In the story?

  Yes, the people did come back.  Despite changes to we the people per economy and military and politics the people came back and we had a meaningful visit.  The man and his wife, both good listeners and maintain their values even when hearing all.  My Dad had a boxful of MAGA stuff though which he revelled in handing out as soon as they left.  Me and my Dad always agree to disagree.  One of the last words of wisdom Sherry (my mom, his wife) left us with--Love Is All That Matters.

  The muppets?  That was real.  A whole trunk full.  21st century muppets!  Why they were in that trunk we never knew.  But even they were called to meetings like sensitivity training and narrative scripting and late night visioning.  Very helpful.

  Part of why the muppets were so helpful was because they generally didn't just confront people.  Sometimes they planned interventions, but they did these creatively.  They had a muppet-power that empowered them to make us think of how people were acting without making realistic movies of ourselves acting all bunged up and having feelings that can be all over the place.

  Before people got underway, down to business back in those days we had some gatherings where the muppets just weren't around until later.  One example was people just amassing in an empty space.  We'd already re-split into couples, camps, and groups to stick with.  But stuff like "end-times" and "war" on the hearts often leads to talking, talking to: 

  That was when some musicians stepped up to "humor" us.  Less talking if...

  Before the muppets could get there from visiting some Church folk along I-40 we'd turned the empty space into a kind of mead hall.  And there was some decision-making going on.  It was good because after being over-analyzed and censored we were in for building up our self-confidences in different ways.

  Some of the parents and guardians were really more confused than they were pissed off.  And some, from Out West were like, Oh, I get it; I get it, even when they didn't or they'd "rather skip the details on that." One Dad took to asking, "If my daughter was a 21st Century muppet, what would she be doing right now?!" 

  "Um.  Probably motorcycle riding with you know who." 

  Without really being "informed" he was able to keep showing up and thwarting all of the stuff that kids do that make the parents look bad.  

 

 Where it's at these days...

(https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cJw_MWI9PbY)

Homecoming Parade

 

     I was on my way in to work at Wendy's.  A parade happened. 

Sucker for Jesus books.

     Amidst the tensions between gung ho for duty to country doing and a clinging to fierce independence, I recently ducked into a thrift shop that also sells books.  Volumes of digesting God's Word.  I dove in.  "Randomly" opened after a sincere prayer.

     The passage was so apt I read it again.  It was about evil.  Specifically, when Jesus was in Temple.  Teaching.  The gist:  Evil was also hearing.

     Life often gets to that point.  It's hard on our psyches to take a step back; let others lead (especially on strategy); reign in imagination and memories; curb our flapping lips.  And to be sure, these times are not for disengaging. 

     Early Christians had to become even more vigilant, carekeeping, and holding so much "sacred".

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    The man chewed a nibble of jerky and looked through a stack of papers.  He tapped two fingers on a folded newspaper on top of a little stack of newspapers.  He stared at a graph.  He blew out a breath and did the tiniest of whistles.  "Not good numbers," he said.  Held a pen like a cigarette.  Got up, picked a sock up off the floor, sat back down.  Glanced at more papers.  Came to one with three columns.  "That's a lot of W's," he sort of raised his eyebrows.  "Can I see?"  More people had chosen (i)undecided(i) too.

     She came out of the bathroom totally put together.  But she didn't say anything.  "Ready?" She asked after she'd looked around the room and decided there wasn't anything she needed to do.  He put his papers into a briefcase.  "She got it for me.  Quite some time ago." 

     "I did." 

     "I think I know where we could start.  Gonna be a long day again." 

     One side of her mouth did a quick tug of expression at that.  But she said, "Whatever we need to do." 

     The sun showed a flat pile of carpet when the door was opened.  She stepped backward when a security person said, "Good morning."  He pushed her forward with the briefcase.  She waved him to (i)stop that(i) with her hand behind her back.  He almost giggled.  Then sighed.

     They'd decided to go to a campground first.  An easy start to (i)canvassing for votes(i).  Plus, they could get rid of me.  "Well, not get rid of." 

     "You said it."  She glanced at me in the rearview.  "It's fine.  I'm completely ditchable.  I'm sure you've heard." 

     The man looked at the map on top of his briefcase on his lap.  "I think we turn right up there." 

     The campground was like a ghost town.  Totally quiet and no smoke.  "Maybe we'll just go find pancakes," she said.  He was thinking and just said flatly, "Yeah." 

     "It's early," I said.  "Stop up here and I'll just get out." 

     "Just like that?!" 

     "My family's here." 

     "In this one?" 

     "Yeah." 

     "You making that up?" 

     "Nope." 

     "We'll come back." 

     "We have a lunch in..." He looked through the papers.  She put her hand over his shuffling.  "Let's get coffee and eat first." 

     "What time?"  Neither answered. 

     "I mean, if I knew, know, then I can rally the troops." 

     "We'll send someone.  To let you know." 

     "Cool.  Have a good breakfast." 

     "Will do." He put the briefcase in the backseat.  She said, "We might need the map."  I got out and started walking towards our site.

     My Dad was the only person awake.  He was sitting at a picnic table with a large box.  "What's in the box Dad?" First he looked around like there was no box.  "This box," I put a hand on his shoulder and pointed to the box. 

     "Something I got for everyone."  He looked at his shoes. 

     "Can I have mine now?" 

     "Why don't we wait 'til everyone gets up?"  

     "Okay, but can I look?" 

     "Can't you let me (i)do something(i)?" 

     "Okay, sorry."  I went to my tent.

     "I wuntah gone in deer." 

    "Canadian, eh?" 

    "How'd yah guess?" 

    "Whole damn town's tawkin' 'bout (i)those French Canadians(i)." 

    The man drained an ice-beer.  "Dey are?"  He crushed the can under a fringed moccasin boot.  "Hear daht Maggie?" 

    A woman with the same hair came out of a teepee.  "What now?" She hung a little broom on a leather string on a missing side mirror.  "We's all FAMEUSS now." 

    "Notting new."  She unrolled a fish out of a newspaper.  Two fingers gently put it in a fry pan.  Made the sign of the cross over it.  "I am, he's not."  

    "Blessed enough, t'ank you." 

    "What's going on in there?" 

    What had been decorated with red, white, and blues (i)happy, happy(i) "dam vacation" mood had changed around Fontana. 

    "Drinking.  Don't say I didn't warn you," the woman said. 

    "Not me.  But I can't save anybody else.  Learned that the hard way." 

    "A time or two, I bet." 

    "I don't gamble either." 

    The man poured oil in the pan and smelled the fish.  "I miss the ocean.  Want to go Maggie?" 

    "To the ocean?" She chuckled. 

    "Yah.  The ocean.  You can be a mermaid." 

    "After you drown me?" 

    I pulled open the door and left the sunshine outside.

     Came back out pretty quickly to smoke a cigarette with my coffee.  A little car dragging it's guts under it pulled up.  Guy gets out in a cloud of smoke.  "I know you," I say as I'm sucking in a drag.  "YOU?!?"  

     He started to walk back towards the car.  "Wait!"  He turned and sort of ran back.  He grabbed the sides of my arms and shook me.  "You (i)gotta help me(i)." I removed his hands from shaking my expensive coffee all over the ground by sticking my elbows out like doing the chicken dance.  "What's (i)wrong(i)?" He turned on heel and slumped against the pipe fencing.  He put his head in his hands.  And he said something.  He laughed and sucked in a breath and kind of cried but no tears.  "What did you say?" The door of the place was being held open for ladies and gentlemen in ironed jeans so it was loud.  Then in the quiet I asked again.  "What's wrong?  Did you do something?" 

     I got down close to where he'd slid into sitting.  He slowly, carefully bumped his head against the rail.  He burped a cloud of marajuana.  "Well, you did good to pull over!" I smiled.  "Are you drinking?"  I smiled bigger, "Noooo." 

     He pulled his legs up to his chest.  "I, I took a wrong turn," he muttered.  I looked at him for bruises or blood.  "I just can't remem...I have to get to Knoxville..." I plucked his keys from his hands.  He grabbed my shirt sleeves.  "If you write about me, call me the Little Black Guy."  I took his hands off my sleeves and placed them on his knees.  "I would never do that.  You know me." He started blubbering.  "But I don't want them to get in trouble." 

