The Nine

“Unfortunately, we have had reports,” began the principal’s message. Seriousness, beneath the peppy mascot and preppy banner. Sent at 6:00 on the dot.

Threatening sounds.

Needles.

Trash.

Unleashed dogs.

Exposure.

Sigh.

Always sending messages outside school hours, addressing various sensitivities here and there, most often while alone in the dark. Blouse still tucked in, but shoes off. Once away from the office, outgoing emails SentFromMyiPhone to the assistant and support staff are constant, as is her worry that only she can put out every fire burning in her head. Each click of Send sparks imposter syndrome, anticipating one negative response undoing her entirely, like a water balloon slashed out from its bottom. In the little world she cups in her hands many of the other apps, like those fire-iconed ones that drop the second vowel and emit real warmth inside, remain long ignored, out of date.

…moving our recesses inside.

“We recognize this is a complex situation.”

High sensitivity area….

Private school problems.

Sigh.

****************

“Don’t let them go over there,” warns one dad in a branded Patagonia jacket, pointing toward their seven o’clock.

Three fleeced dads thumbing three dopamine-hitting phones, holding with their other fingers three overpriced cups that they won’t likely compost.

One Sunday morning at the playground, directly across from it.

Up the other two look from their handheld solipsisms — at him, not at their underdressed kids toddling exactly where warned not to toddle. They both look around, first reaction behind them, at it on their six, then back at him.

“What’s that?”

Three foreign war reporters lost abroad, having been dispatched somewhere they don’t know the culture, the language.

Patagonia nods a stubbled-chin back towards it, then back at their seven. “One of ’em shit in the sandbox last night. I wouldn’t go over there.”

Reporting live.

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ — Elliot!” Columbia goes. “Hey, thanks, man. Elliot!”

The third dad, Northface, still standing, looks back down at his phone, snickering. “I had just texted my wife that our kid ate shit here earlier, so she wouldn’t freak out about the scratches she’ll see on his face.

“But that’s funnier now.”

Patagonia doesn’t look up or laugh, just nods again. “That is actually funny, man.” They keep talking on the sidelines now, anything but actively watching their offspring, keeping them from someone else’s excrement. On assignment trusting others — mostly mothers — permanently posted on-the-ground to monitor everyone’s shit.

Bystander effect.

****************

There they all are.

There it is.

****************

One group. One activity. Every day, they meet. One rule. Accountability. Every day, they walk and talk.

With hiking poles and tented sun hats, these old, dry-seasoned neighbors keep one another in step. But. They still get so riled up by the sight of it, they sometimes actually stop walking and block the whole sidewalk. Right outside the newest, shiniest, brightest coffee shop, they’d look across, point, and get themselves more heated. More slumped spines caving, more furrowed brows frowning. Peppering their venting with Rememberwhens…?! And that’swhathappenswhens. Hat brims no longer much of a preventative measure or deterrent anymore; their surfaces have long borne the ruins of a biopsied battlefield.

Behind them, behind the glass, are the hisses of an expensive espresso machine, the clank of plates and mugs. Inside, an unheard hum of dozens of pairs of noise-cancelling pills fills the room; popped behind tabletop laptops, where the patrons who won a coveted seat — the loudest ho-hum and greatest buzz coming from those closest to the restrooms or outlets or window, anything but the trashcans, really — all sip their caffeinated tolls paid to sit here. To do something.

Outside the glass, “What we spend in taxes, and this?!” Talking about money a lot, loud enough the ones among their group who can’t hear, well, can.

On the sidewalk, one mass of aging bodies, forming a pedestrian dam of disgust, toxicity swelling within, but still eking hot steam out. Vapors.

“Round them up and ship them to a damned island, for all I care,” explodes the saltiest one of all, turning to continue on their path.

Breaking the dam.

Walking away. Lowering blood pressure, keeping bones strong and lubricated. Keeping oneself accountable. That’s the rule.

****************

Three former class presidents — now three middle-aged, still hungry, elected officials. Sitting, tweeting down from their branches. Double — no, triple — checking their messaging, cross-referencing their sensitivity training and their own faces in the usable photos taken on the ground. Putting more time into researching their own future cosmetic dentistry than their constituents’ safety concerns.

300 pounds of debris removed!

As of this year…

Proud to introduce the rollout of this new unit! Introducing: Mobile Outreach for Neighborly Support, Triage, Engagement, & Recovery.

Front yards and store windows used to be littered with rectangular signs bearing their names and promises. And will be again. An inescapable mess it is, to keep these three in office, to keep their signs on others’ lawns. Keeping their Teslas plugged into garages, their groceries delivered straight to their homes to spare them the crowds. Keeping their spouses ever supported and supportive but tired of it all, their kids in after-school programs so they can stay busy. So they can change the world, rehearse their next sound-bite, keep a promise on paper, or smile and keep a facade at least of doing so.

And of course. Dignity.

They tell the people who like what they have to say: No, you’re awesome! We are all in this together! All connected, a team, and we couldn’t do this without your support.

They tell people who don’t like them nothing. Don’t need ’em.

Fuck ’em.

