Crying was contagious.

     Poor Mr. Bimbley.  The man in fatigues said over and over to a whimpering Mr. Bimbley.  "What's he crying about?"  A woman in torn up jeans asked as crying also took over her face.  "It's an impasse," a middle age man said and also started crying.  The tears came from a deep well of emotions not shown often.  But something was going on.  It was like the viewfinder hit on that deep well and like everybody suddenly had the flu. 

     "Don't look at me," a normally tough guy ordered as the tears overfilled the brims of his eyes.  "Me either," a mechanic's tears dripped through grease on his face and mostly collected on his chin.  One or two tears dripped onto a motor. 

     Our whole family started crying.  Afterwards we couldn't determine what set us off.  We told others, "The family that cries together, stays together!" We hugged and cried some more.  

     Even the women with the clipboards, the really keep on schedule, never let 'em see you sweat, cried.  There were tears on some of the lists.

     A muscle of a man rubbed the rough skin on his neck from shaving without shaving cream.  "Whaddaya think it was?"  The world-traveled witness to the world, seemingly born "aged" journalist sighed but didn't cry.  "Honestly, some of them told me."  The man kept rubbing his neck.  "What'd they say?" 

     "Some of the Greatest crashed the party." 

     "Do what?" 

     "Everybody was working really hard to impress.  To rally.  Then Senior said, he was disappointed." 

     "Really?" 

     "Far as I could tell it formed a chain reaction." 

     The man's hand stopped rubbing his neck and seemed to be thinking back on something.  The journalist said, "That, and in my opinion, people shouldn't simultaneously talk up the end of the world and no strategy.  But that's just me." 

     The man's hand came to life again and he wag-pointed his finger, "That's a good point." The journalist's hair was helmet-smashed and he had a dark colored bruise on his arm.  "I'll tag up later.  Do people still say that? I need to talk to some people."  They awkwardly put hands out for a handshake but sort of missed each other's square.

"They're obsessing

     "They're obsessing on what we did," a man in a flak jacket and helmet stood up in his three foot foxhole and said.  He was shot in the chest with a sandbag tank arm.  "That's what he said."  I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to a new acquaintance's "the old man" since I'd left the tavern early.  People were impressed with his grit, casual clothes, sense of humor once he got on the same page in a story.  They also liked the way he and his wife could fall into ignoring each other spells while things mostly work themselves out.  "No need to worry that," was a phrase heard while potatoes were baking in a kitchen where people were re-creating "some Colonial thing or another." It went along with nobody's perfect, but you gotta try.

     "I hate Colonials," Sherry said.  It sounded loud because it was before the din of restaurant.  "Whaddaya mean?" Someone asked.  "MOM! Jeeees.  Speak for yourself." 

     "I am.  And I hate the whole Colonial thing.  Can you imagine spending one half of the day making butter and one half a candle so you can see the butter?" People remembered eat when you can, sleep when you can, poop when you can, and in an uncoordinated but group way started unwrapping butters and passing the bread around the table.  "But they," the man's mouth almost spit out tobacco juice but there wasn't any in there, "They knew how to take a stand." A prospective son-in-law had just bitten into a dinner role and struggled to swallow it and have a conversation.  "Not sure," he swallowed hard and slurped ice water, "Sir," more water, "If I entirely agree with you there on that point." 

     "What point?  I wasn't making a point."  

     Others filed past a buffet set up for people who needed to eat and go.  "When are they going to tell us Donald?" He turned his head and looked at her.  Radiant beauty.  He'd said something like Jesus and her; fish hooks to my roaming brain.  I just can't stop thinking of things I need to do until one of them touches my focus.  He put an arm, hand holding a glass of ice water, around her shoulder.  "Don't stress.  They're not, we're going to tell them.  If that's what we decide.  If that's what we're sure about."  She almost rested her head on his arm but popped it up strong before she sank sleepy.  "I'm sure." 

     Someone tapped on a water glass with a fork.

 "We consider it essential to consult with our allies to ensure shared situational awareness and to agree on our next joint steps," Michal said.

US President Donald Trump said on Friday: "I don't love it. I don't like when that happens. Could be big trouble."

Czech President Petr Pavel on Saturday said Nato should respond to such provocations by shooting down planes.

Pavel, a former chairman of Nato's military committee, said: "Unfortunately, this is a balancing act bordering on the edge of conflict, but one simply cannot retreat in the face of evil."

