"They're coddling him."

  "Like you should talk." 

  "My opinion?" 

  The cafeteria plates rattled as the dishwasher trays hit bumper-to-bumper on the rollers. 

  "Hand me the sprayer." 

  "If you knew the amount of and kind of photographs people, just regular people, have of most of these DC people, doing unspeakable things, sins and such, you might understand why the men want to safeguard a guy like Graham." 

  "Three more carts hurry up." 

  A shirt hanging over an apron had a curiously lumpy bulge. 

"Armies from all over the world,"

  his hands drew an earth and a world stage and he poked a finger into the palm of his hand.  "Here.  Now." 

  "Are we being invaded?" 

  He brushed the question away.  His gold bracelet getting caught in his arm hairs.  "From all over the world?" A kid with a pie sized lollipop asked. 

  "All over the world." 

  "I better let the girls know so everybody stays safe.  Those types get a little rough.  And most are here today, gone tomorrow." 

  He hung up the phone and rehung the receiver.  "That's my point.  Hear me out.  They can stay like that here today, gone tomorrow, or," he drank the rest of the pineapple juice in a big can.  "Or," a lady poked her military husband.  "Or, we can sign 'em up to fight with the best Army in the world!" 

  "You're crazy." 

  "Standing army at that," the military man said almost with a snore.  The ice cubes in his glass wilting.  "It's damn hot here this time of year." His wife pulled his shirt down over a hernia belt, took his glass, went to the wet bar and got him a mineral water. 

  "It won't be.  Standing.  It won't be for long." 

  Boys in shirts and shorts stood in the doorway suddenly and told they were going "cruising".

"Well, okay then, who gave

  them the coconut rum cake?" 

  "The Congo Line," one kid said, smiled with missing teeth, and belched. 

  "HE DID!" A girl pointed then crossed her arms. 

  The grown up pushed the den door open farther. 

  A man on the sofa covered in girls. 

  "Tellie!  (i)How dare you(i)

  The man stood.  The girls on his lap falling to the floor, his hands saluting and rolling out a red carpet in the air, and then into his pants pocket for cigarettes and lighter. 

  "(i)Just drop in without notifying anyone(i)." 

  "I'm not dead, why would I send notification?!" 

  The lady swooshed a clinging child weighing on her skirt.  "But still," 

  "But still nothing.  I was all over the place.  On TV." 

  "On TV," the lady repeated, her mind swimming. 

  "She's fainted!  Get me the ice bucket." 

  The bunny girls fanned the lady with a Reader's Digest and TV Guide.

"She's refusing to let us surrender Sir."

  "Why?" 

  "You want the long, short, or redundant version long-legged mac daddy?" 

  The man much taller than the students put his fingers to his face and massaged pressure points.  "Your daughters picked the handle Sir." 

  "Just tell me when the students get to take the tour." 

  "Copy that." 

  A flurry of clipboard exchanging and comparisons between named groups and scheduling. 

  "How 'bout us?" A diva of pop music asked as she poked a head around a corner.  "Nope, not you guys either.  The Koreans are kicking our asses in your field, your genre." 

  "Where is everyone?" 

  "Right.  None of us public count as anybody." 

  "They're in the Situation Room." 

  "For how long?" 

  "Well, it would've been shorter, but the ceiling caved." 

  "Oh my God.  Did they all survive?" 

  "Like you care." 

  "I'm a seat sniffer." 

  "Nobody else on the planet would admit that." 

  "I can't unsee that." 

  "Here," one man passed his brown bag lunch to a woman in charge of the crossing guard whistle. 

"THAT IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY!"

  The woman had been flying for thirty-two hours and her voice had settled way down deep in her chest, but the thugs clearly heard her because they froze. 

  "Would you lower the rug please?" A lady cop asked a man in a jumpsuit operating a pulley and boom.  "Where's the rest of my stuff?" 

  The three men bobble-headed there eyes every which way but out the window.  The lady cop walked to the window, spied the jet evacuation ladder and the pile of belongings down below on the City street. 

