"He's NOT A THING! HE WAS ON A SHIP IN

  the Middle East you fucking snob." 

  "GET AWAY FROM HERE!" 

  "Help me get him up." 

  "Maybe try the embassy." 

  "Is yours, I mean ours here, open again?" 

  "It was never not open, just not totally open during, (i)airquotes(i) the rioting." 

  "That's the current conspiracy everybody's in on." 

  "Be careful going through these neighborhoods on the way," a shaky hand with a broken fingernail pointed at a pocketmap. 

  "What do you mean (i)debateable(i)?  There's no debate: We won." 

  Everybody was in sudden shock.  Like an atom bomb had smashed all logical order into smithereens.  How could militaries not be what they once were only thirty some years before?  How could it suddenly be a "private war"?  How could a nation not perform an ending agreeable to all parties involved.  

  "I guess it depends on how you define winning." A man said as if he were looking at a cereal box. 

  "You called an IMF person a 'fucking snob', you better see what to do there." 

  "Yes." 

  "Inconclusive." A note editor told someone about the evidence of the final battle.  "We haven't had time yet." 

  "But we..." A hand was held up, a radio was reporting on markets. 

  "It's not what you think." 

  "What do I think? I wasn't expecting you to be one more person using my brain to slant the story." 

  "War always requires propaganda and propaganda is a twisted matter.  I was talking about you thinking it's snobs versus scrugs.  That man who writes for (i)The Economist(i) he was explaining GDP and debt and all that.  It made sense, why this sudden tumult." 

  "He's married." 

  A sigh.  "I'm a loner since Bosnia." 

  "And yeah, the money shit's all screwed up but there's something else going on too.  Has to do with meaning and that being disattached or dislocated from place." 

  "Tell me on the way.  They'll be in that meeting for at least an hour or two." 

  Women with canvas bags of library books crowded around a Navy man in gleaming whites.  "We want you to get our juniors unstuck."  The man's eyes lowered but not to the floor, so he could focus faces in trifocal eyeglasses.  "I can't do it ladies." 

  "Why not?" One stomped a houseslipper and put a hand on hip. 

  "I simply cannot get them unstuck because they aren't stuck!" 

  "What sort of fiddlefaddle is that?" 

  "The sort that grown women ought to understand about men in the services." 

  The ladies moved off.  "Why did I come ashore?  Oh, that's right, I'm a grown man under orders." 

 

"Why weren't you there today?"

  "It's boring because I don't understand it all.  Fish and chips?" 

  "Too tired.  Not boring.  Fascinating." 

  "To each their own." 

  "What did you do today?" 

  "Hung out with Lucy!  See my smile?!" 

  "And what did you (i)do(i)?" 

  "No great accomplishments but little steps.  Towards some research on those history blurbs she comes up with." 

  "Are these muffins old?" 

  "Not too old.  Not moldy ass." 

  "Alright not moldy ass muffins, prepare to be eaten." 

  "In between buildings, there's this whole process to getting access to history, we saw that gay politician." 

  "What was he doing ?" 

  "Well, being human shielded by others and bombarded with lunch sacks." 

  "It'll cool off." 

  "Just a hot button issue for most people I guess." 

  "The hot chocolate in the coffee, novel, excellent!" 

  "We got called (i)voyeurs(i) by a snarky person." 

  "Hmmm." 

  "For us it was more like seeing ourselves as ourselves, witnessing contemporary, glimpsing history, figuring out the puzzle." 

  "Us? Are you that close?" 

  "Not at all, but we checked in with each other as a team on a mission." 

  "Not a team feeling for us today.  Everyone seems ready to jump down throats and there are litrally people preventing it all from coming to blows." 

"At the brics info session."

  "Let me check, I jotted down some non-on-point comments from each of them." 

  "She said relations were going better before those two men married each other in front of everyone.  And that, that wasn't a religious judgment as much as tangling socialism with a need to be fluid in the politics of war." 