From an Article on BBC News, Estonia seeks Nato consultation after Russian jets violate airspace

20 hours ago [Sept. 20, 2025]

Jaroslav Lukiv andJoe Inwood

     "Does it sound like the old pine box song?" 

     "Do I really sound like Ronald Reagan sometimes?"  

     "Well, I've not heard your speeches," she yawned, "And so far from home I can't really do a comparison analysis of the two songs."  Bare feet.  Some kind of stretchy soft glitter pants.  "And my shirt, right?!  You gave that one too me, right?!" She asked as the other she went into a camper and rooted around for coffee.  The camper's she had tried to assure us that it'll all be all right. 

     Late night conversation until darkest before sunrise had us talking about that couple we'd seen almost strangle each other a few times.  "Some people love that way." 

     The fire crackled and a chunk of hardwood split.  "Fighting the whole time?!  That'd wear me out." 

     "They swear they love each other and, time and again, they do get through their issues.  Drinking never helps but they know that."  

     "I could write a song about that.  God knows I've got no love life to sing about." 

     "What day is the audition?"  

     "Thursday." 

     "This is Sunday!" 

     "You too better get busy."  The camper she went to bed.  "Maybe I shouldn't do it." 

     "That's your problem?" 

     A long stare into the campfire.  "I don't really have a problem." 

     "But you said you ain't got no music." 

     "I didn't say that.  I's just waitin' to play 'em for you first." 

     "Well, it's getting later and later.  Don't you think you might should play me at least one?" 

     "I'll think about it."  In a little while she got up and got her guitar and a travel bag, "Set this over there," she said as she took a notebook out.  "Whacha got in it?" 

     "Go ahead and look." So I did.  A small pile of dress shoes and silky soft dresses and shirts and a pair of pants.  "You need panty hose?" 

     "Maybe so I can strangle myself."  She tuned and strummed the guitar.  The sounds of the instrument just up close and outside sounded at once casual and amplified by the fire.  "I'm thinking in my head what I should start with," she propped a leg on the camp chair and the guitar on it.  "You already memorized all your songs?" 

     "Mostly," she said as she took an eye glass case with picks and poker chips out of a pocket and decided which one to use. 

    "None of them are political." 

    "The other one's might be." 

     She tuned to her voice until she said, "Close enough," and like a person at a lake, just dove in and started singing.

     It was Tuesday afternoon when Pops quietly stood near a picnic table with something behind his back.  "What is it?" I asked.  He showed a mangled guitar and said, "I can't fix this."  He left it on top of the table.

     "Okay, this one's called something like, 'Sorry I Disturb You,' the singer then stood up and acapella'd.  Someone pointed to the picnic table where people had left offerings.  Unbroken guitars, money for bus fares, bottles of soda and water.  There was also garden vegetables since a truck driving friend had told everyone, There's nothing fresh on the highway. 

     "Nope," Somebody agreed.  "The road goes on forever and the party never ends." 

     "Forever ever?" A lovestruck young man asked his woman.  "Yes! I will.  Love you forever ever."  He tapped the fat envelope of money to get them "all the way to Chicago." 

    "I'll be up there to hear the poets slam.  Maybe I'll see you." 

     "I doubt it.  Big place," the man said. 

     "I'm going up with a few poets.  You might know some of them!" 

     "Not the point."  He twirled the woman's hair until she brushed his hand away.  Then took it and kissed it.  "What's the point?  I mean, what do you mean?" 

     "I mean we gonnah be busy with music stuff." 

     "Yes we are," the woman ducked out of the conversation she was having and affirmed.

     The sound was down but the footages being spliced together into a montage spoke volumes.  Acting silly, the artist deemed it.  People under the pressures of a rapidly corporatizing world and having feelings in regards "the end of the world".  The lever controlling speed sped up some parts of the carry on while I'm gone.  "We had carried on all right." The artist thought through an impact zone of happening that had transpired quickly compared to peoples' recoveries and re-finding God.  "I guess we should have known." 

     "Did anyone tell us or did it just add up into war?" 

     "Probably a little bit of both," a writer home from Overseas said.  The little closet of a room fell silent.  "We certainly knew not friendly when they blew up our barracks in Beirut." 

     "That's what I don't understand," a young man sighed.  "Why didn't we just blow them the fuck away before they sunk our ship?" 

     "It's a little more complicated than that." 

