One pressed a broken and muddy--under finger nail into the other's arm.  "See!  Stays tan." 

  I smacked her hand away before she could press on my sunburn. She put her thumbs in her tank top straps like it was her overalls.  "Still mad?" 

  Pursed lips and squinting eye. 

  The other one just stood thete.

  "Try that thing where you start with a question 'steada runnin' away." 

  "How in the world or hell does somebody run over yonder to the creek and wind up missing for four months?"

  The other one crossed her arms. 

  The cardboard door swung outward.  'i DID IT! I, OH, hello, finished a paragraph." 

  "Who"s that?" 

  "This is uh, Robert." 

  "Glaf you ask.  That was why I couldn't finish my piece." 

  Both girls plucked tall grass and stuck it in there mouths.  "We quit smoking." 

  'See, my friend here helped me get out of Knoxville and create a, what do you call it?" 

  "A Jesus bubble.  Personal space." 

  "Right, enough of that to overcome my amnesia.' 

  "You had amnesia?" 

  "Did you?" 

  "It was due to stress.  I think it happens so I won't snap.  Although," all five dogs came out of the porch area and peed everywhere, "Some claim I did snap by walking away."  The girls took the grass out of their mouths. 

  "I literally got hit in the head with a house." 

  "Lying?" 

  "I was too angry to be a therapist anymore, but not physically fit enough to stay in the services, so I," 

  "A whole house?" 

  "Like half, disintegrating, as we got the rafting company to North Carolina." 

  "Did the news ever decide if the dam broke or"

  "The news doesn't decide that or anything else." 

  "So I was convinced that I was Rhonda.  I was like who the hell is Robert?!' 

"This is your mother"

   We were in the barn having a musical argument that entailed almost yelling the lyrics, 

  Don:t rock the jukebox

  PLAY ME A COUNTRY SONG 

  PLAY ME THE ROLLING STONES 

  When I was summoned to the landline.  "This is your mother." 

  "What's wrong?" 

  "Why does something have to be wrong?" 

  "Nothing's wrong."

  "For once."

  "Is something wrong?" 

  "Well a lot of things about the world are wrong Mom, but I'm alright."

  "How about you?"

  "Mostly okay.  There's black mold at work." 

  "Eeewwww.  What's that?" 

  "Worse than mildew."

  "Oh.  Don't let it get on you." 

  "Shelby and I are working up front.  But the boss can't afford to fix it.  And," eating a Snickers, "So Shelby put every crate in the place in the doorway." 

  "Probably a fire hazard." 

  "Better than black mold.  Bad for breathing." 

  "Oh." 

  "That's not why I'm calling."

  "Oh?"

  "What is it?"

  "Your Dad is down about something." 

  "What's wrong?"

  "He thinks, well, he feels like you might love Everybody's Dad more than you love him."

  "What?!  That's out there."

  Chewing.  "Not even possible." 

  "Let me talk to him." 

  "He's sleeping." 

  "But it's like dinner time." 

  "The boys wore him out." 

  "Sports?" 

  "No.  You're funny.  Everyone was stressing about tariffs and stocks." 

  "Here too.  But, just don't spend and well, I can tell you that retailers did like pre-planning." 

  "Even for the holidays?" 

  "Especially for that.  Watch on the TV.  The media is keeping up with the non-chaos part of everything too." 

  She'd brought the phone up to Dad.  "Here's Daddy." 

  "I'm awake." 

  "Hey Dad.  It's Lara." 

  "How's things?" 

  "Okay I guess for a bunch of random people trying to make the best of nothing."

  "Sounds like fun wherever you are." 

  "It's okay.  Mom had told me not to wtite about our family, so, I'm learning some different family stuff.  But you guys are still the best family." 

  "Ok." 

  "He smiled!"

  "I love you guys the most!" 

  "He smiled bigger." 

  "And really soon I'll be traveling again and writing about other stuff." 

  "That's the good news," Everybody's Dad poured the last of the coffee into his cup and turned off the pot. 

  "Where too?" 

  "Back into the flood zone." 

  "Well be careful." 

  "Of course."

  "And, Dad!" 

  "Spaghetti and meatballs?"

  "Yeah?!" 

  "I love you the most." 

  "I love you too." 

  "K I T" 

  "Will do."

  Of course I started crying in hanging up so got an Everybody's Dad hug that worked its way out the door before too dark to see or the old bat croaks he winked at his mother, and the hug merged into a unicorn and bigfoot and mama hug happy that we'll all keep working on it.

  The footage from various video cameras kept coming in. 

  "Note says: This proves it."

  "I think the lingering political stuff kind of got swept into the same rubbish pile as real grievances," the insurance adjuster off the clock said softly. 