     "Did you hit anyone?" He shook his head (i)noooooo(i).  "Kill anyone otherwise?"

     "Nope."  He shook his head and for a second his eyeballs looked crossed.  Then he said, "I, I, this is (i)cray, cray(i), I have a trunk full of muppets." 

     "Did you say muppets?" 

     "Boy, you high as a kite." A tall, stocky man in chaps and bandanas and a leather jacket bulging over arm muscles as round as my thighs looked down at us and said.  The Little Black Guy sounded like a horse in a stall stung by a bee, all boots scrambling.  The tall guy picked him up by the back of his shirt while he unscrambled squirming in circles and tried to crawl away.  "You take my shit????" The tall man with the Little Black Guy in one hand roared the question.  Little guy yelped.  And was tossed off the porch.

     A gorgeous, also tall Indian woman stepped around the thrown guy.  "It's a start." A younger, and shorter girl with a Wild Turkey feather sticking up out of her hair bun helped the guy to his feet.  "I hate going places with these people," she said as she helped the guy brush the dirt off his jeans.  He held out gravel pitted palms.  And blushed.  "Give me the keys dear, I'll drive."  Another car honked at us to get out of the way.  

     (i)Get. Out of the way.(i)  The black woman inside the car rolled down her window a quarter of the way.  (i)Move(i).  "Oh, I know that lady."  The Little Black Guy thanked the Indian girl for all the attention and said more than once, "I'm aright. Thank you Miss." They moved towards the porch and I said, "Why don't you go inside and get a drink or something?" He spit combed his hair in his sideview mirror and smiled broad.  "Might as well get myself killed." And he went in. 

     "Can I come in?" I knocked on the lady's passenger window.  She was taking a small bottle of whiskey out of a paper sack.  I went round to her side when I realized there was a gigantic roll-on piece of luggage on the front seat beside her.  I knocked on the window she'd rolled back up.  "Can I come in?" Through the glass she said, "You'll have to sit in the back."  Took a swig, made a (i)this is horrible(i) face and said, "For a minute." 

     Inside the windows were already fogging.  "I can't tell you much." She swigged again then passed it to me.  "I can't be drinkin' these days.  I'm back on track with no clue why."  She held it there.  "What's it say it is?  It's wretched." I lit my lighter to see.  "Some kind of Grape, sour.  Sour Grape Mash or, hold it still." Her hand was trembling.  "It's gross." I took it and held my hand out for the cap.  Capped it and put it up on the suitcase. 

     "You seen Anderson?" 

     "I seen him leave." 

     "You from the South?" 

     "No.  I'm a damn Yankee." 

     "Then quit talking like them.  Gives me a headache." She turned the car key a little and punched set-keys.  (i)Don't Stop Believing(i) made her gruff a sick-of-it-sigh.  The news was in (i)repeat(i) again.  A man and a woman came out of the place.  The woman in a new black leather jacket and the man stopped walking and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of tight jeans' pocket.  She left White Snake on the radio but turned down low.  "You like Rock?" The woman realized the man had stopped walking and turned high heels peeking out of perfect-fitting jeans around to bump into his shoulder.  "I don't have to stay." 

     "Not really, but it's refreshing to the (i)getting stale(i) around here." The man also lit a cigarette for the woman.  She let him put it in her lips.  "That's why I lit one for you.  I hate lipstick on my butts." She took the cigarette out in a dainty puff, long nails, ash, and put it on the end of her nose, the filter end.  "Better?"  He just looked at her.  Then he asked, "What's the next song about?"

      She turned the radio up a little.  I felt my mind shake the scene.  "Is this going to be the Big One?" 

      "The war?" 

      "Yeah." 

      "They all are if you're the people fighting it." 

      "Not like we have a choice really.  We've all found that out."  She grabbed the bottle but didn't open it.  "They'll send some back.  From Germany.  That's where Anderson went." 

      "It's all happening so fast." 

      "It does." She turned the radio off.  The woman came close to the car.  "You don't own me." The man grinned.  "Kinda, sortah." He went after her and reached out for her arm.  She pushed his reach away.  Stood at a passenger door of a sports car.  He got in his side, started to back up.  She just stood there.  Then he pulled forward and popped her door open from inside. 

      "It'll be weird when you all leave." 

      She turned in the seat.  "You're staying?" 

      Fingers running down the foggy wet windows made me jump a little.  They tapped and ran down again.  A face got close to the glass.  (i)Roll the window down(i) the lips said in the clear streaks.  I opened the door and got out.  The Little Guy acted like I'd smashed his face.  "Whaddya do that for?!  I'm (i)telling(i).  And by the way, there's not a drop of alcohol in there." 

      "I know." 

      The black lady rolled down her window and held out the bottle of sour grape.  I pushed it back at her.  "He's on his way to Knoxville." 

      "It's good music though, so I might stay."  Hand beckoned for the bottle.  Mine got between and halted the pass.  "I can see she cares for you." He put out an arm like an usher.  "Going back in?"  I blew out a breath.  "Blew all my money on gas.  What else is new?" 

      "You can sit with us.  Somebody's bound to get fries." 

      "Us who? Exactly." 

      "Somebody's mother is coming to see if somebody is ready to go." 

      "Go where?  Somebody who?"  

      "You'll see." 

      

     

    

    The laughter was almost maniacal.  Would've been if it wasn't coming out of a ten year old boy who looked like a mini Anderson.  "Hush," a leathery skinned man with wild hair and a halloween bone earring warned.  The boy's laughter turned into a smile, white and bright, and sporting some grown up teeth.  "I'm just one of the sherpas," the man said and made a grizzly face at the kid.  This he twisted into a swirling mass of pizza dough-like skin and expression, and landed on incomprehension.  "I never know what they want for snack.  I think I can pick based on mood and then they throw me a curve ball and I don't know what mood they're in."  As the oldest of six, I understood.  "Why don't you just ask?" I asked.  "Because (i)look(i)," he parted Rhododendron and there were a dozen children around a sofa table filled with tea sandwiches and bags of pretzels and chips.  Raisins, cut up canteloupe, and antlers screwed down to the middle of the table.  Little juice pouches and mini water bottles hung on the antlers. 

     "Is that table tipping over?" I asked as the man unparted the bushes.  "It's on a slant.  Everything in there is." 

"She smacked him!"

     "On AIR?????"  The runner told the (i)daily gossip(i) and swerved to avoid the counselor on a bicycle.  "They're gonna lose it." A short-haired, kinda quiet person looked really serious.  A husband took on the serious look and scribbled something into a notebook.  "What are you writing?" The wife wanted to know.

     (i)Dammit!(i) "This is why my father encouraged against this." The girl's hair was frazzled.  One sock was pulled up like a soccer player's and the other crumpled in an elastic-blown (i)totally(i).  Some of us went to the top of the driveway of the campsite. 

     "Just so you know," a not tall person announced, "We're not leaving.  And we're not (i)all gay(i) and most of us (i)are not, I repeat NOT(i), using." The counselor looked up from putting the bike chain back on the gear with a greasy stick.  "Is someone talking to me?" She asked and acted like she didn't see five of us standing there.  "Come on, let's get back in there."  She backarmed an almost twin on the barrel chest.  

     "I thought I recognized that (i)dammit(i)," I said not leaving.  "Oh.  It's you." She plucked at the excess grease on the chain.  "You know...it would be better if you weren't here." My face dropped. And my mind tried to think of why.  "That, that came out wrong." 

     "It did?"

     "What I meant was," she whacked at her hip, "This session is for (i)the couples(i)." Her hip let out a high pitched noise.  She fwapped it.  Smiled without really looking at me and said, "Yes."  She patted her hip as the noise quieted.  "What's up with your hip?" She poked at the chain.  Te stick got a glob stuck on it.  "I'm testing a new kind of hearing aid for someone."  She flung the glob of grease at a tree.  It stuck.  "Well, for some people, not just (i)someone(i)." 

     "Yeah?! But why do I have to leave (i)for real(i)?" 

     "Well, it's for the couples." 

     No reaction. 

     "And Anderson (i)suggested(i) you go talk to the person camping in A6." 

     "Who's Anderson?" 

     She dropped her face down like she was looking over reading glasses right at me.  "You don't know?!" No reaction. "Or, maybe, are you faking not to know?" 

     "I don't (i)fake(i) anything."  No reaction.  "Especially not like on that stupid commercial."  

