"What's he freakin' out about?"

  The acting class people fell quiet. 

  The man with his hair squished by a helmet and spiked by hair goo stomp-paced. 

  Others on the higher-up level of working found him.  But he was pacing furious.  Just as most people started talking low and eager again the man exploded. 

  "The Satanists put a big fucking rock in MY territory and nobody bothered to tell me????!!!!!" 

  People disappeared. 

  Guy's "buddies" from various disciplines straggled into the area. 

  One, in total body armor and loaded with guns including an Uzi, practically skid to a stop and roared, "Where'd they put it?" 

  Another patted a spot on a log.  "You can't let them get in your head.  Or under your skin.  Or too close.  So tell the rest of us where they put it." 

  The man turned scarlet purple.  "Not used to working with any of you." 

  "We're good people." 

  "Probably." 

  "Finest and totally dedicated." 

  "Opposing the Ten Commandments rock." 

  "Okay.  Good." 

  "Is that your van?" 

  The man started out saying (i)no(i) and shaking his head (i)no(i), but between the log patter asking (i)why be mysterious now(i) and some others throwing comments like "I can just call it in," the man put his hand under his chin and the hand nodded his head (i)yes(i).  He'd collected a bunch of candles and bloody stuff as he'd followed a growing group through the woods off the Interstate. 

  "See, I'm glad you told me that, so I don't get afraid of you." 

  The man began to weep.

Precedent

  "Does it mean the first of something?" 

  The person giving the course on Legalese 101 wrote down the guess on a whiteboard.  Others pitched in suggestions too. 

  The end of the "class time" was a window for discussion.  People were reluctant to bring up personal issues.  Somebody awkwardly brought up religion. 

  "So if a legal precedent is set about faith, say, does it mean all faiths?" 

  The question was written on the whiteboard.  The Instructor gave the floor to the Students to ponder the question.  This would generate a weekly think-on assignment.

  "What'd ya think?" 

  "You did excellent.  This is such a great space for learning." 

  "I'll show you around." 

"That's not really activism, as

  much as it is getting things factual.  Just saying." 

"You there. What's your angle on this

  unfortunate little experience?" 

  Most everybody froze in place.  But had been sculpted like bronze pieces on the outside, so not revealing emotions and stress and exhausted and fear.  Controlling disgust and anger and doubts and every human characteristic inside image of success and power. 

  "People are grieving.  I don't have (i)an angle(i) just yet." 

  "There's no time for that." 

  "I know what it should be." 

  "What is it then?" 

  "How fake and awful you are and how that kind of evil is making all of life worse." 

  "What did you just say?" 

  "Why don't you go back to TV land?!" Someone standing near a shot dead body said. 

"Fuckin' A," said a really young man with part

  of his face drooping.  

  "Did he..." 

  "We're not saying that word," a hand on a forearm pressed firmly.  "None of us has health insurance." 

  "How did the string of us wind up here?" 

  "Where is this?" 

  "Be quiet.  They're coming back." 

  More hands reached to still. 

  "And apparently, they consider this a real war and that they can kill journalists." 

  "No one's allowed to kill anybody in our country." 

  "Well, that's a theory." 

  Really old school sneakers and black shoes.  Three pairs of legs.  All black clothing. 

  "Which one of you insulted (i)my people(i)?" A female voice asked in the dimming light of the stalls and hay.  "Who are your people?" Someone asked back. 

  Hands gestured (i)don't answer(i) and (i)spread out(i). 

 

  "Want me to page my paper?" 

  "You guys have a statement or demands or something?" 

  A hand lifting a nonspeaking person by the hair off the floor. 

  "Last I knew none of these were legit." 

  Stifled hyperventilating.

  A horse crop smushed into a chest. 

  "You should know I've liberated your friend." 

  "Ma, mah, my friend?" Eyebrows up forcing eyes to stay open. 

  "We'll let you know more tomorrow." 

  "It's already tomorrow," said a guy with a badly split lip. 

  Total quiet but for some breathing.  

  A dim glint.  "Get over there," the glint indicating an opposing stall wall.  "Why?" 

  "You have a gun?" 

  "Oh my 

  "You glow in the dark." 

  "Gawd." 

  "I'm not that white, but okay, okay." 

  "When did this get so freaking serious?" 

  "Gee, mightah been when the black flags blocked the ice, or 

  "We were in Minnesota, so maybe 

  "Or when people were smuggling people between buses 

  "Could this be Nebraska?" 

  "Look, it wasn't a black flag! It was somebody's butt." 

  "Somebody's butt?" 

  "Somebody's (i)people(i) have been hanging those things from D.C. to Hawaii, and charging riot police with them and you expect me, all of us, to believe it was somebody's butt?" 

  "It was.  It was." 

  "How was that so?" 

  "My cameraman.  Too close to live fire." 

  "You were that close?" 

  "Too close.  Where the lines met and there was spillover, then somebody getting killed, so 

  "People got killed?" 

  "The guy turned the camera into somebody's butt like a fade-to-black.  We didn't want to contribute to that other stuff going on." 

  "Damb." 

 

"Get your black flag out of the way."

  "Out of the way of what?" 

  "My view of Old Glory." 

  "The kids placed that flag in that parade at that precise location." 

  Silence.  Then, "When we get unhandcuffed from each other and out of this battle of the flags, would you..." the man's words fell into a mumble.  The woman's "Would I what?" Wouldn't come until months later.  After a re-mix that had schools and community centers sorting people by more realistic measures than self-check forms and beer party sign ups for (i)nobody was really sure(i). 

  The man kept talking at the monitor viewing the parade.  The monitor with no editing, no (i)bias(i).

  That made it not noticeable when somebody or something KO'd the handcuffed couple and carted the camera off as the parade stalled. 

All had checked back in.

  "And what did you see?" A woman asked in a militant tone. 

  "That, (i)that(i) is not the issue," a man who'd been arguing with his woman all day said loudly. 

  "I, gottah, pant, pant, gasp, tell you (i)something(i)." 

  "Get in." 

  "But it's full up." 

  Other cars rolled past. 

  The small sedan with the crumpled bumper stopped short and hard.  Everyone but the driver got out.  Tags on a chain were produced. 

  Other vehicles streamed down, by, out from one city to the next for every minute of every hour of every day and night after "the people" had been flagged-in to squares like a chessboard all over the place.

"Quite the venue," a promoter tried

  to sound calm and cool above the chopper's vibrations. 

  "It's already sold," a man said in everyone's earphones curtly. 

  Multiple concerts ongoing across the country.  An effort to aid in abiding by curfew. 

  Crowds a mosh of not yet re-mixed.  Freedom enough in an afternoon of entertainment. 

  "You're missing yours?" To sniffles still. 

  "Her what?" Asked an investigative, probing, someday maybe Chinese censor. 

  "Her other half." 

  Entertainers on a toystore-bought headset and walkie wondering gradually.  "What's your crowd chanting?" 

  All over the LA area some crowds chanted (i)whooooooos(i) and some crowds chanted (i)aaaaaaaaahs(i). 

"Armed guards."

  "What is this the sixties?" 

  "Is this about race?" 

  "Did you hear Maya's talk last week?" 

  "And this is all connected somehow?" 

  The auditorium lights flickered. 

  "Ooooooo. I can't wait.  Finish smoking!" 

  "I'm not too excited." 

  "Isn't she in your upline or whatever you girls call those heroic black women who came before you?" 

  "She may be if I sign with 

  "She's got no brains left." A big sister told. 

  The tremor of shock at that tidbit had different timing to each person's mind. 

  "Best advice?" 

  "Some owls said, (i)have pity(i), and that woman over there," hands stayed in dress pants pockets, but people followed eyes, 

  "She's (i)literary(i) not music." 

  "She openly suggested some of us (i)human beings(i) are already like Alzheimer's not-patients." 