  "Thank you." 

  Some were more morally outraged.  As they were at priests sexually abusing people.  "Bad example", "deplorable", "wretched precendent", "the end of civilization". 

  Others were "proud" of the "fearlessness", "dedication to truth", "pushing the envelop", "advancing the cause". 

  For most people it was a blip in the passage of time.  One more person carrying on as a unique individual in bigger establishments.  Maybe it was possible to be professional and whatever else people were into. 

  But it also brought to the fore deeper issues around romance's place and some sort of divisions between children and grown ups.  These issues were important to people and could raise the temperature in same old, same old conversations. 

  In some ways "the act" happening so publically re-ignited some passion for understanding cause and politics and how both are personal (based on belief) and can be "group".  And begged questions about influence and power in relation to Establishment. 

  It seemed timed with "kitchen table" and "grassroots" as a sociopolitical happening. 

  "Don't be rude," a barrister said to a man blocking the door to a restaurant.  "Bleeding heart liberal," the man accused.  "Just really hungry," the barrister said tiredly.  This seemed the most reasonable response to people and events not life and death.  (i)It's all happening in this crazy world, but we need to keep functioning.  Well, I do anyway.(i)

  "Well, it's not a handicap!  It's something you chose to do and forced on everyone else." A friendly-enough was overheard saying to the gay politician who'd locked himself in a wheelchair lift.  "Your exceptionalism is your ego and your ego will be the death of you."  The man seemed like a body in that space of suspension in a rollercoaster dip.  The momentum of public spectacle having ebbed and the reality of cause meeting general setting in.  "I care about you as a person.  God, a human being.  It would be morally worse to off yourself." The UP button was pressed.

"At the time it was political solution," a man lowered himself

  into a chair.  A mix of world history and experience his talk was a careful walk not a tread.  

  "People who didn't live through a war in their homeplaces don't really know about how devastated people and place can get." 

  The tall man had been revived with smelling salts and given a wool blanket which he had around his shoulders. 

  

  "So he seemed to be saying it was impossible for people to make up and truly be 'friends' given the shape of the human psyche at the end of World War II." 

  "And given the hard facts even when there was sentiment for peace." 

  "And, of course, changes," the students groped for what heard to apply to present situation. 

  "I did.  I made it clear that getting to meet some living history people like Gorbachav is not necessarily going to win my vote." 

  "You know," the older student amongst the younger students said, "A lot of people in the wars didn't think of themselves in a historical framework.  And didn't have perspective of anything but their own situation." 

  "We're finding that out ourselves.  Like superiors have different information than us." 

  "Exactly." 

"It's not ours," one de-bomber said to another.

  "Are they lying?" 

  "Just trying to get out of working this scene?" 

  "Did terrorists put it in there?" 

  "Is this how they recycle the industrial military chain of events?" 

  "Are they going to melt cities too?" 

  "How did those get in there?" 

  "Are they nuclear?" 

  "Was it Soviet?" 

  The press conference podium was asked all these and more questions.  All recorded, all supposed to be passed along to experts.  Only the experts were caught in a stop-and-start of travel and tools for conferencing. 

  "And keep ours away from the Witch's Tit." 

  "Yes Sir.  Thank you Mr." 

  Inside the room the gravity of the situation weighed on minds like lithium.  Someone had put a fresh chunk of snow in the water pitcher.  Someone else warned, (i)only sip(i). 

  "But surely there's enough snow for everyone." 

  "You are all severely dehydrated." 

  "So they just piled up a lot of the World War Two stuff?" Someone asked an Elder.  He nodded slowly. 

  "And no one could be sure who was carrying it off," a woman read what notes the man had been able to save from an accidental fire.  The Elder nodded again. 

  "There's NO DEAL," a tall man said to everyone in the room.  "And if you knew why no deal in Iran you would all, would all," the man fainted.

