"In or out?" Was how

  a bunch of us wound up as independents.  Cars loaded with people who were one-step more committing to special interests. 

  Some people were literally being pulled in more than one direction.  

  "Fine.  Go with the militants!" 

  "They're Catholics." 

  At first there was an intellectual propensity to blame all this on young people just out of school.  As if the detachment from outlines and delineated time periods caused a cultural meltdown like a Chernobyl or a Fukishima.  "ALL OF THIS WAS OBVIOUSLY HAPPENING," a young person called it out. 

  A scraggly man demanded the knife from his backpack being carried by his woman.  He nicked his forearm.  Let some blood bead up on the skin.  Grabbed a pizza box out of an open-topped garbage can.  Started to paint a sign. 

     Klannies & Creeps

He smeared a bloody arrow pointing up but really indicating "the woods". 

  "THIS IS A CITY." A young woman determined to keep singing called out. 

  "This is a park.  A PARK." 

  "Are you saying somebody hurt you?" 

  The scraggly man wiped his blood off the knife on his shorts.  He put it back in the backpack. 

  "Do you want someone to investigate in that bit of woods?" A Scottish comic asked. 

  "That's not funny." 

  "They're not Christian.  And not nationalists.  At least, not a contemporary nation of America."  The sign had drummed up hours of conversation and clamming ups.  The scraggly man had moved to the end of the parking area to smoke meth. 

  "What are they?" Faces with sincere questions. 

  "Thanks for coming by the way," a little sister told a big sister. 

  The big sister looked at the young people one at a time.  "Hate groups." 

  "Like that's not obvious." 

  "Not funny." 

  "I'm not to be funny all the time."