  "Oh, so, makes sense why lil Miss Tude was talkin' 'bout (i)confrontation(i).  At which point I," a wheez in, "I," a long finger to under the nose, 

  "You left?!" 

  The sneeze didn't happen.  A nod.  "Got cold medicine, heart healthy kind, and went home." 

"Aw snap," the dry mouth said.

  "The song was a (i)drive up(i), not a (i)drive by(i)." The black man taken into the souped up towncar swallowed hard and the tears streamed suddenly, a torrent for our times. 

  "What does that mean?" An older woman police officer asked some youth who'd made it into that part of the city.  "It's why those people are running." 

  "They're not running." 

    "Oh dey running, making it look like they're not." 

  "Take up positions," the command came from nowhere and everywhere at once.  "That's bad," a young tatoo'd and pierced person said. 

  "She's right," a National Guardswoman said.  "They're all watching." 

  "Wait!" But the man and woman who'd resecured the "key to the City" had joined hands, (i)resolute(i), and were walking away. 

  "Is this because of WHITney?" A very perfumed and stiff-clothed man in a gangstah hat asked loud, but doubled over into a soggy hack of coughing fit.  The hat fell off his head and came to rest, openly begging, in front of the man's alligator boots. 

  "I don't see no snake comin' out it," an old, old whisp of a black doctor lady gave the binoculars back to her daughter-in-law.  The DIL re-hung them on her black tee shirted husband.  "Go get the hat son," his voice boomed quietly, respectfully. 

"How'dya git back?"

  "We walked." 

  "Mostly." 

  "Is this the 'fall line'?" 

  "What's a fall line? And what are you people doing on my property?" 

  "Now that's a long story." 

  "At least she called us people." 

  "We are." 

  "Mostly.  This one's a yeti." 

  The individuals in the little band of wanderers stood in the skinny tree line.  "You hear that?"  Everyone listened, called out sounds heard.  "Sounds like a cork screw." 

  "A cork screw?" 

  "Could be those bo weevels." 

  "Bo weevels?  Girl, the only cotton around here is in the yeti's underwear." 

  "And you know this how?" 

  "I'm not wearing any so the guy's maybe projecting." 

  "Well, people project ideations and fantasies.  Not sure about underwear wearing." 

  "Someone determine if this is what the dead guy, I mean, not active duty guy, meant on this treasure map about WNC / civilization." 

  "I hate it when they say any home is not civilization." 

  "But do you hate that this is home now?" 

  The woman closed her eyes and smelled the air and smiled.

"Just 'cuz you ain't alpha don't mean," the man hucked

  a sandbag into the chest of the person standing beside in the line of defense.  "You can't make a difference.  That's what my mother told me."  

  A young guy and an older guy walking nearby quietly exchanged money clipped bills.  "What should I do now Dad?"  The man shot a glance at the distance.  "Son, if we don't get this river dammed, we will lose the house." 

  The younger took off a nice shirt and folded it up small and stuffed it in a back pocket.  "We'll call him Yo-sem-itee," a guy in the line declared.  "Why?" Someone huffed out the question.  "On account of his tee shirt." 

  "YO Yosemite!  You, you there," guy pointed at the kid.  Kid looked at his tee shirt.  "Ya, yeah?" 

  "Go towards that truck and help fill." 

  "Yes Sir.  Thanks." 

"That's just sad."

  Another middle ager, torn ligaments. 

  "They still whacking themselves against that post?" Cut-off jeans downed a wine cooler and asked from behind the camper door. 

  "Don't be like that," an older young woman said of her sister.  The younger belched. 

  "I don't get it." 

  "Don't get much since ya became a stoner."  A girl outed an ex. 

  "We're done with school right?" 

  "Yah, the rest of us graduated a couple years ago." 

  "So what's everyone competing for?" 

"Actually that place closed."

  "Do you remember why?" 

  The car's rugs were more cow shit than fibers.  The fresh air blazed through the stink.  Surfing in reality writing. 

  The girl thought about it.  "Actually it was because of a toddler eating cigarette butts!  The older lady in that bunch ordered the 'tourist trap' shut down.  And the brother who's our age, well, he, I guess you could say (i)outed(i) that the Dad was always drunk on craft beer since they'd used that part of the farm for that." 

  "Where do you guys eat now?" 

  "At home! None of us could ever afford to eat there anyway." 

  Trees standing still had grown surprisingly taller. 

  "How was it out there?" 

  "Oh.  Well.  DC really is a snake pit, probably because it has to be paired with other places in the world.  And most of TV and a lot of radio is shark tankish.  Kind of wizard of oz because there's a lot of fighting over who gets to say what, and (i)influence(i).  A lot of the country is on drugs.  And even retail has become like prisons.  You're not missing much by taking this time to have a family." 

  "Oh.  We gottah pick up a calculator!  We can get lunch at the dollar store." 

  "Cool." 

 

"A man's got to be tough,

  but he doesn't have to be violent until he has to be as a matter of defense," a Chaplain explained. 

  The crowd was a mix of signing and support.  A lot of younger siblings hung back at a little distance, but were close enough to tackle anybody messing with anybody threatening to mess this up.  This sane and functioning Republic woven from shredded flags. 

  "Poor flags," commented a little girl dressed just like her mother and the mom's bestie.  Though the flags had survived getting to an open air chapel in the mountains, there had been real loss of human life in "the culture war".  (i)Drugs(i), a parent confided to a parent about the loss of their young person.  "I understand," was code for having also been affected by all that had been going on.

"Sorry, I uh, interrupted your..."

  "Get off the stage bitch, you're crashing the conference." 

  Squealing microphone. 

  "We need the head of this conference to..." 

  Chanting. 

  Whistles at a beautiful lady.  "Look we very much care about the climate.  We do.  That's why we need anybody in charge of this group to come to the lobby (i)immediately(i)." 

"Thanks for almost getting us killed!"

  A woman was extremely angry with an administrator.  He was nonplussed by the outburst.  "Not all my fault," he pointed to a stack of newspaper headlines.  People crowding around had a lot on minds and weren't immediately comprehending. 

  CONGRESS MAKES A DENT read one headline on a story about behind on bill passing.  "The aid in the aid cycle," the man chewed on a soda straw, "that's what prompted them to read 'what happened' as not just exercise anymore.  I guess some stuff seemed more like acts of aggression and some stops were pulled." 

  "Life and death chicken fights," a soldier stared blankly ahead at the plane's seatback. 

  "Some of these," a woman pointed at a chart of nation leaders, "Were acting like the whole thing was pivoting into world war." 

  "But not all the UN voting has taken place," a man looked at a calendar of events and said. 

  "I think the general axis/allies spheres of influence are quicker to align with technology nowadays." 

"Hey Tall Man,"

  the man had sat in a wet seat and barely glanced up at any of the beautiful women, "You ready to meet the candidates?" 

  A door opened and a bookish woman in a long skirt and thick glasses came into the room.  "Who are you?"  The stuffy older man asked.  "Mr. Seliak's assistant, nice to meet you." She extended a hand for a handshake.  The stuffy man extended his and they shook hands.  She announced, "The potential film makers are done with their poker game and ready to meet with you Sir." 

  "She's new.  The other one wasn't so formal if you know what I mean."  

For whom the chad tolls.

  That hanging chad meant a lot of things to a lot of people.  The world over.  

  What seemed to some as a brilliant, act of genius, symbolism seemed to others (i)clearly madness(i).  

  "Some sort of..." a translator had put the day's "script" over her head the third time the almost supersonic jet dove towards the viewing area, "Maybe literal interpretation of, or, a reflection of..." She couldn't just stand there any longer.  The script pages flew into the air as she dove for cover first and then squirmed into a stairwell with most of the others. 

  "Who is that up there?" An ice cold frozen in place voice asked. 

  Another voice, stiff as old book shelves simply commented, "Damned if we know since intell was basically scrubbed as part of the political shquabbaling." He chewed on a hunk of cigar. 

