"I just found out!"

  The service-oriented people among us didn't bat an eye.  The notion of  somebody just finding something out was not "news".  We'd broke camp early, us American citizens, after dividing ourselves into "misfits and rogues". 

     "Well, I'm not really a rogue in the proper sense of the worf, but my husband was or is, and, can I use the rest of this hot water?"  No less than seven British Car Show vehicles had brought this lady and a man to our campsite.  The woman dropped a tea bag out of the sleeve of a medieval-looking blouse.  And poured tea. 

  Another woman sat staring at it.  "The steam smells so delicious," she finally said.  "Are you also a tea drinker dear?" The woman slowly nodded.  Her hand raised and she waved at the others at nearby picnic tables drinking coffee and really starting to come to life. 

How It Came To Be

  There we were "whittled".  The man acting as an interim creative director had once again overcome his own struggles with blending life experiences into "a real job".  To the tune of I need a new drug, we scratched and clawed our way out of the forests.  I need a new job, one that don't hurt like hell....

     All the training had amounted to an en masse dismissal, at least until we get this sorted out, one man said as one woman said, until we get this fine tuned.  Both were correct in their phrasing of that stage.  Meanwhile all the outreach, analysis, data collection, and program agendas were being loaded onto discs and through keyboards onto "software".

     "So...they needed a break?" 

     "Not exactly but almost everyone older than us is already on a career path.  And they are all coming up against changes in the economy and," the person's voice broke off though there was no distraction to merit why. 

    "It's like, is it like what I had to tell the Detective?" 

     "What did you have to tell the Detective?" Some pals and a parent wanted to know.  "Very little.  Almost nothing." Because I'd been being loyal to commitments with non-profits and also as a trainee more than an independent writer. 

A stop just past Wartburg, Tennessee

has me meeting Wade Brown.  He has some onions and quail eggs for sale.  Brought those from Alabama.  "Lived here all my life," he says.  "You like it here?" 

     "Oh yes." He tells of his father and mother.  His dad "built the place, did mechanical work," a car goes by on the highway. 

      Wade Brown, 2025

     "A jack of all trades?" 

     "Oh yes."  

     Wade had just got nine cases of the quail eggs and "done pretty good with those." Says he might try a new thing next time he goes down--pickled polish sausage!

    The body of the woman, naked, powdery over graying sallow skin, "perfectly chiseled like a Rodin" landed like a dragonfly on a lilypad.  Others who'd been flown inside an openair stadium to an older wall than the one contested recognized the fellow but decidedly acted nonchalant. 

     "Alright. Then I'll have a brät," said one man under an umbrella foodstand.  "You like ah spicey?"  The man was ordering ones and twenties in his hands.  He glanced at the vendor; "Sure, sure, I'll take a spicey." He found a hidden five dollar bill and kept it out while filing the other bills into an otherwise empty wallet.  "You know what, just give me two."

    Afterwards she'd tried to describe (i)what she was feeling(i) in the thick of it.  "Well, I don't (i)know, I, I..." She motioned me over.  We were maybe two loops and several sites out of an Impact Zone.  She and I.  "What is this about?" I asked casually. 

    "IT'S ABOUT A KID WHO GOT KIDNAPPED," "OKAY, okay, you don't have to yell." My own stomach lurched because I'd had siblings that had gone missing, been taken hostage, almost sold, and kidnapped.  "She's deaf," her working partner explained with a hand coming out of her pocket and then gently waving the whole conversation (i)down, down(i). 

  

        "Actually that's not how I see it." To silence.  "Let me rephrase that." Still silence.  "What I mean is that there's more than one way to see it." 

     "Go on." 

     "Well, maybe I mean there's more than one talking point in there." 

     "Jesus' parable," a person already sitting briefly summarized (i)what's going on(i). The two people joining had only water bottles.  One asked, "Which one?" The other asked, "Has lots?!" 

     "Before I lose my train of thought

     "Thanks for letting me interject.  This.  That the Bible doesn't criticize the Apostles for wanting to be Numero Dos, but Jesus finally says, I'll have to read that part again to quote him, but Jesus wants them to understand it's (i)not about rank(i)." 

     One person picked up the garbage while another started a cooking fire.  Position after position had been eliminated and the (i)areas of concern(i) were becoming more like Swiss cheese than (i)what it used to be(i). 

     It was around sunset each day that people made way to the camp.  Most brought a (i)feeding bowl or food bowl(i) if they were feeling down or bitter, but some chose to go the opposite way with their language.  "Time for high tea," and "Break out the china, supper's almost ready."  The food would be what people had found salvagable, been given, or the last of...."Eat it or die." 

     "As long as I don't die by eating it!!" 

     Most people had been sticking "together", loosely.  Not like a family or a band of a tribe, but in a caring way.  There'd been (i)blow outs(i) like, "How many times do I have to tell y'all...." 

     "But you're NOT IN CHARGE!!!!"  And, moments of falling apart.  But survival forces the hand and people get through whatever comes up. 

     There hadn't been any food for a few days when one of the guys brought up hunting.  This brought up an ethical debate about licenses and "illegal" and brought more and more people to not-reveal too much about their "past lives" but, pull from their toolboxes of experience and knowledge. 

     "That was how I started writing," a person said.  "Made my books better." 

     "We pooled our resources to start our own." 

     "It came and went fast, our youth." 

     "Don't really keep in touch much." 

     "I have some.  But I have an idea, then forget it."  Someone gave the person pens and a little notebook. 

     Over time the fireside chats brought news and information, gossip and laughs.

     Then everything started to get going again, the economy settled into (i)here(i), (i)doing it(i).  Possibilities became more realistic as different fields focused on priorities and longer term goals.  Some people had paid attention to what they'd witnessed and felt and experienced.  Some refused to "get back in the game" 

     "But...." 

     The camps were mobilizing for (i)our Big Move(i). Since Eddie's Camp's motto was "Let's Do This," we needed to diplomatically ask another Camp if they'd stop saying that. "Okay, okay," Carrot Lips considered the reasoning behind (i)the Request(i).  He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled louder than a steam ship's whistle.

     Sweaty, working-hard people came from all around.  First, he looked real serious.  People furrowed brows and tried to guess.  Then he growled like a Red Wolf, "WHOOO said it?" People looked around curiously.  A tall black woman with a knapsack caught his eye and gestured (i)okay to put this here?(i) onto the split-log table.  "May I ask, who said what Sir?" An equally tall black man said and then stepped sideways.  Behind him was "the fat kid" and behind him was two healed up Rays.

     Carrot lips broke his serious composure in a Flashdance head swing, put out Kung Fu arms, and turned his voice into cartoonish and blurted, (i)badah, badah, er, What's up Doc?(i) People just looked at him.  "All right, no takers, hmmmm, how 'bout this one?" He did Karate moves, a full swing around of his whole body off the ground, landed on solid feet and imitated a movie-star: "I'll beee bahk." 

     "Oh!  That was, um, can't think of the guy's name." 

     Someone else yelled out (i)ShwartzAnegger(i). 

      "It's like a shemitah," one man said.  "A shemi what? 

     "I used to have a truck with a hemi." 

     "Any more ideas?" A visitor en route to another campground asked.  "Not off the top of my head, but I'll let you know, you're not the only idea-collector." 

     "No?" 

     "Na-ah." 

     "A lot of the non-POP's have been sort of..."

     "POP's?" 

     "Reformulating (i)best practice(i).  Pissed Off People, P.O.P.'s for short.  Bunch of those go around and, well, I woulda said (i)stir up trouble(i) just then, but we don't know intentions or changes of heart, so this guy I know says, we should say something like, they (i)get real loud(i)." 

     "Squeaky wheels?!" 

     "Yeah, those.  Hand me the potholder." 

     

  "Oh my Gaad, that's (i)terrible(i)!"  She said and broke into a crazy giggle.  "Now you'll have to stay with us," her partner untopped a bottle of beer with his thumb.  The person being told this "news" bite the inside of a lip, mind picking through "strategy" while body trapped in fluid situation.

     "Now come and sit down (i)hot shot(i) and have some (i)brunch(i)."  She hooked her arm into the crook of an elbow and pulled the person towards a slimey, molded picnic table.  There was no food.  The guy drained the beer, belched smelling like dirty socks, and slid the bottle over the edge of the table to pop open another.

     "Sitdown!" The she commanded.

     Stripped down to tanktop and jeans, a fourth person was thrown from a car coming in silently, creeping down the slope.  A cloth flour sack was over the head, draw string pulled tight.  (i)Too tight, irritated skin on neck(i) mind observes.

     (i)Never far away(i) had been more of a family of families' oath than a motto.  But because a "they" had refused to unlock the "esential worker" category on payroll....

    In spite of (i)being warned(i) about our (controversial word) "attitudes", maybe not always letting us maintain (i)besties(i) status we persisted in aiming for some kind of friendship.

     "Lovey Dovey!" She automatically drank a third of a fifth and wiped her lips with the back of her wrist.  Handed me the rest.

     At the Invite campfire all of the girls had donned wigs and props and went out of the little bus like football players entering a stadium.  Some time would be passing until fieldwork mentors would also be coming.

  "Ready to see what it's like?" 

  "Working in the fields tonight darling?" A guy called from a passing ATV, golfcart-sized.  Off the back from between two big bags of garbage a second man hopped off and switched locker room bags with one that was on one of the tables.  "Hope none of y'all didn't eat much." 

    We were on our own by then, not little rally-puff chickadees in an egg carton.  The fake candelabra flickering grotesquely angled "flame" on a trailer "wall".  A beastly being, amalgamation of humanoids in the later science fiction, awaited (i)next(i) on the platform "bed".  More genitals were spit and coughed into a pickle jar.  

     "Ready?" The gun pointed at the ground asked.