     "Here!  Here it was."  The footage answering a question about costumes.  One, more of a historical item than just any costume.  The debate was and wasn't about whether or not the item was stolen.  "We wouldn't have disappeared into that place if there wasn't rioting in the streets." The artist eye-balled a pottery sculptor from Europe.  "Vhat else?  Vee need homes."  

     "It's not going to work."  The footages were taken on like five different equipments.  "Besides, I can't just make a movie, just like that." The artist pulled the satiny-sounding long coat up over here mussed up dress.  "Put all of it in this bag."  She pulled a cloth grocery sack from a pocket.  "I may know someone who can help." 

He'd backed into

     He'd backed into hanging moss after a rain, but it was darker than dark with no moon up on the hill.  He froze solid as all the fears in the world welled up from his toes, through a constricting chest, and up into a throat wanting to scream.  The baby in a sling around his chest and too much fast food stomach seemed to laugh at him.  His eyes blinked hard.  That made the beard getting longer move slightly.  And that made his wife laugh right out loud.  Sssssshhhh, the man put up his hands and shook them side to side, ten fingers spread wide, warding off.  He breathed hard for a few seconds, then whispered gruffly, "You'll wake her." The mama spit out lemon seeds and said, "Have you slept one time through the whole night in these six weeks?" 

     The man peeked into the space between the sides of the sling.  "That doesn't matter," his eyes narrowed and he pulled the sling apart just a little more.  "Look at her," he said.  "Can't right now.  Should be one or two more puppies in this mama." She rubbed the chest of the pit bull and coo'd, You can do it mama.  That did and didn't seem to matter to the panting dog with eyes looking away and then closing and twitching.  

     "They're scared."  A figure moved up the slight footpath.  Then it became clear that there were followers.  The person in front assured, "They're scared." 

     Another person stepped out from behind a thick barked tree.  "Those pups afraid?" 

     "Not them," the person gave a paper bag with the bottle of alcohol to the other person.  "Apparently, there's some group called The Shantees scaring The Nantzes." 

     "How'd they do it?"  The person asked one of the followers as he opened the whiskey.  "Spook ya?"  He drank a third of the bottle in one long gulp.  And wiped his lips on the back of his hand.  And passed it. 

     "What does it matter?  They got us to abandon position?" 

     "Didn't know there was such.  Sounds serious." The man waited, stiff and ominous, for the bottle to come back to him still mostly full.  The woman lit a cigarette and put it in his weak lips.  Then she took out a folded in half piece of paper from a back pocket of her jeans.  She stuffed it in his front jeans pocket.  "What's that?" He asked as he was sucking in a deep drag of smoke and this set off a coughing fit that would've tore apart an erector set person or building.

     She counted the followers as they hit the leveled out spot on the hill.  Five.  Five more mouths to feed.  The last person was bundled up in a head scarf over a knit cap and had two small puppies in her arms.  Seven, but who's counting?  The woman took a puppy like it was a baby and let it lap her face and neck.  Without turning around she said, "It's the bill for getting the other kid stitches." 

     The man's eyes grew wide and he choked down more drink.  "Are you for real?" He coughed like a motorcycle being kickstarted and spit out a slick spot, phlegm and blood.  "We SACKED 'EM paw."  The man slapped his knee and bent down.  "Sacked 'em huh?  Like knights?" 

     "More like," the kid thought visibly and hard, "Like...VIKINGS!"  The man slapped him on the back.  "ALL RIGHTIE THEN.  A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK.  I'LL DRINK TO THAT!" The kid had been moved closer to the woman getting congratulated and he looked up at her.  "There's a hunk of pepperoni in the tent.  Will you go and get it for us all honey?" The kid moved off to the tent. 

     The woman took the whiskey and pulled a slug and held the bottle up out of the bag a little ways.  "We'll need more'n this to get cozy.". The man fished into the pocket with the bill and took out cash and squinted at the bill saying, Too bad I cain't read and rocked on a foot forward to pitch the bill into the cold firepit.  The woman blocked his throw.  "We need to pay that one," she looked at his face dead on.  "Can't pay 'em all.  And my kid won the fight right?" 

     "Riiiight, but," she curled her words into sounding like she was following his logic but the but hung in the air.  