  "Wasn't this supposed to be just an exercise?  A grand display of mighty machines with men able-enough to bridge old world and modern?" 

  "I think I've wet myself." 

  "What on earth should we do?" 

  "No shtress I'm wearing special underwear." 

  "That is not what I am talking about." 

 

"He's NOT A THING! HE WAS ON A SHIP IN

  the Middle East you fucking snob." 

  "GET AWAY FROM HERE!" 

  "Help me get him up." 

  "Maybe try the embassy." 

  "Is yours, I mean ours here, open again?" 

  "It was never not open, just not totally open during, (i)airquotes(i) the rioting." 

  "That's the current conspiracy everybody's in on." 

  "Be careful going through these neighborhoods on the way," a shaky hand with a broken fingernail pointed at a pocketmap. 

  "What do you mean (i)debateable(i)?  There's no debate: We won." 

  Everybody was in sudden shock.  Like an atom bomb had smashed all logical order into smithereens.  How could militaries not be what they once were only thirty some years before?  How could it suddenly be a "private war"?  How could a nation not perform an ending agreeable to all parties involved.  

  "I guess it depends on how you define winning." A man said as if he were looking at a cereal box. 

  "You called an IMF person a 'fucking snob', you better see what to do there." 

  "Yes." 

  "Inconclusive." A note editor told someone about the evidence of the final battle.  "We haven't had time yet." 

  "But we..." A hand was held up, a radio was reporting on markets. 

  "It's not what you think." 

  "What do I think? I wasn't expecting you to be one more person using my brain to slant the story." 

  "War always requires propaganda and propaganda is a twisted matter.  I was talking about you thinking it's snobs versus scrugs.  That man who writes for (i)The Economist(i) he was explaining GDP and debt and all that.  It made sense, why this sudden tumult." 

  "He's married." 

  A sigh.  "I'm a loner since Bosnia." 

  "And yeah, the money shit's all screwed up but there's something else going on too.  Has to do with meaning and that being disattached or dislocated from place." 

  "Tell me on the way.  They'll be in that meeting for at least an hour or two." 

  Women with canvas bags of library books crowded around a Navy man in gleaming whites.  "We want you to get our juniors unstuck."  The man's eyes lowered but not to the floor, so he could focus faces in trifocal eyeglasses.  "I can't do it ladies." 

  "Why not?" One stomped a houseslipper and put a hand on hip. 

  "I simply cannot get them unstuck because they aren't stuck!" 

  "What sort of fiddlefaddle is that?" 

  "The sort that grown women ought to understand about men in the services." 

  The ladies moved off.  "Why did I come ashore?  Oh, that's right, I'm a grown man under orders." 

 

"Why weren't you there today?"

  "It's boring because I don't understand it all.  Fish and chips?" 

  "Too tired.  Not boring.  Fascinating." 

  "To each their own." 

  "What did you do today?" 

  "Hung out with Lucy!  See my smile?!" 

  "And what did you (i)do(i)?" 

  "No great accomplishments but little steps.  Towards some research on those history blurbs she comes up with." 

  "Are these muffins old?" 

  "Not too old.  Not moldy ass." 

  "Alright not moldy ass muffins, prepare to be eaten." 

  "In between buildings, there's this whole process to getting access to history, we saw that gay politician." 

  "What was he doing ?" 

  "Well, being human shielded by others and bombarded with lunch sacks." 

  "It'll cool off." 

  "Just a hot button issue for most people I guess." 

  "The hot chocolate in the coffee, novel, excellent!" 

  "We got called (i)voyeurs(i) by a snarky person." 

  "Hmmm." 

  "For us it was more like seeing ourselves as ourselves, witnessing contemporary, glimpsing history, figuring out the puzzle." 

  "Us? Are you that close?" 

  "Not at all, but we checked in with each other as a team on a mission." 

  "Not a team feeling for us today.  Everyone seems ready to jump down throats and there are litrally people preventing it all from coming to blows." 

"At the brics info session."

  "Let me check, I jotted down some non-on-point comments from each of them." 

  "She said relations were going better before those two men married each other in front of everyone.  And that, that wasn't a religious judgment as much as tangling socialism with a need to be fluid in the politics of war." 

  "Thank you." 

  Some were more morally outraged.  As they were at priests sexually abusing people.  "Bad example", "deplorable", "wretched precendent", "the end of civilization". 

  Others were "proud" of the "fearlessness", "dedication to truth", "pushing the envelop", "advancing the cause". 

  For most people it was a blip in the passage of time.  One more person carrying on as a unique individual in bigger establishments.  Maybe it was possible to be professional and whatever else people were into. 

  But it also brought to the fore deeper issues around romance's place and some sort of divisions between children and grown ups.  These issues were important to people and could raise the temperature in same old, same old conversations. 

  In some ways "the act" happening so publically re-ignited some passion for understanding cause and politics and how both are personal (based on belief) and can be "group".  And begged questions about influence and power in relation to Establishment. 

  It seemed timed with "kitchen table" and "grassroots" as a sociopolitical happening. 

  "Don't be rude," a barrister said to a man blocking the door to a restaurant.  "Bleeding heart liberal," the man accused.  "Just really hungry," the barrister said tiredly.  This seemed the most reasonable response to people and events not life and death.  (i)It's all happening in this crazy world, but we need to keep functioning.  Well, I do anyway.(i)

  "Well, it's not a handicap!  It's something you chose to do and forced on everyone else." A friendly-enough was overheard saying to the gay politician who'd locked himself in a wheelchair lift.  "Your exceptionalism is your ego and your ego will be the death of you."  The man seemed like a body in that space of suspension in a rollercoaster dip.  The momentum of public spectacle having ebbed and the reality of cause meeting general setting in.  "I care about you as a person.  God, a human being.  It would be morally worse to off yourself." The UP button was pressed.

"At the time it was political solution," a man lowered himself

  into a chair.  A mix of world history and experience his talk was a careful walk not a tread.  

  "People who didn't live through a war in their homeplaces don't really know about how devastated people and place can get." 

  The tall man had been revived with smelling salts and given a wool blanket which he had around his shoulders. 

  

  "So he seemed to be saying it was impossible for people to make up and truly be 'friends' given the shape of the human psyche at the end of World War II." 

  "And given the hard facts even when there was sentiment for peace." 

  "And, of course, changes," the students groped for what heard to apply to present situation. 

  "I did.  I made it clear that getting to meet some living history people like Gorbachav is not necessarily going to win my vote." 

  "You know," the older student amongst the younger students said, "A lot of people in the wars didn't think of themselves in a historical framework.  And didn't have perspective of anything but their own situation." 

  "We're finding that out ourselves.  Like superiors have different information than us." 

  "Exactly." 

"It's not ours," one de-bomber said to another.

  "Are they lying?" 

  "Just trying to get out of working this scene?" 

  "Did terrorists put it in there?" 

  "Is this how they recycle the industrial military chain of events?" 

  "Are they going to melt cities too?" 

  "How did those get in there?" 

  "Are they nuclear?" 

  "Was it Soviet?" 

  The press conference podium was asked all these and more questions.  All recorded, all supposed to be passed along to experts.  Only the experts were caught in a stop-and-start of travel and tools for conferencing. 

  "And keep ours away from the Witch's Tit." 

  "Yes Sir.  Thank you Mr." 

  Inside the room the gravity of the situation weighed on minds like lithium.  Someone had put a fresh chunk of snow in the water pitcher.  Someone else warned, (i)only sip(i). 

  "But surely there's enough snow for everyone." 

  "You are all severely dehydrated." 

  "So they just piled up a lot of the World War Two stuff?" Someone asked an Elder.  He nodded slowly. 

  "And no one could be sure who was carrying it off," a woman read what notes the man had been able to save from an accidental fire.  The Elder nodded again. 

  "There's NO DEAL," a tall man said to everyone in the room.  "And if you knew why no deal in Iran you would all, would all," the man fainted.

