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.