  The woman put her foot on the lowered rug and dug through a purse for paperwork and ID.  Young people rushed into the room and started looking everywhere.  "Did you find her?" 

  "Find who? I'm busy right now." 

  Other law enforcement came into the apartment.  Thugs were handcuffed.  Newspaper photograph'd in the hallway. 

  "I found them, I should get the money." 

  "But I drove you." 

  The father gave them both a ten dollar bill and asked, "Where were they?" 

  "They fell asleep on a train." 

  "It was adorable." 

  "Where are they now?" 

  Footsteps up and down the subway stairs. 

  The thump, thump, thumping of more trains coming and going. 

  "I've seen that piano before." 

  "What piano? I've just been to the eye doctor." 

  "That one there next to the hole in the wall.  With the flowers growing out of it." 

  "They smell dead." 

  "Where did you see it?" 

  "In this magazine.  Here, this one," it was taken from a briefcase. 

  "She looks like Caribini when she wears her purse that way." 

  "She does not Stanley.  She's in schoolgirl mode." 

  "How does she seem to you?" 

  "Better.  And look!" Several other women were wearing their purses the same way. 

  "Why would that be there Harry?" 

  "No idea." 

  "Here," a woman gave the man her purse.  "Go get breakfast, you'll feel better." 

  "You want anything?" 

  She shook her head (i)no(i). 

  "Lucy, put it on your list." 

  "What mum?" 

  "The piano.  Why here.  And get more sleep." 

  "Yes mum." 

"Why are all those people running

  from that side of Town?" 

  Professionals played off not knowing.  A "water boy" unfolded a cheque-note that had been hurriedly stuffed into his towelapron. 

  "Helms is in town." 

"What's that offensive smell?"

  "The Press pool." 

  "Da Queers."  

  The two men looked at each other.  

  "Leezy!" 

  "Oh God, my father." 

 

"Did you forget?"

  "Is that your pimp?" 

  The woman looked at the two men.  Salad on fork frozen between plate and mouth. 

  A waitress dropped a tray of food. 

  The woman disappeared. 

  "She's in there with," a boney man looked at a list and pronounced, "Shoes." 

  "OF COURSE, with legs like that how could the guy not be a ballerina?" 

  "I don't think he's a ballerina." 

  "But you just said he was.  And that you saw him in a ballet in Virginia." 

  "I did!  But they don't call guys who do that ballerinas." 

  "So the guys a faggot who has a sissy job?" 

  "What do they call him?" 

  "In Russian?  I'm not sure.  And male dancer sounds, I don't know, weird or too strip club or something." 

  "Honey, that is not where you want to be." 

  "Tell me about it." 

  "Can you please leave." 

  "The room?" 

  "The City child.  Let's get lunch." The beautiful bald person flopped the wig back onto head, took heels in hand, went into the living room and "rescued" a party platter from a coffee table piled with "coffee table books".  "Are you the one that hangs with the North Korean guy?"  An eyeroll, penciled brows up and down.  "Kind of direct child.  Are you one of them?" 

  "Naw, I'm a Christian Republican.  Where are we going?" 

  "Rooftop.  Better view." 

"What was your first," the

  sexy-to-the-hilt person licked lips, and continued the interview, "memory of me?" 

  The silouhette said, "You don't know who I am." Other silouhette paintings snickered and coo'd. 

  "I can't get it up anymore," the man being interviewed groaned. 

  City streets, broad daylight.  "What was yours?" 

  "Aw, come on." 

  "I just thought we could warm up for the actual." 

  "You wanna walk all the way there?" 

  "It's seventeen blocks.  That's nothing." 

  "You don't have money for a cab, do you?" 

  Stilettos and mile long legs stepped over an oily puddle between the curb and the street without looking.  Put two fingers, both hands, into glossy lips bigger than Mick's, and whistled.  The shrill was so loud it might have cracked glass if the window after window in that neighborhood hadn't been bulletproof.  

  "Uptown.  Don't tawk to me 'til we get there dawling." 