The little cluster of artists did not

  want to talk about politics.  "Useless squabbling," one said.  "Waste of time," another agreed.  "Make yourselves a sandwich.  There's no catering here." The loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly was laid out on a picnic table. 

  "Do you guys live here?" 

  "I'm local.  They are not.  I'm a potter." 

  "You make pottery?" 

  "I'll give you a studio tour later." 

  "I'm not sure that it is 'existential' or even a crisis.  It's just something I'm stuck on.  For a lot of the people who were trained they come up with something to mass produce and that's the success.  Making a hundred of something." 

  "Do you not have ideas?" 

  "I do, it's not that.  More like, I don't need a hundred clay feet or a thousand smiley faces with missing teeth.  I mean why portraiture our misery." 

  "Are you in misery?" 

  "I try not to be." 

A string of lanterns on caribiners hung

  inside a box truck.  Two convoys were converging. 

  "Listen to me.  Just me." A man told a woman.  Eyes looked all around, settled on the man's face.  "This whole thing's changed again." 

  "What thing?" The woman slammed down a cigarette purse.  The plethor strap which was already torn, broke.  She sat on a crate.  Put her throbbing migraine in her hands.  Hands covered in tie-dye colors.  The man took her hands in his.  "What did you girls do last night?" She blew out a long breath.  "Babysitting for some Officer couples." The man took this in with a gentle but strong nod, (i)Oh(i).  "Did the kids survive?" A little laugh.  "Not my forté." 

  "Well, what in here is going to get this stuff off of you?" 

  "Why?" 

  "You are needed." 

  The woman's sharp sarcasm had cooled and she let her eyes look at the truck floor.  She looked at the man's dirty pants.  "Who's going to do your laundry?" 

  "I'll have to do it myself.  There's some real towns on my itinerary." 

  "Should I ask you, needed how?" 

  "I don't have all the specifics myself, but," the woman started to squirm on the crate, "I know, you're not committing, here, now." 

  The man put his callused hand under her chin and lifted her face.  "I think you can do it.  They explained it as a sort of linchpin position." 

  "What the heaheck is that?" 

  "I'm going to let them explain it." He knocked on the wall to the cab.  It opened. 

  "The tornado guys?" She asked. 

  "That's not the only thing we chase," one said without looking away from a monitor scrolling hundreds of "mugshots". 

  "All bad guys?" The woman was drawn in.  "Not at all.  People filtered out of jobs by algorithms." 

  "What's algorithm?" 

  The guy in the driver's seat looked at a huge watch velcro'd to the dashboard.  "Got time for dinner?" 

  "Oh shit!" The woman dug a shoelace with a wedding ring and cross necklace stuck to it out of the cigarette purse.  "How 'bout not dinner but beers?" 

  "I could get onboard with that plan." 

  The guy in the passenger seat absently shook his head (i)no(i), "Doesn't work for me." 

  "I'll go get a pizza," the man said. 

"Super shined," the boy in a tall man's janitor jumpsuit said dramatically.

  "They're coming!" Another boy in a more broadchested man's shirt reported as he squeak-sneakered into the lobby.  A deep breath and adjustment of coffee trays on both arms. 

  The clicking of heels on the sidewalk growing louder.  

  Louder.  

  Suddenly a safety whistle blown.  Heels almost skidding to a stop.  The voice of a woman.  "How dare YOU!  How dare you, and you, show your faces here. How dare you bring such dark days on our city!  On our party!  On this sacred place!  AOC, GET UPSTAIRS.  NOW." 

  "Yes m'am." 

  Only one woman passed through the new security entryway and paused.  Dropped head, hands over eyes.  Smoothing eyebrows and brushing off the devastation of reprimand.  Starting for the lobby. 

  "Go slow," said the janitor boy, "I just polished it." 

  "Thank you." 

His voice boomed,

  "OH, SO BY POLITICAL OPERATIVE YOU MEANT SOCIAL DRAMA QUEEN!"  One man pulled up his trousers. 

  "How'n the hell are you?  Been all over the world I bet." 

  "What's she doing here?" 

  More correspondents plowed through the partiers following the pastor's son-in-law. 

  "You all went off to do world class journalism and left me here to my own devices," the tall man with a camera strapped to his head looked at a shorter man with a camera strapped to his head.  One clicked the other's by a little hanging button.  "Same time next week?" 

  "Who are all these people?" 

  "Pretty random group.  Most are out of their minds high or something.  A lot of other party people." 

  An older correspondent covered the eyes of a young one. 

  "Put this over your head," the tall man was given a paper grocery bag.  "Why?" He whined.  "We can't leave here without photographing." 

  Not all magazines have the same standards. 

  A literary agent clicked the camera without film a few times.  The entire scene was filmed by several people as practice, group technique. 

  A man stepped forward from a doorway and scrawled in marker on the grocery bag on the tall man's head, (i)Pat's expecting you to be there.(i) 

  The hallway filled up with the scene busters.  "Well, now you know lass.  Boys have dingdongs." People blushing.  "He's always got a theory.  That guy in there, not invited.  This quarter's talk will include touching upon apocalypse and them," the man's pointing finger clipped a woman's nose, "Packing the Courts!" 

  "I think it's (i)stacking(i) not packing.  But I don't know everything." 

  "Who are those kids?" 

  "They wanna do it too, but not drugs and sex and booze." 

  "Really?!  What's the draw then?" 

  An insta-camera was passed forward.  "All out?  Morals in tact?" A photo was snapped, the door was closed.  The memo center-stage.  Photo slid under the door.  "Let's go!" 

"Most of mine had a conscience," one young woman

  snapped at another young woman. 

  "What's the conversation du jour in the living laboratory this morning?" An older correspondent asked a young man.  The young man's face froze.  Somebody had talked to him and not just anybody but (i)this guy(i).  Had been in the Cold War (i)and(i) working in the Gulf.  "Started out about teachers and trainers.  Could be a cat fight at any moment with those two." 

  "You're saying mine doesn't." 

  "I'm not saying that.  I didn't say that, make some comparison statement between the two men." 

  Arms crossed.  Practice at holding back stinging tears so makeup doesn't run. 

  "But since you took it there I'll tell you I've worked with both.  It's complicated." 

  "Simplify." 

A woman pelted a reporter

  in the back with a shoe.  San Francisco street sidewalk.  The reporter later reported being scared shitless, exhaling the stress in a deep meditative breath, turning and picking up the shoe.  Of course, it was not obvious who threw it.  The reporter looked at the feet of everyone at a bus stop.  No solo barefoot. 

  Two cigarettes on a bench.  A bicyclist messenger.  A note.  The gist: we need to talk, some of us being stalked by serial killers, health department gave out home addresses.  Group lunch at such and such a place. 

  "Wigger don't get mad, don't be mean," a surfer dude with three PhDs and a match to the thrown shoe stood outside the beansprout/lattè joint.  "Don't you ever work?" A hand came from behind the guy and beckoned with highly polished fingernails with tiny scenes painted on the polish for the other shoe.  "I saw you.  You better get better at hitting and running before anyone gives you a gun." 

  "Me no need gun, me have man." 

  "Yeah, yeah.  At least she did last night." 

  "That's disgusting.  Unsafe and degrading to all women." 

  "Obviously you weren't watching or you'd know we were safe." 

  "Somebody was," a shirt and tie guy smacked an envelope against surfer dude's chest.  "Bring those inside and tell me how you're political." 

  "I am absolutely not." 

  "In." Nobody made a move.  "What's the hesitation?" 

  "Could be you assuming."  This drew a chortle from a red headed woman who'd stepped out to smoke and stood there watching like a video camera.  "I think she's the political one," a chin thrust towards the reporter. 

  "Oh, look at the time, and I'm not even at the right restaurant.  Nice seeing you." 