     Every emotion in the books whirled up into bile at the back of the throat as a bestie was grabbed bypassing a real virgin in the queue of (i)next(i).  The flannel sheet atop the writhing snake, ghostly white popped open and a man's friendly face said something like, "That's what's next.  Let me consult the Master." 

     We made a human rope chain by grasping each others' arms and started to pull away once the  person with the gun had been headbutted. But some among us had been told (i)pass this initiation(i) and you're in for life, so the pulling away was compromised.

     By daylight the Detective had quietly (i)so as not to arouse anyone(i) located all fifteen "bodies" that had gone into "the site".  Most were sleeping peacefully.  There were a few couples who'd been on tours and assignments and hadn't seen each other in a while, so.

     Other leaders from the various camps we'd been in stockpiled themselves in as "back up". I got up very early as I'd tailored myself to do.  I'd made a campfire and hot water for tea and coffee and was reminiscing all the things that could be done with a bustelo-ball when the Detective placed a little metal bucket of dirt on the picnic table.  "Wanna go fishing?" 

     "Not sure my license is good here." For the Communications people we'd been "drop-ins". 

     "(i)Expeyer'd(i)?" 

     "Naw." The detective started to walk away but then came back and asked, "Do you have extree paper and pens?" 

     "Sort of.  Not for keeps and you all can't use my black pen." 

     "Do you really have a tail light out?" 

     "Nope." 

     A traditional course MP awoke the prospects.  Two girls with hair as short and long as it could be before shaved heads scrambled out of the tent.  "Anyone else in there girls?" 

     "No ma'm." 

     "Affirmative." 

     Checked to make sure tent packed properly. 

     "Can't smoke a cigarette." 

     "Told you." 

     "Good thing we quit like ten days ago." 

     "What's the bucket for (i)puker(i)?" 

     "Obviously not that," I indicated the pile of ooze she had stepped in. 

     The young Detective had his hands on his hips and asked, "Would you like to sit down?" 

     The real MP was driving away. 

     "What's in the bucket?" 

     Detective said, "Genitals." 

     At that one girl puked and the other chose to (i)have a look(i).

      Someone had put some of the retirees (i)on a mission(i).  I didn't realize it until I was bringing some non-canned-food goods over to a special Salvation Army place.  By then I'd had time to think, kind of plug myself back into the picture.  (i)Places(i) often "take me back". 

     "Which one do you suspect it is?" Ruler Girl now in her twenty-somethings asked without turning around from the campfire.  "If I had to guess, which I do in this case, I'd say...." her eyes narrowed on the fire, listening hard to memorize every sound, "Yes?" 

     "Probably the guy in the fisherman's hat." 

     She gave a chin jut to another girlfriend.  The young woman came right over, breaking out of a conversation about (i)remember when(i).  "Yeah." 

     "Possible Dad siting." 

     "I'll find out."

     "The guy cannot." 

     "What gives?" 

     "Tryin' to tell me some guy can turn himself into a fly and buzz around and then back again into a guy." 

     "Whatever it is (i)it's a load of horseshit coming from him(i).". That guy lit a cigarette.

  "I did not fall out a tree." The woman had shaved her head in a show of solidarity a few months before and it was pre-pixie (i)hot(i).  An EP knelt by her sitting at a picnic table with benches attached.  She'd let an EMS person take her pulse.

     

     

     "Okay, so, now some people," the young woman sounded a bit nasally because the eyeglasses were pinching the ridge of her nose together but she kept explaining what kind of game this was.  The long and the short of it was American Sports.  And some of the grownups were purposefully (i)failing(i) at the tasks before them.

     The batter stepped up to the plate.  Large man, very tall with a tee-ball red plastic bat.  Sherry was the ballkeeper.  Every kind of ball, big and small, in the laundry basket on the mound next to her.  She had to keep wiping the tears and sweat from her eyes even though she had a cap on that read: (i)The best is yet to come(i).  This she did and wiped her hand on a burping towel, then she sized up the batter.  She put a finger to her chin to think, think like Winnie the pooh bear, tapped her temple, and didn't pick the softball.

     There'd been no airplanes for days so finally I tugged on the Macaroni Man's lumberjack "warmth"/winter coat.  He took his hands out of it's big pockets and turned gently and knelt on one knee.  "What is it princess?" 

     Mad face.  "I'm not the princess!" Shocked face. "Well, who are you?" 

     "I'm PANDA."

     The Bucket Woman blew a dog whistle and all of us kids went to her, even the wounded.

     

     "It's too many neckties Sherry." The decision had Sherry perfectly limp-facedly looking down at a little list she had doodled.  And the van bringing "the poor peoples' clothes" (i)to the Saint Vincent(i) was rap-knocked twice on the back bumper.  A wino on the curb looked under it, snatched a fifth and hoarsely said, "Clear.  Damn.  I wanted Dark Rum." 

     Feet with cuffed pants.  "Oil be sure'n let the Commisary know next time." 

     A woman, matron, bobbie stepped up behind.  "Move along now."

     "Look at the signature," became the standard not-command, but suggestion.

     "Just describe it," 

      The man with the biggest watch anyone had ever seen came to "the hut".  He actually was crawling on his belly, cammo-grease-faced, following extension cords that had been loosely covered in leaves.  His hand felt a soft shoe wet with dew before he realized it was someone's foot.  When he did, his hand acted surprised.  He looked up at the woman and mouthed, (i)sorry(i). The woman crossed her arms and picked her feet up further onto "the big hot rock".  Then she pointed to a little set of three trees.  Instead of going right over, the man belly-crawled backwards, rolled like he was on fire, and took out a pen.  Looking at a bundle of cable, he dug through until he found the one he lifted with the pen.

     "I cannot." I looked at the man with a very serious look to the very serious question.  "What kind of secretary are you?"  He perused the brochures on the counter at the Tapoco and plucked one.  Then he sat in an armchair and stared at me.

    "If you could've seen the looks on their faces," the short, balding man's mood forced itself to lift into the showman's remark.  "Really?" Squiggles asked.  "And guess what I found out?" 

    "Is this juicy or just...." Her hands debated closing the laptop.  "Well, I don't know," the man wiped a chair off with a tourism newspaper insert before sitting down like he got a bus seat.  "You tell me." 

     "What's this?" A pen's guts had been taken out of it to turn its shaft into a rollie tobacco holder.  The woman tapped the ashes into the little skillet and rested it.  She wiped both hands on the sides of her sweat pants and received the papers.  Stacked in a neat cross pattern.  "The top one is the report.  Under is...." She looked at the list in her little notepad.

      A couple of the little kids who were able to make it to Nature School, a class on (i)bugs(i), were quietly waiting to ask, (i)Where's Stephen(i)?  The oversized eyeglass wearing "professor" looked all over the table for magnifying glass and net.  Then it occurred to her, (i)my students are usually boisterous at this age(i).  When they caught her eye, they raised their hands.

(i)Later in the day....(i) 

     "What are y'all doing in yer underwears?" 

     The biggest boy crossed his hands over his so the other boys did too. 

     

    The VP's (Van People) had driven as far as had been pre-arranged or until (i)resources run out(i) "and?"

     "And in some cases," I purposefully held my hands up and gestured quoting, "The Lord (i)WILL(i) provide." Then I huffily sat down in one of the chairs.

     The camps were mobilizing for (i)our Big Move(i). Since Eddie's Camp's motto was "Let's Do This," we needed to diplomatically ask another Camp if they'd stop saying that. "Okay, okay," Carrot Lips considered the reasoning behind (i)the Request(i).  He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled louder than a steam ship's whistle.

     Sweaty, working hard people came from all around.  First, he looked real serious.  People furrowed brows and tried to guess.  Then he growled like a Red Wolf, "WHOOO said it?" People looked around curiously.  A tall black woman with a knapsack caught his eye and gestured (i)okay to put this here?(i) onto the split-log table.  "May I ask, who said what Sir?" An equally tall black man said and then stepped sideways.  Behind him was "the fat kid" and behind him was two healed up Rays.

    A flask with a glow-in-the-dark bead in it was shook like a server's bell and the bead made a little Tinker Bell noise.  The woman took a sip, then held it in her mouth, and took a swig of coffee.  She swallowed.  "Better?" A woman named Anastasia asked.  The woman shook her head side to side and the false eyelashes unstuck from her eyelids.  "Now I am." 

     She turned and offered me both.  I waved that off with my pen and notebook. "Now.  Where were we?" I assumed she was asking me about the interview. The other woman realized she meant her.  "Well," she put her butt against a field-type-portable desk and pointed soft slipper'd toes and hands with the finger tops cut off at a woodstove, "It's hard to say exactly," 

     "Why?" 

     Anastasia scooped a tea pot off the top of the woodstove and poured the steaming water over the coffee grounds.  The woman closed her eyes and smelled the air dreamily. She pulled a match out of a leather jacket pocket and struck it on the stovetop.  She'd produced a cigarillo to smoke and lit it so the small space would smell (i)like heaven on earth(i).  "So....you slept good?" 

     "Oh yes," the woman puffed an "O" that stayed complete until she stabbed at it with a pen and didn't quite cut it as much as sculpt it.  Then she casually accused Anastasia of saying, "I, was (i)up there(i)!?"

    A flask with a glow-in-the-dark bead in it was shook like a server's bell and the bead made a little Tinker Bell noise.  The woman took a sip, then held it in her mouth, and took a swig of coffee.  She swallowed.  "Better?" A woman named Anastasia asked.  The woman shook her head side to side and the false eyelashes unstuck from her eyelids.  "Now I am." 

     She turned and offered me both.  I waved that off with my pen and notebook. "Now.  Where were we?" I assumed she was asking me about the interview. The other woman realized she meant her.  "Well," she put her butt against a field-type-portable desk and pointed soft slipper'd toes and gloved hands with the glove finger tops cut off at a woodstove, "It's hard to say exactly," 

     "Why?" 

