She was throwing all (i)their shit(i) out of a camper.  "First day of fall y'all," her voice sounded high and tight.  She'd worked another twelve.  He'd laughed at the question, "Did you drink all day?"  Then he was walking with a bow and arrow down a winding road.  "Buzz wearing away?"  His foot slipped on some wet leaves tanglemashed into some mud.  He cussed.  "Why you taking up the whole road with your truck?"  

     "It ain't mine."  He felt the outside of his jeans pocket for a lighter.  "It's (i)my(i) boyfriend's.  But here's a smoke for you." She lit two in her mouth at the same time.  "You really should have white clothes on Cupid."  

     "I don't want to be seen." 

     "Doing a good job at that." 

     The moon was a full half again.  Stems of leaves snapping and finding ground sounded a little like rain.  In a way. 

     "Not so good in love." 

     She shook her hair side to side and let it fall over her face.  "Who is?" 

     At the bar there'd been a scare.  Even a good Pastor was having trouble swallowing a big scoop of (i)end times(i).  "It's a problem for me." 

     "You people." Half a rum and coke drank in a gulp.  "Just show up and toss your religious secrets out into the wind like a goddamn eviction notice in a Chicago winter." 

     It seemed like almost everyone was having an opinion about Tribulation.  "Like God gives a shit 'bout our opinyuns on dat stuff," an Island family stranded by a sudden and significant upcharge in ticket prices heard their mama say.  She made a noise with her mouth like sweeping leaves off a porch.

     People came and went.  The music ticked through the Top Twenty and angry (i)not Tops(i) kicked the table legs some.  Bitched about "Big Town." 

     "Where is it?  This (i)Big Town(i) you speak of?" The young girl shook a shiver of whiskey down to her toes.  "At least it wasn't somethin' worse." Older middle aged men swallowed dry mouths, parched for (i)something stronger too(i), "days gone by", and (i)chances(i) "people have these days". 

     "To work at Subway like stupid Jared?" A young man was hiccuping already.  A guitar was laying down on a seat beside and he plucked some notes to be remembered (i)no matter what(i) with one hand nicked from clearing brush, stained yellow from butt after butt while the girls  poured through notebooks.  "A treasure trove," one stared at words jotted in a blur of years.  "Found it!" 

     "This is called (i)Sandcastles(i)," an unsteady voice said into the practice mic and Gorilla speaker.  "It fell apart when you guys left," a still young looking thirty-something explained about sheet music mildewing in a backpack with a moldy water bladder.  "Oh sure, blame it all on us.  Sounds like a backslide in the making.  Get out the buckets and the rope!" 

     

     "I'm having a problem," the Pastor said about an hour and forty-five minutes after he'd said it the first time.  Someone crushed up a stack of cocktail napkins and threw the wad at him.  "People like you don't have (i)problems(i)".  A glass bottle broke outside and a bartender bolted towards the sound with a broom and dustpan from a dollar store.

     "Oh no?!" 

     "FINE!  YOU JUST LEAVE!" The bartender told the bar.  The glass breaker didn't follow.  "He's a three-dollar bill," a woman with kerosene breath bent over the table and whispered loud enough to wake a going-to-sleep bear.  "But, sweet as toffee and a Christian to boot," her lips waved what she was saying like etch-a-sketch.  The pastor raised only his eyebrows.  The bartender put the broom up but tossed the dustpan on top of a pile of jackets.  Then he threw a worn out stuffed animal onto the empty "dance floor".

     (i)Remembered when it was the Barbara Mandrell muppet(i), I wrote on my pad.  But said aloud,  "Some sort of bridge between; then and now; sliding between old fashioned and DEAD.  SEEMED LIKE everyone was dying."  

     

     "Give it back.  (i)My God(i).  You're going to hell just touching that taboo!" One man had grabbed the Devil mask off someone else's table.  The woman looked after the grab, said clearly, "Use it. Dat's for dat." The man held it before his human face and bent low behind a cigarette lighter, swayed back and forth.  "Did you say something dear?" 

     (i)Seems like a conspiracy(i) Cupid had come into the bar with his arrows wrapped in a ribbon, (i)the condition(i).  He brushed a hand in the air and the lighter went out and the Devil floated off.  "What is it with these women?" He asked the table.  "That's (i)not(i) my problem," the Pastor's meaty hands were flat on the table.  Cupid snapped fingers in the air and the bartender brought over bitters and soda water on ice.  "Only old friends can bark at me that way," he wagged a finger, so (i)don't try it(i).  "The muppet was dancing on the bar.  Holding the other muppets in a country dance line 'cuz no one knew those dance moves.  Smacking boot heels twice and a clap.  Do you remember?  The other muppets got frustrated and kicked that muppet off the bar.  It slid across this very dance floor.  And got kicked around some.  Does anybody remember me?" 

