The wild-eyed boy shouted up at the uniformed people on the large transport truck. No one brandished their weapons. "You want me to waste this terd?" One guy asked his superior. The young but mature and professional man looked at the dashboard and gathered his thoughts. "It's okay," he assured. Then he grabbed the megaphone. "Yeah! Consider me a faggot. And an Oriental. And a BLACK person. And a handicapped woman. YOU CAN'T KILL ME!"
The radio crackled. This is Will. You losing it brother?
The man pressed the walkie and megaphone buttons and started singing, I'm every person, it's all in me. A couple others started singing too.
"Do we go?"
"Task right now is to keep this road open."
It was the middle of the night. Coffee thermos empty, drank and pissed out. On point and charged with task people all over East Coast regions listening.
"Feels like we're holding space for the daylight."
A voice from the weeds by the side of the road. "Sir. Sir. Can I approach?" The man sat up. "Is someone talking to me?" The weeds answered, "I need to ask you something."
Grabbing a flashlight and checking for back up tucked away, the man asked, "You think the weeds will burst into flames?" No answer. "Stay here."
The flashlight reached across the road and spied eyes in paint and leaves on helmet. Gestures had the person step into the road, silently go through an identification process, and then the man asked, "Your question."
"What do you think we should do about the Jews?" The man yelped, ouch. "In what context?" He wiggled a pack of cigarettes from a pocket, offered. The offer was declined with a free hand palm no thanks. He put the cigarettes away.
"Ours is trying to figure this out."
Quiet.
Then the person rested the buttend of the machine gun on a boot and knee hugged it, started feeling for pockets. The flashlight's spotlight drawn back slightly so whole person including face could be observed. A small notebook was retrieved. Hands flipped through pages and a finger pointed at a word on a column of English words next to a column of Hebrew. The finger held firm as the notebook was held up to the light.
International
"Can I show my friend?" The man asked while gesturing, give it to me.
has been shattered." The barely-a-man stood there bereft.
In front of the rawhide door'd wigwam was clothing ripped to shreds.
"Dogs?" Asked a woman Marshal.
"Some were chased by dogs, yes," told a male co-worker. "But the dogs were all different. Like they'd gotten away from their masters and packed up."
"Do dogs do that?" A woman looked through binoculars in a 360. She lowered them revealing mesmerizing green eyes and said, "I'm a cat person."
"What in the tarnation is going on down there?" A radio asked.
"That's the General."
"The units have scattered."
"Everyone was supposed to have been making way North. And now this shit." A late twenty-something Officer, faced smeared with paint and tactical pants with a leg ripped almost off, pushed his mushroom hair towards the back of his head.
"Oh no." She held the satphone device away from an ear as a man kept bellowing. "I don't think it would be helpful at all," she talked to the air around the device. Snapped it back into it's carrying cradle and straightened her back. "He's coming back down." She looked at the ground and said.
He drove up in a spitshone lavender colored classic pick up truck. Oh man. That's embarassing. Guys mumbled on the horn. "It's my wife's!" The burly man bellowed. Then he pulled and pulled at the seat belt jammed into a rigged-with-a-lock seat belt click it. A Correspondent took a picture of a redfaced and spitting man not struggling and not swearing, but repeating, "It's my wife's!" He withdrew a stout knife from his utility belt and cut the seatbelt. Lifted the door handle and the door didn't open. He jammed his shoulder over and over against the door. His satphone device vibrated. He answered, "I'm getting there Sir or M'am," and hung up. A magazine Editor grabbed a walkie talkie, ducked behind a rock, and taunted, "Try unlocking it."
When the man did get out, he took off his utility belt and left it on the front seat. People spewed bits of information at him as he made way towards one of mine. He stripped out his greens, out of his whites, and approached the young man buck neked. "What's going on son?" The boy was staring at the lake in the distance.
There was no actual lake there but some visiting pastors had reinvigorated the churches with pastors away on missions in the all-night fire and brimstone way, see, and the THOU SHALT NOT KILLS and the "counting on y'all to have my backs" were twisting the young man's mind into frozen.
No lie, right about that time a gaggle of women folk came lightly marching up to the trailhead. All knee socks and grandmother's very hiking boots, the wife of the neked man yelled out Honey. What in the hell?! He didn't turn towards her but waved his hand back off, back off. She stopped short of proceeding and got poked in the butt by a fishing pole. The snowblind man in hip waders called out a shorry.
Through the woods in a kind of reverse echo came the summer's familiar cry: TIMBER, TIMBER, TIMBER, TIMBER, TIMBER
TIMBER!!!!
"That sounded close," a campcook with a big pot told a greenjacket named Granny. "Should I be scared yet?" The sound of a chainsaw and group chant of PUSH, PUSH, PUSH mustah collided in the action because it was way less than thirty seconds before a leafy tree top whooshed in a resounding and bouncing crash. Nobody flinched except for Granny who sucked in his scared in a backwards stifled scream and wound a ladle and wooden spatula up in the front part of his just bathed towel. The cook turned to look at him. And snortily growled, "Whadyadoinatfer?"
"Ready to run. You think I should run?"
"Nowin'llhaftawashthose good."
Dirt and gravel and leaves and twigs rushed from the felled giant as gator-clads and jumpsuited heavy chain carriers single-filed past headed towards road.
"Cun'tthinkno boozechet."