     Anastasia scooped a tea pot off the top of the woodstove and poured the steaming water over the coffee grounds.  The woman closed her eyes and smelled the air dreamily. She pulled a match out of a leather jacket pocket and struck it on the stovetop.  She'd produced a cigarillo to smoke and lit it so the small space would smell (i)like heaven on earth(i).  "So....you slept good?" 

     "Oh yes," the woman puffed an "O" that stayed complete until she stabbed at it with a pen and didn't quite cut it as much as sculpt it.  Then she casually accused Anastasia of saying, "I was up there?" 

     Anastasia sighed.  "I had to.  Someone called emergency services or something and people in de-bombing gear showed up.  The woman lightly patted the cigarillo out in a mini skillet ashtray.  "Was the director there?" 

  "I can't tell you that." 

  The woman turned quickly and grabbed Anastasia's shoulders and didn't shake her, but grasped at her sweater and said, "But you must!" 

  "I wasn't there."

   A slim cardboardy textured wood door opened.  The tall auburn-haired woman in a blouse and slacks lowered her head and stuck it through the opening.  "Lara, you may speak to Mr. Tim now." I didn't even know there was a door there. 

     Inside a man in a scrunched up "S" of a home-hospital bed had his whole right side in a cast and the plaster was also in an "S" shape.  Before I could say anything at all the woman held up her hand for me to hush.  "And you would like me to relay a message?" 

  The man's teeth were clenching bloodied gauze, he slightly nodded and said, "Yes." 

  "It was something like," she pulled a tiny homework notepad out of her shirt pocket, "Tell a Mr. McGaha," the man nodded, yes, yes.  She used a corner of sheet to wipe drool from the man's chin.  "What would you like me to tell him?" The man looked out a cracked pane of glass and it seemed like colors ran through his eyes instead of tears and he said, trying to swallow and speak, she put a quiet finger to his cheek.  He rubbed the red rash near the cast on his chest.  "I need a pencil." 

  "Now come with me," she brush-tugged my sleeve.

  She put the homework pad on the portable field desk.  "Have a seat ladies." All our knees were almost touching. She sighed but it wasn't worry, nor frustration.  "Who wants to go first?" 

  It was a loaded question.  I ventured, "Outside to smoke?" 

  "All smokers?"  We nodded.  "I'll go outside." 

  As soon as she did we lit up and Anastasia accidentally knocked the notebook off the desk.  The other woman took a drag and looked way slanted down through the false eyelashes. "Put that back on the desk will you, Lara?" 

  "Na-ah," but I reached down and picked it up just as her foot shot out and tried to kick it.  Then I went outside.

  From somewhere came voices, GO Gunner, GO Gunner!!  GO Riley, GO Riley!!  I pressed hard on my walkie collar, "I love you Gunner Gray."  The auburn-haired woman threw her cigarette down and started to run towards me waving the smoke away from her face so I could read her lips.  I'm GOING TO KILL YOU.  I stumbled back a few steps when I realized she was still coming at me, pointing, YOOOOOUUUU.  She grabbed at my collar but I hand blocked her like karate.  She pulled at my shirt collar harder and I started to try to pull away.

  I got away.  Around and around the little outlying building.  The man in the cast watched us going by.

  As the sun started setting I went to sit by her on a rock.  She threw her arms up, letting go.  "Do you want me to go away?" She sucked in a thin steady breath and shook her head no, almost imperceptibly.  "But tell me why you did that." 

  "Okay.  Are we on tape?" She reached out for my hand, and drew it to her heart.  "No.  You must trust ME." Her hand got caught in the short stem of wire I'd tucked into my watchband.  She held it up and asked me with her eyes, "What's this?" She stood up and looked down at me.  "I can and will explain." I took it back from her and showed her the multiple holes on my special walkie.  "This one was the one I spoke into.  It goes with a documentary of us." 

  "Us?" 

  "MY generation 

  "It's a different channel?" 

  "Cha.  You think I'm crazy or something?!"

Penciled-In Plans

  People had somehow held on in the transition from living it our way, through no one does America alone and I can do it, I can do it, I can do it into "life goes on" and "Let's see what can be done".

  Some kids who'd found out there would be school and youth center and food and "home" were getting smiles and very individual in addition to being culturally tribal.  One day, some asked a woman social worker, "Why don't you ever smile?" 

  "Oh.  I do.  Just not in front of anyone," then she grinned big and her teeth were broken and black.  Someone covered her own surprised mouth.  Another asked, "Does it hurt?" And yet another just grinned big back.

  I rode with the social worker a couple times and it was really fine with both of us to just drink coffee and have quiet time.

  "Today I have someone special to see," she said as we drove up and up a dirt road.  She parked facing the front of another car.  But it didn't seem like there was anyone at the campsite.  We sat at a picnic table and waited. 

  For us it was more beautiful quiet time.  Then we noticed a long branch reaching, reaching and snagging a bit of rope hanging in some trees.  The rope got away from the branchpole.  Danggit. 

  The social worker started towards the thick tuft of rhododendron.  "Mr...." 

  "Don't come any closer." 

  Her feet stopped but she craned her neck towards the voice.  "Why are you in there?" 

  "I'm neked.  Hold on." The pole branch shot up again, snagged the rope, and there was a creaking sound.  A couple arfs and uh-ohs.  Then, "Okay, I'm ready.  You can come in now." 

  She parted the bushes and there was a man in a Hawaian long skirt sitting on a perfect bench of tree trunk.  "Good morning!  What brings you out this way?" 

  "I came to see if you are alive."

  "Quite." He snapped open a newspaper and fished a cigarette, lighter, and pencil from his shirt pocket.  "I need a word for 

  "I need a word with," she said before she could stop herself. 

  "Could you check the ice box and see if I caught any fish?" He asked me. 

  I went down to the creek.

   Previously at General Meetings....

  We'd had to sit in "talking circles" and this was before (i)welcome ins(i).

  "Still waiting," another student of Higher Education Learning worked his tired legs into dress shoes on balls of feet so he could balance his papers and forms and coffee on his knees.  "It's like Goddard time here," someone else said.

  "I assure you, it is not." 

  People staying in the few fee and free campgrounds had had to catch shuttles, jitneys, motorcycle rides, etc. (any ride but hitch hiking) to get to those meetings.

  (i)Outside....(i) 

  "So? We were late.  Can't you put that?" Our mini-group's moderator looked at the person with the clipboard.  "Well.  I suppose.  I can (i)put it(i).  But Ican'tletyouin," the person speeded up the "bad news" part of the statement.

  "LAST TIME WE HAD TO

  "could you quiet down please" 

  "HAD TO WHAT?"

  "WE HAD TO SIT IN CHAIR CIRCLES LIKE IT WAS AN AA MEETING

  "could YOU quiet down please?"

  "OH SORRY. But it was by State, the sitted order, AND ALPHABETICALLY." The MP shot her a look.  "Whaddaya mean (i)by State(i)?" Someone asked.  The MP took the clipboard from the volunteering State Park sign-in sheet person and the pen and held it like he was a waiter.  "I can explain." 

  (i)Inside....(i) 

  As soon as they'd closed the doors some people in the talking circles popped up out of their seats.  A few casually made way to people in uniform to find out what was going on.  Fewer still bolted to the doors.

  "What gives?" 

  "He means, um, why'd they shut the doors?" 

  "I need air." 

  "It's hot in here." 

  "As soon as we get all the people (i)already in here(i), sigh, SEATED, then we'll see if we're (i)at capacity(i).

  (i)In the woods....(i) 

  BAM!!!!! "Was that thunder?" Blue skies.  "We gotta roll with this take people.  We are just about out of tape." 

  "Okay then." 

  BAM!!!!! AAAAAAHHHH.

  The motorcycle's kickstand was resting on a sandwich of frozen dew, wet leaves, and a rat trap connected to a TNT wire that was connected to one of those Oxygen tanks, portable.

  Oooooooooooo.

  "Synchronize!  Now." The man had the biggest watch anyone had seen and he held up his wrist and held that wrist with his other hand and the assistant started a countdown on the walkie talkie channel allotted.  The man's other hand showed FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE

  Nothing happened.

  BAM!!!!! WOW.

  (i)Whoa, whoa(i)

  "What is that racket?" The walkie talkie asked.

Washin' us clean, washing us clean

God was washing us clean

Washing us clean, washin' us clean

The rain was washing us clean

A frog came out,

She was no goat;

She had no tale to sing 

The voices all-range in the dark of the Folk Center.  I was in my oil cloth.  I held the lantern up as high as I could.

Many were afraid to come, 

They thought they'd lost their honor; Oh yes, many were afraid to come without their documents.

  "Why doesn't the frog

  "That's my princess

  "Have a tale to sing?"

  "Well, it's a tradition in New Mexico." 

  "I don't care about tradition." 

  "Too bad for you." 

  A person had made it past "the wall" of lawyers surrounding a prospective TV person.  The person was more interested in local affairs such as preventing forest fires, and, kind of recruiting in an off-beat way, the protected person to be a POTUS person. 

  "Don't ever lose your beautiful smile," a mom and some little ones passing by on the way to the "wagons circled"/tent area waved and said.

  "I doubt that'll ever come back after this trip."

Not far from the campground

   I find the screened in porch place. Of Wildwater.  Just standing under a platform up a pole, my mind quickens and I recall coming on a group trip here.  A little brother said to another brother, "It's like your pirate ship!"  

  "There is someone here!" I tell another guy wandering around looking for information when I see a smiling face behind a front desk. 

           Taylor, manages the rafting and ziplining center of (i)Wildwater(i), Summer 2025, and is also a 5th season Ranger.

  RAFTING AND ZIPLINING in the Nantahala Forest, "That is so cool."

  One part of Wildwater's "center" handles jeep tours and whitewater rafting and Taylor's holding down the fort on the ziplining side.  She tells me one platform is 100 foot tall, and there are eleven ziplines which have you go across about 30 acres of property.  "Whoa.  Do you have to do them all?" 