The little cluster of artists did not

  want to talk about politics.  "Useless squabbling," one said.  "Waste of time," another agreed.  "Make yourselves a sandwich.  There's no catering here." The loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly was laid out on a picnic table. 

  "Do you guys live here?" 

  "I'm local.  They are not.  I'm a potter." 

  "You make pottery?" 

  "I'll give you a studio tour later." 

  "I'm not sure that it is 'existential' or even a crisis.  It's just something I'm stuck on.  For a lot of the people who were trained they come up with something to mass produce and that's the success.  Making a hundred of something." 

  "Do you not have ideas?" 

  "I do, it's not that.  More like, I don't need a hundred clay feet or a thousand smiley faces with missing teeth.  I mean why portraiture our misery." 

  "Are you in misery?" 

  "I try not to be." 

A string of lanterns on caribiners hung

  inside a box truck.  Two convoys were converging. 

  "Listen to me.  Just me." A man told a woman.  Eyes looked all around, settled on the man's face.  "This whole thing's changed again." 

  "What thing?" The woman slammed down a cigarette purse.  The plethor strap which was already torn, broke.  She sat on a crate.  Put her throbbing migraine in her hands.  Hands covered in tie-dye colors.  The man took her hands in his.  "What did you girls do last night?" She blew out a long breath.  "Babysitting for some Officer couples." The man took this in with a gentle but strong nod, (i)Oh(i).  "Did the kids survive?" A little laugh.  "Not my forté." 

  "Well, what in here is going to get this stuff off of you?" 

  "Why?" 

  "You are needed." 

  The woman's sharp sarcasm had cooled and she let her eyes look at the truck floor.  She looked at the man's dirty pants.  "Who's going to do your laundry?" 

  "I'll have to do it myself.  There's some real towns on my itinerary." 

  "Should I ask you, needed how?" 

  "I don't have all the specifics myself, but," the woman started to squirm on the crate, "I know, you're not committing, here, now." 

  The man put his callused hand under her chin and lifted her face.  "I think you can do it.  They explained it as a sort of linchpin position." 

  "What the heaheck is that?" 

  "I'm going to let them explain it." He knocked on the wall to the cab.  It opened. 

  "The tornado guys?" She asked. 

  "That's not the only thing we chase," one said without looking away from a monitor scrolling hundreds of "mugshots". 

  "All bad guys?" The woman was drawn in.  "Not at all.  People filtered out of jobs by algorithms." 

  "What's algorithm?" 

  The guy in the driver's seat looked at a huge watch velcro'd to the dashboard.  "Got time for dinner?" 

  "Oh shit!" The woman dug a shoelace with a wedding ring and cross necklace stuck to it out of the cigarette purse.  "How 'bout not dinner but beers?" 

  "I could get onboard with that plan." 

  The guy in the passenger seat absently shook his head (i)no(i), "Doesn't work for me." 

  "I'll go get a pizza," the man said. 

"Super shined," the boy in a tall man's janitor jumpsuit said dramatically.

  "They're coming!" Another boy in a more broadchested man's shirt reported as he squeak-sneakered into the lobby.  A deep breath and adjustment of coffee trays on both arms. 

  The clicking of heels on the sidewalk growing louder.  

  Louder.  

  Suddenly a safety whistle blown.  Heels almost skidding to a stop.  The voice of a woman.  "How dare YOU!  How dare you, and you, show your faces here. How dare you bring such dark days on our city!  On our party!  On this sacred place!  AOC, GET UPSTAIRS.  NOW." 

  "Yes m'am." 

  Only one woman passed through the new security entryway and paused.  Dropped head, hands over eyes.  Smoothing eyebrows and brushing off the devastation of reprimand.  Starting for the lobby. 

  "Go slow," said the janitor boy, "I just polished it." 

  "Thank you." 

His voice boomed,

  "OH, SO BY POLITICAL OPERATIVE YOU MEANT SOCIAL DRAMA QUEEN!"  One man pulled up his trousers. 