It's actually most of the time

  that "the Press" does not know the strategy of politicians, and politicians do not know the military's.  It can make for harrowing scenes of confusion amongst the masses. 

  "I don't want to go there!" A correspondent was arguing with an editor's plan to meet objective and "scoop" another paper.  Wall to wall people in an airport. 

  "And I certainly don't want to go there like that," she said.  She flashed a photograph to the newsroom.  People in a cage on a boom being carted to a different area. 

  "Let me think." She hung up. 

  "Excuse me.  Excuse me," she said to a short man.  "You look official." The man said nothing.  "Why are those people in that cage?" 

  "They paid for safe passage.  You want?" 

  An even shorter woman came up.  "DVD sir?" 

  "Look, those are paid to defend those.  So, the less offensive you all are, the fewer of you will get gunshot wounds." Everyone heard her in plain English.  A man bought ten DVDs for a dollar a piece, but gave the money to a woman to give to the woman.  Others bought souvenir tee-shirts and sarongs to bandage themselves.

"I don't care," he said for the fiftieth time.

  "But it's the kid's way of dipolomatic solution." 

  He said it again. 

  After several days of prayer by himself he came out of the little room.  "There's no such thing as interfaith.  There can't be." 

  "None of us are converting." Said a mother whose children and husband were Muslim. 

  This angered a pastor.  Snarky comments to get at debate flew.

"We didn't know." The one tween spoke for both.

  "How'd ya find out?" 

  "So and so's big sister's back from the Middle East!  Now we know there's all different kinds of Muslims." 

  "Stop.  Just stop moving the units around metro." 

  "You can't tell me what to do.  You're under me." 

  "But what if it would save lives?" 

  An older-looking man came up out of the subway and crossed the road.  "You two still together?" 

  Neither the man nor the woman answered.

"Had we not worn these wigs," the bar music was blaring,

  "We'd be looking like them!" A shorter woman up from Orleans indicated the walking wounded.  Slumping and sitting but not cowerint.  One pushed self up a wall by muscled thighs and held up hands in front of the injured. 

  "How'd you know?" Our travel leader asked of the woman with dark, dark circles under her eyes.  "Know what?" She got up from crouching.  "That we needed the wigs?" 

  The woman re-crouched.  "Look, I been seeing these people fight for weeks.  Even before the BM's turned against each other." 

  "BM's?" A correspondent made a swift move in the conversation. 

  "Black Muslims." 

  The leader handed out another round of hard tack.  And bottled waters.  The woman said to the correspondent.  "There's people that have been effectively 'scalped' they pull hair so hard." She winced.

"What I see?"

  "A Sea of black." 

  "But look," it appeared to be troops facing off with troops overseen by tanks.  "I see nobody bothered to tell the white Americans, those black Americasns fought this war for them." A man fell to his knees and crossed himself.

"We need to talk," a skinny all-muscle girl said to a trainer.

  "Well kid, just step into the ring.  Everybody else has." She looked at the melee in the ring.  A young man caught her looking and cupped his hands to shout, "In this corner...climate change deniers; in this war deniers; in this corner..." 

  "What is going on here?" 

  "Kid, my best guess is that half the world is kick ass ready and the other half can't find their way out of the bag so to speak.  But, hey, no neighborhood riot last night." 

  "That's a first in a while from what I've heard." 

"And what was the, um, projectile?"

  "Sporked birdshit." 

  "Like dried?" 

  "Some of it.  Like it came off an eave.  But some of was rather wet and sticky.  Here have a looksee," the woman took the man's sportcoat out of the paper grocery bag in his hands.  The academic with a detective bend viewed the splattered jacket.  "And why do you suppose someone might pelt you with recycled bird doodoo?" 

  The woman started to speak for the man opening with the snipe, (i)communists(i), but the professor held up a hand and waved her (i)down, down(i), "Madam, kindly let the man speak for himself." 

  "Knock, knock.  Ready?  Can we come in?" 

  A PS carrying stacks and stacks of paperwork on background story and potential "helpers" behind the knot of older women meet-and-greeting younger women with blue pencil in mouth, said, "Are you not the Secretary of State?  I don't think you have to ask."  She pushed through the knot and pushed the door open with her backside. 

  Alert eyes, perfectly seated, dressed in their best, but holding back verbally young women watched as the Hill's venerated entered the old room being transitioned to conference.  "I'm not really here," explained the PS.  "Just helping people get to where they need to be." Little nods.

"You'll just have to listen,

and practice not taking notes." 

  "Why?!  Where's the equipment?" 

  "Locked up.  Marie's people get first dibs." 

  "What's your take on all these tariffs?" 

  Men shifted their weight in a variety of rolling chairs and on feet in sneakers.  One sighed.  A woman griped, "It's making it hard to pay the bills." 

  "Right, it's only about you." 

  "That's not fair." 

  "Everybody has sacrificed in this." 

  "Some more than others," eyes went to a wall covered in now-Veteran photography. 

  "I think if we aren't going to just all waste each other, tariffs and sanctions are the power a president needs." He said it like he'd thought about it long and hard.  Like he was aware of a bigger picture, bigger than using powdered cream in burnt coffee and sharing bagels with co-workers.  "But I don't agree with the man on every issue." 

  "You and him in couples therapy?" 

  A (i)hmmmmph(i). 

  "Death and taxes people." 

  "Speaking of death," a man said almost quietly and people looked not at him directly, "A major part of what happened over there most recently, had to do with a convergence of forces." 

  A woman had closed her eyes and was breathing deeply.  Some of the people just looked at her.  One threw a wadded up napkin at her chest.  "Still alive?" 

  "Helps me to meditate.  Convergence of forces, I heard." 

  "Convergence of forces, lack of resources in those countries, and..." 

  A binder of Out There Observations was placed on the table alongside summaries of nuclear facility visits.  "It's (i)not(i) evidence," someone said as a phone kept ringing on a desk somewhere." 

  "Hey, Lotus Woman, is that yours?" 

  The woman came to, realized it was her phone, and went to answer it. 

  "Obviously we need to keep covering world events, but now with other governments killing their own people, this is different than 

  "Marie's in the hospital." 

  "Oh dear." People pulled jackets off backs of chairs, stuffed reading materials into sachels and bags, and filed out of the room. 

"Stay out there and," the

  loudspeaker on the burnt out because bombed utility vehicle competed with the mineret sounds.  "And what?" A woman in a rain drenched surgery gown and broken gloves yelled at the sounds.  Tried to get hair out of face with wrists.  The loudspeaker scratched the feeling of jagged nerves into the otherwise abandoned courtyard area.  "I'll have your ass for aiding and abetting." 

  "YOU WOULDN'T.  YOU CAN'T!" The woman screamyelled and stuck a pointing finger in the air.  "As God is my witness I will finish this work!" 

  "You're so stupid and useless you don't even know they just keep adding bodies, adding bodies!" 

  The woman looked through bloodshot eyes at the body pile she was standing in.  Body parts pointing at unnatural angles.  Stumps frozen motionless "not doing whatever they could be doing", "such a waste, such a bloody fucking waste!!!!" 

  Trembling, chilled to the bone, others came towards the pile of bodies and the immovable woman.  "We'll help," they said in many languages. 

  And they worked around the clock for days until one day the lady plopped a file down before a regional lead journalist.  "Not stupid.  Not useless.  Tired but they'd been bringing scattered piles.  And look at these," she took photographs from inside a jacket and shirt and tank top "bra", "Bones!  Mass graves." The woman's audible voice was hoarse and deep.  "This is only one place here.  There are many other places to see.  To document." 

  "It won't change anything Marie." 

It was at the same time,

  that effigies of political people were being "tortured" on the National Mall, that an OWL handed out sheets of blank paper. 

  "What should I do with this?" One partisan asked. 

  "Surrender!" Said an opposing partisan. 

  The owl shook head and wiped tears from face.  An activity coordinator interpreted.  "These are quilt pieces." 