     The bill drifted to the ground as the man used both arms to try and strangle the woman.  She got her hands under his grip and pushed and pushed against his until he limply let go.  "Let me catch my breath," he wheezed.  The kid handed up the hunk of pepperoni after he broke off a piece and went and sat on a rock.  He pulled a wrapped candy out of his pocket and balanced both on his knees.  He put his hands together and said, Grace, then bit into the meat.  "Where did you get this?" The woman snatched the candy away.  "At the store, duh." He snatched it back from her.  Put it back on his lap.  "Getcher own," he snarled. 

     "How 'bout I make pasta?" The woman in the head scarf pulled an MRE out from her coat pocket.  "I'll eat it," the woman said.

 

     It'd been like five weeks not five days.  Almost everyone had been deeply inspired by the group makeup event where there was singing and praying and planning for a future.  Some of the people from the Country were astonished that people from the City were so downhearted.  A predominant phrase heard in conversations everywhere was you don't get it.  It went with young people and older people accusing of each other they just don't get it!!!!!

  "Get what?" My ever-practical Mom asked.  More frustrating sighs.  "Well, why don't you explain yourselves better?"  One of the Dads, with a fat lip from not backing down on some things, tsk'd, and winced when his lip hurt as he made the face he so often made--like he was shaking his head but only in his lips.  He'd press those together instead of just saying and his nose would twitch and those lips would talk without saying anything.  "It's like he's breakdancing with his mouth," one of the Forest scouts said looking in the binoculars.  "Yeah, but he doesn't really express himself clearly," a daughter said of him.  "But he's warming up to the idea."  

     "We'll put him in this column."

      Possibles. 

     A Native American friend with a deadpan sense of humor annoyed that we hadn't been to the Reservation to see The Drama quipped, "Stop the world, They need a new Great Big White Father."  

     "Why do you think or refer to us all as one person?  Just 'white'?!  

     He humphed.  "That's obvious." 

     "What time is it?" The jackets in the backseat moved and a woman emerged from having the jackets in the night put over her.  My friend yelp-silent-screamed and frantically tried to get the door open.  "Why did you lock me in?  Why did you lock me in?" His hand scrambled all over the door but couldn't find the handle.  "I'm not going to hurt you," the woman said.  My friend looked back at her and said, "That's not what I've heard from hundreds of years of history!!!!"  His hand finally found the handle and he fell out of the car and closed the door and made the call me later sign.

     "Ready?"

     The line of speakers and cords and bags and old coffee cups stacked in a column and shoes and a tennis racket was neatly waiting to be loaded into the car.  Agnes hugged and hugged the two girls.  Pops added the restored tent to the line of items to load up.

     Laughter and squealing-being-chased, smells of food cooking, donated tarp-shade-tents on all sides.  "Looking good baby girl," a woman who never took off her black sweater and black skirt winked and clucked the sound of a gun firing go.  She blew the smoke from her pistolè hand. 

     Everything fit and we fit ourselves in too.  Turned the key and the gas was on EMPTY.  "We'll have to make it to my Dad," I confessed. 

     All three sons and my Dad were sleeping side-by-side like sardines in a can in their tent.  Gatlinburg-- stickers and brochures and a mug and a hat, tee-shirt, and a beach towel all boasting Gatlinburg, Gatlinburg.  I backed out of the tent.  Realizing something, Dad came mussed-up hair and boxer shorts out of the tent.  His Mary medal making the little cling-clang noises we'd always here at the house.  "DAD!"  He yawned and scratched his stomach.  The brothers all in a row poked heads out the tent door.  "DAD!  YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN CHEATING!!!!!" 

     "I don't know what you're talking about."  

     "Did you go to Gatlinburg last night?" 

    "Maybe.  Not sure.  No?" 

    Silence.

     "Throw me a shirt, will you?!" 

     One of the brofhers hucked a Carolina tee-shirt at him.  It hit him in the chest and fell onto his lily white feet in the dirt. 

     "I'm not like you people." He whipped the dirt off the tee-shirt as he scooped it up and put it on. 

    "Us people?" 

    "Yeah.  What do you mean Dad?" 

     "Pioneers.  Or survivors.  Or something." 

     "Does your camp need an extra Dad?" The littlest son asked. 

     "Did you guys eat out last night?"  

     "Steak.  And vegetables, barley sprouts, on a board with on fire sauce to put on the potatoes!" The littlest brother said. 

  "Really?!  Well, I hope you guys saved some leftovers." 

     "Why?" 

     "That's what you'll be eating when Mom finds out about this." 