  "None of it's garbage," said the start-up recycling group over for beans without taco shells. 

  "I blame it on...." Another round.

   We wouldn't have believed that "trade wars" could rip apart social structure the same way as "hot war" but it kept rearing it's head in precious moments.

"Liberation Day" because

   it's been long enough that it's all been a tangled mangled mess of paperpushing, stat zapping, and left of center on true reading of where we're at.

  Next

   "Well, compared to...." 

  "The speaker had some good points." 

  "Does seem kind of true." 

  "And not really conspiracy theory." 

  "Brain computing."

  There was plenty to think about.  But out of thin air, not a lot of connection between competition and communism.  We trapsed through mud and tarps to bookshelves. 

  "That's what I'm talking about." 

  "The perfect haven." 

  "Did you bring the coffee?"

  "Where's the list of stuff to ask about?"

  "Remember, it's volunteer work." 

  "No pay?  I'm leavin'."

  "He's just being funny." 

  "Can I just live here?  I don't ever want to leave." 

  "Is that sarcasm?"

  "Nope." 

  Remember the mudbath had become something tossed between us like a trophy we'd won.  In that part of the yard that had collapsed because of a garbage retaining wall, we'd let go.  Fortunately for our feelings we'd already let loose.  Totally different with God involved. 

  We'd purposefully not eaten the same things we'd been eating for six months.  And we remembered stuff.  Like, I used to have a personality, and, that old goat that lived where we used to. 

  "Let the mud pull all the toxicity away." 

  "Fuck you.  That's part of my personality." 

  "Fuck you then for asking me to marry you." 

  Laughs

  "Oh hey new neighbor.  What are you doing here?""

  A sigh and an almost cry, then lips screwed into resolution.  "Well, I'd say it has to do with being a Jew but that leaves the field wide open for hmmmm I dunno the something stinks and sinister going on somehow being connected to the Jewish PEOPLE." 

  "Did you know they don't call each other Hebrews?" 

  "Really?' 

  'Who's there Martha?" 

  None of us knew what they were saying.  'Did you just call us dumb goyas?" 

  "No m"am.  That was a Hebtew quote about strangers being welcomed as friends

   "Until they prove otherwise

  "Which; they do often do.". 

  In the mudbath we'd taken turns at one point not getting out until resolution.  One day it had led to a heated debate about forgiveness.  We got deep on the topic of debt.  Then the unicorn, holding up her broken bikini top, came over sternly saying, Oh my God, Oh my God.

  "What is it?". Everybody's Dad sat up and mud slide down his chest.  He tried to catch it and patch it back into place.  "She just coated me." 

  "Not like there's a shortage." 

  'I need you." 

  "Well, that's better than I hate you.  It's a start." 

  "No, I really need you." 

  A paint stick stirred a pat of dried mudcake.  'Sure you do.  Like you ever need anybody." 

  "Knock it off." A pitcher of water was thrown in that direction.

  "What is it baby girl?"

  "Um.  Bigfoot is asleep.  But.  He's covered in wasps." 

  People jumped up in the mudpit.  The unicorn pushed people back.  "We shouldn't wake him up!' 

  Clumps of mud being brushed off splatted. 

  "He"ll panic." 

  "Bigfoot panic?  Never." 

  "She's right.  You don't know my son." 

  Everybody's dad sank into sitting on the muddybank.  His wife to be looked at him to gauge how he'd taken that.  Then her eyes grew wide and she pointed.  "Look at the holes!" 

  "In my bathing suit?" He crossed his legs quickly and his arms over those.  "No honey.  In the mud."

"This is NOT A COMMUNE!!!!"

   "Now, get yer crap and leave the Good Book."

  "But, but

  "No.  No.

  "But

  "But NO.  NO MORE BUTS."

  "SLAM IT AGAIN PARDNER AND I'LL KILL YOU"

  "Third time this week I been called out this way to re-glaze that pane of glass." 

  The steam from the thermos'd coffee made one of the men sniff the air harder.  That made him sneeze. 

  "No real

  "At least we switched out the replacement with what's that stuff called?

  A snarl.  "PANES OF glass left." 

  

  "What are you so angry 'bout honey?"

  "Don'tchoo honey me bitch."

  "Girls.  You gonna take a shower son?" 

  "Has everyone gone crazy again?" 

  A soft bass laugh.  "Not everyone no.  Just the people who didn't get any bacon out the pound." 

  "Okay.  Water still rust-colored?"

  "Well, dear, I take it back."

  "All of it?"

  "No m'am just the part about wishing I'd had girls instead of boys or could've been a good Dad if I'd only had girls

  "Don't call me m'am Mr. It makes me feel old."

  "Are you old enough?" He gasped and covered his mouth with a giant hand.  She slapped at him.  He pulled her halter top down. 