They tell the whole world watching online that they care deeply, that it takes a village, and we are all connected, playing a part in this story - how will you get involved? Can you donate $5 today?

Campaign volunteers with clipboards and chests covered in eponymous logos congest and soil the town in a different way. A seasonal one. They take over with eagerness, come in from elsewhere via public transit, protect themselves from the elements with sunscreen and optimism and trigger warnings, with sweet front-camera-ready, millennium-pause-free spotless, smiling faces.

Can I talk to you about…?

Are you a registered….?

Pens and tablets held out anticipatorily, talking at reusable-bag-toting, legging-wearing, hormone-minded, sleep-deprived shoppers seeking refuge through the grocer’s vestibules. Just outside Trader Joe’s. Safeway. Eyesores and obstacles to the fatigued, politically and otherwise.

Delivering compassionate care!

…reducing responses by Emergency Services (Fire & Police)…

Young adults, canvassing their time and energy away for free, whom the three tweeting talkers may not even recognize if encountered outside a moment they wore shirts sans their own names.

Sometimes — usually only a few days in — the sandwich-board artist at Trader Joe’s would forgo promoting The Flyer and instead write, draw-in, shadow letters about how customers deserve to shop in peace.

To not be solicited.

Beneath his aloha fabric, his inked sleeve is covered in etchings of pine trees, geometric shapes, and lyrical prose that used to mean more to younger him. Used to be in a band, to hold the pens out too, to vote even in the local elections. Used to think he would make something. A difference, it in the music industry, himself happy as some nonchalant manic pixie dream-boy.

Everyone has dreams. Had ’em.

Now a full beard shields him from the sun, a tire around his waist from getting too big-headed anymore. But not from leaning over to hand out stickers, to bend down as the lollipop guild with the sucker basket for ones who remind him of his niece, of the future he’ll never have. The future being now, where today, he finds himself just doodling through the middleness of an average life, irritated by broken promises and the idealism of young adults. Calmed by fonts.

Ground Turkey!

Rockin’ Ramen!

Chalk it up to growing up, to life. Doesn’t sing about high-school crushes, angsty feelings. Just exclaims about lentil rings and pumpkin season; washes his outer palms if accidentally inks himself there too.

Dignity!

There are no sandwich board artists at Safeway.

Just low-paid security guards, pretending to keep shoplifted necessities from being hauled back to it.

Everyone has rights.

****************

Two girls, both never been kissed, tongues coated in milk tea. By the sight of it — worsening each day, literal viral growth, it is — they say they feel appalled, heartbroken. Or confused? The words they use change, are different all the time. So full of feels, would need to scroll down their whole spine of comments to understand why they feel what they feel; the little vertebrae keeping them up, right. New hormones are flooding their feeds, overloading their senses.

What anything means, why yesterday they said they know ball, but tomorrow it will be something else.

One is subconsciously reminded of a grandfather, whose triangle flag gathers dust on a closet shelf. Little too close to home, some of it out there on her horizon’s feed, for real. Feels.

Feels like a pimple, how it just popped up one day. Ugly. Bad. She’s gonna put a star patch over it, cover it up, hope it disappears, all the gunk absorbed by magic. It’s okay to wear your pimple patches; that’s not embarrassing. Don’t have to hide those stars.

“They’re not just statistics,” the other starts. Sucking on a cardboard-adjacent straw full of boba, like marbles rolling around in her mouth, another timed game the kids pay to play. “And IDK but none of the politicians or police do anything? So all the like, nonprofits and stuff have to help, and that’s so hard to do? Especially if, like, they don’t have the resources?”

She’s on her period, lightening her load, but also fueling it. Bringing tapioca up one chute, letting eggs slide down and out another. Sweeter-toothed when bleeding. Privately, she’s hooked on smutty lit, on those kinda feels. Publicly, she’s the student body president, AP English’s highest grade, goldest star.

Both want to be mothers one day, both too shy to admit homemaking is their end goal: nurturing, caring, not living under fluorescent lights or payroll deadlines. None of that stuff. Just bathed in the glow of good rings — engagement and teething and LED ones — raising children they already have names picked out for.

Like. Damon, for a boy. Gemma, for a girl. Or like, Cory, for either. Well maybe. But definitely Gemma.

“I know, right? That’s someone’s child in there. Like, where did it go wrong? And I feel so, like, bummed out because I don’t know how we can help as, just people, you know? But yeah. Like, what can anyone do?”

“Totally.” A saccharine response.

The straws go limp. Disintegrate. Some balls don’t make it out the cup, drowning under the tightness of another cover. Never to become boba babies bobbing and sloshing around inside these fertile, tender bellies. Just miscarried over to the trash can with everything else, casualties of attention, and plastic, deficits.

Two girls. Too young to do anything. All they know, just balled up.

****************

Oh. Another trending post. Late-night soapboxing. Typing loudly online, posting in the town center where everyone still gathers. Watch the poor ones get punished or hanged.

A number of months ago this started and its only getting worse.

[Sic.]

Personalities about to clash, infect each other. Generations, types. Rasas boxing. At war with opinions, facts. Each other, themselves. Grammar, proof-reading.