     She got off the bike.  She'd tied a bow in the elastic of her shorts.  She grabbed the chain and dragged it back onto the gear.  Wiped her hand on the shorts.  "My father tied the bow," she tried to blink away a mosquito or something.  "Wanted me to look nice." She pawed at her face where the gnat was bothering her.  I tried not to laugh at the grease marks.  "I wasn't sure if I could make it all this way on this piece of shit bicycle.  Or, you know," she made air quotes, "'a bunch of ruffians'" give a fuck about therapy."  

     "Well, I'll tell you this." I sighed.  Not wanting to leave, I dragged out the synopsis after I said, "All these people up in here have a lot of love." 

     "Drugs?" 

     "NO!  Thank God.  Except some recovery pot and one's on antibiotics." 

     "What happened to that one?" 

     "Long, long story, but pretty much (i)caught in the crossfire of hate(i).  But," I eyed her reaction.  "But," she'd heard.  "But a bunch of us, not just here, are working on that topic.  Now, who's Anderson?" 

     "Ellen's friend." 

     "One of Ellen's 10,000 (i)friends(i)?" 

     "Cha." 

     "You know, because of the stupid politics, she's only got 5000 now." She didn't say anything.  "But, I 

     "I don't like to talk about politics and war."  She parked the bike leaning against my truck.  "You what? Faked that you're a fan?" 

     "No." My face flashed an (i)I oughta kick you(i). "I stuck up for her.  Said publically, 'She's not EVIL.' That was at the campground where they found a dead body." 

     "Sounds exciting.  I'm late." She brushed passed me and might as well have closed a door to the campsite.

"Why are all y'all so nasty?"

      It had been a week of court-separated couples (i)bonding(i).  Frozen in place had started to thaw.  Frozen by fear, frozen by reality, frozen from using the same old tactics to (i)weaponize(i) relationship.  "I'm going out of my mind," I revealed to a friend of a friend.  "Not being in a relationship." 

     "Don't look at me like that, I can't get into one right now.  Tactical training is literally around the corner." My eyes looked at the floor and I mumbled, (i)I wasn't(i). 

     Up at the camp we hadn't gotten to any art or writing yet because everyone had taken a defensive position.  For some of the women this meant (i)being boss(i).  And led to rounds of "you're not the boss of me."  And (i)acting out(i) to (i)demonstrate(i) just that.

     And, (i)scattering(i).  A mountain biker screeched to a halt in the dirt.  "I seen the judge." 

     "What's she up to these days?" Someone half in and half out of the bushes asked. 

     "She's fishing, so then'll be headed this way." 

     A young woman who'd taken tons of children's laundry out of backpacks and had been de-wrinkling and folding the clothes started hucking the neat piles into a heap in the center of the blanket she was sitting on.  "The judge fishes?" 

     "Ours does.  White peoples' just hang people in the woods." 

     "That is not true," a young white woman said.  No one said anything.  She turned to the biker.  "Clarence, you've been all over the place on your little dirt bike.  You seen people hanging?" 

     Clarence was etching a pattern in the dirt with his foot beside other tire treads.  "It is not a dirt bike." 

     "Well, what is it then?" 

     "It is a (i)mountain(i) bike." 

     "It's beautiful." She said and started towards it.  "Did you fix the pedal?" Clarence looked more deeply at his foot.  "You remember that?" She stood about two feet away from the bike.  "Quite the crash from the sounds of it," she said.  He looked at her and smiled.  "I survived." Then he laughed a little and used his other foot to twirl the repaired pedal.  She watched him turn it around and around smooth.  "I got hurt too," the bushes spoke.  Clarence stopped turning the pedal.  "On a bike?" He asked.

     "My friend got hit in the face with a two by four on (i)his(i) bike. 'Cuz they wanted the camera thingie.  I got stabbed with a stake."  

     "Really?!  Can I see?" 

     "Well, it's mostly bandaged up by now, God, that was like ten days ago, but I'll let you peek.". Clarence carefully got off his bike and wheeled it forward then lifted the front tire and parked it on a root leaning against a tree.  He went into the bushes.  He came back out.  "Gross." He said but grinned 'cuz he got to see it.

     Groaning and grunting sounds came from the road.  (i)Dammit(i).  "Is that the judge?" Someone poised with a bag of food asked.  Clarence's face made a sudden (i)Ooooooo(i) expression and he put his hands out like a surfer.  Then he ran and parted more bushes to check.  He ran back.  "No," he told.  "That's that girl everybody's calling a there-pist." 

     "Why? Is she pissed?" 

     "Maybe so.  I better (i)get gone(i)." Clarence yanked his bike and put it under him and left in one smooth move. 

     

     "No, that guy had a bruise across his eyes like a 2x4." 

     "It was a 2x4," the bushes spoke. 

     "How do you know?  Did you finish up takng the drops?" A tall, dark-haired woman went and looked over the bushes.  "Dammit!" She said.  "I need a medic over here." 

     "A bloody mess," one father told another father. 

     More authorities arrived for what was supposed to be a breakfast where people talk about liaison-ing.  It had seemed like a quiet throughout the mountains after a chaotic season.  Neither was really true. 

     A Himalayan boy knocked over a canping chair standing and getting ready to run.  "That's a chief," he chin jutted and put his hands in his armpits.  "NOT TODAY," the man roared, "Just a POP to the PICS." 

     "Are you looking for me?" 

     "Did you impregnate my daughter?" 

     "Ew, no way.  Or maybe I should answer (i)yes, with an alien baby(i)." 

     "On your knees, hands up and out in front of your person." 

     One young mother pulled two children towards her as the other (i)whole mess of children(i) scattered.  "Is there no end to this misery?" A man in fatigues and a black tee-shirt slung his weapon around onto his back and hand-gestured the others with him to also (i)vahmoose(i) and "Don't let them get away." He smiled and there was a tooth missing in a movie star perfect face.  He stopped smiling when he saw a couple people not on knees with hands out.

     He'd come across the (i)Pissed Off Parents(i) in another range of mountains.  Over macaronis and a can of nacho cheese sauce they'd fessed up.  They were (i)afraid of their own children(i).  He was going to talk to Mr. Shwartza-negger about that and a few other things.  (i)It's good to consult with a variety of people(i).  The parents were tired.  Most had bags under their eyes and sore feet.  But they shared their food with the stranger.  After finishing her seven bites one woman sang a song of thanksgiving.

     Now, here they were: confronting.

     "It's just practice for them," the even-in-the-woods-wearing-suits people came to the campground to tell us.  "Okay," my Dad said.  Then he snarled and added, "I'm telling you right now, I haven't made my mind up yet."  He crossed his arms.  Sherry looked at him long and hard.  Then she said, "Yeah, we're still (i)undecided(i)." 

     "What should I do?" An MP asked his Supervisor.  The Supervisor shrugged.  Mama asked, "May I see that?" The MP just stared at her, then blinked once, and asked back, "The clipboard?" She (i)Mmmmm-hmmmm'd(i) like we heard a poet hum the absence of  (i)Suh(i) and (i)M'am(i).  "I just want to see what you people are writing down about us now." The MP said "No," but faced it her way to read.  Two columns: "W's" and "Others".  "May I make a suggestion?" She asked.  "You may."  She explained (i)It looks like you've got two columns there.(i). The MP (i)Mmmmmm-hmmmmm'd(i).  "Maybe," Sherry said, "You could add a third!"  She smiled.

     "A third?" The MP asked. 

     "Sherry, what are you doing?  We should get this place cleaned up." Dad called over. 

     "Why would I do that?" 

     "Not everybody feels the same about everything." The MP looked at the clipboard still facing her.  Just breathing and then, "There's no room."  Mama fished her astronaut pen from pocket.  She pointed it at the clipboard.  The MP moved it back and away.  "What would the third column say?" She put the pen to her chin and thought.  "Undecided," she decided.  "Because he said so?"  The MP asked mama.  "Yes, Sir, and because we feel like we're being forced to side with people we're not a hundred percent sure about." The MP thought.

     "It's just a political thing with all these people," he said as he faced the clipboard back at her.  She aired a line as the question, "Okay?" He couldn't really answer and looked down the little road.  Sherry's hand was shaking a little as she held a corner of it, drew a line next to the other columns, and labeled it "Undecided".  She put two checkmarks.