  Some people divided their sheets of paper into professional selves and family life.  People realized a lot of things about what they'd focused on in their lives to date. 

  And an overwhelming sense of grief was not busted up by the exercise. 

  Some people took their sheets of paper with them even as they were deported and elsewise sent out of the Homeland. 

  One ambulance driver in the war zone of the Middle East had had the MOU, Memorandum of Understanding, laserprinted onto his quiltpiece sheet of paper.  And though it was ripped to shreds by persons insisting (i)no peace possible(i) he'd taped it back together and framed it.  It hung on the wall in a rundown room where sewing threads marked routes still open.  Banana stickers stuck parts of the thread to the hard plaster wall, (i)rubbled(i).

  "Oh my God," he said in his thick Indian accent to a woman helping archive deaths, "You killed all those people and put them in a pile?" 

  "That's our reputation honey, but not all Americans are the same."  The ambulance driver turned to a Monitor and asked, "Would you kill all those people and put them in a pile?" The man shook his head slowly (i)nooooooo(i), saying, "And I'm not American." 

  "Whoever did this is in BIG trouble Mamboo," a lady de-gloving kissed both his cheeks and asked if he'd come to help.  "Oui." He had.

There was a sort of

  what we visualized as a quilt being unsewn in places where the Greatest Generation was passing out of active duty as citizens-number-one. There were long pauses in filming movies because parents and loved ones were dying.  Sometimes the pauses were a person crying too hard at the passing of time to regain composure and work. Sometimes on sets there'd be people ready to act, but a chunk of set was missing or the person who'd been paying the assistant was having a life change.  Sometimes people who'd been in life roles of animosity and foil became friendly enough to (i)carry on(i). 

  Some pieces of quilt got stacked instead of unsewn.  Some whole families had gone into real estate or the law or law enforcement.  As particular families were changing, the American family was changing too. 

  For all the big moves that systems make, there were little people with knowledges and personalities, disciplines and passions, really making the world tick.  

  Some people with a penchant for studying everything took more of a witnessing-the-world stance during the critical years of the big aging phase.  Others spread keynote and tone, especially of kindness and compassion, like they were rambos.  And some pushed their own endurance to the max to drop everything in their own lives to not let the quilt come undone.  "On a mission" became a rallying cry for others to give both space and support. 

"Okay, now sort the piles by crime #456." A

  person in the small crane used for lifting body bags told the ground crew who'd already waited on investigators to archive, log, and report findings. 

  Most of the female bodies were re-piled into the domestic abuse category.  Friends and family stood nearby murmuring and wailing.

No one knew everyone

  was wired for sound. 

  A very frail WWII person who'd known about the Tribunal, like inside and out, explained to a friend that in reality, about "war criminals", a lot of them were just criminals anyway.  Criminals who needed a war.  Criminals who would not be "actors" and "operatives" if the war hadn't have been letting them run their courses. 

  "It doesn't mean there's no place for war," said a strategist immediately.  Looks burned him from every angle in the room.  "If conducted properly," the man said. 

 

"Those people are dead and this," a

  head shaking at the weight and volatility, "This, is, not a schoolyard." 

  Most of the living people near the pile of bodies were students and missionaries.  And one had been backhanded for calling the decidedly anti-human rights people with machine guns, (i)bullies(i). 

  "Nobody leave." 

  "I didn't think we were allowed." 

  "That too."  An Israeli man looked at photographs by journalists of other piles of bodies.

  There had in fact been decisions made.  Throughout spontaneous soccer games and at tables where porridge was the only option to "get something in your stomach", youth were courted.  Most were promptly wedded to machine guns and long knives.  Crates and crates of grenades and dynamite sat on the wharf beside rotting vegetables and donated used clothing.  News of the pirated AID never making it out of "humanitarian crisis" zone. 

  Mumbled warnings that "everything is political" made way through groups and orgs with other focuses besides "politics" like religion and education, but this seemed to create a vacuum in "action".  Within a short time span people were just people, some with weapons and some without. 

"Are you Americahn aliens?"

  "Do we look like little green men?" One woman passed a crate of olive oil along the wharf in a human chain. 

  "Sing us a few notes of a newer song!  We can't remember any music." 

  "Yeah that happened to us in the late seventies." 

  "You lived here?" 

  "Naw, New York." 

  "Same life everywhere.  All over the world." 

  Dried tomatos.  Lightly passed along. 

  "Sing we need an angel music." 

  Someone started humming.

"He was saying that why

  there's ultimately no peace possible is really between God and Satan." The woman flipped the shared dentures in and out of her mouth.  "We've had no denture glue either." 

  "I'll put that on the list of essentials needed."  The list was pretty serious since the carrier had been stalled at Sea for quite some time. 

  "That's what all this really seems like to me and my husband.  We got split up back on land in an operation and I ended up with our teeth.  A dentist visit was on our, what have people been calling it?" 

  "Bucket lists?" 

  "Yeah.  Like Lennon sang, (i)life is what happens while we're making plans." 

  "Right.  And we really are pretty tiny and fragile." 

  "Oh! Give these to the girls." She took a string of pearls tied in knots where the string had busted from a jumpsuit pocket.  "Maybe somebody'll have a lucky date.  Get married and go home." 

The man unfurled a roll of blue ribbon.

  He was standing between a gaggle of reportorial types and a line of buses.  "Okay, so as most of you know, I've always been more into politics than like crime and drugs." Someone boo'd.  The smells of breakfast mingled with bus exhaust. 

  He laid down the ribbon in the dewy grass. 

  "Did I leave anybody hanging on information or assignments?" 

  "What are you doing?" A woman asked.  Another took a picture of the ribbon. 

  "Everybody sure?" Nobody said anything.  "Once I cross this line I'll be a political operative and not an independent journalist anymore even though I can be reached if there's something I can do." 

  "For our sorry asses?" 

  Some of the younger guys started to get looks of ambition jostling. 

  "Anybody want to join me?"  More pictures being snapped was the response.  "Well alrightie then," the man stepped over the ribbon, and looked at everyone.  Then went into the highway restaurant.

"It's not what you think," a woman told a frantic

  looking child, small in a circus of flashbulbs and clicking sounds like cicada.  The child who couldn't speak at the time later said she was wondering, (i)Is that my real father?(i) 

  "Why is that woman handcuffed to that man?" A typist asked a beat reporter.  The reporter shook head just a little dazed himself, but fighting nervous at all the commotion.  Then he unfolded a roll of newspapers.  WAR CRIMINAL RECAPTURED was the headline on one of the less popular papers.  "Could be related to this." 

  "I better call her Literary Agent." 

  "And a lawyer, no?" 

"We'll take this one, it's the fastest."

  Scrambled people had put together everything they had on "the issue", boarded a jet, and filed off as the most professional looking set in the world.  A small army of Trump University graduates, service people founding fields of discipline, and the paying attention to current events before, during, and after "legal action".  The "crem de la crem" of not totally bogged in a system perpetually grinding into gridlock as people "partied up" to battle for the hill. 

  A tall man placed a small stack of bills on an old oak table in front of the dismissed man.  He held surveillance camera stills and a mini tape in his hand like cards in a cardgame.  The dismissed man in the crumpled suit started blubbering. 

  A scream ripped through the saturated air. 

  The bodies of the dead people had had their throats slit. 

  "Nobody here knows where these bodies came from," said a man who was taking peoples' jackets and suitcoats to cover up the dried bloody and stiff sitting dead people. 

  "We'll start canvassing," said a policeman in a sweater that he'd thrown on in a hurry over his white teeshirt.  "We'll start with the neighbors." 

  "Wait.  Just hold on a minute." The town adminstrator's temple veins were pounding his pulse.  "I'm not sure anybody should go out there." 

The symbol had been carefully placed like a mineret.

  Some people moved from space to space, donning interchangeable sandals, and dresscasual pants.  Others cowered. 

