The guy was manning up.  Growing up into a man.  Him and his old lady had stuck it out through all the "fights" as "masks" come off.  "You's rich and I'm dirt." 

     "Well, it wasn't 'cuz we was rich cuzz that we don'put muddy boots on the coffee table, or, palette-thingie whatever that was 'fore your friend busted the other guy's head on it..." 

     "Weren't?" 

     "Naw man.  It gave people more time to make love." 

     "Hmmmm.  Really." 

     "Really." 

     A bunch of us had trailed each other answering (i)no(i) to "You following me?" And found ourselves somewhere outside Knoxville.  Guy was shaving in a car's sideview mirror.  A whisp of a woman, friend, and photographer tugged on my sleeve.  Showed me field developed shots of steam and fog creeping round the city.  "You went in there already?"  Tiny hand flopped my mess of a ponytail.  "You ALL seem to have fallen off a cliff into country bumpkin land.  What gives?" 

     For some city people, love of Country was tangled up in (i)place(i).  And we'd managed to survive on our own, with various helps from others, to date (i)in the mountains(i).  "I am honestly a changed person.  Like all the crust and crap came off my soul." She was considering this as the man shaving caught her eye.  "Hold these," she said as she shoved go-bag-handbag and a stack of scrapbooking stuff at me.  She got into an angle.  Then whispered, "You go ask him." 

     "Ask him what?  The man is shaving."  Memories of lilac water and aftershave and foamy shave creams sweetening the seriousness of a shave flooded my mind.  "Ask him if it's okay to photograph him." I put the stuff on the hood of the car and went and asked.  "Shaving?" He asked.  Then he shaved a row through the foam and told me to ask her (i)why(i).  I did.  She'd studied some WPA photography was the ling and short of it.  I explained that to him.  And he said, "Lemme aks you sumpin'." 

     "Sure." 

     "You think this is the Big Un?" 

     "Doesn't seem to be honestly.  Hot as it is.  But even if it spills into that, (i)we are defending America(i).  Us.  Our generation has truly stepped up." 

     "Hmmmmm," he hummed as he swathed another row through the foam.