     "Fried is even better," a wife said of the piece of jerky her husband was nibbling on for two days.  "Want me to make pancakes?" He didn't answer.  "We usually have toast at home." 

     "She means she usually buys me pancakes at IHOP."  She so subtley huffed a sigh and a (i)that's true(i) I looked at her twice.  

     She re-folded a striped shirt with no collar and put it in a little suitcase.  "They said we'd probably feel bad and we do," he said.

     "Did you guys drink creek water?" 

     "Hey, there's nothing wrong with the creek water," a security person said through the open door.  No one said anything.  He said, "(i)On the Tennessee side(i)".  Another security person laughed then got up close to the joker and said, "Them thar's fightin' words in these parts." 

     "Whaddaya gonna do about it?" 

     "Settle down," a suit walked by and said. 

     "Write you up on a clipboard.  I hear that's pretty effective 'round here." The security person sort of mumbled.  A tiny voice on a wire said, "Wait. What?  Can you say that again?!" 

     "Do I have to?" The security person said real loud. 

     The suit walked back by. 

     "He's got something on his mind.  I can tell."  The wife said of her husband.  He was looking into the distance.

     The night before a small voice was outside a new tent for my mom and dad, "Srerry.  (i)Srerry(i)."  The zipper opened and Mom stuck her head out, "Is someone calling me?"  A thin woman in tight pants and heels bent down towards the head sticking out.  "I sink hee needs you." 

     "My husband?!  Is he out there with you??!!" She pulled the tent flap closed and made sure it was Daddy sound asleep in the sleeping bag and not the towel trick.  The towel trick was going around. 

     Sherry came back out of the tent wrapping a borrowed bathrobe around her even though she had her flannel pajamas on.  "Who needs me?" 

     "The Donald." 

     "Why me? Are you sure??" 

     "My husband, he's," she broke into a sob. 

     "Is he hurt?" 

     "He's hurt." 

     "Oh my God.  I'll wake Ed up." 

     "No, no, no." She reached for Mom's arm like it was a perch and she a bird.  Her well-manicured hands just barely landing there.  "He's (i)down(i)." 

     "We'll call an ambulance!  I know some health people here.  They've been helping me." 

     She shook her head (i)nooooo(i) and said, "In here," she pointed to her heart, "And, in here," she pointed to her head.  Sherry looked at her.  "Why me?  What can I do?"  The women looked at each other in the dark.  She started to walk away but Mom said, "Wait." And went back into the tent.

     Daddy followed Mom out of the tent.  Shorts hastily pulled on over his boxers and shoes on the wrong feet.  "How can we help?" 

     She moved closer again.  "Can you say The Prayer?" 

     "The prayer?" Sherry asked. 

     "I saw you with the necklace, saying The Prayer." 

     "Where did you see me?" 

     "By the water." 

     "Actually there's two prayers on this," he fished a Rosary out of his pocket.  "It's a Rosary." 

     "Rosse-airy." 

     "We'll say them right now.  It's the Our Father which I'm sure you know. And the Hail Mary." 

     "The Hail Mary!  Mary prayer, yes." 

     They showed the beads and the meaning.  One Our Father, ten Hail Mary's." 

     "Ten?!  That's a lot of prayers.  We need this." 

     "We'll say three.  Right now.  And Sherry'll write down the words for you." 

     They started a Rosary for the nation and for all the people trying to help.  "Especially the Donald," she prayed.

      "Grab the shovel." She propped up the sagging part of the tarp over the tent.  A towel and sweatshirts to mop up the tent floor.  "It is what it is."  

     Nobody's life was turning out to be a fairy tale.  As far as we could tell (i)people make plans, plans fall apart(i).  Some people were nonplussed by this.  Others were ground-halted and all (i)broken dream(i) about it. 

     The boyfriend worked quietly.  Hoodie draped over his head and shoulders.  Stripping the bark off sink-pipe thick branches.  "Why are you saving us?" The whiney male/female voice called from the bushes.  The couple did not answer.

     At lunchtime they each shared half a ham and Swiss sandwich.  The boyfriend wrapped his half in a paper towel.  "See if he's hungry when he wakes up." 

     "Is he asleep?" 

     "Should've said (i)comes to(i) I guess." 

     She found a stick the length of the shovel and replaced the pitch in the tarp with it.  He put the shovel back in their truck.  "Wasn't sure if we were going to have to bury another body," she said to him.  "You've been burying them?" He lifted his head from fogged-in and asked.  "In a manner of speaking."  They got in the truck but the guy hopped back out and gave me chips and a water.  "Hang on to your lid." 

     "Why?" 

     He looked into the distance. 

     Way up on a ridge a man was walking.  He'd told a friend of a friend (i)before sunset(i).  The friend of a friend paced the tiny parking lot of the trailhead.  "So what was it again?" 

     "I found a man." 

     "Good for you.  Mazel toff.  May you live long and prosper and all that good stuff." 

     "No." 

     "No, you don't want to prosper? Or, oh, are you on that trip? Let's just all be poor and sponge off each other." 

     "A real man." 

     "Like I'm not.  You know I've seen places in the world where people just (i)suck, suck, suck(i) off each other until the sponge is," he imitated a shrinking, drying up sponge, concluding in a gasping for air and choking to death finalè.

     "This one's different." 

     "You all say that about anything fresh." 

     "He doesn't know where he is." 

     "Did you tie him up?  Leave him somewhere?" He grabbed the birdwatching binoculars from my dashboard.  Pounded his mitten'd hands together and peered at the ridge.

     It was a few days before the couple came back.  This time they brought a gallon of freshwater.  "Don't drink the creek water," My hand slap-covered my mouth and I said, "Oh my God." She just looked at me.  "I was going to say, don't drink the creek water just after a hard rain."  I uncovered my mouth.  "Why?" She slightly shook her head but refrained from a (i)duh(i).  Explained, "There's run off.  From the ground." I blinked trying to compute (i)run off(i).  She looked at the sky, my eyes followed her looking.  "Rain comes down.  Hits the ground.  Water always goes to the lowest point.  Takes all the garbage surface dirt with it.  To the creek." 

     "Got it.  You're smart."

     "Not really." 

     The bushes spoke.  "Smart is as smart does.  What have you done for me lately?" 

     "Has he eaten anything?" 

     "What am I his minder?" 

     She bit the inside of a lip and sighed.  "Want him removed?" 

     I shook my head like trying to shake a dream.  "No. I mean, I didn't place a complaint or anything.  I just found him.  And he just stays in there." 

     "Well lemme know if there's any trouble," she said and started to ealk away.  "How would I find you?" I asked almost bumping into the boyfriend.  "Just let someone know." She closed the truck door when she got in.  I said to the boyfriend, "She's smart."  He said, "She doesn't think so or doesn't want to be or something."  We each looked at the ground.  I could picture run off.  "Just the same," I said, "You better protect her smarts." He grinned a little.  "Why's that?" 

     "A lot of people our age are already getting Traumatic Brain Injuries." 

     "Really?" The man turned towards the truck.

     

     

Crying was contagious.

     Poor Mr. Bimbley.  The man in fatigues said over and over to a whimpering Mr. Bimbley.  "What's he crying about?"  A woman in torn up jeans asked as crying also took over her face.  "It's an impasse," a middle age man said and also started crying.  The tears came from a deep well of emotions not shown often.  But something was going on.  It was like the viewfinder hit on that deep well and like everybody suddenly had the flu. 

     "Don't look at me," a normally tough guy ordered as the tears overfilled the brims of his eyes.  "Me either," a mechanic's tears dripped through grease on his face and mostly collected on his chin.  One or two tears dripped onto a motor. 

     Our whole family started crying.  Afterwards we couldn't determine what set us off.  We told others, "The family that cries together, stays together!" We hugged and cried some more.  

     Even the women with the clipboards, the really keep on schedule, never let 'em see you sweat, cried.  There were tears on some of the lists.

     A muscle of a man rubbed the rough skin on his neck from shaving without shaving cream.  "Whaddaya think it was?"  The world-traveled witness to the world, seemingly born "aged" journalist sighed but didn't cry.  "Honestly, some of them told me."  The man kept rubbing his neck.  "What'd they say?" 

     "Some of the Greatest crashed the party." 

     "Do what?" 

     "Everybody was working really hard to impress.  To rally.  Then Senior said, he was disappointed." 

