Some of those world event days we were more swamp than tidal pool. Flights grounded, waiting for university to start, not yet assigned, no fire, readying for Fair....
Put out money if yah poopin', our favorite foodserver on a day off, Kelly, yelled. She was uncrumpling dollar bills and spritzing herself with Dollar-store-spritz. I've come to hate the end if the month and I NEVER used to hate anything or anyone.
A getting-out-of-the-workforce big paw hand squished a calendar with half naked Chippendale men down tight against the day's six pack. But I'm young, I'm extra thirsty. The man rolled the window of the pick up truck up, medium fast but didn't squish fingers hanging in there.
And don't bring up the age thing, you rude shit, the sexy grandma got out of the pick up and passed out generic cigs. Taking one got the hands out of the window block: old enough, on your own boy.
Someone's favorite tee shirt read:
I AM an energy person.
Throw it out,
I'll give it right back!
"I'll just hold it 'til the airport," a young journalist in her taller mother's powersuit with shoulder pads told a guy trying to reach a collecting pool of pho-togs.
"No telling when." A man who'd had to practice piecing together copper wire in the forest in conjunction with scraping weeds down to brush, fire line training, half smiled and warned. We scraped the coins out of a coffee-sogged console and told the woman to go buy a book. "What kind?"
HOW TO
FINALLY! Nan slammed a book shut against the dashboard. WHAT'S WRONG? A short-haired guy almost jumped into the truck. Brian's finally here.
A killer blazing hot bigger wheeled pick up pulled up. Like he'd heard her say finally he was already griping if she hadn't just left all the shitcrap there. An almost deflated raft was poking a rounded corner out from under a tarp. Good job Bri, she made sure to compliment his tarp it down skills. We'd spent half the night discussing what our other halves really needed. And we were sure it wasn't just the guys or just the girls who were having a fingers-in-the-air-quote crisis of confidence.
Any better? Another scholar came and asked.
Hard to tell, no not really. In and out of fireline ppe, construction boots, ripped to shreds flip flops, sneakers and tramping around like a mountain goat UNDECIDED about career had my ankles swollen and painful. I'd propped them up on the dashboard and got ointment on the window which caused someone to practically frantic scream NOW I HAVE TO CLEAN IT AGAIN!!!!!
There were some us dragging feet for as much as we were also bottles of champagne RET TA GO! People had been working multiple jobs, squirreling money, doing the Twelve Steps on getting clean and getting all the society paperwork up to snuff. We were desperate to un-swamp. The Republican chants of Don't Tread On Me were more than appealing, it felt good to claim that kind of independence. But pennies never really adding up to much also made Union songs strike a chord too.
I don't really know if I can do it.
Let your bloated unbloat?
It's NOT bloat. Sprained. School. Chained. Committed.
Not like you to give up.
No not a quitter. But what's the point? Learn all about the world to sit in front of a TV?!
We don't really know what'll happen. The images of End of the World warners were fresh on our minds. As were the sights of Christians spewing hate and people cheating the system. A lot of issues exploded like the blending-in plastic explosives (looking like rocks and vines) we'd learned about in the forest. While there was a chaotic, almost anything could happen general sense in the world, there was also fierce competition inside America. Some of the internationals had struggled with it in fits of anxiety and broken English. One girl, trembling quickly from camp-quiet-breakfast-over had spit and sputtered, OR WHAT? WHAT? NOT FIRST GOODEST WHAT?! YOU STUPID SLIT OUR THROATS??!
We'd had to explain the different science departments and scientists and corporations being "cut throat" about money
ABOUT EATING!!!! A scientist hollered at us all. Aped arms into monkey pawing dirt for potatoes. Foooood. Grunted. Snorted. Total meltdown. FOOD! GET IT?
Get your nasty ape ass out if here! A French woman stomped a half sole-less boot and uncrossed her arms and pointed to the sliver mountain. The scientist's glasses were crooked on sweaty face and he gawked and shoved no banana, no banana into mouth. Another geek put arms out in front of self and slid feet in blown out slip ons towards. Let's take a walk.
DO! GO!
The normally calm and cool guy who was seriously considering a Ranger job pulled into the campground in a dirtygooberychalky sedan pulling a trailer with a snowmobile on it--looking pitch white ashen-faced.
Where you been man? Guys flocked to find out.
All the way to Bryson City in this pieceah, his chest heaving against the anxiety finished the sentence. When he caught his breath to match his calm mind he pointed at different guys for updates.
Breaking from the bunch he found a certain guy and asked quietly, Did they put the trees back up?
They've been putting them back up EVERY NIGHT for six nights! A teeny tiny woman tiredly macawed.
Sighs pushed through tightened lips. Guffaws. Eyes looking around at who exactly was still around.
Can someone please
Yeah, PAH-LEASE
Put more bark on the firepit, the forging guy basically ordered camp back to normal with his request.
Instaprinting thesis and treatise; Moroccan tea and Turkish coffee versus Cowboy coffee and British tea time. More and more hatcheted wood shavings. "Did the bird learn that from us?"
"Sliver claws?"
"Toes."
Banging, banging, banging--metal to metal, wood to wood, stone and rock thuds, hammer to nails of shakes, hands on cornmeal, fists to flesh. The days and nights rolled by as quickly aa the days were shortening. A milk jug with stones in it had been marking moonrise as it swept minefields of starlight.
The sweat lodge people would come, Melinda relayed word, but quietly sorted with gloved hand, poison roots from viney weeds. "Science textbook that's floating around says there are two kinds of vegetation roots!"
"That so?"
"What's wrong?"
"Troubles in the valley."
"Which one?"
"God's valley, the peoples' valley, the general valley. It's an expression. And the Cherokee call these __________." I forget now what she told me. I unpocketed a palmfull of an alpine mint-smelling wad of a certain kind of pine cone. An exotic bird had blade'd it into, "What's that?"
"Sliver claw snacks!"
Silence. "That's all I know really. Nuthin' about all that other stuff.". Melinda looked at a skinny, dirt-stained me and shook her head. Then she picked up one of the stones we'd used to line a raised mound of soil covering an empty can for worms in the "nature center" garden. She hucked the stone up at a pine tree and sure enough a little cluster of pine cones came down. "Couldn't do that twice so don't ask. That's what they look like whole," she said then put the stone back.
I relayed the visit around campfire. No one knew about the bird. "We call him Sliver Toes," I revealed.
"We call him Jib," Someone else said. Someone strumming a guitar made up a song.
"Downright silly," a voice in the flame-lapped darkness punctuated. Some people went off to other campsites. Some stayed.
"It's good to be silly too, Grumpy."
They'd been working overseas and the thaw to USA, USA had not yet happened.
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