  Taylor explains that some people do a couple and then decide they want to get off the course.  "There are multiple spots where they can?" 

  "Oh.  Why do they?" 

  "Some people are nervous." 

  "Like a fear factor?" 

  "Yeah.  They try a couple lines and decide..."

  "it's not for them?"  

  The center sells tee-shirts and stickers and I spot a map on the counter and ask if they have any of those.  Taylor gets a brochure map and explains that it's not exactly the same, but, she opens it up it's kind of, some people like it better.

 

  We fall quiet for a few minutes and I can hear the Summer's insects and I ask Taylor if they still do group-stuff here.  Then I reminisce just a little about the long ago time some of us outdoors types with scholarly and administrative interests came to this place or some place similar to have a group thing. 

  "We can accommodate pretty much any size group...we've done a group up to 120 people," Taylor tells me.  After asking if I can take her picture for the blogpost and she says, yes, I go outside to get my cameraphone. It's just so beautiful here.

  NO SANDALS OR CROCS ALLOWED a sign on the counter reads.  "How come?" 

  T: Crocs can fall off; it's not cool to zipline barefoot." 

   "Okay, ready for a picture?" She is, so I take a couple and ask her to see if they're too blurry or anything.  "Mind if I ask if you work here or do an internship?  You don't have to answer." 

  She smiles.  "I do work here.  I 'm a manager."  We chit chat a little more and she let's me know, "We do offer internships and it's a seasonal job March through October." 

  I thank her for such a nice visit and she let's me know, it is a good day.  "Me too."

     (i)The man had our children fucking each other(i), another man finally broke his temper--too hot--like the last waves of a tsunami, into the microphone of the secret location hearing.  Other men stood in front of the box where people were rehearsing how this might go down in a Courthouse.

     There was that half hour silence so famous in the Book of Revelations.  Hundreds of manila folders shifted through.  A blurred mug shot paperclipped to the outside of the folder.  A sticky note and legible cursive beside it read: Blurred on purpose, though that had not been the whole truth.

     Hundreds of motorcyclists had gone from the east to the west coast. In a spiral, these end to end would have covered the homeland's Midwest top to bottom, south to north.

     The man giving testimony growled and spit.  (i)Rabid(i) for revenge.

    "Moping." A British black woman reported on an "unknown origin" of birthplace. 

     "Admonished," I glanced up from writing and told an advisor.  

     And had found another two to co-miserate with; and now the two of them were acting like Beavis and Butthead.  One spit a pebble at a skillet and it dinged as the advisor motioned for them to be brought out of a (i)time out(i).  "Over here Davey Crockett. Please." The advisor still had a trace of accent.

  "Tree frog," a thickly accented but not identifiable accent snapped as she whapped an iron skillet on logs rolled into a pyramid. A man in a flannel shirt and dark blue jeans slammed an axe into the log beside the skillet.

     "Did I loan you my cook?" The older man had recently lost his wife and was tearfully trying to comprehend a line-by-line in a folder covered in colored sticky notes of every size.  Under a halfpad size fuschia colored list of errands was a series of tab stickies.  "On that one?  Did I?" A middle aged woman picked up a cloth napkin and put it on his head so a corner was hanging over his nose.  Just then a tour of the facilities for prospective workers followed a Staff member into the lodge-style dining room.

   Daughters and sons of the Greatest Generation were very reluctant to speak about "decline" in their elders' mental and physical acuity.  Some of the fighting in the Middle East brought to the fore some of our worst fears in regards other nations' standing militaries having way more continuity than ours.  When we realized they'd infiltrated us, and were employing tactics used in war in Europe, Korea, and Vietnam there was a bit of a healthy panic.  Late, late boomers and Gen X put fire under our feet to learn everything we could about (i)everything(i).

     

      The "mile-high" scaffolding had been welded.  "That had to have happened over night," the expert said somewhat exasperated.  A bunch of us had been showing support for our political party and who we wanted to win (i)someday(i).  "NOT the party that eats babies and humans put through grinders," the man with the gold chain bracelet explained.  His ex-wife but still together for the children's sake smacked at him and his blood-drained lips stayed where she put them as her hand wiped down the front of his face.  Like some of the other men in our group, his five o'clock shadow had turned to a three day old beard and there was baby blanket lint stuck to his face.  This did not come off in the "smack" and the priest retrieved from Maryland didn't seem to notice anyway.

     Some of the previous decades' "best and brightest" gone so wrong had evil-ka-neevilled across the nation-owned highway way up on scaffolding on both sides of the road.

  We'd barely made it out alive and with most of our body parts.  And now this.

  "Mustah been midgets!" A barrel chested, almost bald so closely crop-shaved man was on all fours yelling into the face missing an outer ear and being held down by a pile of people.  A man and a woman in Sunday clothes stood about fifteen feet away starting to make a perimeter around "the suspect".  The woman looked to the man repeatedly as they silently memorized what was being said.  The bulldog of man kicked the face.

  "Because you can't," a dark undereye man was leaning against the hood of a Classic pick up truck, hand smacking papers in a gypsy breeze to stay in place while one woman fumbled with a taped box of paperclips and another kept breaking clips of staples.  "I have THE RIGHT to kill these ones," the bowl-shaped-haircut guy firmly placed the safari binoculars on top of some of the papers.  "(i)You(i) can't kill that kind." 

    "What kind?" 

    The leaning man rested an armpit on a crutch; turned to face the parking lot, leaned back; folded a pant leg with a rolled terrytowel in it up and back; the woman dropped the staples, took a large safety pin from her mouth, and pinned the trousers sewn to shoe so it looked like the man was just a man with his leg up on a bumper.

  Some of us had seen our friend getting a teacheatomy, been taken hostage at gunpoint by clowns, tracked and released, been hunted, and arrested all in like seventeen hours.  The living nightmares begun for us en masse on Halloweens on Long Island were, apparently, playing out at this particular geographic location, and, very much so tied to politics and evil. 

  As we'd raced a convoy across the foothills we'd stopped at points on the parkway to dash the wounded (i)away(i).  That was when we'd found women and men we hadn't seen since being held prisoners to neo-nazis and German Psychiatrists.  Some of us had put just a little weight on in that interstice time period.  And now this.

     "Because you can't Hoss." 

     "But I can pretend I'm like the big CIA or something." 

     "Are you looking in my eyes?". He'd closed his as the fastener woman worked to pin not just one as in "the wire" under his shirt collar.  "Yes, I am." 

     "Then read my lips saying (i)no(i).  The man's lips did not move.

    The pile of people wouldn't let the bloodied person up off the ground.  And when an early morning newspaper delivery guy drove up and a local judge got out of the car in his bathrobe.  Someone yelled, (i)HIT THE DECK(i).

  A Detective from back home dove into our backseat.  "Give me the crossword puzzle." 

  "Oh no.  I've almost got it finished." 

  He snarled "Give me the fucking puzzle."  She put it in her purse. 

  The parking lot went chaotic.

  "I won't let you swear in front of my children like that." 

  "Give me the damn puzzle." 

  Everyone sighed.

     In the chaos an older-looking young guy had tackled, almost lastly in all the movement, the judge back into the car full of newspapers.  The judge's bathrobe got smushed up around his head and it was a muffled, "It smells like ink."

     "What?" the tackler stuck his hands and head back into the car.  "Tell my wife.  The bathrobe now smells like ink."

  The tackler ran a hand through his hair as he stood up and looked long at the scaffolding.  Then he spoke rather casually to a wristwatch.  "Not sure, kind of kooky, maybe been drinking."

    He walked forward counting his paces out loud to a car with a Surveyor's tape-flag on the antenna.  He lifted a windshield wiper with a latex glove.  He'd gloved his other hand in his pocket and used it to pick up a walkie talkie.  It immediately said, "I need you up here." The tackler kept his eyes on the hood of the vehicle.

     It wasn't an invention that he needed to ask the judge about.  It was a flying machine.

  First the hoss knocked over the safari binoculars.  "What was that?" It spooked the one-legged man who firmly leaned way forward and would've lost his balance but a woman doctor in a white coat and a mess of curls swooped a stool on wheels over to him.  "Okay.  I'll take a rest." 

  "Let me in the car Karen." She would not. 

  "Open the door and let me in." She would not. 

  A rush was gathering. 

  "Open the fucking door." She looked at his red, puffy, sweating, heart-beating-wildly-in-it face.  Hers was an impact zone of makeup and tears and sweat and slooooooow body rhythm.

  The Scooby-doo van that contained the little people who'd been for sale in the wooden cubby holes, banana boxes of papers, a tanned human skin, and one spider monkey was put in neutral and gently rolled into a drive-thru restaurant's awning.

  

  

    

  

Would've been a fancy white picnic table cloth.

  Instead, there were the Censors. 

  An iguana-looking woman in high-cost cycling pants unfroze and crossed in front of the tables put together, side by side, lengthening the rectangle.  She ripped a piece of tablecloth off.  Of the profoundly humble bunch of academics, professionals, clergy, and service people on the not the masses side of the tables, one stood up and one in EMS clothes started towards chase and tackle.

  A youngish oldish man grabbed the EMS woman's forearm but she squirmed out of the coat and went after as the man folded the coat over one of his arms and shouted first in Israeli, then Turkish, then Arabic.  The tables had been positioned between two very large field tents but closer to the mouth of "the funnel" where people had been descending from the Great Smoky Mountains and getting health checks.  

  "Is someone going to translate?" A woman in a skirt and flats called out.

On the Agnes rock,

  under a pre-dawn misting T'see sky full of moving stars and still dazzling planets, the person tuned as far as sound the last song played.  Didn't turn the transistor radio off, just listened to the static.  Had looked like a kinetic person sculpture for hours even putting a chopping block segment of log on top of the campsite rock to reach for the signal.  Everybody uses that rock for everything when organized people aren't tending camp.  But Agnes had shown us how to scrape lice down our forearms with the special comb, onto a piece of paper that we couldn't write or draw on 'til it got shared for messages and our hands were rinsed off with a soapstone, and our "graywaters" were in the shallow hole far away from the creek.  