     "Really?" 

     "Far as I could tell it formed a chain reaction." 

     The man's hand stopped rubbing his neck and seemed to be thinking back on something.  The journalist said, "That, and in my opinion, people shouldn't simultaneously talk up the end of the world and no strategy.  But that's just me." 

     The man's hand came to life again and he wag-pointed his finger, "That's a good point." The journalist's hair was helmet-smashed and he had a dark colored bruise on his arm.  "I'll tag up later.  Do people still say that? I need to talk to some people."  They awkwardly put hands out for a handshake but sort of missed each other's square.

"They're obsessing

     "They're obsessing on what we did," a man in a flak jacket and helmet stood up in his three foot foxhole and said.  He was shot in the chest with a sandbag tank arm.  "That's what he said."  I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to a new acquaintance's "the old man" since I'd left the tavern early.  People were impressed with his grit, casual clothes, sense of humor once he got on the same page in a story.  They also liked the way he and his wife could fall into ignoring each other spells while things mostly work themselves out.  "No need to worry that," was a phrase heard while potatoes were baking in a kitchen where people were re-creating "some Colonial thing or another." It went along with nobody's perfect, but you gotta try.

     "I hate Colonials," Sherry said.  It sounded loud because it was before the din of restaurant.  "Whaddaya mean?" Someone asked.  "MOM! Jeeees.  Speak for yourself." 

     "I am.  And I hate the whole Colonial thing.  Can you imagine spending one half of the day making butter and one half a candle so you can see the butter?" People remembered eat when you can, sleep when you can, poop when you can, and in an uncoordinated but group way started unwrapping butters and passing the bread around the table.  "But they," the man's mouth almost spit out tobacco juice but there wasn't any in there, "They knew how to take a stand." A prospective son-in-law had just bitten into a dinner role and struggled to swallow it and have a conversation.  "Not sure," he swallowed hard and slurped ice water, "Sir," more water, "If I entirely agree with you there on that point." 

     "What point?  I wasn't making a point."  

     Others filed past a buffet set up for people who needed to eat and go.  "When are they going to tell us Donald?" He turned his head and looked at her.  Radiant beauty.  He'd said something like Jesus and her; fish hooks to my roaming brain.  I just can't stop thinking of things I need to do until one of them touches my focus.  He put an arm, hand holding a glass of ice water, around her shoulder.  "Don't stress.  They're not, we're going to tell them.  If that's what we decide.  If that's what we're sure about."  She almost rested her head on his arm but popped it up strong before she sank sleepy.  "I'm sure." 

     Someone tapped on a water glass with a fork.

 "We consider it essential to consult with our allies to ensure shared situational awareness and to agree on our next joint steps," Michal said.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday: "I don't love it. I don't like when that happens. Could be big trouble."

Czech President Petr Pavel on Saturday said Nato should respond to such provocations by shooting down planes.

Pavel, a former chairman of Nato's military committee, said: "Unfortunately, this is a balancing act bordering on the edge of conflict, but one simply cannot retreat in the face of evil."

From an Article on BBC News, Estonia seeks Nato consultation after Russian jets violate airspace

20 hours ago [Sept. 20, 2025]

Jaroslav Lukiv andJoe Inwood

     "Does it sound like the old pine box song?" 

     "Do I really sound like Ronald Reagan sometimes?"  

     "Well, I've not heard your speeches," she yawned, "And so far from home I can't really do a comparison analysis of the two songs."  Bare feet.  Some kind of stretchy soft glitter pants.  "And my shirt, right?!  You gave that one too me, right?!" She asked as the other she went into a camper and rooted around for coffee.  The camper's she had tried to assure us that it'll all be all right. 

     Late night conversation until darkest before sunrise had us talking about that couple we'd seen almost strangle each other a few times.  "Some people love that way." 

     The fire crackled and a chunk of hardwood split.  "Fighting the whole time?!  That'd wear me out." 

     "They swear they love each other and, time and again, they do get through their issues.  Drinking never helps but they know that."  

     "I could write a song about that.  God knows I've got no love life to sing about." 

     "What day is the audition?"  

     "Thursday." 

     "This is Sunday!" 

     "You too better get busy."  The camper she went to bed.  "Maybe I shouldn't do it." 

     "That's your problem?" 

     A long stare into the campfire.  "I don't really have a problem." 

     "But you said you ain't got no music." 

     "I didn't say that.  I's just waitin' to play 'em for you first." 

     "Well, it's getting later and later.  Don't you think you might should play me at least one?" 

     "I'll think about it."  In a little while she got up and got her guitar and a travel bag, "Set this over there," she said as she took a notebook out.  "Whacha got in it?" 

     "Go ahead and look." So I did.  A small pile of dress shoes and silky soft dresses and shirts and a pair of pants.  "You need panty hose?" 

     "Maybe so I can strangle myself."  She tuned and strummed the guitar.  The sounds of the instrument just up close and outside sounded at once casual and amplified by the fire.  "I'm thinking in my head what I should start with," she propped a leg on the camp chair and the guitar on it.  "You already memorized all your songs?" 

     "Mostly," she said as she took an eye glass case with picks and poker chips out of a pocket and decided which one to use. 

    "None of them are political." 

    "The other one's might be." 

     She tuned to her voice until she said, "Close enough," and like a person at a lake, just dove in and started singing.

     It was Tuesday afternoon when Pops quietly stood near a picnic table with something behind his back.  "What is it?" I asked.  He showed a mangled guitar and said, "I can't fix this."  He left it on top of the table.

     "Okay, this one's called something like, 'Sorry I Disturb You,' the singer then stood up and acapella'd.  Someone pointed to the picnic table where people had left offerings.  Unbroken guitars, money for bus fares, bottles of soda and water.  There was also garden vegetables since a truck driving friend had told everyone, There's nothing fresh on the highway. 

     "Nope," Somebody agreed.  "The road goes on forever and the party never ends." 

     "Forever ever?" A lovestruck young man asked his woman.  "Yes! I will.  Love you forever ever."  He tapped the fat envelope of money to get them "all the way to Chicago." 

    "I'll be up there to hear the poets slam.  Maybe I'll see you." 

     "I doubt it.  Big place," the man said. 

     "I'm going up with a few poets.  You might know some of them!" 

     "Not the point."  He twirled the woman's hair until she brushed his hand away.  Then took it and kissed it.  "What's the point?  I mean, what do you mean?" 

     "I mean we gonnah be busy with music stuff." 

     "Yes we are," the woman ducked out of the conversation she was having and affirmed.

     The sound was down but the footages being spliced together into a montage spoke volumes.  Acting silly, the artist deemed it.  People under the pressures of a rapidly corporatizing world and having feelings in regards "the end of the world".  The lever controlling speed sped up some parts of the carry on while I'm gone.  "We had carried on all right." The artist thought through an impact zone of happening that had transpired quickly compared to peoples' recoveries and re-finding God.  "I guess we should have known." 

     "Did anyone tell us or did it just add up into war?" 

     "Probably a little bit of both," a writer home from Overseas said.  The little closet of a room fell silent.  "We certainly knew not friendly when they blew up our barracks in Beirut." 

     "That's what I don't understand," a young man sighed.  "Why didn't we just blow them the fuck away before they sunk our ship?" 

     "It's a little more complicated than that." 

     "Here!  Here it was."  The footage answering a question about costumes.  One, more of a historical item than just any costume.  The debate was and wasn't about whether or not the item was stolen.  "We wouldn't have disappeared into that place if there wasn't rioting in the streets." The artist eye-balled a pottery sculptor from Europe.  "Vhat else?  Vee need homes."  

     "It's not going to work."  The footages were taken on like five different equipments.  "Besides, I can't just make a movie, just like that." The artist pulled the satiny-sounding long coat up over here mussed up dress.  "Put all of it in this bag."  She pulled a cloth grocery sack from a pocket.  "I may know someone who can help." 

He'd backed into

     He'd backed into hanging moss after a rain, but it was darker than dark with no moon up on the hill.  He froze solid as all the fears in the world welled up from his toes, through a constricting chest, and up into a throat wanting to scream.  The baby in a sling around his chest and too much fast food stomach seemed to laugh at him.  His eyes blinked hard.  That made the beard getting longer move slightly.  And that made his wife laugh right out loud.  Sssssshhhh, the man put up his hands and shook them side to side, ten fingers spread wide, warding off.  He breathed hard for a few seconds, then whispered gruffly, "You'll wake her." The mama spit out lemon seeds and said, "Have you slept one time through the whole night in these six weeks?" 