     "She ate the leftovers!" Shock overtook my face, "Really?"  "Yeah," he nodded slowly.

"As far as they're concerned."

    All the pulling together had my fire for Country rekindled after the hangover went away.  I re-upped on some going Overseas training for people who can't actually use the word journalism.  Even the off, off, off "broadway" headlining journalism types had left. 

    A tiny woman with a big nose squinted at the photographs in the developing film.  "Looks like the remnant," a man said of a lot of us crossing a finish line amidst red flags and MAGA gear.  "What's that mean exactly? MAGA.  Sounds weird." 

     "Take this duct tape off my mouth and I'll tell you." 

     "Six minutes to go, then I will." 

     "That's how the enemy sees us Americans." 

     Rikeareric? 

     "Really.  You're too cute to torture." He ripped the duct tape off and asked if it hurt.  Eyes poured tears, but I calmly said, "Of course NOT."  

    "Like we're a relic, yes," the man sighed and picked up a pointy instrument from a set of tools near the chair I was tied to with an electrical chord as a real friend had been in a Casino money heist.  "We don't seem like a relic to ourselves.  We think we're modern and," he put the pointy instrument down.  "Making progress." 

     "Aren't we?  Jeeeez.  Everyone I know is sacrificing one way or another. 

     "I'll just walk you through what we know they've been doing to us.  You off to the Middle East or..." 

   "Not sure I should tell you." 

     "Well, don't then." He shook his head at the sad routine of meeting new people but not really in any way besides teaching them how awful the world is.  His shoulders slumped as he looked at another photo, "Look at everyone smiling for a split-second." All three of us looked at it.  "What was it about?" The developer asked.  "That one?!  Oh, it'll be funny someday, but most of the people in that one, well, had done crash courses in sobriety and not fighting.  At least not as nastily as we all were!" 

     "That's good," the torture expert said.  "God knows, the rest of the world is doing a good enough job at that."  

     "Did you just compliment them?" 

      "They couldn't hear me, so it doesn't count." 

"That's my thang."

     We were out-of-gas and slow leak tire dying when we pulled over.  Turned out the Convoy to Chattanooga was also more of a whale almost beached and needing to be churned from a cold start too.  We were setting on the side of the highway for three or four days.  Some of the mama's seeing off wound up pulling in behind us.  We just stayed in place, a longer and longer line of well-wishing and support stacked up.

     "My son!!!" A woman exclaimed to a worker at Hardees.  "Y'all want some balloons???"

     "Hell yeah!" 

     She plunked the bag of balloons on the counter next to a sack of plain hamburgers.  "You'n's will have to take 'em to the florist and get them blown up." 

     "And where is that at?" The worker drew a little map.  "We'll get these off the ground and take a pitcher for ya." The worker grinned. 

     Our line just about doubled when a mountain chapter of MADD brought more'n halfa them still drunk some of the girls joining, and married, and otherwise part of our pile of wild things.  Bitten off fingernails, layers of tee-shirts and sweatshirts, boots hanging on side mirrors....the MADD "parents" gave sets of keys to Jeep People who'd been running between mentors and us.  "You gonna need a ride back Mattie?" She left one beer a piece from a tore open twelve pack on the hood of each vehicle with a drunk person in it.  "It'll be piss hot or hotter if they go to drink it.  Here's hopin' they learn about kissing the devil," she pulled the sticker tab off a pineapple juice, and put a hand on her friend's shoulder.  "Let's go.  It'll be time to stir the chili." 

     At the Flower Store one lady sent flowers to a family who'd already lost someone in action.  My friend told, "We've got some too." 

     "Who's your "we" dear?" 

     "My name's Janelle and we're mostly Jewish."  

    The lady bit her lip hard and focused on the single stems in a little cooler with a hum in it's bottom.  "I should get one for each of the Moms.  You think yellow?"  

     While they decided on that I asked if they were hiring.  Without a lot of detail or opinion about the great big picture, the florist hintimated business been slow.  But I'll keep your name and number.

     Each time we went back to the line of cars, there were more.  And the woman with the embroidery hoop had cut her cross-stitch fabric into little squares so people could sew patches.  "How come you like sewing so much?" A tween girl asked as she rolled her finger up in her hair and chewed on a stick of gum.  "Well honey, it's my thang."  The girl watched as the needle deftly formed an edge on her patch.  Mountains and sunshine.  "You want I could sew a heart on there?!" The girl smiled but said, "No thank you.  I'm in love with my Daddy." She helped hold the patch on her chest as the sewing lady pinned it with a safety pin.  "How come you got no fingernails?" She asked a woman propped against the vehicle.  "I gots fingernails hon.  Been thirty-seven pair since I started on this USO tour." The girl asked, "What's a USO? Like a flying saucer?" 

