A Ridge Runner on Trail for four days came out of the mist one morning up around T'see"s tallest spot. "It's a soggy one," she said. The bulletin board near the Observatory tells that moisture rises up that way, so it often has a marvelous mystical look. Overall, it was a "rough season" in some peoples' opinion/assessment.
In the Kilmer the fish were not as plentiful as in some past seasons. That didn't stop a beaver family from fishing near the Panther Creek campsites.
"Pass the one with the pics," one said. The other one had strings all over hands remembering. "What's it smell like?" Another blew on gluey fingertips. "You (i)cannot(i) keep burning the candle at both ends." The man fairly hissed. Nonetheless passed the milk money envelope across the plasticky bench seat. Sweat dripped from his wrists. The girlish woman put a finger to the wetness, cradled the tear, and wiped it on a skirt pocket. "Thith thrting," sigh, "Let me see." "It don't go."
"With the others," a man in a BBQ apron almost fully turned to explain people not downton. "A nature trip or something."
(i)They(i) didn't know. (i)They(i) didn't have holidays. At the Village it was the same as ever. A person on an exercise bike, second window--the mom lifting a baking sheet towards a sofa, a trash can being pulled into a side door of a garage. Then we'd be there. There were two "playgrounds". Once we'd given up on a Town maintenance person fixing up the Face Smashers (odd creatures on springs) playground we put a tac on that spot: (i)not safe(i). We found others. Even a big set of teeth right out in the open. One Dad said it was made of Mexican plaster. But that made a lady cry, so everyone talked over what we call things over five unopened bottles of pace sauce and a shared can of tomato sauce.
"Not good," a babysitter said of the (i)shape I'm in(i). "I'd recommend not sitting on these." She held up plastic headbands with styrofoam and glitterballs on them. "And what happened to this one?" She moved a leg clad in a tube sock with my soccer team's colored stripes so we could peer in. We could see three. Disassembled, smushed, and bent to shit. "What was said?"
"Smash it. (i)Smash it(i)."
"Okay, don't tell me what it was; I'll find out."
"Beat you to the horsey."
A look back. "I will."
had collapsed. I stood on a chair, scanning the room for the beret-wearers.
Mind scrolled through relevant backstories. Knew we'd need 'em as the sandbags cut a swath line dividing territories.
Hours and hours of moment-to-moments full of stopwatch later I had occasion to talk about the night of the guard dogs.
"Like a chess game?" The lead people statue had asked two of the kids almost ripped to shreds. "SaSORTOF." The other was smelling the spots on him slimedandbloodied, slimedanddirty, slimed, and drooled on. "Hold on, hold on," he told a kid archeologist.
When it happens you personally have to feel equal enough to step right in, but humble enough and "good" enough to oblige (i)I don't know(i).
"That's a stellar point Mr. (i)what did you say your surname is(i)?" The man being spoken to wriggled one hand free of being cuffed and held that finger up one more time, always one more thing, one more point to be made. "Mr. (i)Ricos(i) if you do not get that finger out of the airspace of my face, I will break it in half." The finger didn't back down. The man in charge growled like a wolf and chomped the air. A cop downed the arm back into the cuffs and locked them. The man spit, but not on the man in charge. "(i)Progress(i)," he said and indicated (i)next(i).
Next were a group of people needing a sounding board. "But we can see you're a little busy at the moment." The man was shorter than most but looked his eyes down to see them all clearly. "You think?"
A sigh. "Oh, there they are," said a jaunty man who'd agreed to kept under guard in a toilet outbuilding overnight.
A hand wave buzzed them away. "Ah, Mr. Ellis. I'd love for you to meet my wife."
"Señora, it is my pleasure." Pressed for time in an anti-Vortex zone for that moment, the man and the woman gently locked arms and stood off by walking together past a woodstove. "What am I a rump roast?" The husband joked seriously. Photographers with flash bulbd and digi-guts said in unison, (i)Say cheese!!!!(i) and snapped the man's photograph for a new Global Passport project. The pair made a horseshoe of a loop in returning. The wife then spoke, saying only, "The pleasure was mine. May you have a wonderful evening."
"FOURTEEN FUCKING TIMES,"
"YOU GOT TO SCREW YOUR WIFE FOURTEEN FUCKING TIMES??!"
"AND IF THAT WASN'T WRONGFUL ENOUGH LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID TO OUR ARMS,"
"(i)Huh, Gentleman, we're doing a stage set here, would you mind not talking so godforsakenly loud." The louder of the two had drawn himself tall and still adjusting the pinhole sight, aftermath of a healthcheck. The other sort of ran into the man from behind then peeked around.
"WHAT IS DAH MEANING OF THIS?" Mr. Ellis called over towards the gully from where the men had appeared.
The man and the wife kept on walking.
It was kinda by accident
"You say it." The girl looked at the floor. "She doesn't want to."
"I will."