     The bartender made Shirley Temple dimples with his pointer fingers on his face.  "Did you sing into the Voice Contraption?  I still have some of those," his hands swung like a Conductor's baton into air quotes, "HITS!" His voice grew loud as some denim from head to toe kids came in clamoring for hamburgs.  I laughed.  "Do you really?" 

     "Oh yeah.  Most of the stars of those, well, I don't talk about people like some people."  Looking around at the few tables of a few people each, it occurred to me it had been a snipe.  Being called a three dollar bill.  A one off.  Though the Devil had strapped the mask to his face and was swaying his hips more than his face in front of a speaker, the scene was mellow like a Reservation Casino or somebody's living room.  "And that politician guy he was steaming mad, convinced I'd called him a lesbian." 

     "Girl, I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds interesting." The bartender pulled a chair up to the table.  Cupid pushed the bitters and water at me.  "It was interesting times." No one said anything.  The Pastor got up and went into the bathroom.  "What's that guy been drinking?" 

     "Nothin'."  

     "What do you think his problem is?" 

     "Dunno." 

     "Silly Skip.  Come sit with us." The Devil complied.  The Pastor put his hands in his pockets and ignored the Devil.  Sat back down.  Stretched legs out.  Pulled them back up.  Put his hands on his knees.  "Did you call him a lesbian?"  The bartender asked.

     A little laugh.  "Somebody called his wife a thesspian at the parachuter's party." The bitters felt good in my stomach.  "Everybody, well, almost everybody, was sipping the same bottle of champagne for like four hours.  You know that bottle that never runs out.  And somebody knocked into somebody and somebody barked (i)Watch it Dooschbag(i)."  The Devil took his mask off and laid it on the table, (i)listening(i).  The bartender got up and got a metal wastebasket, dumped the ashtray into it.  "Dooschbag," he said like a New Yorker.  "A woman jumped at the barking and threw her champagne onto another woman.  (i)That(i) woman's girlfriend was ready to throw down."  

     The denim kids had gone for vending machine snacks, bright orange puffy crunchies, and told that took all their money.  The Pastor turned out his pockets absentmindedly.  "Whipped off a Seven or Twelve or Twenty-three Mountains Climbed coat and bulled over to the champagne thrower.  A woman in a skirt and heels.  Fancy type, but down-to-earth and funny as all get out.  Looked her up and down and looked confused as a man, also well dressed with a million dollar smile, stepped in front, to block." 

     A woman came in to the bar.  Not fancy, kind of rugged looking.  She sat at a table in a darker corner.  "So they didn't fight?"  

     "No.  It came close and it's hard to explain.  Everything's always hard to explain.  That's why I'm going to grad school.  Get better at writing.  Well, understanding and writing or something.  If I can get there." 

     "Where is it?" 

     "Way up north.  But you just go for like a week, then live wherever." 

     "You're not staying?" 

     "I want to, but.  They didn't fight, but.  It was like an ice skating party on a frozen pond.  People all (i)postured(i) to be perfectly, I don't know what, like perfectly perfect.  But all of a sudden the ice got that sound, that one that sounds like an iceberg underneath." 

     "Like cracking?" 

     "Yeah.  Like, I have dreams and visions and this was like that but just a real day too where there's all these other people who are doing whatever they are doing. It was like thick ice cracking and the crack coming up in a split second and knowing, like, even thick ice is still ice.  Like it's thin between the spiritual and reality." I drained the bitters.  "Want a soda?" I nodded.  "Where you staying tonight?" The bartender came back with the soda and asked.  "Not sure.  I came here with some singers." 

     "THAT'S MY PROBLEM." The Pastor said and it sounded loud since he'd been so quiet.  "You got a problem with singing?" Cupid asked.  The Pastor looked at the floor and shook his head (i)no(i).  "I do when it's really about other things," Cupid said. 

     "I'm traveling with some serious singers.  One does gospel and the other, well, it's only the most beautiful (i)real(i) stories in music anyone's ever heard." 

     "You think so?" Cupid asked. 

     "Yeah, but, what I think doesn't matter.

     "Why?" 

     "It's like the ice breaking night." 

     "How so?" 

     "There we were all wrapped up in (i)going for Victory(i).  The people there were accomplished.  In all the ways.  Some had battled in actual wars, some had overcome addictions to drugs and money, some were kind of confused about (i)what next(i) and all those twitters, doubts, people get, but...(i)decision makers.(i)" Cupid had taken out a crumpled up homework notebook and was writing.  "I'm listening."  

