Of pump-actions and four-of-a-kind

Port-au-Prince: A view of the city from the Hotel Montana.While in some ways I’m a freeloading parasite, crashing in the spare bedroom at the hotel-run standalone house where my friend Jonathan lives, I occasionally feel that my perspective as a first-time visitor to Haiti has its value. One instance: when I reminded him, a few nights ago, that I was surprised to see the parking lot attendant inside the walled gates of one upscale hotel/restaurant toting a shotgun as he helped us scrape out a parking spot inside the crowded lot. This is the kind of job – "a little further back, a little more, you’ve got plenty of room on this side" – I’m used to seeing in the hands of crustached teens wielding nothing more menacing than a wallet chain. Since then, though, I’ve noticed security all over this town casually brandishing single-barrel pump-action shotguns. The guy at the gate of our hotel sometimes leans on his while seated, as a tired man might lean on an umbrella. Yesterday, as we left a grocery store, I noticed their rent-a-cops included one who surveyed the bustling street with, yep, a friggin’ shotgun strapped over his right shoulder. After two years here, following two more in the Dominican Republic, Jonathan is so accustomed to seeing shotties on the way to buy rabbit steaks and 8-year-old rum that he barely notices them.

The grocery was otherwise was what you’d expect, but not. We were clearly shopping at the grocery for bourgie Haitians, for well-heeled out-of-towners, for the blan. There was quite a bit of Spanish spoken inside – Dominicans, likely – and one Asian guy unaccountably pushing around a cart with what looked like 15 cans of corn and almost nothing else. The shelves were stocked with American brands of candies, sodas, cleaning products, cereals, toiletries, snacks, etc., etc. I went cheap and adventurous by buying spicy peanut butter to pair with Italian marmalade. I know, I know. I should be wading into local fare, courting intestinal parasites from the street vendors handing out sizzling weasel on a stick. Whatev.

The night concluded with a trip through the fortifications at the home of U.S. Embassy workers to clobber them and a couple of spooks traveling tech contractors in a two-hour game of Texas hold ‘em. Over Domino’s Pizza, Coors Lights and Sierra Nevadas I managed to grow a $25 buy-in into $102 by night’s end. It helps when you’re enjoying such stupid luck as having the big blind when you’re dealt an off-suited 9-3, obliging you to play such a no-account hand. “I just want everyone to know that I don’t actually think this hand is going to win,” I announced as I called before the flop. Then two 3s appeared and I shut my flapping yap. The fourth 3 surfaced on the river. That was the first of at least three hands in which I had the nut. Do that, manage to avoid bad beats, don’t chase straights, stick to light beer instead of Tanqueray and you, too, can quadruple your money in just a few short hours against people with a significantly higher pay grade than yourself.