     The man peeked into the space between the sides of the sling.  "That doesn't matter," his eyes narrowed and he pulled the sling apart just a little more.  "Look at her," he said.  "Can't right now.  Should be one or two more puppies in this mama." She rubbed the chest of the pit bull and coo'd, You can do it mama.  That did and didn't seem to matter to the panting dog with eyes looking away and then closing and twitching.  

     "They're scared."  A figure moved up the slight footpath.  Then it became clear that there were followers.  The person in front assured, "They're scared." 

     Another person stepped out from behind a thick barked tree.  "Those pups afraid?" 

     "Not them," the person gave a paper bag with the bottle of alcohol to the other person.  "Apparently, there's some group called The Shantees scaring The Nantzes." 

     "How'd they do it?"  The person asked one of the followers as he opened the whiskey.  "Spook ya?"  He drank a third of the bottle in one long gulp.  And wiped his lips on the back of his hand.  And passed it. 

     "What does it matter?  They got us to abandon position?" 

     "Didn't know there was such.  Sounds serious." The man waited, stiff and ominous, for the bottle to come back to him still mostly full.  The woman lit a cigarette and put it in his weak lips.  Then she took out a folded in half piece of paper from a back pocket of her jeans.  She stuffed it in his front jeans pocket.  "What's that?" He asked as he was sucking in a deep drag of smoke and this set off a coughing fit that would've tore apart an erector set person or building.

     She counted the followers as they hit the leveled out spot on the hill.  Five.  Five more mouths to feed.  The last person was bundled up in a head scarf over a knit cap and had two small puppies in her arms.  Seven, but who's counting?  The woman took a puppy like it was a baby and let it lap her face and neck.  Without turning around she said, "It's the bill for getting the other kid stitches." 

     The man's eyes grew wide and he choked down more drink.  "Are you for real?" He coughed like a motorcycle being kickstarted and spit out a slick spot, phlegm and blood.  "We SACKED 'EM paw."  The man slapped his knee and bent down.  "Sacked 'em huh?  Like knights?" 

     "More like," the kid thought visibly and hard, "Like...VIKINGS!"  The man slapped him on the back.  "ALL RIGHTIE THEN.  A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK.  I'LL DRINK TO THAT!" The kid had been moved closer to the woman getting congratulated and he looked up at her.  "There's a hunk of pepperoni in the tent.  Will you go and get it for us all honey?" The kid moved off to the tent. 

     The woman took the whiskey and pulled a slug and held the bottle up out of the bag a little ways.  "We'll need more'n this to get cozy.". The man fished into the pocket with the bill and took out cash and squinted at the bill saying, Too bad I cain't read and rocked on a foot forward to pitch the bill into the cold firepit.  The woman blocked his throw.  "We need to pay that one," she looked at his face dead on.  "Can't pay 'em all.  And my kid won the fight right?" 

     "Riiiight, but," she curled her words into sounding like she was following his logic but the but hung in the air.  

     The bill drifted to the ground as the man used both arms to try and strangle the woman.  She got her hands under his grip and pushed and pushed against his until he limply let go.  "Let me catch my breath," he wheezed.  The kid handed up the hunk of pepperoni after he broke off a piece and went and sat on a rock.  He pulled a wrapped candy out of his pocket and balanced both on his knees.  He put his hands together and said, Grace, then bit into the meat.  "Where did you get this?" The woman snatched the candy away.  "At the store, duh." He snatched it back from her.  Put it back on his lap.  "Getcher own," he snarled. 

     "How 'bout I make pasta?" The woman in the head scarf pulled an MRE out from her coat pocket.  "I'll eat it," the woman said.

 

     It'd been like five weeks not five days.  Almost everyone had been deeply inspired by the group makeup event where there was singing and praying and planning for a future.  Some of the people from the Country were astonished that people from the City were so downhearted.  A predominant phrase heard in conversations everywhere was you don't get it.  It went with young people and older people accusing of each other they just don't get it!!!!!

  "Get what?" My ever-practical Mom asked.  More frustrating sighs.  "Well, why don't you explain yourselves better?"  One of the Dads, with a fat lip from not backing down on some things, tsk'd, and winced when his lip hurt as he made the face he so often made--like he was shaking his head but only in his lips.  He'd press those together instead of just saying and his nose would twitch and those lips would talk without saying anything.  "It's like he's breakdancing with his mouth," one of the Forest scouts said looking in the binoculars.  "Yeah, but he doesn't really express himself clearly," a daughter said of him.  "But he's warming up to the idea."  

     "We'll put him in this column."

      Possibles. 

     A Native American friend with a deadpan sense of humor annoyed that we hadn't been to the Reservation to see The Drama quipped, "Stop the world, They need a new Great Big White Father."  

     "Why do you think or refer to us all as one person?  Just 'white'?!  

     He humphed.  "That's obvious." 

     "What time is it?" The jackets in the backseat moved and a woman emerged from having the jackets in the night put over her.  My friend yelp-silent-screamed and frantically tried to get the door open.  "Why did you lock me in?  Why did you lock me in?" His hand scrambled all over the door but couldn't find the handle.  "I'm not going to hurt you," the woman said.  My friend looked back at her and said, "That's not what I've heard from hundreds of years of history!!!!"  His hand finally found the handle and he fell out of the car and closed the door and made the call me later sign.

     "Ready?"

     The line of speakers and cords and bags and old coffee cups stacked in a column and shoes and a tennis racket was neatly waiting to be loaded into the car.  Agnes hugged and hugged the two girls.  Pops added the restored tent to the line of items to load up.

     Laughter and squealing-being-chased, smells of food cooking, donated tarp-shade-tents on all sides.  "Looking good baby girl," a woman who never took off her black sweater and black skirt winked and clucked the sound of a gun firing go.  She blew the smoke from her pistolè hand. 

     Everything fit and we fit ourselves in too.  Turned the key and the gas was on EMPTY.  "We'll have to make it to my Dad," I confessed. 

     All three sons and my Dad were sleeping side-by-side like sardines in a can in their tent.  Gatlinburg-- stickers and brochures and a mug and a hat, tee-shirt, and a beach towel all boasting Gatlinburg, Gatlinburg.  I backed out of the tent.  Realizing something, Dad came mussed-up hair and boxer shorts out of the tent.  His Mary medal making the little cling-clang noises we'd always here at the house.  "DAD!"  He yawned and scratched his stomach.  The brothers all in a row poked heads out the tent door.  "DAD!  YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN CHEATING!!!!!" 

     "I don't know what you're talking about."  

     "Did you go to Gatlinburg last night?" 

    "Maybe.  Not sure.  No?" 

    Silence.

     "Throw me a shirt, will you?!" 

     One of the brofhers hucked a Carolina tee-shirt at him.  It hit him in the chest and fell onto his lily white feet in the dirt. 

     "I'm not like you people." He whipped the dirt off the tee-shirt as he scooped it up and put it on. 

    "Us people?" 

    "Yeah.  What do you mean Dad?" 

     "Pioneers.  Or survivors.  Or something." 

     "Does your camp need an extra Dad?" The littlest son asked. 

     "Did you guys eat out last night?"  

     "Steak.  And vegetables, barley sprouts, on a board with on fire sauce to put on the potatoes!" The littlest brother said. 

  "Really?!  Well, I hope you guys saved some leftovers." 

     "Why?" 

     "That's what you'll be eating when Mom finds out about this." 

     "She ate the leftovers!" Shock overtook my face, "Really?"  "Yeah," he nodded slowly.

"As far as they're concerned."

    All the pulling together had my fire for Country rekindled after the hangover went away.  I re-upped on some going Overseas training for people who can't actually use the word journalism.  Even the off, off, off "broadway" headlining journalism types had left. 

    A tiny woman with a big nose squinted at the photographs in the developing film.  "Looks like the remnant," a man said of a lot of us crossing a finish line amidst red flags and MAGA gear.  "What's that mean exactly? MAGA.  Sounds weird." 

     "Take this duct tape off my mouth and I'll tell you." 

     "Six minutes to go, then I will." 