  "How'n the hell are you?  Been all over the world I bet." 

  "What's she doing here?" 

  More correspondents plowed through the partiers following the pastor's son-in-law. 

  "You all went off to do world class journalism and left me here to my own devices," the tall man with a camera strapped to his head looked at a shorter man with a camera strapped to his head.  One clicked the other's by a little hanging button.  "Same time next week?" 

  "Who are all these people?" 

  "Pretty random group.  Most are out of their minds high or something.  A lot of other party people." 

  An older correspondent covered the eyes of a young one. 

  "Put this over your head," the tall man was given a paper grocery bag.  "Why?" He whined.  "We can't leave here without photographing." 

  Not all magazines have the same standards. 

  A literary agent clicked the camera without film a few times.  The entire scene was filmed by several people as practice, group technique. 

  A man stepped forward from a doorway and scrawled in marker on the grocery bag on the tall man's head, (i)Pat's expecting you to be there.(i) 

  The hallway filled up with the scene busters.  "Well, now you know lass.  Boys have dingdongs." People blushing.  "He's always got a theory.  That guy in there, not invited.  This quarter's talk will include touching upon apocalypse and them," the man's pointing finger clipped a woman's nose, "Packing the Courts!" 

  "I think it's (i)stacking(i) not packing.  But I don't know everything." 

  "Who are those kids?" 

  "They wanna do it too, but not drugs and sex and booze." 

  "Really?!  What's the draw then?" 

  An insta-camera was passed forward.  "All out?  Morals in tact?" A photo was snapped, the door was closed.  The memo center-stage.  Photo slid under the door.  "Let's go!" 

"Most of mine had a conscience," one young woman

  snapped at another young woman. 

  "What's the conversation du jour in the living laboratory this morning?" An older correspondent asked a young man.  The young man's face froze.  Somebody had talked to him and not just anybody but (i)this guy(i).  Had been in the Cold War (i)and(i) working in the Gulf.  "Started out about teachers and trainers.  Could be a cat fight at any moment with those two." 

  "You're saying mine doesn't." 

  "I'm not saying that.  I didn't say that, make some comparison statement between the two men." 

  Arms crossed.  Practice at holding back stinging tears so makeup doesn't run. 

  "But since you took it there I'll tell you I've worked with both.  It's complicated." 

  "Simplify." 

A woman pelted a reporter

  in the back with a shoe.  San Francisco street sidewalk.  The reporter later reported being scared shitless, exhaling the stress in a deep meditative breath, turning and picking up the shoe.  Of course, it was not obvious who threw it.  The reporter looked at the feet of everyone at a bus stop.  No solo barefoot. 

  Two cigarettes on a bench.  A bicyclist messenger.  A note.  The gist: we need to talk, some of us being stalked by serial killers, health department gave out home addresses.  Group lunch at such and such a place. 

  "Wigger don't get mad, don't be mean," a surfer dude with three PhDs and a match to the thrown shoe stood outside the beansprout/lattè joint.  "Don't you ever work?" A hand came from behind the guy and beckoned with highly polished fingernails with tiny scenes painted on the polish for the other shoe.  "I saw you.  You better get better at hitting and running before anyone gives you a gun." 

  "Me no need gun, me have man." 

  "Yeah, yeah.  At least she did last night." 

  "That's disgusting.  Unsafe and degrading to all women." 

  "Obviously you weren't watching or you'd know we were safe." 

  "Somebody was," a shirt and tie guy smacked an envelope against surfer dude's chest.  "Bring those inside and tell me how you're political." 

  "I am absolutely not." 

  "In." Nobody made a move.  "What's the hesitation?" 

  "Could be you assuming."  This drew a chortle from a red headed woman who'd stepped out to smoke and stood there watching like a video camera.  "I think she's the political one," a chin thrust towards the reporter. 

  "Oh, look at the time, and I'm not even at the right restaurant.  Nice seeing you."