"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."