Your missing the point. We’ve created the institutional failures that.Have led to this crisis. What do you expect them to do? We don’t even own this land!

Jesters.

Trolls.

Under the bridge, but actually.

My heart goes out to all the people in need, and the city should find a different solutions other than allowing the parks to become unaccessible to our kids.

Four commenters — not spell-checkers, just gentle fear-mongers — immediately liked this post.

Gestures.

Call youre local…

[Sic, sic, sic…]

No!

One comes in hot, doing donuts and figure eights around these seemingly illiterate frenemies and strangers gathered for a show. Challenging, unapologetic about words, about to finish eating a whole bag of Lays again tonight after the kids are finally down and their divet in the couch is occupied, warm again. Watching, judging, commenting, consuming.

I’m sick of these reps not doing anything. We don’t need another task force and energy wasted with acronyms. We need housing.

Eighty-eight people and counting like this, take it in like an Olympian’s quadruple axel. Also, probably finishing their own bags of chips, their last episode of this current season too. Maybe letting themselves eat cake.

It’s nighttime somewhere in America. Everywhere is glowing with the outside inside. Everywhere except it, out there. Right there.

Oh. Another trending post.

****************

Here come the hikers again. One beginning, now appearing back at the ending.

Sun is casting the same shadows across the ground, but shifted just so.

A gentler stream overheard as they pass by now. Tired from their journey, from all that exertion. Everyone always starts out so fresh and energized, but ends up worn down. Dirtier soles, spottier skins.

Softer, quieter now.

“This place has specialists for her kind of dementia,” one says, poles tapping pavement, near -empty bottle slushing. “So that’s been helpful. At least they get her out of the same pair of underwear she’d been in for threefuckingweeks. For fuck’s sake. What was I even paying the last place for?”

“Tell me about it. I remember———”

The words drown out.

****************

Monsters.

M.O.N.S.T.E.R.S.

All of them.

****************

When the housesitter is reviewing our list, she asks about it out there. If I’m affected, if I’m aware how bad it seems to have gotten. How it has really taken over, hasn’t it? A heaping, soggy, scary centerpiece of the park now. The park itself.

Specifically, she asks, “Is it going to be a problem?”

“You’re asking me?”

She nods, epitomizing effortlessness in her flowy, breezy jumper. Is anything a problem for her, this little ray of sunshine who feeds others’ cats, waters others’ plants? I can only imagine if I wore that, I’d be paranoid about the gauziness grazing bathroom floors, about blotting with visible wetness if and when I sneezed, God forbid. Everything can seem a little filthy if you overthink it.

I contemplate for a moment about her question, lingering in a millennial pause.

No one ever asks me about it, directly. She reminds me of the good parts of me, from when I was all younger, half-fuller. Besides the full head of hair, the sense of wonder, the boldness to ask things outright.

I wonder if, nowadays, I remind her of someone older; how, through time, we all become different versions of our same selves, depending. On whatever obstacles make us who we turn out to be.

Me?

I pay attention.

I acknowledge it.

No one ever asks them about it, either, to be frank. Probably problematic, not handling it more directly.

Is it going to be a problem?

I mean sure, when directly confronted by it — the unsightliness, the smells conjuring chemicals unintended to be mixed, the occasional nonsensical yelling on my walk I tell myself to not take personally — yes, I feel uncomfortable. Yeah, I feel sad, grossed out. I’ll admit, I feel annoyed it’s there. Yes, I try to avoid it altogether when I’m outside, if possible, like on weekends when I have my husband’s help, when he can take the kids out, tune it out like he can anything else.

I sometimes even think about when it’s raining or cold out. How effective are tarps and duct tape at keeping anything protected from the elements? Why doesn’t anyone donate something practical, do something useful? Like as simple as trash bags, or a bin that is emptied like the rest of ours? Should I do something? Say something?

It’s such a fine line.

Want it gone, to keep it small? Then keep your distance. That’s a life hack that never fails.

Want more problems? Then get closer, ask if you can help.

Want to actually feel like the good type, the sort who still leads with their heart? Want to give something? Money? Conversation? Leftovers? Humanizing? You always want to feel proud, believe you’re good inside, lead by example, show the kids what we’re all about: walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

I do nothing.

“No, Nina. No, it won’t be a problem for you.”

“It’s fine. I was just curious!” She looks at me and, as usual, asks an offbeat question after we’ve covered everything. Squinting as though cuing pensive music, she asks, “Do you know your Enneagram?”

“Come again?”

“Right, sorry,” she widens her eyes. Expresses herself with her hands. “It’s a personality test, but it’s so good. Understanding my own enneagram and others’ really helps me? I can understand people better and, you know, see things differently, getting where they’re coming from. You know? You should take it! And let me know. I’m always dying to see if I guess someone’s type right. Oneouttanine chance I get it, haha!

“But yeah, no seriously, I’ve got all this, you should enjoy your trip and totally learn about enneagrams if you have time.”

And then she breathes in, focusing on me, nodding and squinting again.

“I think I know exactly what you are.”