     "Only when we're parachutin' in!" The woman picked one of the nail polishes from a pursebag full of 'em.  "Ever hear a song you like on the radio Shug?" The girl thought about it and slowly nodded.  "Chances are somebody in the USO thought it up and put it to music." 

     "Really?" 

     "Quite the group they are.  My sister and her friends!" The sewing lady reached into a pocket of a different purse and took out a brochure about them.  "Surprised they don't have Bob Hope on there," she said.  "Oh they did in my day.  Oh honey, they did." 

     After the youngest girl had walked off I asked, "So, did it come to blows?" 

      "We kept it above board." 

     "Thought she was gonna get tackled.  That Russian woman who wanted to keep the parachute." 

     "That would've been dicey if she wasn't the Donald's woman." 

     "Oh was she there too?" 

      "Yes.  Not the one who fah-messed up her hips on landing.  That one's gotta rest for a day or two." 

      "I bet." 

     "Fact, maybe I'll go do her nails.  She'll like that.  And can you make a patch with seven parachutes on it?" 

     "Just one?" 

     "For now." 

      "I'll let you in on a little secret," she said almost casually. 

     "Not in the mood." 

     The wood was wet.  The umpteenth tarp, removed in the night for going West.  The campground like "general population" in prison at that point.  I knocked the top of the pile off digging for something dry.  She went to find some sticks.

     The sticks looked like a bouquet promising coffee.  "If I can just..." 

     "And look!  Nature's matchsticks." The little shiny red tips of fragile branches.  "The new, it comes out stronger!" 

     "That's the secret.  I know where they are." 

     "The kindling wood?" 

     A little sigh and touching the bandaid on the still cut part of her broken nose.  "The girls." 

     "What, like an inexhaustable source for their police mishaps?!"   Silence.  "That's what they called it in the end.  A mishap.  And some National Guard people got arrested, house arrest style, for 'sex trafficking'".  

     "It's reedunkulous."  The fire sparked to life.  "I think I still have some filters."  I turned into her coming out of the car's "stash" of pack-rat-gathered necessities.  Tampons and pads and coffee filters and tea bags, gauze and chewing gum.  "Did you see the newspaper actually printed who's gone off to fight?!"  

     "Not sure they should've."  Her unfolding a wallet sized coffee filter.  "Me either.  But, you first." 

     "I just think all the information that people are so careless with, it's endangering people." 

     "Freedom of Press though." 

     "Cha.  One of our most important American things." 

     "Freedoms."  

     "What girls?"  

     "Those two older ladies you were asking about." 

     "Really?  Agnes and Ginger."  The teapot started whistling.  "You do???" 

     "Ah-hah." 

     "Can we go there?"  

     "I can't think of a reason why not," she said after she thought about it.  "A whole bunch of people in the woods over there.  Thinking they're useless for one reason or another." 

     "Oh my God, that's good," the coffee steamed in the morning sunlight.  "Let's bring gifts!" She dumped more sticks near the firepit.  "Got any flour and shugah, shugah?" 

     It was quiet near the bulletin board listing FEES and the unique characteristic of the campground.  And quiet when we parked and went about pulling tent and cookware from the pile of stuff in the backseat.  A gruff-faced older man came over and flicked a tent pole up in the pile of tent and poles on the picnic table.  "It's broken," he said.  She said something in a foreign language to him.  And he asked, "And who's the goya?" 

     "This is Lara.  She's a writer." 

     I drew in a breath.  And felt my face get hot, embarassed these things were said out loud. 

     "POPS!!" A young woman rushed over with dogs on a leash.  The dogs smelled our shoes.  "Is he bothering you?" 

     "No trouble.  Hi.  I'm Lara." 

     "We're going to camp here tonight." 

     "You are?" 

     Nodding my friend said, "And we brought some Hallah." 

     "Well.  Hallah-loo-ya. I saved a bottle of wine from last night's soiree." 

     "WE DON'T DRINK." 