  A greasy, scar doodled-faced pit bull wandered past the picnic table.  Ribs showing, nose whiffing it stopped and pawed at half rolled up tinfoil.  It's hers, someone hoarsely whispered peeking through stacked up, sawed tree.  The dog had sat and gently so.  Faced the person and pushed his butt backwards, those back legs still bent normal, but the front legs just pointed out front totally straight.  It was checkmating the black low-top Converse sneakers jutting out from under an arranged splay of layers of skirts.  Person didn't even look up from the static.

  Wasn't but twelve minutes before America's music, Country, came back in fairly clear.  The person smiled.  Hooting and hollering was like an echo to a whistle and hand-cupped relay--Mustah re-got the license.

  Not as the last song, but they'd played it.  What we'd agreed upon as kind of a Creatives anthem. 

  I will sail my vessel.... 

  Some of us had fought with each other over which it should be, and it was already tense when a famous General added into the mess of people milling around the Censors and told the man in the ironed jeans, "They'll be LUCKY if they get to call it an anthem." 

  The kidgloves had come off.

  "Dad.  You're," lips crouching pursed, "What?!" He turned in the French Maid Halloween apron with the half burnt dishtowel, and his glasses all smattered in vegetable oil.  I clenched my jaw.  "Embarassing yourself," I finished my sentence.  "HONEY!  THEY FOUND HER!" He thrust the fish cooking in the fry pan at Agnes who put up her hands to fend off the hot side. 

  Other kids came towards us.  "Is it ready?" 

  "Make the sghetti girls," Ginger ordered.  They put down whatever was in their hands on the picnic table seats and crashed into each other getting to the boil pan.  One grabbed the gallon jug of water and the other the big metal grilling fork.  I put the boil pan on the grate over the stick fire.  Then went over to her and asked, "Are you all right Agnes?" She nodded solemnly then sheepishly grinned.  "I soused him." 

  "She," hiccup, "did." 

  "Bad Daddy," the youngest girl smacked him on the butt with the fork.  "Hey now," he wheeled.  "Ooooooo, the feesh," Agnes angled in the grab the panhandle.  "She learned that from Ginger," Dad said of getting spanked.  "Oh my God," I said exasperatedly. 

  "But I DON'T WANNAH hang out with the HENS," a booming almost man voice was heard.  "Get out!" A man's voice said.  A car silently but for the squeaking rolled up to the campsite.  The boyman got out crossed his arms, stomped a foot hard, slammed the door, and said while pointing his finger and stabbing talking points into place, "I'LL BE THERE!!!" 

  "WE'LL SEE MR.  GET THAT BOOTFOOT CLEARED UP."

  "Mike, did you sign up?" A sister asked real loud.

  The boyman's head turned and dog on a porch sank eyes lower, then turned back to see the car rolling away.  The man's antlers could be seen sticking up over the seats.  

  There was a quiet quieter than quiet then in the campsite.  We'd been on vacation so far as anyone'd been sayin'.

  "OH HI MIKE!" Dad's armhairs,  redtanned glistening, arm flapped out in a wave.  He turned towards the fire.  Then he ripped at the apron strings with both hands while he forced his mouth to smile NYC business-salesman and tears poured out his eyes and nose and the sides of his mouth.  The middle sister dropped the stiff sghettis into the boiling water and tried to comprehend.  Littlest girlfriend sister struggled with the doublebow on the apron and her hands shoving it left and right and daddy's smooching hers away brushed but didn't tangle.  Daddy pulled it down like it was a pair of boxers and stepped out of it.  "What's for dinnie?" Our brother called out. "Spaghetti Mike," Dad called back but looked towards the toilets across the camp road.  Then he went towards, but started running to anywhere.

  Everybody but Daddy'd eaten by the time our brother had scrubbed his feet to raw pinkish red.  We called him Salmon Feet and explained 'cuz Mom calls Dad Lily Feet, and promised to tell our other brother "the update".  He'd gotten some offers on the Mustang but was holed up in a mancamp where real people over the age of 18 were in real combat. 

  First the antler-wearing Ranger appeared without the antlers.  "Is it time already?" Salmon Feet hopped to and asked.  "No son.  I need you to stay put at least until tomorrow.  But," he looked over all our shoulders up to where they say the Emperor lives, "But what ?!" 

  He looked back into the boyman's eyes and asked, "Do you think you'll be awake 'round sunrise?" 

  "What time here?" He looked around at the multiple ridges. 

  A tan towncar came towards our site but the brakes jerked it to a tired stop at a camp closer to the toilets.  A middle age woman in dress clothes got out and helped an elderly man to the boys side.  The ranger put a fist in the air and like knocked twice on an unseen door.  This started a stream of people walking down the Jab rock, not much of a mountain, but it had sufficed as a practice group-ascent area for the day.  The people didn't look like "hippies".  They were in good shape.  They didn't talk out loud to each other.  And they didn't gesture.  Some had walking sticks.  Some wrinkly faces but watered right and clear complexions.  They were beautiful, all.

  The middle aged woman had helped the man back into the car and they drove loop and passed by us slow.  Someone put up a hand, We're alright.  They almost hit another car coming in too fast, so the brakes jerked the car to a stop again and let the faster vehicle bumpily jet past the toilets.  It too looped the campground and came to a perfect stop behind the Ranger.  A back door opened and it was Mama.  Everyone but Tim flooded her, knocking her back into the car.  She went across the backseat, got out the other back door and looked at us all over the car's roof.  "Wha, where's Daddy?" She asked.

Had fallen asleep ourselves,

  "Then what happened?" 

  "It was a funny thing 'cuz I woke up less nervous," I answered.  But my friend gently tossed a twisted blade of grass cross and said, "I'll tell you." Said that like she was poking a hearth fire.  The talking circle, home for the night, was quieted down.

  "Dog was missin'.  So I started to go look for 'im.  Wasn't maybe five yards away from where we fell asleep.  And there were people." 

  "What were they doing?" 

  "Not screwin' each other, put your salivating tongue away," she lashed.  "Anyway, they was just standing there like statues." 

  "They were.  She came and got me." 

  Like the creek running low in a stillshot photograph of mountains and mist, the "cammo" clothing and vests and gear and stuff kinda blended in with the scenery.  

  "But the scenery had a feeling." 

  "Cha.  It did." 

  "What did it feel like?" The short, muscled guy had a ring of orange all around his lips proving natural foods can dye.  

  "At first," my friend closed her eyes, "I wasn't sure.  But theeeen, I let it build up.  Like if I could feel something, what would it be?" 

  "Well, that doesn't answer the question." A thin red-headed twenty-something woman glanced up from an embroidery hoop.  She was sew-drawing some pine trees behind a skillet in thread on a towel.  They might hang the towel in their home.  After'n done mad at me, she'd explained about being past puppy love and sticking with a businessman through and through. 

  "Well, not right off it doesn't." 

  "But there's usually a point to most of her stories," I pointed my pen like it was a teacher's piece of chalk at anybody gonna interrupt.

  She closed her eyes again.  "Well, my feeling sensor was flummuxed.  I'd been so stressed.  Plus, I realized here we were just stumbling into something." She opened her eyes.  The preacher snorted in his snoring but didn't wake up.  "You think it was something?" Carrot Lips asked in a normal speaking volume.  The conversation continued.

  "Sound'n like New Mexico," a naturally auburn-haired woman in shirt sleeves and a tank top brought her leather longcoat to a rest on an abanoned blanket near us.  Nobody'd seen her walk up so some of us gave a little jump but nobody freaked. 

  "How so?" Someone asked. 

  Another skinny woman with short black hair and a fiddle case crept in closer and handed up a tobacco rollie.  The woman took it and took a dollar bill, folded neatly, out from under a shirt sleeve.  "Out there, sometimes it's so still, you can," she looked around at our faces in the headlamp campfire.  We were drooling to hear.  She thought of something quick as she licked the rolling paper and rolled the smoke smokeable.  "You can hear you're own perspiration dripping." 

  "What else?" 

  "Not even the hogs are clinking still cooling down." She fished in one sleeve, then moved stuff in the other around like it was a glove compartment in there.  Found a black lighter and torched the rollie.  "You wanna sit down?" 

  "Honey, if I sit down anymore today my asshole will be in my ears." She took savoring drag after savoring drag on that rollie.  For it was done the short-haired woman handed up another, already rolled, said barely above a lullaby volume, "Give'n ya two for the buck.  And here's your flask back." Before she took that she asked, "Anything in it?" Eyes flashed mean like the red-eyed cobra snake at the Fair but she forced a smile through muscles stiffening toward seizure.  "Of course," a man in clothing totally black stepped towards our blanket but not into any light.  That did make a couple people get up.  Some were better at act casual than others and it looked like people not quite understanding "yoga" in a class.  Carrot Lips had stood from Indian-style seated, hooked his backpack on an arm that slid it to his shoulder, and spread his arms into a yawning stretch, so others started stretching arms and mouths and saying stuff like, "Getting later than late," and, "Better get some sleep.". One youngish quiet guy in glasses and a tee-shirt with a generic doodle on it even said, "Yup, tomorrow's gonna be a good day.". Nobody mentioned it already was, just cleared out.

Another day was over.

  A handful of us had made it back to a makeshift sleeping area precisely 100 feet and 1 and 1/2 inches from any public area.  New people our general age -- green -- had joined the fray.  The recruiters from Armed Services and some of the trades had left the zones we were haunting.  One guy though had hashed it out with a peer and now here he was not exactly shmoozing and definitely making an impression. 

