"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.