     "OH I SEE, even more for me and ah, POPS." The man was toe-nail clippering the broken tent pole out of it's line of poles.  "He likes to fix things," she said to us.  "Guess you'll have to fix it now, huh Pops?!" 

     "Do they have an extra?" 

     She put her head down and shook it gently.  "We'll find one.  So you can fix it." My friend went to him and patted his forearm.  "What other stuff can you fix?  We probably have more broken stuff in there." She indicated the backseat of my car.  "Well, maybe later we can come back and see.  Okay?" 

     Okays from all of us. 

     

     

          (i)Put a little smile on yer pickin' when you don't know what to do; put a little smile on yer pickin', it'll help you see it through; put a little smile on yer pickin' 'cuz that's just what we do; put a little smile....(i).  

     The fire crackled and burned steady smooth.  Two men and a woman passed a notebook back and forth in a fierce competition over advertising slogans.  And a songwriter-of-old was showing a young girl the difference between types of guitars and other stringed instruments.  He was as comfortable making up songs and tunes as some people are sitting on the sofa watching TV.  The young woman smiled.  "Now I hear it," some of the sound differences were subtle. 

     The man's fingertips, bandaged, strummed first then plucked.  His voice found the key in a little hum, then he added strength to the notes of the lyrics.  The young woman was jotting down ideas for (i)storied songs(i) of her own. 

     "I sure am mighty glad we moved to T'see Mr. Bimbley."  Wiley Piles was sitting on his hands and lifting a half a beer to his mouth by sticking his tongue through the pop tab.  The neck of his tee-shirt, (i)Don't Mess With Texas(i), was soaked.  "So am I sis, so am I." 

     "You should see how those Republican men treat their women." Mr. Bimbley grunted the can back onto a boulder.  "I've heard.  They make them do all the work." 

     "That's what you heard?"  

     "Somethin' like that.  Will you light me a cee-gar?"  She fished the car keys out of his jeans pocket and went towards the car.

     

     

     The portable crane/lift was a specialty equipment item used for those big signs along the highway.  We didn't know this at first.  What we knew was what we saw.  Beautiful women in what looked like cages hanging in the air.  Neked.  A very married man said.  His ability to blush had been lost somewhere in thirty-plus years of fighting evil.  Damn, a younger guy's eyes followed the beaner'd rope and his eyes lifted from digipad device, up and up, to the bathing beauties!  A middle aged bachelor whistled quietly.  "Looks like we've got our work cut out for us!" 

     "Where'd they get the cages?" The non-blusher stood at least two foot taller than the woman who'd come out of the restaurant.  She was still fumbling with possible put them somewheres pockets looking for a smoke.  "I heard an onusual noise so I came out here."  An older model but in pristine restored condition pick up truck pulled up and two women jumped out leaving the doors wide open.  "WHADDAYA NEED??????"  

     The man looked over his shoulder at the mounding smoke piling around the equipment truck of some Volunteer Fire Department.  "Find out what's on fire!" He whistled by sticking fingers in his mouth and shrilling a shofar blast.  People attached to a rope with carribiners made way over.  "They're just these old underground showers." The woman had been handed a lit cigarette.  "Prolly put down there in an old semi-truck." One woman grabbed a reporter's notebook and jotted down squiggly marks.  Then shoved it back at the young person.  "What's that say?" 

     "It's SHORTHAND.  DON'T THEY TEACH YOU PEOPLE ANYTHING AT YOUR FANCY SCHOOLS?" 

     "LYDIA!" The man pushed into her and drove her backwards.  Stared directly into her eyes.  "KEEP LOOKING at me." 

     The motorbike had rolled up behind us.  Without the motor running the man rolled it forth into the back of my legs.  Knees buckled, a turn around, "WHAT THE FUCK????" The Lonely Bear held up one hand in a wave.  The notebook was plucked from my hands.  "WHAT THE FUCK????"  It was Lydia.  "I'll take notes! You go get you know who!"  She turned to the Lonely Bear.  "How'd y'all get here so fast in this fog?" 

     The Lonely Bear took a síp of what a camp mom called Mountain Piss Water.  "Is there an all to me?" She rolled her eyes.  A line of seriously in need of some repair cars was rolling into the parking lot.  "There's no fog on the highway," Lonely Bear revealed.  "There isn't?"  

     "No ma'more than usual in the very lowest spots."  Men's voices not knowing where the girls were and cussing cellphones were getting out of the cars.  "GO!!!!" 

