"A beautiful woman has slim choices."

  "I thought you said they were Republicans." 

  The gorgeous men were being measured for wedding tuxedos.  The children busied themselves with leftover board game misfits.  In and out of the grown up's world.  Taking turns inventing the game rules, parenting each other, hiding in imagination land.  "They seem more like thugs!" One declared. 

  "Gorillas in fancy clothes," another remarked of the men. 

  "HEY! GET ME A SODA." 

  The body had big holes in it. 

  The men who'd gotten pinned down at workplaces and the Milk Barn considered it.  At first there wasn't much commenting which is what talking about a dead body really is -- commenting. 

  "Oh finally! A (i)real(i) journalist." 

  "It was a cadaver." 

  "Why are you so out of breath?" 

  The woman lit a cigarette.  "Trains are down again.  I walked from Oyster Bay." 

  A taller kid stepped from behind a trench coat covered ladder.  "Din't know there was a train from such a place (i)mother(i)." 

  "Palease, that was two weeks ago!  Look at all these othah bodies we found since then," the punk girl put down the paintbrush and headed towards the garage. 

"What is this?"

  The woman in the correct-size high heels was leaving a trail of indents in the pine needle covered soil.  Other women were working quietly--gathering, fishing, cleaning.  The high-heeled "modern" woman looked alarmed. 

  "You can come in here as far as the picnic table." 

  "Don't worry.  It's not satanic.  Not klannish.  Not even tribal." 

  "What is it?" 

  "Some of us are learning from the Native Americans how we take care of our men!" 

  A look of aghast.  "After all you've seen of (i)them(i) and their, their (i)ways(i)." 

  The Native American women had frozen in place.  "I like their ways." 

  "Not them!  (i)THEM(i)," she waved a manicured hand at the world-at-large. 

  "She a manhater?" Asked a black Native American person. 

  "She's the one who wants a husband so badly she's trying every which way to be an (i)ideal(i) woman." A look of flabbergasted at being talked about in front of strangers.  "A (i)good husband(i)." 

  In Cherokee someone said, "That's the tramp."  Someone else picked up a smooth flat matada.  "You better move.  And speak in English."  The person said, "That's the tramp." And moved as the corn grounding rock was plopped into place near the campfire.  The high-heeled woman's head sunk low into her fleece jacket.  Tears dripped. 

  "Probably fake." Someone said. 

  "Not for you to say that," someone else chided. 

  "I can say what I want." 

  "Not at the expense of (i)relations(i)." 

  A tissue was taken out from a sweater sleeve and proffered.  It was taken. 

  Sniffles.  A nose blow.  "It's not just about finding a better man out there, but, but," the woman broke down into crying. 

  "Maybe I should go find your bestie." 

  The crying woman shook her head (i)noooooooo(i). The other women went back to work preparing. 

"Buncha hot heads."

  "That's why they sent (i)you(i)?" 

  The man decided not to take his briefcase off the side-by-side.  A discussion of work-to-date on a legal issue with a major institution would have to wait.  "Actually," he deliberately chose his wording so as not to exclude anyone, "Some guy's or girl's scientific audio equipment charted an earthquake in this area." 

  "Really?  Is that what happened last night?" 

  The hungover people went about nursing themselves back to the land of the living.  "You tell me." 

  "An awful lot of noise." 

  "That's what we are to you.  (i)Our generation(i)." 

  "I'm sensing (i)tensions(i)." 

  Grumbles.  

  "Anyone want to start?" 

  Sighs.  And an "I thought we were on our own." 

  "TRAMP!" A late waker walked up to one of the young women and declared.  People literally ran and took defensive positions as if there might be a throw down.  Some stood behind each woman, others formed a spectacle ring.  People also bickered amongst themselves and pitched out words of support like (i)You tell her(i) and (i)stand your ground(i).  The noise. 

  This frenzy lasted for about four minutes and then everyone mostly just walked away. 

  "It's (i)not(i) going to be (i)you(i)!" Someone hollered. 

"Because you can't control this." Largely

  fell on deaf ears since the people being told that had trained every cell of themselves to be in control.  One after another individual journalism-type presented images of public gatherings. 

  "Are those machine guns?" The person representing some "media" that had been sent dramatically gestured (i)silence(i).  A freelancer ran finger through the air over a series of shots and tried to (i)read(i) theme.  Bigger and bigger crowds, fires in the streets, various leaders seeming smaller and smaller at various podiums. 

  "Hold the dog," a woman plopped the small dog on her husband's lap.  She pulled a private phone from a pants pocket.  "Pull my people," she told someone on the phone. 

"My battered woman's syndrome kicked up."

  "Understood." 

  "Guys, (i)look at this(i)." 

  People gathered around a tiny round table. 

  "What are they?" 

  "Fake newspapers." 

  The plane plunged through migrating birds. 

  "Like propaganda?" 

  "Must be." 

  "Like," the Latin teacher gently chided the popular buzzword, "The hijackers found reading material on a flight and used it to ply trade." 

  "Honey, we can't believe in the news right now," a man had called his wife and relayed.  He didn't flip the phone shut as various professors explained (i)what's what(i).

"You know I guess we should

  agree upon some standards about the thing." 

  Everyone just looked at the man.  Put in place as part of a team build design.  Not familiar with the field of work.  Had never even set foot on an Academic "campus". 

  "Where do you want these?" Asked a person with a five foot stack of rounded up books on a hand truck.  This was the first of eleven stacks hauled silently into the abyss of "meeting". 

  The man's portfolio laid open on the table.  A stock resumè on one side and a thin, blank spotted and  highlighted resumè on the other.  One woman started to leave the room. 

  "Where are you going? You can't leave." 