  There was this couple torn between traditional ministry and, not sure, some kind of calling that's maybe a little different.  The husband explained while the wife was neatly folding a pair of stockings and a skirt and putting these in a backpack.  She'd taken hiking shorts out of the backpack and put those on under her skirt before removing the skirt.  "What I tell people is don't ask, because that's a rabbit hole." 

  "What's wrong with rabbit holes?" The new, short but muscled, guy asked as he dug through his backpack.  His headlamp was on crooked and he was blinding anyone he wasn't directly talking to.  The preacher's wife got kind of sad eyes and blew out a breath, "That's complicated." 

  "How so?  There's a hole." 

  She kind of giggled.  Her husband looked down at the quilt they were resting on and softly said, "It gets complicated when others besides rabbits want in." 

  The short guy jumped up and twitched his face like a rabbit and bent his hands like paws and started hopping around.  The headlamp shone wildly on more than just a couple people sacking around.  Most without tents.  Some with random foodstuffs.  One woman put up a hand to block the light.  "Oh my God, Devie, is that you?" A man with an indistinct brogue called out.  She shook her head disgustedly.  "No.  No, it is not me." 

  "It's you, isn't it?" 

  "Nope." 

  "So say I'm a wabbit." Boing, boing. 

  "Sit down arsehole.  You're making the room spin." 

  The guy kept hopping around and trying to find the rabbit hole.  We knew what he was trying to do because in a Bugs Bunny voice he kept asking, "Errrr, what's up Doc?? Is this a rabbit hole?" 

  More than one exhausted person threw things at him like TP and junk food wrappers.  He kept bouncing.  Finally the preacher said, "Listen here, rabbit.  This is a rabbit hole." Well, the rabbit hopped right over and sat on their quilt.  And within ten minutes of just talking other people started to form into a little talking circle.

  "Devie, you must marry me!" The brogue called out.  A deep sigh. 

  "What was complicated about that?" 

  The preacher's wife's mouth was kind of hanging open a little bit shocked.  A girl with her head shaved handed her a honeybun.  She wouldn't take it.  The girl threw it on the ground and went back to her blanket.  The preacher's wife got up and picked it up and took it to her.  "I can't eat sugar honey." 

  "You can't?!" 

  "Not for a long time.  Since I had an illness." She handed the honeybun back and the girl took it, saying, "I have one now." 

  "You enjoy it." The preacher's wife turned to go back to the rabbit hole.  "An illness.  I have one now." The preacher's wife turned back.  "Oh honey, you do?" The girl was too dehydrated to cry but her head bent down and she looked at her belly.  The preacher's wife sat next to her and also looked at her stomach.  "What kind of illness do you have honey?" The girl rubbed her head and told, "Cancer.  My ovaries." The preacher's wife offered her shoulder and the girl leaned sideways and put her head there.  An older gypsy-like woman came near.  "I had breast.  Cancer." The girl patted the blanket for her to sit. 

  The preacher was laughing, hard and hearty.  "This guy's a crack up," he called over to his wife.  "So I says to the guy, Guy, you can't burn those palettes.  Those pallets are evidence."  The preacher slapped his knee.  "Is that true?" He asked.  The short, muscled guy straightened his headlamp and removed the preacher's wife's heel from under his leg where he'd plopped down.  "You can't make this stuff up." The guy put the heel back in the backpack and zipped it up. 

  The gypsy-woman unzipped the waist area of her brown but flowy skirt and took out ziplocks of various herbs.  "It's not drugs," she said clearly.  "This can make a tea that, makes you feel kind of like you've eaten vegetable soup." 

  "Really?" The girl asked and she and the preacher's wife looked at each other with surprise and doubt.  Turning back to the gypsy woman the preacher's wife said, "Think I'll pass.  We ate today." 

  "Suit yourself," the gypsy woman said and put the blend of herbs into a half-filled water bottle.  She shook it.  "Wanna taste it?" The girl nodded yeah and the preacher's wife took it and tasted it first.  Passed it to the girl.  She kind of made a gulp noise.  Then rubbed her head while deciding what to say.  "Gottah little kick to it." She passed the drink back.  "That's the basco," gypsy woman said.  "Mind if I ask; did your hair fall out and grow back?" 

  "I had a mohawk." The girl's lips fought a frown.  "Figured I should try and at least look presentable to speak to the Cancer people." 

  "Shaved head treating you any better?" 

 She silently laughed just a little.  "Not really.  Now people think I'm dirty with head lice." 

  The gypsy woman lifted her skirt down near her ankle and showed silk scarves wrapped around the tops of her boots.  She unknotted one and passed it to the girl.  "Mine still falls out time to time." She polished off the vegetable drink.  "Veggies help.  Protein too." 

  The girl made a mohawk with the silk scarf and let it droop down tired "Like the way I feel a lot." 

  "That comes and goes too." The preacher's wife took the scarf and the girl turned and helped get it in the right spot on her forehead.  Two gentle knots and a pat hang in there on the shoulder.  "I see some kids I think I know," and she got up and went to them.

The jeep slowed coming up to a high spot

  meeting place and two scruffy Clyde boys in the backseat shaved the five o'clock shadow off the third Clyde in the front seat.  The passenger wasn't quite awake after a long last leg the night before.  The driver turned the radio all the way down and coo'd, made your pancakes honey, then the towel wiped away two slicks of cream left on the face.  "Is it time to get up?" Pancakes, butter, and hot syrup.  The man started drooling.  Driver cranked the radio as two palms smacked the man's cheeks.  "AWAKE!" He hollered.

  Some of the moms had to, reluctantly in most cases, take on the duties of morning bed checks.  One mom with some kids in the military and some not, led the way on "tone".  Approaching one tent she told the observing moms, ssshhh.  Then she pitched a coughing fit.  No audible movement in the tent.  She unzipped the door and called, "Good moring" like a salesperson greeting a walk-in potential customer.

  A muffled groan indicated alive.  To which she asked, "When you went out last night," another groan, "Did you get the poison scrump or anything I need to know about before a cup of coffee?" A grunt and a "noooo" sufficed.  But she didn't re-zip the tent.  "That was good technique," another mom said as they made way to locked food bins.  "Budgeted," she explained as she unhooked the tiny key from her belt.  "Smart!" An older mom affirmed.

  We fell into a rhythm, camping, that year.  The budget was already spent well before Science presentations and even an uptick in the tourism figures.  Had been a hurricane and swine flu, and both our nature spots and our economy were stuck in slow mend.

  In cities and woods, situations prompted more of an unfolding of a national war-ready map with only certain actions real-time overseas.  A journalist who'd been in the Middle East and a graduate student spoke of "the fog of war" and because there were professionals sort of suspended regarding time in the field others were able to clarify the ways of different professions  and uphold secrets of tradition.

  There was a bit of a tension between older and younger people as the world economy shifted gears and the money seemed to be more of a lottery ball to be chased than produced by so many people qualified to do the work.  There was up and coming too.  In fact, that was how that guy's Dad won those girls in a bet.  Well, that was what we found out down at the fishing hole.  

  The sun was roasting the charcoaled logs leftover from a post PowWow cool down and get ready to re-tackle the big old world out there.  One girl roused the dog ignoring the flies aswarm its face and we went flippin' leaves and pulling weedgrass clumps to get some worms.  The ones with legs were kinda more gross.  The sunlight dappled the creek so as if it wasn't making noises it woulda just blended in with the way below the ridge.

  "I got some," she didn't quite slam the bait bowl down on the picnic table but it stirred the oldening guy from a cat nap.  His arms were crossed over his barrel chest like he was a bored bouncer at a lameass bar we'd driven by.  He pulled an eyeglass case out of his dirtying short sleeve dress shirt.  And put it, without opening it, next to the bowl of worms and dirt.  "Trade ya," he cleared his throat and said.  She turned on barefoot heel and crossed her arms.  "I don't need a pair of old reading glasses all smooched up in nicotine." He drew his head back slightly and pondered that response.  Then he said, "You'n don't even know if that's what's in there." 

  "You ain't from West Virginia, so lose the fake accent." Well, now the man really needed to ponder this.  And she snatched up the bowl of worms and the dog followed her and I followed the dog into a thick bramble of thorn and vine.  Dammit, she muttered.  Then looked at me and plunked down on a wide rock.  See, I had the fishing pole.

  That I'd "attacked" the marshy part of a pond where supposedly was the really big fish North Carolina side, hidin' from some Volunteers, meant that I had a pole with about half a spool of line, no hooks, that looked more like alfalfa than anything you could even dunk in a fishing hole.  The dog all stiff-legged tramped out a spot in the ground cover and stones.  "Yeah, go back to sleep you ole coot." She was steaming mad.  She was so mad, I didn't sit down next to her on the wide rock.

  Four fucking days.  The shorn guy in a ripped up, wrinkly cotton flannel shirt barely had a voice left but he didn't cry out the down in the weeds here man.  He was angry so he'd lock himself in a broken down car, then get out, stalk over to a guy in a plain white car out of gas, and yell four fucking days, and, motherfuckers just dropped off palettes WRONG.  

  "Had to move the ladies."  Somebody's out-of-work Daddy with graying temples but a shock of still black hair on top answered the question, "Where the hell you beeen?" The woman lowered her eyes back to squishing out a biscuit ball with a plastic paint can lid.  "That was your chore?" A teenage boy asked the man.  The man caught his sons eyes and both made way to picnic table.

  Our mom joined Moms on the Move for coffee.  "Is this the right time?" She asked.  The mom who'd been relaying good advice and some funny mussed that one up stories on caffeine got a quizzical look on her face.  "Sherry?" Mom nodded as she sipped the coffee another mom handed her.  "Did you just come out of that tent?" She pointed at the sample wake-up tent.  Mom looked to make sure and said, "Yes." She took another sip of coffee.  And gave that perfect world smile.  Then she said somehow keeping a straight face, "I promise I didn't scrump anything." The other mom drew in a breath and let out a little oooooo.