     On the way to my car a hideous voice, steady-frantic-sounding over some kind of speaker laughed and howled halloweeny and said, "YOU BETTAH FIX US UP GOOD OR YOU CAN KISS THE GIRLS GOOD-BYE." The crane/lift made a creaking, groaning noise and swung.  Like it was lowering, but then jerked up.  Some of the girls fell to knees.  A black plastic garbage bag was pitched out of an unseen area on the now-platform.  A gun was seen pointing at it.  The creepy voice hollered in the speaker, "Shoes.  Now put them on and dance."  The laughing and howling turned to music.

     In second gear up the nearly dark mountain-side highway.  Up and around, gravity at night must be the same in the dark as in daylight, I thought of seeing the road in the happy sunshine daytime, like a matterhorn rollercoaster track hugging tiny people to the neck and shoulders of a giant yeti.  I knew who she wanted me to inform.  And I went directly there but there was no vehicle in the carport.  And most of the stuff usually on board shelves resting on cinderblocks was gone.  A wad of straps was messily out of a bucket laying on its side.  I knew I needed to get to someone I knew in Tennessee.  Fuck the fighting between sports fans.

     Past what seemed like a mile of steaming mulch and hulking logging equipment.  Through backcountry--part Forest, part crags with housing.  Cut-through after cut-through: north and south to go east and west.  The stars above more than all the creeps in the world.  Finally fish-tailed onto the boundary's gravel.  And steamed towards my Ranger's last known campfire site.

     Red plastic cups were all over the ground.  Slick spots of puke.  A duffel bag slow-burning in the firepit.  A small and weak voice called out, "I'm over here.  I am.  I'm here."  Wimpering.  "Oh! Oh my God." I knelt into the man duct-taped and roped to a metal folding chair.  "Ooooww.  Good to see you too.  Well, sort of see you.  They just left.  These'll be swollen shut real soon.  Got yer knife?" 

     "Oh, shit, did I hurt you?" 

     "Where's your knife.  I need you to get it and cut me free." 

     The serated blade frayed the ropes into a jagged release.  He ripped the duct-tape from his skin.  "Go get in the car." 

     A woman in dark clothing stepped in front of me as I turned toward the car.  "Did you do this???" Her low smoky voice desperate to accuse.  The Ranger found his pile of clothing.  "They stole my fucking watch!" He said as he held his pants and shirt in front of his underwear only junk.  "She's not the perpetrator," he told the woman as he pushed my shoulder to keep going to the car.  "Can I ride with you?" Neither of us answered.  My friend leaned on my shoulder to get a booted foot back into his pants.  She reached for my keys.  "Don't fucking touch me," I swerved away and the Ranger's foot stuck in a pantleg tripped him into me and I fell too.  He put a rest hand on my arm.  "We don't know who you are," he said matter-of-factly as he got a second leg back in his pants.  Tapped my arm twice, UP.  He was still buttoning his shirt as I held the flashlight so he could check credentials.  Winced as he tucked in the tail of his shirt but said, "LET'S GO!!!!!" Both he and she crashed into each other trying to get into the front seat.  "Ow." He opened the door and she squeezed herself into the back.  He looked around and decided, "The van took them that way." 

     "You don't have your glasses on!"  

     "I know it did.  I heard it."  He asked for water.  And proceeded to scrape his contact lenses out.  "Go!" He barked when the first one was out.  "Okay, okay." Tires spinning briefly in oozy keg's-been-here mud before I edged the fronts onto something dry and rocked it, jolting into grip and go.  He fished eyeglasses out of his lower pant leg's inner pocket.  "All these TV people and Rock Stars around had me," he reached over and pulled the brights into on.  "THERE!"  There was a Hawaiin shirt in the gravel road.  "They'll have left clues." 

     "Clues?!?" 

     I braked hard and put it in PARK.  Took the keys out of the ignition.  "What are you..." I slammed the door behind me getting out. 

    "You freakin'?"  He was beside me in twelve paces.  

     "Kinda.  But not really.  Listen." He cupped an ear then rose his hand into "Moose Ears, your little brother taught me that move." 

     "No, listen," I tried to gulp away dry mouth and cacked a little cough.  "I came to find you beca, cough, because there's a majorly weird situation going on in Carolina." 

    "Right now?" He cocked his head. 

     "Cha." 

     "Let me get you your water." He did and half-joked, "My contact might be in there."