Backing out of the shutter closet doors the kid pretended to be straightening the clothes hangers. Another kid entered the room. "What's going on?"
"Apparently, a (i)dipolomatic stir(i)"
Whispered: (i)Is that really true(i)?
"It is. I'm in here but not if they're looking for my family."
"What was that?" The question itself was drowned out by a sudden rearranging of the furniture.
"They wanna know why some of the parents were not at breakfast."
Caught between two funnels
A pan of the hemisphere-in-the-moment, no sound recording, brought fresh eyes into "a landing". You'd often see (i)not a lot of activity(i) in places where it had been "leaked" that (i)there might be a camera(i), but for on "the fringes". There'd you'd typically see little clusters of what had become "collateral damage" but looked like people milling about.
"I'm not familiar with this style."
"Of what?"
"Of acting."
"Okay, so, so...it's like Improv and, um, that book."
"Book?" She rolled a cigarette and pressed her lips together as if she was wearing lipstick.
"(i)Play It As It Lays(i), Didion I think."
A younger person walked up. She said, "You look confused."
"Is someone going to call 'action'?"
"No, not at this part. The action is ongoing."
And it had been. But like an octopus unaware of what it's ink will do, exactly, after it bleeds, there were lots of missing links between us all.
The womenfolk had all told them the same thing, (i)whatever else you do do, don't gamble(i).
"I toll 'em," she clutched her one nice belonging a little tighter on it's strap. "I tOLD mine too."
"Me as well."
"And I."
Not a soul on the neighborhood street as we turned the corner from the cemetery where, apparently, (i)a whole family mustah died or something(i). "Mustah been."
"Maybe."
"Might've been an accident."
"Car wreck or something; maybe so."
Then we saw most everybody still left (i)around(i) after "the call up". A train car had even been stowed under the leafy way to finding some train tracks. Not like ants preparing for the end of summer, but
"Like jackals."
"Well, that's a bit extreme."
"Yeah I do think so. My men are good men."
"So aren't mine, juss with some bad habits."
"How many?"
"Maybe three or four pretty bad habits."
"Jeeeeesus Lord, not dem, (i)them(i). She'd flashed her pocketbook and a row of standing men parted the way to the men in the middle. Over around the manhole cover, (i)the people was dark and dirty(i).
"Barrack Trash"
"It's too scary," the driver hadn't drawn the short toothpick. The three of us girlfriends were at equal levels in our service-oriented careers and thought since "nothing is official anymore" we could swap some of the tasks between us. The driver was driving because the "reams" of digital information was in a pile on the backseat.
We'd been privvy to some discussions about (i)this is why(i) but assigned duties were few and far between. We were on our way to ensure the piles of trash were picked up that hadn't been picked up by "the garbage people".
"So I'd had to," gear shift, "Can I watch this one again?"
"DAMMIT," the coffee spilled on the driver's lap, "Of course,
"SHIFT
(i)Bullets being unloaded(i)
single-filed through a field office completing duties and re-uniting appropriately on schedule. There was no word for the kind of 'draft' that had caught a Galax on fire. Smudges and bruises were coated in petroleum jellies and so we were somewhat idfentifiable as probably shouldn't just get back to work.
"Eh?!! One more here." A man with singed hair and wrapped in gauze fingers had sniffed the air, but the nurse had walked away without treating a gash on his shins. "Put these on him," an Admin clutched the packaged face mask and sunglasses hard but passed them over to a field desk.
An indeterminate amount of time brought us to mid-range. On the Cherohalla some of the trees coated in liquid were already sending cracks of distress "calls". Someone asked, "How is this possible? A tree making a call?" Field bags had been tossed onto small puddlejumper planes in a rush: Hostages.
We'd drifted through the campgrounds, stopped at trailheads, collected from camps and work groups, and found in gathering our National Guards a whole lot if us, Gen Xer's.
"Don't forget." A poet-musician held up a hand, the piece of yarn like a wedding ring. Her eyes a mix of radiant-shine and an ocean of emotion. A car full of academics with the payload of a trunk full of books swung close by. Casually, big strong almost-eighteen year olds stood between it rolling to a stop and the building's wall. "No damage!" One of them ordered. Everywhere we were gathering we were committed to keeping it clean. "There's four other carfulls," a parent let everyone know. A diversity of books heading to Berea. Each pinned with a label of "gift" donated by and logged in a Catalog of Us. The binder section had grown from two sheets of looseleaf to its own chapter as we'd practiced finding the origin story of all our stuff.
A uniformed group of men turned from holding a campstove, making a fresh Welcome cup of hot water, and greeted the new arrivals to the parking lot which had recently been a Sanctuary Spot. On the edges of cities and rural all through ETA and WNC a diversity of people were making "human chains" of "community resource" to phase from free for all to focus up.