"Somebody needs to look at a map!" A snooty-sounding man with a pipe clenched between his teeth and trying to button his longcoat over sidearms strapped to thighs couldn't really order. "But that won't really shut him up. Watch."
"Okay I will but is this the training?"
A little car with two doors different colors than the body came from the direction of where the chain carriers went. It didn't look like there was a driver. But there was a very large, muscled black man in a Garrison cap and tan short sleeve shirt in the passenger seat. A tiny, wizened-looking woman got out of the car by pushing the driver's seat forward. This honked the horn by squishing a kid's face against the steering wheel. The little old lady opened the passenger side door and grabbed the ear of the big man. Twisted, hard, and pulled him out of the vehicle. He stooped so it would hurt less. She dragged him over to the woman in the hiking boots. "ARE THESE YOUR MEN?" She demanded to know.
A woman with an eyebrow penciled moustache behind the waders laid her hobo kerchief on a stick down on the ground. She put hands on hips after rolling up the sleeves of the old tuxedo blazer and sung out, I just might be m'am. Not exactly sure if this there is there yet or where we are exactly. She scrunched one eye and looked at the hand drawing blood from the man's ear and right into the woman's eyes, "What if'n Iyam?"
The little bitty woman looked up and spit at an angle on the ground. "ASK!" She barked at the man in the bear trap grip. The man tried to turn to face the hobo but blood spurted out on the tiny woman's face. Above the baca stains at the corners of her mouth. "I'm, ma, I'ma s'posed sposed to ask why the units broke up suhm'am."
"Let go of this man's ear," the hobo took the slightest upper body step forward. The woman spit at an angle closer to just in front. But she did. The man in uniform stood up straight and tall and brought heels into a tap and square and saluted in the direction of no one. "You were hurting him. And your hand is dirty."
The saluting man stayed saluting. The kid in the driver's seat got out and unlocked the trunk. Put a hand out to help a slightly taller kid with similar hair twists in rows onto the ground. The taller one walked over to the hobo and curtsied the sundress over jeans. "You newspaper?" The hobo looked around as if in a dream. "I may be," she said. The kid put hands on hips like the hobo. The hobo crossed arms. The kid crossed arms. Then they had a staring contest.
The shorter kid locked everything on the car and put the keys down the front of also rolled up jeans. Walked over. Observed the staring for four long missussippis then snapped fingers in between. "You first!" The taller kid said. Hobo mimed was so happy, then night, sleeping, woke up, looking, looking, sad. The shorter kid stood on tip toes and patted the hobo's shoulder. Hobo signed a thank you. The taller kid blared headline and lead...
"We here 'cuz his cousin [head shove at saluting man] come from bottomland and tole."
The hobo knelt on one knee and put a hand out like wanting a biscuit. "What'd she tell?" She just more than whispered. The kid put both hands on the hobo's shoulders. "Steady youself." The hobo nodded yes. Yes I will. "They's was coming up, all dem."
"What happened?"
"Cousins getting to Georgia to come back, tole."
"Grapevine?"
The kid nodded hesitantly. "Dogs and poeleese and chain gang." Kid looked at the barefeet on the ground. "I didn't even see that there'ses gravel here."
"What else grape?" The hobo asked on both knees then.
"Pretend I'm a leaf. A big leaf covering up alls mine."
"I will, but what else. What did the cousins say?"
The kids face turned to stone. Then remembering. Then fought through scared shakes and blurted, "Theys hanging 'em in trees a, ah, again." The child tried to push away a wave of tremors running from knees suddenly knocking together and running in place at the same time. The wave pushed passed hands pressing away and clutched at chest, then throat, running, face making every emotion. The child collapsed into a seizure. The hobo straightened the legs and arms and yelled BRING MY BAG.
"Salvation is of the Lord Jesus Christ."
St. Patrick winced as another person in fellowship with him was persecuted. Not an "important" person, a woman who'd lost her family and didn't speak much. But fire-baked bread and hummed.
Lindesfarne was being invaded again. This time, the Moslems had followed some Vikings in on the tide.
Most of the manuscripts of English Word and Law had been stashed away in kingdoms and caves. Others were spattered with blood and guts while being memorized. While being explained. Some of the monks quietly learned bits of others' language, gestured with gentle-strong hands in the air, on the floor, in shadow puppetry on the walls...this means this, that means this.
The woman who looked like a lot of women at the camp poked a wooden spoon at the phone keyboard. "Give me that!" A camp leader typed in the question. The question was translated into the woman's primary language. Her eyes grew wide and she looked shocked. Then started guffawing loudly and bitterly. She grabbed at the skirts near her down there and started speaking wildly in Turkish. It was brash against the serene backdrop of nature in America. She pointed at several people as if her fingers were a gun. And heaved imaginary VD at everyone looking at her.
"Did ya guys sing last night?"
Some men and women rolled up sleeves to have blood taken.
"Where's the tent or whatevah ta donate?"
"Down that path to the big field."
It was big enough and flat enough for a medivac to come and go from.
"It's complicated."
"How so? What the hell?"
"Some are saying it's people not obeying orders! But that can't be addressed in the situation."
"What about the Kinesset decisions?"
"What about them? How can they collectively decide stuff from shelters and," the woman's voice trailed off. The young man had picked up a pot of boiled underwear and quickly moved towards the creek.