  A Town Administrator wondered out loud at the options.  "Vandalism charges?" 

  "Who to charge?" A mom who'd started a Cupcake Club and who was filling in for the real Secretary kept playing devil's advocate so the man could "get his head around" what seemed like a dream or an hallucination.  This strategy blocked the ongoing shock questions like (i)how can this be happening(i)? 

  "What does it mean?" The TA asked the person who still had internet and who was scrolling through hundreds of images that came up under search: symbols. 

  "Maybe it's a brand." 

  "Of like cereal or something.  Come on people." 

  "Where did they all come from?" 

  "Your airport was one of the ones flights got diverted to." 

  "Well, where's the commander guy?" 

  "He fainted.  The heat and the stench." 

  "Well then who is that?" 

  People crept from under desks to peek out the window.  A man in a suit was approaching one of the men near the symbol.  The man was framing the Courthouse with a cardboard square.  "Are you the Representative here?" 

  "Well, I'm not the Senator, but" 

  "Dismissed." 

  The "commander guy" was revived with a bucket of melting ice.  Pushed outside. 

  The man with the cardboard square framed him then realized something.  He pocketed the square like a golf score card.  "Long time no see brother." 

  The commander guy blinked through the water dripping down his face.  The man in the sandals said, "Checkmate".

  "This is that Senator in D.C."  Other senators also picked up the fundraising phones and all heard a southern accented man squawking.  "What were y'all thinking?  Of course I understand but, this is SERIOUS!  They literally shuttered the International Criminal Court and now they can't find more than half of the criminals!" 

  "I might know.  I might know.  I might know what to do." He hung up and everyone else did too.  They looked at him.

"Hey, who's in charge here?"

  The man asked it like this group we'd stumbled upon had gone through the same process as our group. 

  "See, I wouldn't have opened with that.  Not my style," said the wounded alpha. 

  "God, obligations.  And we're a civil bunch, so I guess the Law." The woman in a Leave It To Beaver cooking apron explained.  Right away a man on a bunk bed said, "She's always been so obedient." 

  "You see it differently?" Asked an anthropology-background person amongst us. 

  The man yawned and scratched at the red bug bites on a leg.  "What led you people here?" 

  "Bad weather." Someone replied.

"Maybe you're addicted to entropy." The

  woman was trying to assess (i)something's wrong(i) and had started with the people in the vicinity.  "What would make you think that?" 

  "You talk about it a lot." 

  "It has to do with my working thesis." 

  "Which is?" 

  "Well, I don't have a neat statement about a world like this one." 

  "Is this about the world? Or is this about you?" 

  "Probably both.  I mean look, they all acted as a group to tell you something is wrong, but I don't see a group here now." 

  "Do you feel blamed?" 

  "For the something wrong? No." 

  "You can go." 

  Campus had emptied like the leaves from the trees. 

"Don't just be sweet on me,

  marry me and we'll raise a little family." The surviving couple in the Codebreakers Club had relayed a next location to keep eyes on.  The ease and cadence of their casual poetry made them popular dinner guests. 

  It wasn't terribly surprising then when some young people started acting like they had a (i)secret(i).  Some of the young people were wild-eyed, some lost looking, and very few had known the world of consumer goods and faith wars.  But all knew that actual survival "ain't pretty".  

  "Don't be that!" A man with a garbage dump accordion would stop playing and yell at any soul walking the edge between thinking (i)satisfied(i) and losing soul.  Little foil packets, baggies, used smoke cans littered the walking trails on the fringes.  "But I ain't got no kingdom," blank-eyed children would say.  "They's jus copying their drop out parents." 

  "You sound Southern American Mr. Accordion.  Or did you grow up here?" 

  "I been around a long time.  Long time." 

  "Old soul, eh?" 

  "Mind if we take your photo?" 

  He straightened the tuxedo tee-shirt and propped the accordion on his knees. 

  "You pair real angels? Or is Mr. Sam in town?" 

  "We're not a pair and don't know Uncle Sam personally." 

  "That's probly good.  There's a bunch of his men over there by the scales." 

  "Really?"  

  "Ah-hah, been here a long time too." 

  "We seen a mess of 'em.  You'n all they sent.  Lawsie." A wispy blue-eyed, older man came all the way out from behind a wall corner not attached to a building, telling unseen others, "I think it's safe.  They don't look like nothin' much." 

  "You weigh up the garbage going in or the garbage going out?" 

  A toothless woman smiled hugely.  "Honey, ain't nobody weighed nothing up in here in more'n fifteen years." 

  "'Cept one time we weighed Alvie's shoes." A different older person said.  Some of the people nodded.  "He filled 'em with ceement so as to stay soberlike." 

  "Are we not in Africa?" 

  "Hush.  Never let 'em see you sweat." 

  "And times kids weigh cats in the way." 

  "Preggers?" 

  "Pregnant?" 

  "Then we bet on how's many'll come out." 

  "I see," a third party with the communications people put away a compass and maplines traced onto a newspaper page.  "It's another thirty kilometers." 

  "Maybe we should camp here with these lovely folks." 

  One spat.  One adjusted his pants.  And the woman blinked. 

  "Maybe not too far away.  And take turns sleeping." 

  "We'll show you the Church." 

  The others looked at the one who'd said it with narrowed eyes. 

  "Okay.  Maybe in the morning." 

"They flushed," a kid yelled to a Dad.

  Dozens of TV monitors.  Kid pointed at the one camera-ing a jet's letloose.  "Freeze that." 

  Another monitor showed a mosh of crowd.  Rainbow flags and Palestinian dominating center view.  Keyboarding.  Some monitor screens breaking images apart like iced mountain parts bursting.  Then rearranging. 

  "Those reported calling the thing 'a wave'." 

  "Some sort of communications thing?" 

  Magnifying the jet's trash. 

  Dozens of small black boxes. 

  "Pull up that amphitheater halfway to Babylon."  A flip through plastic pages of negatives.  "This one," a finger pointed at what may have seemed like stone ruins. 

  "All those dropped." 

  "All what Sir?" 

  "Who said that?" 

  "Monitor twenty-seven." 

  Crowds, a stadium, all the people raving cheers.  Then no visible reason they all collapsed.  "Were any bleeding from their ears?" 

  No answer.  The question put on a delay, primed to chat with the medical team. 

  "Watch this one." 

  A similar jet.  A flush.  Static.  "Let it run through." 

  "We're out of peanut butter.  What should we do for lunch?" 

  Static to film frames.  Film frames picking up speed.  Sky.  Landscape.  A dizzying mix.  Then suddenly the video camera on the ground, bouncing like a soccer ball.  Stillness.  Almost two full twenty-four hour cycles of earth life in light and dark.  A wall of fire.

"It wasn't fourteen minutes,"

  from the time they'd left the tent to the time they were brought back on stretchers through the same tent flap. 

  Everyone and everything armed to the teeth, having seethed through less than two hours of awake after a sleep shift. 

  "YOU MUST," a whisper scream at furiously fast backs.  Fastly unplugging, coiling, stuffing equipment into clicking cargo doors.  "I told you," one man whirled on heel, pointed in the face of another, "(i)YOU(i)." 

  Another got behind both men.  And still more men fashioned themselves into the first tug-of-war of the day.  "And I passed (i)your opinion(i)along," the man backhanded the finger point out of his face.  Talking with stomach air. 

  "What opinion?" 

  "It's TOO RIGID.  Somebody's got this whole fucking thing in a straight line from this hellhole to Russia through Europe." 

  "Nobody leaves." 

  "What happened?" A headbandaged and bleeding woman named Donna clawed at the straps holding her to the stretcher. 

  "Bit of a setback honey," a man tore off a jumpsuit down to his scrubs.  Just stay calm.  Don't be a screamer on me.  All excited to go home already." 

  Bins of medical supplies were rushed over. 

  "They won't.  They will not listen to us anywhere in the world now." The man leaned heavy on an impromptu cane and drained a fifth. 