The people who'd been learning traffic directing took turns holding place until the next who knows how to do it took up place. "She's got the moves," an MP hoooooweeee'd and said of the traveler from Bermuda. "Get some music on and I'll show everyone how we do it there." A little hatchback out of gas was rolled closer. A button on a remote clicked, the hatchback opened, speakers like rows of corn were blinked at and logged as on loan as someone chose which to use.
The "base camp" field radio crackled through a squelched transistor radio. This is a high up patch, repeat, this is a high up patch. The person studying to be a Sherpa blinked at the voice.
"This is that pr-ah-LEADER!"
Some of us knew from a leadership skills training activity who it was. Someone else pulled our place leader back from "just going over here to the port-o-potty." She rebuckled her belt and tentatively took the headphones. "Yes?" She spoke. A hand pointed at a clicker button that would make her voice be aired. "What should I say?" She asked everyone gathered around. No one else spoke.
The filmer was standing "up tall". A child who'd learned to do surgery Overseas. The women's hips filled the screens and monitors to get a feed. One whimpered, not nuts, nobody said they were nuts, then shook off the whimper and focused the get a grip energy. She looked at me. "NOT CRYING," she practically yelled and put her head back in place on her shoulders. It had shifted its position, her backbone, in her sleep. "I'll CLASSIFY IT."
Then, "Don't worry Loania."
I'd made it back to our special tree sitting spot before the few others (i)deciding "WHAT KIND" of writer to be(i) a gaseous mix of flashpan anger, deadly seriousness, and nothing to write with--no flint.
As far as (i)how I was FEELING(i) would be something like a twisted cornucopia. I cautiously walked towards a different forest road where I'd spent some solace-time with a "reformed" Native American man. He 'd always been able to let my creative furies melt off of me while not pummeling me with (i)what's next?(i) questions or expecting eyes regarding food. But that day before the creek passes through the walking path and after the Hatchery land, there was only the Unicorn Horn.
"What was that one after?" She sank into a tree trunk rest and her cloth grocery bag sewn into a "backpack" stood for a second or two then flopped over. The notebooks slid down the slope like a deck of cards just opened and stretched out of being a deck. We just looked at them.
"One who or whom?"
"The advisor or person running the group or whatever."
"Kind of a speed round. (i)Picture a serial killer. List three details(i)."
"How 'bout the one with the bug lady?"
"Which one? There's two now."
"Really?"
"Cha."
"The (i)original(i) bug lady."
"Did you know I never know if you people are angry when your being so dramatic?"
"Did you know I'm not being dramatic?"
"Seemed like she was looking for someone more science-oriented maybe to write her reports."
"I'll ask her." She whipped a pen out of her pocket and a notebook and started to write. I ripped a clump of grass out of the pine needle covered dirt and threw it onto her notebook. She didn't look up and said, "That's not nice." She brushed the dirt off after she slid the clump of grass off like it was a plate over a garbage can.
"What's your problem?" The Mr. and Mrs. of our little group almost walked by the spot but when he spied us, he added, "With it."
"With what?" She looked up and saw him seeing us and said, "Oh, there you are! Do we have to climb up there?" She showed she'd found her boots with the heels.
From deeper in the woods came another of us with two more people. One kept on going down the trail. "What are we looking at?" She asked looking at a kind of phone "monitor" and talking on a large cell phone.
A pan of the hemisphere-in-the-moment, no sound recording, brought fresh eyes into "a landing". You'd often see (i)not a lot of activity(i) in places where it had been "leaked" that (i)there might be a camera(i), but for on "the fringes". There'd you'd typically see little clusters of what had become "collateral damage" but looked like people milling about.
"I'm not familiar with this style."
"Of what?"
"Of acting."
"Okay, so, so...it's like Improv and, um, that book."
"Book?" She rolled a cigarette and pressed her lips together as if she was wearing lipstick.
"(i)Play It As It Lays(i), Didion I think."
A younger person walked up. She said, "You look confused."
"Is someone going to call 'action'?"
"No, not at this part. The action is ongoing."
And it had been. But like an octopus unaware of what it's ink will do, exactly, after it bleeds, there were lots of missing links between us all.
The tiny paddleball drifted near the end of all of our racetracks stuck together. It seemed to linger and stall. A little kid smacked his forehead, "Oh God, that's the piece that got stuck under the sofa leg.". The Macaroni Man receiving a flute and trumpet case under the chairs between legs leaned forward and stared at the ball. "Dad! Don't! Everybody, Let Us Pray."
"You can't be a priest!" Another kid stood up and almost shouted. His mother demanded Dad's hankie, now. She wadded that cloth up and chucked it at her cuphead son. It grazed his hair and he turned to see where it came from as others stiffly jostled and stopped, stopped and extended gazes to see the hankie land on the tracks behind the ball.
"I can still lead a prayer! Ladies and gentleman, please stay where you are and pray."
"Yes m'am," the videographer didn't flinch and to this day, people swear it was the Holy Spirit that unwobbled that ball from being stuck on the end of its string bump.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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."
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 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?!"
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."
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.
(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.