  There's a whole big picture; and we could as authors and artists, just describe it.  But we don't necessarily want to do that.

  [Insert exs. like 2008? Surge in Afghanistan]

  Before we were interdisciplinary, we actually weren't able to communicate freely.  Our potential to be inter- was hobbled by censorship, ownership, and the enemy.

  I think it was an entire decade before the public started to hear reports about incapacitating rules creating snafu in war victory.  The contradictions like "surge" and "can't shoot" had jammed the function of even the finest.

"NINE hours and 47 minutes,"

   the woman in the Daisy Duke's told.  She gulped down straight tea, no sugar, on ice, drained the Pepsi cup of the stuff, crushed it and chucked it on top of a pile of trash.  A guy in supertight jeans ran up and gave her a five dollar bill.  "What's this for?" She made a face like the guy might be weird and asked loudly as motors revved.  She crossed the parking lot amidst unblinking eyes, tugged at her ponytail holder and her hair fell down all around her shoulders.  She put her Dragon's Tail ballcap back on.  Wiped a backhand across her lips and picked up the racing flags. 

  It was true, that two guys with perfect hair had gone from Chapel Hill to northah New York to try and help somehow.  Between people on strike! and bad attitudes (not to mention legitimate "burnout") peoples' bloodwork all over the State was being held up.  "Maybe indefinitely," a male nurse slumped down on a hunk of logseat.  The two guys and a referee-type making sure no funny business had made it back in nine hours and forty-seven minutes.

  The Mustang purred to the quickly  drying Baptismal engine bath.  A splash of water left in a grimey on the outside plastic water bottle.  And a young girl admonished, how dare you waste water.  Then she donned a plain red ballcap and waved a little American flag on a stick like she was lettin' 'em loose.

  It wasn't racing on the Dragon, but something called an Autobahn.

  Oh my God, the balding guy was still mouthing at the sight of his very academic "girlfriend" in such short, well-worn, cut-off jeanshorts.  Between that time-of-the-months and still-beer-smelling ruined outfits, she'd ended up with the hottest outfit, swear to God.  "Even on you," the jeanshorts' owner hissed.  "Don't listen to the Cougar," a guy in a dress polo and not too much gut urged the woman to get out of the car Squiggles. 

  And it was true, and not really a "secret" so much as a don't tell everyone

  "Some guy's giving out fifty cents a lap to scholarship of choice!!!!!!!!" The wife overheard a kid hollering.  "He's not a guy," she turned and blew air through her lipstick'd lips and shook her head in little no, no's, this can't be rights.  "He's MY old man," she dramatically thumbed herself like a peacock spreading tail.  Nobody said anything.  "And that was only supposed to be for OUR son." 

  A woman in sunbonnet and swirly peacesign printed skirt went to the woman.  "Something wrong dear?" At that the composure dissolved and the woman burst into tears putting her hands all up and all over her welldone makeup'd eyes.  Another woman with a clipboard and sporting tubesocks with Sharpied-on stripes came over and put the clipboard down on the hood of a car and took the woman's head into her bosom.  Gross, the younger of the perfect hair guys said.  The driver of the car in front of which this was playing out, got out, heels hard on the pavement, and brushed the clipboard off the hood.  Alligator boots and ironed straight edged jeans, a tall man walked over and picked up the clipboard after giving the guy who'd knocked it off the hood that look: Me.  Watching You.  "M'am," he extended his arm long as that car's hood was wide and tapped the woman filling in as a mama's gone already with the clipboard on the hugging arm.

"They have to want to."

  While some of us were having the opportunities to try-out different positions (all beginner level, apprentice-style) with various American services and private sector jobs that summer, there were also kids that were towing families from place of abject poverty.  Or trying to.

  "I can't even tell you how cool my life is now," the scraggly guy told some people in a parking lot.  

  "'Cuz you found Jesus cuzz?"  A less scraggly but meaner boy about the guy's size sounded serious and then would burst into cackling laughter.  The scraggly guy sat back down in the shade.  Put his head on his knees and his hands clenched at the grass beneath the tree.  "I didn't find Jesus asshole," he yelled in the direction of the pot smoking peers.

  "Dude, nobody and I mean nobody wants to hear about it." 

 Aaaaaargh, the scraggly guy expressed his frustration. 

  "Actually, I do." A larger than scraggly but gorgeous girl put a stack of reading materials close to her chest like a breastplate shield and stood in front of the scraggly guy.  "Iaready toll you it all." 

  The social worker guffawed.  "Before you blew me off yesterday?"  The scraggly guy nodded, plucked two fists full of grass and threw these into the air.  

  "I met somebody I want you to meet." 

  "Like sharing?  I doubt that'll help me stay clean!" 

  The girl put her head down slightly and shook the misunderstanding off with a graceful smile.  "Actually he's a Chief." 

  "Of what?" 

  "An Indian tribe not from here." 

  "Don't you mean Native American?" 

  "Yes, I do.  Around here the two words are interchangeable, mostly." 

  "Don't you mean three words?" 

  "Yeah, I do." The social worker unfurled her arms and looked through her reading materials until she found a list of meeting times and speakers.  She'd snagged a few copies and held one out to the scraggly guy.  He stood and took it but didn't read it, put it in his back pocket.  "I would suggest

  "I'll read it later.  Jeeeeeez." 

  "Going to say; not hang out near old friends." 

  "Not friends.  Douschbags." 

  The social worker visibly closed her mouth and didn't respond. 

  "A brother and his friends." 

  "Want a ride somewhere else?" 

  "Not in the, what'd you call it? Toddler car?" 

  She'd actually been overheard calling it that.  Some of us were looking for silver linings despite all the changes to program and heavier personal costs involved in work we were passionate about, but.  She had a little car.  Tiny car like a tiny home.  We all took turns sitting in the backseat and telling what it made us feel like.  More than one of us decided on "toddler".  A more creative person amongst us talked-out how that could be advantageous for a shy social worker.  She'd drew in a breath and said, "I'm not shy." 

  "Yes yah are," a long time friend of hers countered. 

  "I said, I'm NOT." 

  "But YOU ARE." 

  "Am not." 

  "Anyway," another of us said, "Even though it doesn't pay much, I want to keep doing the forest fire fighting." 

  "So, you're not preggo?" 

  "Apparently not." 

  The group of girls didn't interfere with any of these "besties" chats happening in a parking lot.  There was something socially formal established about that even though we hadn't said so out loud.  It was like letting the guys help open a can of corn that was stuck, or, show somebody how tires have PSI's on them and not flipping out.  We were trying to cut down on generic, not much real reason, lambasting everyone and everything.

They'd gotten off a bus that

  ran on vegetable oil and recycled pee and poo.  The few people that were lingering past grab coffee and uselessly rehash how-to hang insulation under a trailer..."It's called skirting.  What we do to the homes.  Ya ready?"...weren't paying attention to the new arrivals like they were rock stars.

  "Really?  On poo?" An older middle aged guy drinking half coffee, half bottom shelf whiskey asked the "prettiest" amongst them.  A bruised top skin from a health check up hand swatted at a fly in the face as he stood near the back of the bus.  It had sort of been a group decision amongst the retirees that you never know, one might want to shack up for the colder months that had gotten this guy "a finger of confidence" and the "duty" of checking out "the new people". 

  Robbinsville, N.C. on a summer Tuesday morning.  Young peoples' pickup trucks and minivans parked to the sides of a grocery store parking lot, people having teamed up for the average 20-125 mile rides to work and family.  Crew chiefs like convoy beacons checking out the whys of not here and deciding 'nother chance.  It is and isn't a coordinated community effort to get the day going.  When someone is missing you'd only have to ask two or three others to get hintimated at as to really why.  "They were really into each other at the end of last year.  Catch my drift?" An everybody's Mom nods head, flips a travel coffee mug shut.  Drives off, not on a hunt.

  The on-poo bunch have come from way up north in Massachusetts somewheres.  But the whiskey quickly soured the man's breath and a horn blowing let's go, let's go curtailed getting too much information.

  Some cardinals flit between mailboxes.  American flags both sides of the road.  The knee-high roadside weeds crackle and buzz with summer bugs.  It's Thursdays and Friday mornings that weekend eventsters prep to make money on their two or three big weekends in Summer.  Even a kid can make a buck with a crowd veneer on local.  

  Phones go in and out of service.  And on both states' sides of The Dragon people practice run.  Sportsters and trucks with growling engines take the eleven miles in stride; no stress without photographers and scouts; less harangue by parents hoping young people stay on track; and distance from the challenges tourism poses to wallets.  A motorcycle roars alive, unseen but rumbling somewhere around a dam.

  A woman had giggled like-a-girl-again and straightened a sweatshirt getting out.  Some people in the mountains trade outdoor spaces and rents to ease the burden of seasonal work.  Others set right here where we are for the whole year while visitors come and go.  Ragged, faded dollar store seasonal lawn flags are changed out for fresh, some years, and some years, not.

  The lakes sparkle in full-on sunlight creeping towards late morning, God's glitter, we used to call it.  Eyes just barely able to take it all in so's I remember.  "It only looks like I'm staring at that nurse's all day," the man's grin spreads his fox personality in the direction of his older-now daughter.  "I reckon I'm thinking of all this nature." His arms lifted and he pulled it towards him, all of it, like a sponge sucking up water. 

  Like trees losing leaves, each season brings people-change news.  Not all of it is "good" and for caring people sensitive to how a prison stay, for instance, effects remnant family, some of it hits hard.  Most of the social news is taken with a healthy dose of salt since some of it's rumor and some of it's tainted by mean-spiritedness. 

  "Whose business is that, you advertising?" A wrinkling woman snides without engaging.  "Young snots," she declares and goes back to sipping her icewater.  Her not smiling doesn't mean she doesn't call some people honey but her poker face helps keep tendrils of group separated.