 

     "Is he ahright?" The Pastor was still looking at his feet.  The woman who'd been sitting in the corner came over and said, "He's in a vision." 

     "I'm remembering.  Just telling stories." 

     "Everybody's okay," Silly Skip said slow and steady. 

     "That girlfriend looked ready to kill someone.  I mean really.  Like she'd surfed the world's oceans and been told to sit down and shut the fuck up and the ice crack was about to split us like an atom.  And the guy stood in front of the woman and put his hand out like, like his dandy hand could stop a freight train.  I prayed.  For Jesus to just show up, right then.  Or, for the nukes to just land on us."  No one said anything.  "Is that weird?" The woman had taken a tee shirt off of herself so was in a tank top and wiped the sweat off the Pastor who'd started sweating profusely.  "Look at us," she said.  "Honey, there's nothing you can say that's (i)weird(i)."

     "Everywhere we went back then, and now I guess, but we're not all together, it was like..." the juke box started playing in addition to the speaker music and a man and a woman were smelling each other and then started slow dancing.  "Like cinderblocks coming down." 

     "Real mouthy?" 

     "Excuse me?" 

     "The woman." 

     "Well, she wasn't going to let her man be out front alone, (i)no way(i), so she took off a high heel, red like Dorothy in Oz, and she held it up over that guy's head and she pointed the heel as he was like forcing a (i)stop, stop(i) to the whole thing falling into another fight." 

     "She hates fighting?" 

     "She does."  The couple kept dancing even after their song was over on the juke box.  The bartender went over and put another quarter in it and played their song again.  "And, if I remember correctly, well, see, around "power people" you never really know half of what they're talking about or doing, see..." 

     "Ah-huh." 

     "It's like their power is stacked up like a plate of pancakes or something stacked up, but they have to be careful making decisions so as not to let the stack fall.  And when they get in a group, (i)phew(i), it's like, like..." The couple danced real slow, kissing and enchanted by each other, to the door.  Somebody called out, "Hey! Get a room.  There's empties right up the road."  

     "11:30 and I'm still working," a guy shifted in his seat.  "Think they'll get a room? We got a quota to meet." A high five from a woman at his table. 

     "Did she throw the shoe?" 

     "Not at first." I swirled the ice in my soda.  "It turned into a tug-of-war.  Really."  Silly Skip whistled low and serious.  "The politician finally got there.  Somebody threw the champagne bottle aiming for the woods and it clocked that woman in the forehead just as a (i)new guy(i) who'd had to be convinced to help with the campaign because 'it's been a zoo' and they were gonna lose the Conservatives and maybe even the Moderates, being so (i)New York(i), which was taken as an insult (i)totally(i), and maybe getting fired before even getting the job, but what the politician meant was, see, the wife put a hand over his on a makeshift desk, and said, "We need help." He looked at her like she'd just burnt down the house, (i)shocked(i).  But, after a (i)pregnant pause(i) he just said, 'I'm not used to asking.' She smiled." 

     

     "Tug-of-war?" More people started coming into the bar.  "The relief bartender" was a groovy woman.  Lit incense and put little tea lights on each table.  "It's good for love," she leaned over the table and Silly Skip looked directly down her frilly blouse.  "The rulers," he said.  "In our world it's all about those mommies.  They really had a tug-of-war?" 

     "'Nother round?" She asked. 

     "Just soda for me.  (i)Thanks,(i)" I said to the table.  "It really got like that, but it was kinda funny because the issue kept changing." 

     "How so?" Cupid asked. 

     "Like there were people on the sidelines.  (i)Support(i).  That's what they were naming themselves.  Support people.  Who didn't want to be in 'the spotlight'. A sort of band had broken off playing Spanish music." 

     "Like Mariachi?" 

     "I think but I don't know a lot about music." 

     "What happened?" 

     "Yeah, those kind of guys don't quit playing for nuthin'." 

     "Well, some of the support people made an (i)uprising(i)." 

     "Went on strike?" 

     "No, this was different." 

     "One 'put a foot down', and literally snatched a bottle of wine out of somebody's hands and dumped it out, all of it, as she was tyrade-ing about all the work it took to (i)get here(i) and (i)Spanish music?????(i) is 'ethnic' but the politician's wife (i)is not(i).' The whole time she was going off the bottle of wine was being dumped over the speaker but right onto the cords, see..." 