     "That's how the enemy sees us Americans." 

     Rikeareric? 

     "Really.  You're too cute to torture." He ripped the duct tape off and asked if it hurt.  Eyes poured tears, but I calmly said, "Of course NOT."  

    "Like we're a relic, yes," the man sighed and picked up a pointy instrument from a set of tools near the chair I was tied to with an electrical chord as a real friend had been in a Casino money heist.  "We don't seem like a relic to ourselves.  We think we're modern and," he put the pointy instrument down.  "Making progress." 

     "Aren't we?  Jeeeez.  Everyone I know is sacrificing one way or another. 

     "I'll just walk you through what we know they've been doing to us.  You off to the Middle East or..." 

   "Not sure I should tell you." 

     "Well, don't then." He shook his head at the sad routine of meeting new people but not really in any way besides teaching them how awful the world is.  His shoulders slumped as he looked at another photo, "Look at everyone smiling for a split-second." All three of us looked at it.  "What was it about?" The developer asked.  "That one?!  Oh, it'll be funny someday, but most of the people in that one, well, had done crash courses in sobriety and not fighting.  At least not as nastily as we all were!" 

     "That's good," the torture expert said.  "God knows, the rest of the world is doing a good enough job at that."  

     "Did you just compliment them?" 

      "They couldn't hear me, so it doesn't count." 

"That's my thang."

     We were out-of-gas and slow leak tire dying when we pulled over.  Turned out the Convoy to Chattanooga was also more of a whale almost beached and needing to be churned from a cold start too.  We were setting on the side of the highway for three or four days.  Some of the mama's seeing off wound up pulling in behind us.  We just stayed in place, a longer and longer line of well-wishing and support stacked up.

     "My son!!!" A woman exclaimed to a worker at Hardees.  "Y'all want some balloons???"

     "Hell yeah!" 

     She plunked the bag of balloons on the counter next to a sack of plain hamburgers.  "You'n's will have to take 'em to the florist and get them blown up." 

     "And where is that at?" The worker drew a little map.  "We'll get these off the ground and take a pitcher for ya." The worker grinned. 

     Our line just about doubled when a mountain chapter of MADD brought more'n halfa them still drunk some of the girls joining, and married, and otherwise part of our pile of wild things.  Bitten off fingernails, layers of tee-shirts and sweatshirts, boots hanging on side mirrors....the MADD "parents" gave sets of keys to Jeep People who'd been running between mentors and us.  "You gonna need a ride back Mattie?" She left one beer a piece from a tore open twelve pack on the hood of each vehicle with a drunk person in it.  "It'll be piss hot or hotter if they go to drink it.  Here's hopin' they learn about kissing the devil," she pulled the sticker tab off a pineapple juice, and put a hand on her friend's shoulder.  "Let's go.  It'll be time to stir the chili." 

     At the Flower Store one lady sent flowers to a family who'd already lost someone in action.  My friend told, "We've got some too." 

     "Who's your "we" dear?" 

     "My name's Janelle and we're mostly Jewish."  

    The lady bit her lip hard and focused on the single stems in a little cooler with a hum in it's bottom.  "I should get one for each of the Moms.  You think yellow?"  

     While they decided on that I asked if they were hiring.  Without a lot of detail or opinion about the great big picture, the florist hintimated business been slow.  But I'll keep your name and number.

     Each time we went back to the line of cars, there were more.  And the woman with the embroidery hoop had cut her cross-stitch fabric into little squares so people could sew patches.  "How come you like sewing so much?" A tween girl asked as she rolled her finger up in her hair and chewed on a stick of gum.  "Well honey, it's my thang."  The girl watched as the needle deftly formed an edge on her patch.  Mountains and sunshine.  "You want I could sew a heart on there?!" The girl smiled but said, "No thank you.  I'm in love with my Daddy." She helped hold the patch on her chest as the sewing lady pinned it with a safety pin.  "How come you got no fingernails?" She asked a woman propped against the vehicle.  "I gots fingernails hon.  Been thirty-seven pair since I started on this USO tour." The girl asked, "What's a USO? Like a flying saucer?" 

     "Only when we're parachutin' in!" The woman picked one of the nail polishes from a pursebag full of 'em.  "Ever hear a song you like on the radio Shug?" The girl thought about it and slowly nodded.  "Chances are somebody in the USO thought it up and put it to music." 

     "Really?" 

     "Quite the group they are.  My sister and her friends!" The sewing lady reached into a pocket of a different purse and took out a brochure about them.  "Surprised they don't have Bob Hope on there," she said.  "Oh they did in my day.  Oh honey, they did." 

     After the youngest girl had walked off I asked, "So, did it come to blows?" 

      "We kept it above board." 

     "Thought she was gonna get tackled.  That Russian woman who wanted to keep the parachute." 

     "That would've been dicey if she wasn't the Donald's woman." 

     "Oh was she there too?" 

      "Yes.  Not the one who fah-messed up her hips on landing.  That one's gotta rest for a day or two." 

      "I bet." 

     "Fact, maybe I'll go do her nails.  She'll like that.  And can you make a patch with seven parachutes on it?" 

     "Just one?" 

     "For now." 

      "I'll let you in on a little secret," she said almost casually. 

     "Not in the mood." 

     The wood was wet.  The umpteenth tarp, removed in the night for going West.  The campground like "general population" in prison at that point.  I knocked the top of the pile off digging for something dry.  She went to find some sticks.

     The sticks looked like a bouquet promising coffee.  "If I can just..." 

     "And look!  Nature's matchsticks." The little shiny red tips of fragile branches.  "The new, it comes out stronger!" 

     "That's the secret.  I know where they are." 

     "The kindling wood?" 

     A little sigh and touching the bandaid on the still cut part of her broken nose.  "The girls." 

     "What, like an inexhaustable source for their police mishaps?!"   Silence.  "That's what they called it in the end.  A mishap.  And some National Guard people got arrested, house arrest style, for 'sex trafficking'".  

     "It's reedunkulous."  The fire sparked to life.  "I think I still have some filters."  I turned into her coming out of the car's "stash" of pack-rat-gathered necessities.  Tampons and pads and coffee filters and tea bags, gauze and chewing gum.  "Did you see the newspaper actually printed who's gone off to fight?!"  

     "Not sure they should've."  Her unfolding a wallet sized coffee filter.  "Me either.  But, you first." 

     "I just think all the information that people are so careless with, it's endangering people." 

     "Freedom of Press though." 

     "Cha.  One of our most important American things." 

     "Freedoms."  

     "What girls?"  

     "Those two older ladies you were asking about." 

     "Really?  Agnes and Ginger."  The teapot started whistling.  "You do???" 

     "Ah-hah." 

     "Can we go there?"  

     "I can't think of a reason why not," she said after she thought about it.  "A whole bunch of people in the woods over there.  Thinking they're useless for one reason or another." 

     "Oh my God, that's good," the coffee steamed in the morning sunlight.  "Let's bring gifts!" She dumped more sticks near the firepit.  "Got any flour and shugah, shugah?" 

     It was quiet near the bulletin board listing FEES and the unique characteristic of the campground.  And quiet when we parked and went about pulling tent and cookware from the pile of stuff in the backseat.  A gruff-faced older man came over and flicked a tent pole up in the pile of tent and poles on the picnic table.  "It's broken," he said.  She said something in a foreign language to him.  And he asked, "And who's the goya?" 

     "This is Lara.  She's a writer." 

     I drew in a breath.  And felt my face get hot, embarassed these things were said out loud. 

     "POPS!!" A young woman rushed over with dogs on a leash.  The dogs smelled our shoes.  "Is he bothering you?" 

     "No trouble.  Hi.  I'm Lara." 

     "We're going to camp here tonight." 

     "You are?" 

     Nodding my friend said, "And we brought some Hallah." 

     "Well.  Hallah-loo-ya. I saved a bottle of wine from last night's soiree." 

     "WE DON'T DRINK." 

     "OH I SEE, even more for me and ah, POPS." The man was toe-nail clippering the broken tent pole out of it's line of poles.  "He likes to fix things," she said to us.  "Guess you'll have to fix it now, huh Pops?!" 

     "Do they have an extra?" 

     She put her head down and shook it gently.  "We'll find one.  So you can fix it." My friend went to him and patted his forearm.  "What other stuff can you fix?  We probably have more broken stuff in there." She indicated the backseat of my car.  "Well, maybe later we can come back and see.  Okay?" 