  "Don't care," someone else warns of a rough-looking bunch outside of a bathroom area.  Talking like, Let me get my asshole back in place and I'll let you know 'bout that, regarding a next leg of road.  "Ain't never did about nuthin'," another somebody throws a line.  Nobody bites.  People grunt and shake numb arms and legs.  Then a leathery guy gets to the very bottom of braiding a long brown and gray chunk of hair, "If'n I din't give a crap, I wun't look like this." 

  "Whatcha mean sweetie?" A leather-vested and graying faded sports bra'd woman asks the man.  Her tone is gruff even though she's being tender.  He explains.  "We's rode four hundred miles or so since whatever day it was before yest'day.  At about 'leven cents a mile, that shood be about a million dollars.  Shood be able to lay off." 

  "Sumin' tellya to not relax?" 

  "Not sayin' such." 

  "Whaddaya sayin'?" 

  "If I din't not give a shit 'bout kids I wun't look'n like such." 

  "Sumin' say sumpin' 'bout how you look?" 

  "Saw." The man tucked a worn feather into the slight furl at the end of his braid and worked it up into the honeybread "x"s like tucking memory flowers into a book. 

  "There mirrORS in men's?" 

  "Shit no 'un, not since," his voice trailed off. 

  "Where'n then?" 

  "A girl." The man pulled at the sagging butt of his winter jeans. "In her eyes," he said. "Then I saw." 

  "Honey, somebody else lookin' don't mean not a thing." 

  "Prolly true I reckon so." 

  A young woman came storming out of the scrawny bushes in front of the fishing pond like a baseball diamond of first base, second base, and onward to preggo.  A heartthrob of a young man followed but threw down his fishing pole and crossed his arms.  "THAT ONE'S IMPOSSIBLE!" He told the rest area. 

  The storm-brewing faced girl stopped midstompin' off.  She didn't turn around because the tears were like a Bermuda thunderstorm on a moped ride.  Hurts and feels good in a hard way, same time.  "He didn't touch me!" She declared to the rest area. 

  "Whoo'n those?" The braid guy had got off the picnic table seat, crossed his arms, and was tapping a booted foot--no scuffs, to find out fast.  The heartthrob picked up his pole with dried leaves now stuck in the saddled hook and line.  "NEXT!" He demanded.

  His Daddy had won 'em in a bet, the young girls, but before that could be sanely explained a pair of rocket cycles with skeletal "brides" aride had drove in front and center.  "They ain't living," a gap-toothed hottie guy said to the shocked and awed.  "You're shitting me?!" A geeky girl who hadn't smiled for the first half of the summer broke into a beaming ray of sunshine out of cloud and dropped a headlamp she was fixing.  Was given a business card, handdrawn, saying The Hub, as she got closer then threw a battery at the skinny bitch.  The man in front ducked out of the way, but the AI gal-thingie didn't flinch.

It was getting ugly.

  Some of us young people rose in the ocean waves crashing like froth.  Authentic--yes, glamorous--no.  Besides being boomed and busted by the American cycles and not having any real security, we were bundles of emotion and energy.  Between the menopausal middle agers and the difficult elders and every sort of "traditional" gone or going weird, some of the Cherokee men and women called for extra meditation and bonding.  Many got kind of sucked into not walking away.  

  "But I'm not thrilled about any of this," one Cherokee woman said.  She'd managed to eek out a living in a full-time-job-necessary environment while being decidedly shut out of automatic benefits and job security often being told keep at it, it will change.  Like she might do the right favor or....I hesitated to finish the sentence.  A Cherokee man who'd taken time to read some of my writing knew I was having a hard time writing "truth" without being harassed as the messenger.  His hand lingered over re-packing some dollar store groceries but when I didn't finish my sentence he asked out loud, "Kissing the right, probably white, asses?" I nodded yeah. 

  "Why did you bring all our food up here into the forest?" A woman asked as she completed the walking-in with duct-taped shoes and newly carved-on walking stick.  "Why not?" The man asked back.  The woman sighed.  "I thought we were going to," her words fell away and her eyes filled with tears which the man did not see because he'd put a rip in a bag of macaronis and busied himself picking up dropping out macaronis.  "Just go back to normal?" The man asked. 

  A boy, small, but like a little man, came and sat at the pinic table.  He watched the man spill out more macaronis to pick up.  Weathered labor hands seemed to decide which macaroni should be picked up next and then next.  The woman just stood there.  The evening sounds of the forest were beginning to rise.  "If we move away, we may not come back." The man said more to the macaronis than anyone specific.

  "Because you gave up a long time ago," one man said to another man.  The beer cans were in a descending order of really crushed to barely crushed but the man's can do mood was clearly ebbed away.  "At least they're not in the river," the other man had declared regarding progress to a fellow forest worker just checking in, and going home. 

  A forest messenger held up the relay to check in with some of the women and children.  She stood, mohawk hairstyle slightly sagging for the afternoon's thundershower, and one kid hollered out, "MOM!!!!". Other children made way from imagination and invented activities towards the figure waiting.  "Wow." A thin small girl said.  "That's some hairdo," a brother finished the sentence.  Our mom made way to the relayer.  "Do I write it down?". 

  "You can." 

  Mom dug out her Astronaut pen and scissors from a sagging back pocket.  "No paper," she told as she was remembering using the last of the looseleaf for starting a campfire and a songwriting session.  "What is the message?" The relaying woman asked.  Another mom with the feet part of her stockings cut away and feet dirtying walked over.  "She wants to know if her menfolk are okay," she said.  The brother smiled bright and glamorous and looked at our mom and said, "I'm good.  Can't you tell?!" Mom smiled too.  "Yes, I can.  But I haven't heard from my other, uh, menfolk." 

  "She has many." A Cherokee mom also walked up. 

  "And what part of the Forest are they staying in?" 

  Mom dug around in more jeans pockets and found scraps of paper but was tear-ing up and so the barefooted woman in the business suit skirt put her hand over the scraps and told, "She misses her husband." Sherry nodded.  A couple tears plopped on her blushing cheek.  These she wiped away after stuffing the scraps back into her pocket.  Her girls smiled then, okay.  

  Nearing the Appalachian Trail the amount of wetted-and-dried paper towels and wet wipes was considerably less than in the campgrounds.  A skinny guy in a colorful nylon jacket like a horse jockey's came down out of a very tall pine tree.  His rock climbing shoes and chalkbag were zipped-in between the jacket and his bare chest.  He tucked a small but stealthy pair of binoculars into one of his pockets.  "HARK! I hear the angels have been singing," he said to the relay messenger.  She took a leather pouch out of her raggedy pants waistband.  Unrolled a little rolled pile of small dollar bills and licked a finger to count out twenty-three dollars.  "Groceries." The man asked, "Mostly salad?" And the woman snatched the money back.  "I'll find someone else." The man pulled out a twenty from the not binoculared pocket.  "Your B-eye." 

  "Your kids need their own food to keep staying," she pointed chewed down dirty finger nail at a hand-drawn map, "There." The man's eyes flashed wide open, then brow furrowed.  "You found them?!" 

  "No message." 

  "But, did they look okay?" 

  The mohawk somewhat bounced as she nodded.  The man gave her the twenty dollar bill and leapt a good four feet from ground onto tree trunk.  He shimmied to a remaining low, thick branch and sat his butt there.  "Practicing," he told me.  I shook myself from just gazing.  "Do you do it professionally?" 

  "Right now there are only some contests." 

  "I think I saw one announced in the newspaper." 

  "There's a newspaper?" The mohawked woman asked.

  "Sort of.  Funny story really.  To hear tell because of the gas prices and all that, we had to relay a bunch of had-beens to produce a few sheets worth of 'area' news." 

  "Had-beens?" 

  "Cha.  Had-been actively literary but when the economy broke a lot of people suddenly just had dreams but no money." 

  "Same with us outdoorsy people," the man finished unpeeling a fruit rollup ans let the wrapper drop.  "You stop that!" The woman said.  I went closer to the tree and swiped the trash up.  The man let half a fruit rollup wrapped in a dollar bill fall out of the tree.  "It's all yours Eve.  If'n you want it." I looked up quizzocally at his now swinging feet.  Hard muscles like ballet people I'd met in New York City.  Then I left it there and started to walk away.

  A clanging could be heard before we got to a mancamp.  The woman with the mohawk flapped her hand twice on my shoulder and pointed with her head that I should stay back.  I fell behind maybe twenty, twenty-five feet but found a hiding spot near the entrance.  The relay messenger walked the length of the campground area, came back to the entrance, pulled up a pantleg and removed a small bundle of mail-looking materials including a Time magazine.  Then she went back in and matched a list of numbered "messages" to campsites.

  Without being able to hear, my mind matched up the image of the strange-looking person talking with various men with how it might have seemed as "diplomats" checked-in with various stalled fighting tribes.  The woman made her way towards the clanging, a site in the middle.  A man put down a hammer he'd been using on an anvil and stood but didn't leave his stool.  The messenger handed him an envelope.  He slumped back onto the stool and clearly was hesitant to open it.  He asked her something.  Then she asked him something.  He pointed with the envelope to another man and a small boy.  The taller of the two's eyebrows went up and he pointed at himself like a questionmark.  The woman chewed the inside of one side of her lips.  Then went towards the pair.  The older quickly sat down in a plastic lawn chair with three good legs and one leg busted like it had a folding knee.

  The small boy looked at his Daddy and crouched into almost sitting down too.  "Are you Mr. Lane?" The woman asked.  The man slowly nodded.  The messenger woman slightly bent over and hugged him.  Then stood and sent the missing you's.  She started to step away and the small boy stood up and took her hand.  The father asked him something like, what are you doing?  To Mom the boy told.  The Dad showed him his lap and sighed, still waiting Son.  The small boy blew out a breath, let go of the hand, and climbed into Dad's lap.  The messenger patted him on the shoulder and then tossled his short hair.  The boy smiled.