"Put it on ice?"

   "Like it's a lightswitch." 

  "But 

  "But I'm in love 

  "With him?" 

  "Who else? 'Fess up." 

  Slowly but surely eight girls revealed nine-tenths of "their problem."

  Robert Rhonda stsred at his toes in flip flops from a bag of stuff someone had left on the hood of his car.  "I really can't remember if I am." 

  "I hope so." 

  "This sucks." 

  The fan blowing over lunchbox ice packs wasn't making more air. 

  "I gotta go to work." 

  "We took those promise vows at Church." 

  "Mine chose to go back to Israel." 

  "One of mine is headed to training first." 

  "Hers 

  "You don't have to speak for me 

  "Was mine." 

  "Seriously?!  And we wonder why we get called

  "HEY!

  "What? 

  "Let's not fight." 

  Out of the sounds of crayons and markers coloring the conversations started and stopped.

  In some ways it was like being at Ground Zero in an impact zone, some tensions happening in slow motion, some emotions happening fast.  A layer of everything stayed "normal" but as a group of carefree people....well, awkward angles and a sudden strangeness.  What rippled out was like something in nature....something like when Spring happens and romance dominates. 

  So in the movie script....

  "Hey, where's the third quarter section?" 

  "Oh.  Didn't I tell you the boys raided the art supplies?" 

  Shock

  "Um.  Maybe it was in there."

  "Maybe?"

  

  One pressed a broken and muddy--under finger nail into the other's arm.  "See!  Stays tan." 

  I smacked her hand away before she could press on my sunburn. She put her thumbs in her tank top straps like it was her overalls.  "Still mad?" 

  Pursed lips and squinting eye. 

  The other one just stood thete.

  "Try that thing where you start with a question 'steada runnin' away." 

  "How in the world or hell does somebody run over yonder to the creek and wind up missing for four months?"

  The other one crossed her arms. 

  The cardboard door swung outward.  'i DID IT! I, OH, hello, finished a paragraph." 

  "Who"s that?" 

  "This is uh, Robert." 

  "Glaf you ask.  That was why I couldn't finish my piece." 

  Both girls plucked tall grass and stuck it in there mouths.  "We quit smoking." 

  'See, my friend here helped me get out of Knoxville and create a, what do you call it?" 

  "A Jesus bubble.  Personal space." 

  "Right, enough of that to overcome my amnesia.' 

  "You had amnesia?" 

  "Did you?" 

  "It was due to stress.  I think it happens so I won't snap.  Although," all five dogs came out of the porch area and peed everywhere, "Some claim I did snap by walking away."  The girls took the grass out of their mouths. 

  "I literally got hit in the head with a house." 

  "Lying?" 

  "I was too angry to be a therapist anymore, but not physically fit enough to stay in the services, so I," 

  "A whole house?" 

  "Like half, disintegrating, as we got the rafting company to North Carolina." 

  "Did the news ever decide if the dam broke or"

  "The news doesn't decide that or anything else." 

  "So I was convinced that I was Rhonda.  I was like who the hell is Robert?!' 

"This is your mother"

   We were in the barn having a musical argument that entailed almost yelling the lyrics, 

  Don:t rock the jukebox

  PLAY ME A COUNTRY SONG 

  PLAY ME THE ROLLING STONES 

  When I was summoned to the landline.  "This is your mother." 

  "What's wrong?" 

  "Why does something have to be wrong?" 

  "Nothing's wrong."

  "For once."

  "Is something wrong?" 

  "Well a lot of things about the world are wrong Mom, but I'm alright."

  "How about you?"

  "Mostly okay.  There's black mold at work." 

  "Eeewwww.  What's that?" 

  "Worse than mildew."

  "Oh.  Don't let it get on you." 

  "Shelby and I are working up front.  But the boss can't afford to fix it.  And," eating a Snickers, "So Shelby put every crate in the place in the doorway." 

  "Probably a fire hazard." 

  "Better than black mold.  Bad for breathing." 

  "Oh." 

  "That's not why I'm calling."

  "Oh?"

  "What is it?"

  "Your Dad is down about something." 

  "What's wrong?"

  "He thinks, well, he feels like you might love Everybody's Dad more than you love him."

  "What?!  That's out there."

  Chewing.  "Not even possible." 

  "Let me talk to him." 

  "He's sleeping." 

  "But it's like dinner time." 

  "The boys wore him out." 

  "Sports?" 

  "No.  You're funny.  Everyone was stressing about tariffs and stocks." 

  "Here too.  But, just don't spend and well, I can tell you that retailers did like pre-planning." 

  "Even for the holidays?" 

  "Especially for that.  Watch on the TV.  The media is keeping up with the non-chaos part of everything too." 

  She'd brought the phone up to Dad.  "Here's Daddy." 

  "I'm awake." 

  "Hey Dad.  It's Lara." 

