"What does your brother

  call this place?"  

  "The Port of All Times." 

  Little bands of men in partial uniforms were walking up and down the avenue.  Some kids had their nations flags.  Mothers asking, Have you seen?  Have you seen? 

  The lady with the almost white blonde hair had been told stay right there.  It was like watching a movie on the outside of her sunglasses.  What had been quiet had come alive.  People were suddenly busy but not doing much of anything.  

  "Why do you think the people who got shot 

  "Got shot?  I don't know." 

  "No, listen, 

  "I am listening 

  "Why do you think they had street clothes under their kitchen uniforms?" 

  "Did they?" 

  "Yes." 

  "Are you sure?" 

  I was and then suddenly I wasn't.  It was a feeling in the air like looking at a mailbox you've seen your whole life in an earthquake.  Like everything was shaking and people had to suddenly do whatever we had to do to not get shook apart.  

  The woman looked at her wristwatch again and again.  "Come on for fuck's sake." 

  "What are we waiting for?" 

  "Good question.  Let's find coffee." She rubbed her temple, looked at her feet in another woman's boots, and slide one leg a little left about a foot.  She waved at a curtain parted like, Hi, right where you left me.  

  It took us twenty minutes to get past four shop windows.  Finally we turned a corner, jaywalked through an intersection, and she slowed in front of a door that didn't seem like a shop or a house. 

  Inside the furniture was all mismatched.  People barely glanced up from what seemed like a paper sea of newspapers. 

  "What are they doing?" I asked her. 

  One man with a moustache and thick, thick glasses made a hmmmmm, yep, yep sound before a lot of what he said.  A nasally hmmmmm, yep, yep "We are-ah comparING stories." 

  He looked at us finally and then got to his feet.  "What's it like out there Susan?" He came closer.  His hand pressing the rims of his glasses closer to his eyes.  Real close.  Hmmmmmm, yep, yep "And THISS one is AhmeriCAN?" 

  "I didn't kidnap her or anything.  Where is coffee?" 

  The man clipped his photo loop back onto one of the many strings around his neck and hooked his arm around hers.  And they went towards the kitchen.

  "Is the sausage on fire?" She asked as we made way into the thick greasy smoky area. 

  Hmmmmm "It may be but my whole world could burn down now, and I wouldn't mind." 

  She patted his arm then dove to the little stove/oven and grabbed newspapers to grab hold of the skillet handle.  She moved it off the flame.  Repositioned the wad of newspaper and took the skillet to the sink beside the appliance and put some water on the smoking heap of meat.  The thin bead of water turned the thick smoke to steam and she looked at it closely.  "I think we can save it." 

  From a pocket she pulled a box of matches, relit a gas burner, and used a can opener to open stewed tomatoes.  From the can she poured some of the juice into the skillet. 

  "Eggs?" 

  The man pointed to a windowsill.  A little basket with cloth covering five eggs. As the smoke cleared it became obvious that there were a lot of small appliances and clocks and radios with plugs dangling from every surface.  But only one outlet.  And what had looked like clothing piled on a chair pushed into a table was breathing.  Snoring in fact.

  Susan glanced back over her shoulder as she stirred the egg with a fork into the mix in the skillet.  Then she directed her voice towards a broom closet.  "I guess it'll settle down NOW that the Americans are here."

  Hmmmmmm, yep, yep. The man shuffled his heel-less slipper feet to the broom closet.  A muffled woman's voice asked, "Tey are?" 

  The man's hand barely touched the little door knob but it moved almost imperceptively.  From inside it turned a little bit more like a question, forward then back. 

  The heap of clothing lifted then snortcoughed then fell back to rest.  Susan put the quiet finger up to her lips.

  A grainy whistle blew.  Susan's back strengthened tall and straight.  The front door opened and shut.  The broom closet opened a crack and a dainty finger pointed at me and then beckoned.  I silently pointed at myself.  The hand made the okay sign.  I started to tiptoe toward the broom closet.

  Loud European noise-making outside the window.  Men, young, playing up having been out all night.  One entered the kitchen, took off a neat thin brimmed hat and perched it on a pile of newspapers.  Made way to Susan.  Stopped and ran his hand through the air around his skinny grayblack jeans and alligator boots like a magician conducting the space between real and illusion.  She didn't look at him.  He mimed slumped shoulders then, and crying.  Then drew his hand way up in the air and made a flying bird wing of it before smacking her ass.  That made her jump but it was slow and little, nonplussed.

  In the broom closet it was dark.  Before my eyes could adjust someone lit a match.  A round, round woman in a black veil and shawl was lightly and evenly breathing and snoring.  Over her. Swords hung on pegs.  Two skinny sets of legs made railroad tracks between the narrow walls.  Sitting opposite each other with black flour sacks over their heads and hands tied with rope behind their backs.