     Okays from all of us. 

     

     

          (i)Put a little smile on yer pickin' when you don't know what to do; put a little smile on yer pickin', it'll help you see it through; put a little smile on yer pickin' 'cuz that's just what we do; put a little smile....(i).  

     The fire crackled and burned steady smooth.  Two men and a woman passed a notebook back and forth in a fierce competition over advertising slogans.  And a songwriter-of-old was showing a young girl the difference between types of guitars and other stringed instruments.  He was as comfortable making up songs and tunes as some people are sitting on the sofa watching TV.  The young woman smiled.  "Now I hear it," some of the sound differences were subtle. 

     The man's fingertips, bandaged, strummed first then plucked.  His voice found the key in a little hum, then he added strength to the notes of the lyrics.  The young woman was jotting down ideas for (i)storied songs(i) of her own. 

     "I sure am mighty glad we moved to T'see Mr. Bimbley."  Wiley Piles was sitting on his hands and lifting a half a beer to his mouth by sticking his tongue through the pop tab.  The neck of his tee-shirt, (i)Don't Mess With Texas(i), was soaked.  "So am I sis, so am I." 

     "You should see how those Republican men treat their women." Mr. Bimbley grunted the can back onto a boulder.  "I've heard.  They make them do all the work." 

     "That's what you heard?"  

     "Somethin' like that.  Will you light me a cee-gar?"  She fished the car keys out of his jeans pocket and went towards the car.

     

     

     The portable crane/lift was a specialty equipment item used for those big signs along the highway.  We didn't know this at first.  What we knew was what we saw.  Beautiful women in what looked like cages hanging in the air.  Neked.  A very married man said.  His ability to blush had been lost somewhere in thirty-plus years of fighting evil.  Damn, a younger guy's eyes followed the beaner'd rope and his eyes lifted from digipad device, up and up, to the bathing beauties!  A middle aged bachelor whistled quietly.  "Looks like we've got our work cut out for us!" 

     "Where'd they get the cages?" The non-blusher stood at least two foot taller than the woman who'd come out of the restaurant.  She was still fumbling with possible put them somewheres pockets looking for a smoke.  "I heard an onusual noise so I came out here."  An older model but in pristine restored condition pick up truck pulled up and two women jumped out leaving the doors wide open.  "WHADDAYA NEED??????"  

     The man looked over his shoulder at the mounding smoke piling around the equipment truck of some Volunteer Fire Department.  "Find out what's on fire!" He whistled by sticking fingers in his mouth and shrilling a shofar blast.  People attached to a rope with carribiners made way over.  "They're just these old underground showers." The woman had been handed a lit cigarette.  "Prolly put down there in an old semi-truck." One woman grabbed a reporter's notebook and jotted down squiggly marks.  Then shoved it back at the young person.  "What's that say?" 

     "It's SHORTHAND.  DON'T THEY TEACH YOU PEOPLE ANYTHING AT YOUR FANCY SCHOOLS?" 

     "LYDIA!" The man pushed into her and drove her backwards.  Stared directly into her eyes.  "KEEP LOOKING at me." 

     The motorbike had rolled up behind us.  Without the motor running the man rolled it forth into the back of my legs.  Knees buckled, a turn around, "WHAT THE FUCK????" The Lonely Bear held up one hand in a wave.  The notebook was plucked from my hands.  "WHAT THE FUCK????"  It was Lydia.  "I'll take notes! You go get you know who!"  She turned to the Lonely Bear.  "How'd y'all get here so fast in this fog?" 

     The Lonely Bear took a síp of what a camp mom called Mountain Piss Water.  "Is there an all to me?" She rolled her eyes.  A line of seriously in need of some repair cars was rolling into the parking lot.  "There's no fog on the highway," Lonely Bear revealed.  "There isn't?"  

     "No ma'more than usual in the very lowest spots."  Men's voices not knowing where the girls were and cussing cellphones were getting out of the cars.  "GO!!!!" 

     On the way to my car a hideous voice, steady-frantic-sounding over some kind of speaker laughed and howled halloweeny and said, "YOU BETTAH FIX US UP GOOD OR YOU CAN KISS THE GIRLS GOOD-BYE." The crane/lift made a creaking, groaning noise and swung.  Like it was lowering, but then jerked up.  Some of the girls fell to knees.  A black plastic garbage bag was pitched out of an unseen area on the now-platform.  A gun was seen pointing at it.  The creepy voice hollered in the speaker, "Shoes.  Now put them on and dance."  The laughing and howling turned to music.

     In second gear up the nearly dark mountain-side highway.  Up and around, gravity at night must be the same in the dark as in daylight, I thought of seeing the road in the happy sunshine daytime, like a matterhorn rollercoaster track hugging tiny people to the neck and shoulders of a giant yeti.  I knew who she wanted me to inform.  And I went directly there but there was no vehicle in the carport.  And most of the stuff usually on board shelves resting on cinderblocks was gone.  A wad of straps was messily out of a bucket laying on its side.  I knew I needed to get to someone I knew in Tennessee.  Fuck the fighting between sports fans.

     Past what seemed like a mile of steaming mulch and hulking logging equipment.  Through backcountry--part Forest, part crags with housing.  Cut-through after cut-through: north and south to go east and west.  The stars above more than all the creeps in the world.  Finally fish-tailed onto the boundary's gravel.  And steamed towards my Ranger's last known campfire site.

     Red plastic cups were all over the ground.  Slick spots of puke.  A duffel bag slow-burning in the firepit.  A small and weak voice called out, "I'm over here.  I am.  I'm here."  Wimpering.  "Oh! Oh my God." I knelt into the man duct-taped and roped to a metal folding chair.  "Ooooww.  Good to see you too.  Well, sort of see you.  They just left.  These'll be swollen shut real soon.  Got yer knife?" 

     "Oh, shit, did I hurt you?" 

     "Where's your knife.  I need you to get it and cut me free." 

     The serated blade frayed the ropes into a jagged release.  He ripped the duct-tape from his skin.  "Go get in the car." 

     A woman in dark clothing stepped in front of me as I turned toward the car.  "Did you do this???" Her low smoky voice desperate to accuse.  The Ranger found his pile of clothing.  "They stole my fucking watch!" He said as he held his pants and shirt in front of his underwear only junk.  "She's not the perpetrator," he told the woman as he pushed my shoulder to keep going to the car.  "Can I ride with you?" Neither of us answered.  My friend leaned on my shoulder to get a booted foot back into his pants.  She reached for my keys.  "Don't fucking touch me," I swerved away and the Ranger's foot stuck in a pantleg tripped him into me and I fell too.  He put a rest hand on my arm.  "We don't know who you are," he said matter-of-factly as he got a second leg back in his pants.  Tapped my arm twice, UP.  He was still buttoning his shirt as I held the flashlight so he could check credentials.  Winced as he tucked in the tail of his shirt but said, "LET'S GO!!!!!" Both he and she crashed into each other trying to get into the front seat.  "Ow." He opened the door and she squeezed herself into the back.  He looked around and decided, "The van took them that way." 

     "You don't have your glasses on!"  

     "I know it did.  I heard it."  He asked for water.  And proceeded to scrape his contact lenses out.  "Go!" He barked when the first one was out.  "Okay, okay." Tires spinning briefly in oozy keg's-been-here mud before I edged the fronts onto something dry and rocked it, jolting into grip and go.  He fished eyeglasses out of his lower pant leg's inner pocket.  "All these TV people and Rock Stars around had me," he reached over and pulled the brights into on.  "THERE!"  There was a Hawaiin shirt in the gravel road.  "They'll have left clues." 

     "Clues?!?" 

     I braked hard and put it in PARK.  Took the keys out of the ignition.  "What are you..." I slammed the door behind me getting out. 

    "You freakin'?"  He was beside me in twelve paces.  

     "Kinda.  But not really.  Listen." He cupped an ear then rose his hand into "Moose Ears, your little brother taught me that move." 

     "No, listen," I tried to gulp away dry mouth and cacked a little cough.  "I came to find you beca, cough, because there's a majorly weird situation going on in Carolina." 

    "Right now?" He cocked his head. 

     "Cha." 

     "Let me get you your water." He did and half-joked, "My contact might be in there."