  "Told ya.  Their ain't a mature person in this whole fucking county."

  "It's a shame you think so.  Hand me that 2x4 and let's get this going.  It'll go great until people get sto

  He put his hand over her mouth.  "It is that season.  Before they slave us into summering the summering."

  "Must be awful." 

  "You'll see!  No bed of roses around here any season, but just after graduation, whew, there's a stampede of coming and going.  We never really stand a chance of getting ahead." 

  "One job at a time.  Or you'll get like those younger people with ten jobs each and what did the young gentleman call it?" 

  The man sat up spry.  "A young gentleman?  Up here?" 

  "Overtaxed?! Like too much on one plate.  Oversomething.  Lemme think." She put the hankie back up to her face and breathed through the stuffy nose.  "OVEREXTENDED," she yelled.

  "No need to yell.  I can hear you." 

  Someone sittin' sketching on the lawn square that wasn't mud got up and went inside.  Couples inside the house pointed at the two couples outside the house.  "That one can hear again already," the sketcher said.  The man finishing his coffee tossed the cup towards the window so that it would fall short of hitting the window.  Then he put hands in his ears, wiggled all his fingers, and stuck his tongue out.

  "Maybe everyone has gone crazy again," the guy in the bathrobe said.

  From inside the barn came a note: SUBJECTS THROWING WET DOG TOYS AT EACH OTHER

  "Look out, I'm going in." 

  She'd crumpled the note into a paper grenade and threw it at the notewriter.  "Give it up already.  You're not a social worker anymore.  And I'm not a nurse.  And YOU," she turned towards a mud and water splat covered girl, "You're NOT Uncle Tito, you need to come out of the closet or whatever this is."  She looked at the racks of laundered clothing and carefully stacked piles of stuff--islands in the flooded area.  "What the hell is this?" 

  The unicorn crossed her arms and stomped a foot.  "It's NOT hell.  Fact, it's a fucking paradise compared to the "real" world."

  "Everybody's Dad" appeared in the cardboarded door.  "Holy shit.  Wipes?"

  Anybody coming or going with a shopping bag had told him it was wipes. 

  A guy working on the back porch said, "Looks like he's got a whole harem in there." 

  The bone-tired man turned and looked at the heckler.  "Shut up or I'll shoot you." The people outside the barn grabbed tools and pieces of the project and moved further back.  He went inside and closed the cardboarded door.  "We need to talk.  All of us need to talk."

  "We're TOO BUSY." 

  "HIDING AWAY?"

  "PREPARING FOR THE LOCUSTS.  GO AWAY. Please."

  He went out and pulled the cardboarded door shut.  "Good news guys.  The shrews are almost tamed." The unicorn threw a soaking wet dog stuffy at the cardboarded door so hard it bulged outward.

  "You guys feeling sorry for yourselves or what?" 

  Silence.

  "Maybe a little," someone said quietly. 

  "Just thank your lucky stars you're not in the Middle East." 

  "Oh my God.  Are you Jewish?" 

  "Maybe.  Maybe not.  Who wants to know?"

  "I'm called," she mumbled her nickname, "And reason I ask is because I am." 

  All eyes fell on her and some mouths dropped. 

  "Are there others?" 

  "M'am?" 

  "Are there other Jews that got evacuated?"

  "It's not a closet." 

  "Did we say anything offensive?  We usually do."

Bigfoot and the unicorn

  blinked at each other after sitting quietly, facing each other, in the woods all morning. 

  The last of the tripping balls had left the night before as the thick black smoke of the "mile pile of tires" emcroached on the forest. 

  'We did it Bigfoot.  We helped everyone of them."

  Bigfoot was still too shy and not confident in himself enough to smile.  But his head dropped forward the slightest bit and his eyes looked up at the unicorn.

  "They're coming." A man taking a break from his grocery store jobs had removed the portable oxygen mask and gave a "head's up". 

  "Why are you crying Guardsman?" An EMS woman on foot with a lightweight backboard asked through hers.

  He woozed and knees bent but he straightened and he put his mask in a carribiner by the hose and switched its head to a full face shield.  "Must be the air." 

  The EMS woman didn't continue the conversation as the man tightened the fittings.  She offered the backboard but took it back before his hand could grab it.  "Injun."  The man slightly wheezed and the face shield fogged up on the inside.

"GET AWAY from MY chickadees!"

   "That's what she said?" 

  "I've heard it was the end of a rifle that said it."

  Giggles

  Raised eyebrows

  "Can't change us on that.  

  "So quit trying."

  "So in that scene

  "Right

  "Wait, explain it slow so this one can character define, and that one can keep up with plot."

  "MY therapist counseled to get into my life, not hand it over to....to Hollywood people." 