  Grand Central. 

  "Sorry I'm late." 

  "Anything fun?" 

  "Three jobs.  No." 

  "You?" 

  "Sigh." 

  "Let's grab a sbarrow." 

  "I won't be able to poop until a week from tamorrow." 

  "Diner?" 

  "None left." 

  "I left you in charge of preservation of our City and there's no diners left?" 

  She tipped the billfold.  Out came just a receipt. 

  "Hotel room?" 

  "Dry cleaners." 

  "Stay with him." 

  "But he looks different." 

  "He'll look the same as now all the way there." 

  "There where?" 

  "D.C." (click)

  "As I was saying little one," Willie took the steaming cup of black coffee from a nice looking Country woman, "It was my writing time." 

  "The commute?" 

  Some of the latté foam stuck to his moustache.  Another band guy put his own finger up to his own lip and tried to catch Willie's eye. 

  "Fly on your lips or something?" 

  "Same shitty 'tude, different day I guess," the man said.  Stood and fished a letter from his pocket.  Put the letter and a guitar pick on the food tray on Willie's lap.  Other men stood.  "Did he just quit?" One asked.  "Happens everyday.  It's his ritual until he gets his sauce on." 

  Willie got up and took a window seat.  Neighborhood after neighborhood was passed through.  Then he cleared his throat and started talking again.  "My point is that I believe in you kids." 

  A National Guard with a machine gun pointed at the floor near a door held up a fist. 

  "Quiet!" A civilian suggested.

"I assure you, we were not having sex."

  The woman shook her head slow and 

  (i)Vhat mess dees is?(i) 

  "Okay.  Okay.  So we can't go back that way." 

  "She said it was perfectly quiet and still then 

  "A (i)whoosh(i)?" 

  "Whatdoesthisguyonlyaskquestions?" The pilot was in shock; all tremors and teeth chattering. 

  "Like a zipper.  Yes, that's what she said.  Like a jacket being unzipped and then everything exploded." 

  "Well, probably not everything." 

  A hand reached over to prevent the use of field radio. 

  "We'll ask my father.  He always knows what to do." 

  A man named Viktor barfed in a lunch bag. 

  "It's been twenty-nine hours." 

  "It doesn't matter if it's one thousand.  We're not going without them." 

  The rug on the floor creaked lumpy.  A shadowy figure emerged and put the rug back neat.  "Too neat?" A hoarse voice asked. 

  "They already made it to Greece." 

"THAT'S HIM!"

  A wizened man in Ghandi pants looked at the travel DVD player.  "He was," the man searched for the word by taking the thinking man pose, standing up.  One that never sits down like Buddha.  "Show me," a well-known journalist in the movies pulled him gently but firmly to a two foot clearing between people with their backs to each other.  She mimed filming.  He acted the man.  (i)The man had a sachel. 

  "Or a briefcase baby," 

  (i)He had swords pointed at him.  But, but the sachel was stuck to him(i) 

  "Oh, I know it was baby." 

  (i)Others, apes?  Another group maybe came with rocks and the man got on his knees and(i) 

  "We know baby.  We know why everybody in this old world prays.  Right baby?!" 

  (i)the man took a pen from, oh it was a fancy man with a suitcoat, took a pen from his pocket, his breast pocket, and motioned for a rock(i) 

  (i)ha, ha, ha(i) "She said breast." Guy covered his mouth.  "It was real loud in my ear."  The woman tyrned the filming toward him and he yawned and stood up straight. 

  She made the keep going, keep going hand sign to the man telling the story.  (i)The man motioned for a rock and peace, no TWO men wouldn't let go of the rock.  Man gave them his watch.  They put the rock down.  Man showed stuck to sachel, the other two picked up rock, and(i) 

  The crowds started backing up.  The woman went to the man, mimed putting the camera on the ground, and helped the man act what had happened.  Just as a Hasidic Jew fell backwards over the man telling the story, she stood up and flashed a compact with a mirror then started saying, "They picked the lock."  Over and over until a live TV crew skinnied through to her.