  "What happened?" A woman put two other bottles of liquor in an apron pocket. 

  "They labeled us all faggots." 

  Gasps of shock.  People gathering around. 

  "Anyone in the media.  Anyone with families.  Anyone religious.  Anyone they wanted to leave behind." 

  "That goes beyond fatwa.  That's more like jihad," explained two women who'd just arrived. 

  It was a tall man in his underwear who rushed into the pause, jabbed his leg with an injection of vitamins and minerals, and re-started actual conversation.  "Problem right now as I understand it, is that if we break up the axis/allies front, there's more chance of smaller group encirclement." He shook his head side to side to get ear drops in deep, chattered his teeth, and flapped his cheeks to the point of making noise.  A guy lifted himself off leaning against a sawhorse against a wall.  "Oh my God.  That makes sense." 

"I'll be the bean, you be the..."

  The sister said it to her brother as a fifth attempt to get him to finish a sentence.  Others broke down and clued, (i)po, po, po(i).  "Pole?" The brother asked foggily.  People around him nodded (i)improvement(i).  Then he sat up and rubbed his shin and asked, "Or are you tawkin' 'bout the shicken shester? Po Folkses shicken?" 

  "He's okay," and "He's fine," were both the snapshot.  Dropping in and on the move.  "Only back up plan we need?" 

  Hands reaching for "the good stuff", each other's hands.

"Now we just have to get you in the hangar!"

  "Put ME DOWN!" No one would. 

  "Well," to what should I know, "You should all know I was the first one in there." Some people dropped their hold on holding Marie up.  "And we're here, now, again." 

  "Put my mother down!!" A man dropped a bag of gear and hollered and reached for his gun. 

  "I am not your mother." It was down to three people carrying her.  "But I did put your gun in a new safety holder." The man looked at his hand pulling the pistol and the pistol not coming out of the holster.  "No mother would put their children through this life." 

  "God put us here!" 

  "Hear, hear! Amen.  Now we all go in together." 

"It's mohny."

  "Is he saying money?" 

  "No sir." 

  "What's that mean? I need to know and I need to know now," another liaison asked through the choppy air and the bleeps and sirens. 

  "It's, it's whawhawhat THEY, US, WE'VE BEEN CALLING THE GRUNTS' RIDEALONG TESTIMONY SIR, SO WE DON'T EVER LOSE THE WHOLE STORY."  The liaison spoke into the sat phone as choppers landed and took off. 

  "Where we y'all?" 

  "Honestly?" 

  "Lies," a sideways peace sign, "equal (i)death(i)," the woman was putting on a uniform blouse and trading shoes from a duffle bag.  "Or a month in the hole.  Tell me." 

  "We were in the curl." 

  "Getting your hair did?" 

  Another person stepped forward onto the tarmac.  "See you on the other side mofos." 

  "Picture the desert as a basket." 

  "Not sure we have time for all this embellishment." 

  "What if I just come with you?" 

"Because it's true," a mouth said while

  a hand placed a briefcase on a field desk plucked from a sandy cocoon.  "Well, I guess I fucked up then." 

  "Why the black bands on their heads?" 

  "Those are not Saudis." 

  "Keep the pressure on it or you'll be another bleed out," a man was told while three troops were beckoned forward and told to apply the pressure. 

  "Those are (i)these(i)." A poster thumbnailed.  Hamas.  "Whatdothey do rolluptheir facemasks intoheadbands?" 

  "Reminds, reminds me, reminds me of this old grannie we had rolling up her ah stockings when they were blown out." 

  "Oh those motherfuckers are blown out alright." 

  A person pointed to crates and crates of explosives.  "Not with tracers they aren't." 

  "Motherfuckers." 

"We don't look like what we feel like."

  "Nobody ever does."  

  "Writing a report?" 

  "Naw man, just impressions." 

  "Half of mine is still out there." 

  "Then we'll come back." 

  "Like hell we will." 

  "Not leaving either." 

  "Well the bird is." 

  "Grab the gear." 

"We're not in school anymore so

  just kiss me." The boy grinned.  The girl put a potato puff on her plate and one on the corner of his tray.  "The Wedge", all four foot two of her, hopped in line and asked out loud, "You want me to run interference?" The boy's grin disappeared. 

  "Haven't seen you in a while Wedge," he said as the girl held up his plate for a scoop of green beans.  Everyone had been shocked to see her, all four foot two of her, also barreling onto a chopper to "get feet wet" on a mission.  Behind a tall hard body, in front of a lanky bespectacled guy, all in cammo, all weighted down the same with standard gear.  "I saw you this morning." 

  "What was I doin'?" 

  "Looked like you was girl watching." 

  "It's (i)were(i), were girl watching." 

  Two lines of men in tees, sweats, and sneakers barged into the cafeteria together and barking responses to a drill sargeant's questions about eating and routine.  Some in line smacked trays on the tracks in front of the food.  The beats of unity both evolving and forced. 

"The best was," a

  quieting of voices passing law students, "Honey, that's just a honey I'm home kiss.  I want another kiss with (i)flavor(i).  Man, did he kiss her."

  "Like a 'burst of flavor'?" 

  "Exactly." 

  "The room's not ready yet," a techie glanced up from a phone and said.  The slide projector slumped over a box of "family picks".  Because one corner of the cardboard was weak.  "Looks like your mango box is about done for," one person said. 

  "What? Has anyone seen these numbers?" 

  "Oh, numbers guy." 

  "What numbers?" 

  The voices behind the door grew louder.  "Used to be.  A lot of things used to be.  The guys in White used to consult with the military.  A girl used to be a girl you could count on to type things up properly.  I used to be your Dad.  And you used to ask me for my advice.  Now people are users.  And the machines want input!" 

  The door opened before numbers guy could pull the techie out of the way.  The elder man was still looking at the younger man coming out of the room.  It was a spectacular rebalancing dance but the elder never hit the floor.  

"There's nothing wrong with the writing." She

  told the worried administrator. 

  "What's the problem then? Or the 'issue' or whatever?" 

  The woman's head sort of drooped into a sigh and the normal-for-her posture of desk person.  She was torn between a little lecture and an upbraid.  Settled on a question.  "Have you ever hung out with a Press Corps person?" 

  "Can't say as I have." 

  "Ever been, um, not at home when policy or opinion hits the streets?" 

  "Maybe." 

  "Ever tried to get work done (i)in hiding(i)?" 

  "Should I get back in the closet?" 

  "Is that where you were?" The woman peered over the administrator's shoulder.  "And is that a wet bar?" 

  "The PS was surprised by certain visitors yesterday.  I fell asleep in there.  Don't touch the stuff myself." 

  The floor beams above creaked. 

  "As strange as this sounds Sir, we believe that guy with the yellow shirt has a transponder on him or (i)in him(i)." 

  "In him?" 

  The idea came across the woman's face visibly.  "Ask that group this question.  Any surgeries while you were overseas?" 

  "I have never entertained such a rude crowd!" The Press Conference answer-man was irate.  "What did they throw at me?" 

  "We had to put the royalty somewhere else until we get secure again." 

  "It was going so well." 

  "I'm not supposed to tell you that not absolutely everyone agrees, right?" 

  "Why? Because I had thirty-two appointments planned for me on one day and at the end of it, well I, just couldn't handle anymore constructive criticism." The man sat up a little in the hotel's signature collection wingback. 

  "There you have it Jeeso.  Even the protestors are calling you 'the fat one'.  Do you believe me now?  I tell you because I care.  They do it to antagonize.  And make you stand out as the unlucky king." 

  "Lucky to have married you." 

  "But, all this.  It means they are noticing everything about us." 

  "Like fishbowl." 

  "Fishbowl?" The lady asked as she flipped through the channels.  One news show had a closer up view of some of the action in the crowd of loudening people.  "Oh, Jeeso.  Is that our friend's son?"