mesopotamia.

“Kos o she’r,” Shorty said.

“Yes. He is a shit-talker for sure.”

We instinctively made our way toward the exit, pushing past former colleagues I had to nod to and smile at.

Outside, Shorty lit a cigarette and said something under his breath. I could not make it out. He looked totally glum. He said, “You know, the government is not giving Ali-Akbar his martyrdom benefits.”

“It’s not like he exactly needs it now,” I joked tastelessly.

Shorty spat. “You know what I mean, Saleh. His family. His mother. The man even had a wife.”

“Are you going out to defend the holy places for the sake of the fringe benefits, or are you going for Imam Husayn?”

“Come on, Saleh! A man needs to feel some support in his death! Some martyrs get their faces on posters every year and their families get allowances for life. Others, like poor Ali-Akbar, may God have mercy on him, they don’t even get two words of thanks from you know who. You should write something about these things in the paper.”

“Is this why you showed up here tonight?”

He didn’t answer.

“They’ll hang me by the balls, Shorty, if I write about stuff like that.”

He spat again. “Then what’s it all for? What are we doing all this for?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. You guys are the ones going out there without the right permissions from the Guards. You guys head out there alone and then get yourselves killed. But it’s the Guards who have to practically glue you together and ship you back home so your mothers can mourn over you. You ever think about that? Maybe that’s their way of saying, Whoever goes to fight without permission can look forward to an afterlife of obscurity and zero martyr benefits.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Not much is.”

Shorty’s eyes twinkled. “But we’re going legit this time. The Guards came calling after we came back from Tal Afar. They’re the ones shipping us out. They need guys who can carry the load, if you know what I mean. And they know we can. We proved it to them in Iraq.”

“They’re sending you to Syria, though, aren’t they?”

Shorty nodded. “Our war’s almost over in Iraq. We need to graze elsewhere. You coming with us?”

“No.”