#84: Archangels and Other Responsible Grown-Ups

The weekend before finals week, all I could think about was the impromptu trip I had taken with Kozmik Kat to the Forbidden Future. Most people visit Europe after they graduate, as a present; I had accidentally visited 2184 before my graduation. It felt like I’d had desert before finishing my vegetables; graduation was going to be anticlimactic.

#54 Devil’s Night in Detroit

The Y+Thems set up an impromptu outdoor chimney in the parking lot of the Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City. Soren and Dana made it out of brick salvaged from some demolished building nearby, and Avie and Kiddo, with Benjamin Franklin Phloog strapped to her torso, brought firewood back from the suburbs in the Y+Thems white van. By sundown, a bright, warm blaze was burning, and we huddled around the hearth in our almost-winter coats, warming our hands. Kozmik Kat broke out some marshmallows from the church pantry, and Jasper converted some fallen branches from trees on the tiny church grounds into sticks that we used to skewer and roast them. It was more than a seasonal ritual for us, although it had that air; it was also the Y+Thems’ job, what they had been hired to do as resident guardians of the century-old neo-Gothic church building. They planned an overnight vigil in rotating, two-hour shifts to protect the structure from vandalism, or worse, arson, on the most dangerous night of the year. It was the night before Halloween—Devil’s Night in Detroit.