  "So the quiet one grabbed the rifle?" 

  "None of us are exactly Hollywood yet." 

  "Yeah, my husband to be, he, wants the reigns back."

  "Who took 'em?" 

  "Stupid Feds."

  Huh, someone acted shocked.  "They were there that night too?" 

  "Possibly.  But what I mean is that he's very independent.  And it's like the aid people want everyone to be hooked on help."

  "Hooked On Help, sounds like a book I could write about all this clean up work."

  "Oh.  Sorry

  "No need.  I'm getting used to being the fifth wheel.  This creativity thing has helped some," He started to slowly close a notebook.  A skeletal-thin hand put a wedge in the just leaving.  The tenderness made the man cry.  The man crying made a woman cry.

  A group moderator-on-duty poked a head in the door but couldn't quite see that far.  "You better not be talking politics in there."

  "We're not, we're, uh, painting." 

  The door was closed quietly. 

  "Why no talking politics?" 

  A burst of held-in emotions came out in a laugh hiccup and then a gasp sucked back in.  Not everybody knew.  "I mean my mother has the same rule at her table but...."

  "Everything's political."

  "Maybe not everything should be." 

  "Agree." 

  A comfortable silence came over the room.

  "You should see how people are using 'authority' against people." 

  "I see it everyday.  I see it." 

  "You do?" 

  "Girl, I'm a little older.  I think we thought it would change." 

  "If it's not petty officer fights, it's shutting the door on truth."

  "And people can't seem to rise above personal stuff." 

  "That's always hard."

  "Especially on businesses." 

  "These two people called each other out here."

  "Yeah, there wasn't a paint not spilled or pencil unbroken when the table got knocked over." 

  "That sent a bunch of people into their 'bad place' and just about ruinted this 'good place'".

  "Which we need 'cuz we're misfits." 

  The man's slimming from well-fed face sagged sad.  "Misfits?" 

  "Well, by choice mostly." 

  "Yeah, it's not sad." 

  "Did I take it that way?" 

  "Kindasorta looks like it." 

  "Even my face is tired.  Don't judge me too hard." 

  "THIS IS a judgment freezone." 

  "Why are you crying?"

  "Why are you crying?"

  "Must be the fire smoke."

  "Must be."

  Hands instictively re-opened notebook.  "We've got some coffee left.  Want some?"

  "Real coffee?" He just let the tears keep coming out.

  "Well, it's chickory from the Chicago Chicano."

  The man laughed a little and the snots bubbled out his nose.  "Hankie?" 

  Hands passed a clean kerchief.

  "You feel tired." 

  "Honey, I passed tired six weeks ago."

  "Are you also psychic?"

  "Occasionally psychotic, mostly fragile and overly sensitive."

  "Like raw?"

  "When I was younger."

  "Me too."

  "Me three." 

  "I'm not old enough to have been raw and now egg shell."

  "Egg shell.  I like that.  Can I jot just that down?"

  "Do you mean empathic?" 

  "I dunno.  Pass one of those dictionaries over here." 

  The door opened and a fireline worker in a totally blackened face sock came in kind of in shock.  People dropped everything and surrounded her without touching.  She put her exposed face, tear- streaked blackened around her baggy eyes into her hands and let it out.

  She pushed away a hug-giver.  "My breath smells bad.  Real bad." That made her laugh.  But her breath got caught in between upper and lower lungs.  She pointed wide-eyed at the corner of the room and wheezed, bag, my bag.  Someone off-duty from EMSing dove on the bag, ripped it open, found inhaler.

  "SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ON THAT SIDE!!!!!"  A man's voice yellscreamed.  And a wall of a barn shaking as someone shoved him into it like a hockey game body slam.  A Chief pointed at the ground.  The man sat down and shoulders slumped like a flour sack emptying.

  "You," the Chief pointed at someone else.  "Go in there and find out." He went back to the SUV he'd driven up in.  "It's borrowed.  Mine blew up."

  In the early 1990's a lot of stuff wasn't as established as it is in 2025.  As States and organizations we learned best practice on a lot of things by doing.  Doing our jobs and pursuing our interests.  After the storm and all during mud season and wildfire season (which was factually longer than typical) because of "factors" we also learned a lot from each other.  

  "It's sort of a cross-discipline approach," a steady-voiced guy with "feelings" explained to a group of people coming aboard situation about what all needed to happen with so many processes going on all around.  "And, the public does need to know stuff too." 

  Somehow there was only minor fighting about the politics of everything.  When lives are in danger is not the best time to protest, make points, push personal agenda.  Better to coordinate, but not share PPE...Joe Shmoe never thought of it that way (didn't have to, someone else got paid to)....it's different in the mountains (well, some things are and some are not....

  Trading information on the why's became dinner talk.