  "How's things?" 

  "Okay I guess for a bunch of random people trying to make the best of nothing."

  "Sounds like fun wherever you are." 

  "It's okay.  Mom had told me not to wtite about our family, so, I'm learning some different family stuff.  But you guys are still the best family." 

  "Ok." 

  "He smiled!"

  "I love you guys the most!" 

  "He smiled bigger." 

  "And really soon I'll be traveling again and writing about other stuff." 

  "That's the good news," Everybody's Dad poured the last of the coffee into his cup and turned off the pot. 

  "Where too?" 

  "Back into the flood zone." 

  "Well be careful." 

  "Of course."

  "And, Dad!" 

  "Spaghetti and meatballs?"

  "Yeah?!" 

  "I love you the most." 

  "I love you too." 

  "K I T" 

  "Will do."

  Of course I started crying in hanging up so got an Everybody's Dad hug that worked its way out the door before too dark to see or the old bat croaks he winked at his mother, and the hug merged into a unicorn and bigfoot and mama hug happy that we'll all keep working on it.

  The footage from various video cameras kept coming in. 

  "Note says: This proves it."

  "I think the lingering political stuff kind of got swept into the same rubbish pile as real grievances," the insurance adjuster off the clock said softly. 

  "None of it's garbage," said the start-up recycling group over for beans without taco shells. 

  "I blame it on...." Another round.

   We wouldn't have believed that "trade wars" could rip apart social structure the same way as "hot war" but it kept rearing it's head in precious moments.

"Liberation Day" because

   it's been long enough that it's all been a tangled mangled mess of paperpushing, stat zapping, and left of center on true reading of where we're at.

  Next

   "Well, compared to...." 

  "The speaker had some good points." 

  "Does seem kind of true." 

  "And not really conspiracy theory." 

  "Brain computing."

  There was plenty to think about.  But out of thin air, not a lot of connection between competition and communism.  We trapsed through mud and tarps to bookshelves. 

  "That's what I'm talking about." 

  "The perfect haven." 

  "Did you bring the coffee?"

  "Where's the list of stuff to ask about?"

  "Remember, it's volunteer work." 

  "No pay?  I'm leavin'."

  "He's just being funny." 

  "Can I just live here?  I don't ever want to leave." 

  "Is that sarcasm?"

  "Nope." 

  Remember the mudbath had become something tossed between us like a trophy we'd won.  In that part of the yard that had collapsed because of a garbage retaining wall, we'd let go.  Fortunately for our feelings we'd already let loose.  Totally different with God involved. 

  We'd purposefully not eaten the same things we'd been eating for six months.  And we remembered stuff.  Like, I used to have a personality, and, that old goat that lived where we used to. 

  "Let the mud pull all the toxicity away." 

  "Fuck you.  That's part of my personality." 

  "Fuck you then for asking me to marry you." 

  Laughs

  "Oh hey new neighbor.  What are you doing here?""

  A sigh and an almost cry, then lips screwed into resolution.  "Well, I'd say it has to do with being a Jew but that leaves the field wide open for hmmmm I dunno the something stinks and sinister going on somehow being connected to the Jewish PEOPLE." 

  "Did you know they don't call each other Hebrews?" 

  "Really?' 

  'Who's there Martha?" 

  None of us knew what they were saying.  'Did you just call us dumb goyas?" 

  "No m"am.  That was a Hebtew quote about strangers being welcomed as friends

   "Until they prove otherwise

  "Which; they do often do.". 

  In the mudbath we'd taken turns at one point not getting out until resolution.  One day it had led to a heated debate about forgiveness.  We got deep on the topic of debt.  Then the unicorn, holding up her broken bikini top, came over sternly saying, Oh my God, Oh my God.

  "What is it?". Everybody's Dad sat up and mud slide down his chest.  He tried to catch it and patch it back into place.  "She just coated me." 

  "Not like there's a shortage." 

  'I need you." 

  "Well, that's better than I hate you.  It's a start." 

  "No, I really need you." 

  A paint stick stirred a pat of dried mudcake.  'Sure you do.  Like you ever need anybody." 

  "Knock it off." A pitcher of water was thrown in that direction.

  "What is it baby girl?"

  "Um.  Bigfoot is asleep.  But.  He's covered in wasps." 

  People jumped up in the mudpit.  The unicorn pushed people back.  "We shouldn't wake him up!' 

  Clumps of mud being brushed off splatted. 

  "He"ll panic." 

  "Bigfoot panic?  Never." 

  "She's right.  You don't know my son." 

  Everybody's dad sank into sitting on the muddybank.  His wife to be looked at him to gauge how he'd taken that.  Then her eyes grew wide and she pointed.  "Look at the holes!" 

  "In my bathing suit?" He crossed his legs quickly and his arms over those.  "No honey.  In the mud."