     

     "SHE'S NOT SPANISH!" One of the children of that family broke out of catatonic and belted out.  "AND I'M ROOOOMANIAN." This just as the speakers made a really high pitch noise and pops.  Some people hit the deck.  Some stopped fake dancing, 'cuz the music was hard to dance to really and so they were just fake dancing like treadmilling.  "What's that mean?" Somebody asked suddenly loud.  "Roooomanian?" The woman with the shoe had gone around and around the other speaker looking for the shoe that somebody forced her hand to throw on account of (i)standing up for something and not being so wishy washy(i).  "I don't want (i)anyone to get hurt(i)," she'd whined as an old football player threw it and almost her whole hand like it was a pigskin.

     "That's why you don't have any (i)feelings about this(i)?" The beautiful smile man went to her side and didn't touch her but moved his hands about her like he would rub her shoulders or he would slap her on the butt like football players do, or maybe like she was a paper doll, (i)but(i), "There YOU GO, putting (i)HER(i) on a (i)front door(i) pedi-stool again," another woman went to his side and tried to (i)get inside his head(i).  She rolled up her sleeves and half boxed but in slow motion and half swirled her hands around his head.  "Think positive (i)for her(i)!"  

     "About what?" The man asked.  "What are we really talking about here?"  She lowered the shoe.  The other shoe which she'd hopped up and down to take off even as some lady was yelling, "Your stockings!  You'll ruin them!"  

     The girlfriend that was ready to throw punches got rushed and smothered in, like hugs.  They were telling her, at least, she seemed to be a her until the wig came off, then nobody was sure.  The woman wagged that shoe back and forth, side to side and pointed right. at. his. heart. with her other hand as she ripped him a new one over (i)cheatin'(i).  People ran to their cars to get cameras and different speakers.

     "I thought she threw the shoe." 

     "Well, see, you have to understand that (i)somehow(i) it was going in slow motion and with starts and stops.  Like all the energy of the world was being filtered through these people but everybody was also starting and stopping.  Like just being themselves but then.  Doubts and (i)you're messing me ups(i).  Plus, some of them had a lot of (i)drama(i) experience." 

     Cupid shook his head a little.  "I bet.  Please excuse me," he rose from his chair and ran a hand down his stomach but stopped himself from re-tucking his shirt in, crossed the bar and asked if he could sit beside a beautiful young woman on a bar stool. 

     "I seen that," Silly Skip said.  "Famous people just taking like breaks.  Like a Director said, (i)Take Five(i) or sumpin'." 

     "Yeah, that's how it was happening.  'Cuz we knew we were all under a microscope.  And that made most of us, well, anyone with a heart, (i)squirm(i)." 

     "Speaking of squirming," the woman mopping the Pastor's brow said, "Can you help me walk him around?  Sometimes that helps him (i)come back(i)."  Skip said (i)sure(i) and asked, "Where do you think he (i)goes(i)?"

     "Says it's like to the edge of a field.  I'm his wife by the way.  We travel all over but we're," she did a little cough, "Having some money issues.  Taxes and stuff." Outside the nightsky was clear and just a few jets on flightpath.  I lit a cigarette.  "I was hoping to go camping.  I can't get enough Forest in my life.  Just work, work, work."  

     "Let's sit him here," she said of a barrel on its side resting against a tree.  "He doesn't really leave his body, but," she waved a hand in front of his eyes, "Just gets real," she thought of a non-scary word, "Quiet, I guess you could say."  I walked out past the parking lot and touched a tree.  Still as a compass needle.  

     A cough got my attention.  It looked like part of a pine tree trunk separated from itself.  The figure spoke.  "Sounds like he's getting ready to go."  The figure was shoved but didn't fall, just weaved and bobbed like a ship's mast.  "YOU!!!" 

     "Yup." 

     "Sneaking around, creeping up on people in the woods even." 

     "Yup."  The figure lit a cigarette and leaned one leg back against the pine tree.  "Yah, I'm (i)going(i)." 

     "You people make me sick." 

     No response.

     "We just got here." 

     No response.

     "Damnit." I chucked my cigarette at the gorgeous leaves and soil.  Went back towards the bar.  A blonde boyman was blocking the doorway with his briefcase and stare.  "Whaddya come in a group?"  No response.  "Move!"  Before he sidestepped the entryway with his briefcase in front of his "family jewels" he pointed at the Pastor and made a wondering gesture, mouthed, (i)What's going on here?(i). "Why don't you just ask them stead of standing there like you're not asking?!"  The Pastor's wife hissed like an angry cat and asked, "What are you looking at?"     

     "I'm (i)leaving(i)," he s