  "And why is that?" 

  "Because I said so." 

  "The restroom." 

  "Me too." Another person said and got up from the table and pushed the first woman out the door. 

  One by one the stacks of books were sorted into (i)knowns(i) and (i)unknowns(i); (i)canon(i) and (i)alternative(i).  The man at the head of the table was replaced again and again by others caught in the uncomfortable process. 

  Before being released from the room each person was required to choose a book that (i)may be questionable material for an educational environment(i).  The man chose (i)How To Build A Bomb(i).  The student assigned to help the man with a first draft of resumè chose one with the word (i)anarchy(i) in black on a black colored spine.  The word had been yellow or white and marker-colored over. 

  While most people held tongues in the darkening hallway some hissed (i)traitors(i). 

It was a long, long walk.

  We'd been cleaning up the camping gear and found a cooler with urine-y black liquid inside.  In the pool of darkness was floating a heart.  Not the kind we draw to make someone smile, but an organ!  

  Another jetplane flew in so low it shook the ladies teacups in the saucers.  "Oh my." 

  "That was close." 

  "Is it (i)really(i) a war?" 

  "A proper war?" 

  "Time will tell." 

  "Nothing really (i)proper(i) about war.  Look what it does to people." Eyes indicated the corner of the clubhouse.  Stacks and stacks of newspapers.  Totally messy hair bulging a hightower of newspaper into an unorderly thing. 

  "Should I go to her?" A girl child asked but the question evaporated into the heavily settling air.

"How can we have a team if there's chaos?"

  The fate of the entire summer hung in the balance. 

  "I think we should vote on it," said the kid holding a roomful of stuffed animals hostage. 

  "I'll think about it," the stubborn mother closed the door.  Turned off the TV with its terribly dark violent "politics". 

"Because you are a radical." She pursed her lips.

  "How do you figure that?!?" 

  "STAND OVER THERE." 

  "To the corner?" 

  The corner was filling up.  Someone put a thesis in front of his face and yelled out, "Is this not a University?" 

  Others wandering around in the hallways ducked into the classroom.  The tall woman and some other people murmured about each one before declaring things like (i)liberal(i), (i)standard Republican(i), (i)religious(i), (i)Academic(i).  The thesis asked, "Are we not all Academic?" 

  A low moaned (i)noooooo(i) had some gasp and the corner suddenly seemed more like a stall of nervous horses.  "This campus has been invaded," said a slightly taller moaner.  "By who? The Beatles?" A man with thick yellow glasses asked.  "Are the Red Coats coming?" Someone else asked.  Some of the moaners (i)tsk'd(i) and some said (i)sho nuff, sho nuff(i).  Someone looking female but with a very deep voice remarked, (i)Sho nuff, my sources saw peoples with GUNS(i).  A medium-sized woman dressed in a smart suit shoo'd that one all the way to a desk.  "Trying to make me the sitting duck I see." 

  "Your parfoom stink." 

  "What are we going to do in the dark?" 

  "We are definitely going to turn the lights on." 

  "Yes, you blind people need to see the light." 

  "Ow!  She just poked me with a pen!" 

  "That book you cited in your 

  "I didn't give a lecture 

  "(i)talk, is not in the canon." 

  "That makes me radical?" 

  "To some." 

  "What (i)is(i) in the cannon?" 

  A SECURITY-vested man craned his neck as he stealthed past the door, then reappeared with a handgun aimed at the floor. 

  "That doesn't make me anymore comfortable about those things," someone said.

"God bless you as alloo achtbar; got it." The

man made the notation in a thickening binder on cross-cultural studies.  Dozens of young men and women had que'd themselves to report symbols and meanings.  Children in various states of dressed for the day weren't (i)playing(i). 

  "Looks like we're not going to Trick or Treating," sad kids slumped into the chairs around the dining table. 

  "Big surprise," said an oldest girl rolling her eyes. 

  It wasn't long watching raindrops on the window before the garage door could be heard. 

  "Oh! You guys are home already," said a mom with a Snickers in her mouth.  Other moms mumbled at the sudden halt in the doorway, stifling cuss words at bags of candy dropped. 

  "A little more diplomacy boys."  The man fell back into a wall.  A woman went to wipe the blood dripping from a split lip and the man wearily snatched the towel.  Another man grabbed a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water from a silver serving tray held stiffly by a butler. 

  Almost in slow motion the cultural variety of young men and women fought.  The losers were dragged off the mock tarmac.  Thrown in a pile as recorders fell behind on writing details and photographers numbered numbers.  "It'll all be archived," said a man chomping on half a cigar.  He waved a (i)sigh-yo-nara suckers(i) to the newly minted in a golf cart jitney headed for "a real meal". 

  "Missing teeth." 

  "Probably drop kicked.  Go ask that one." 

  A scrappy young person leaned against a tree by one foot propping him or her alert looking.  Rubbed bruised knuckles while a tiny young woman dug through a tool box.  "Looking for?" Tall boots beside her expecting an answer made her shake harder than a tremble.  She closed the lid and slunk backward. 

  "Ten more to go!" Someone hollered near a whitewashed school bus. 

  "Why are the beatings so bad?" 

  A punk-haired manboy sighed and made a sarcastic girly dimple gesture on his own face.  "Because I'm stupid." 

  An Officer stepped forward.  "If (i)they(i) hadn'tah (i)infiltrated(i) our barracks, none of this wouldah happened." 

"Voodoo shmoodoo is what

  the wasp man said," told a kid who'd been to all the groups drinking church soda.  "Either way Father, we'd like you to come Bless our home."  The priest nodded absently even as he observed the bucket of ground up seashells and baubly beads.  "Of course," he said.