Earmuffs

The city-marked pick-up truck pulled along side the concrete barrier, its high-visibility, earmuff clad occupants shining a flashlight down into the ditch, into the ramshackle constructs and cluster of tents beside the highway.

“Everybody up!” Came a voice from behind the flashlight, “We’re clearing you out. New city ordinance, you can’t stay here!”

This really wasn’t a job Tommy liked much, he preferred to it even, emptying the port-a-potties at the little league field. Harding — his last name, first name Clarence, which was unknown to Tommy — loved this part.

The two men exited the truck. Along with the rumbling of highway traffic, a high-pitched buzzing rang in the background.

Tommy understood the camp was eye sore — and if the city would allow it, droves of people would just camp and build where they pleased — but he still couldn’t reckon with the feeling a kicking people while they were down. Harding was happy to not only enforce the rules, but to kick ‘em in the metaphorical teeth, especially when they were foot level. He loved the looks of despair on their faces as they rushed to gather what little junk they owned as quickly as they could while he tapped his foot and pointed to his watch.

“Everybody up!” Harding called again, knocking with his cop-grade flashlight on a frayed plastic tent.

Tommy followed suit, going from home to home, notifying their occupants of the new ordinance, warning them firmly but gently, it was time to get their shit together and move.

As they reached the back of the camp, they found a makeshift tent of tarps and branches and cardboard and rope and 4x4s.

Before they could even knock, a scruffy figure, shirtless but covered in a thin layer of dirt and clad in baggy cargo shorts, emerged from one of the holes torn in the side of the draped canvas.

He moved his hands from his ears to rub is eyes as he adjusted to the rising sun, and back again. He didn’t look surprised or particularly upset. “Alright fellas,” he said finally, “give us a minute would ya? This damn buzzing, it’s really been throwing us off!”

“A minute,” Harding answered from underneath his mustache.

“That’s all we need!” The dirt-caked man smiled a yellowed, blackened worn-out smile before crawling back into the hole from which he’d emerged before emerging again with an armful of junk.

“Jenny‘ll be out in a sec,” he told the men, “She’s hasn’t been well…”

“Well, tell her to get well and hurry up!” Harding warned as he headed onto the smaller tents surrounding the monstrosity of material, kicking and banging and shining and yelling the whole way through.

From the tents emerged their residents; sad, upset, angry, half asleep or nonchalant, a constant ringing in their ears as they all gathered their things, piling it into shopping carts or backpacks, tucking it under their arms and in their pockets, they worked methodically, gritting their teeth at the noise, taking what they could of everything they owned.

Except Jenny and the dirt-layered man, and that put a damper on Harding’s joy.

“Fuck’s she doing in there?!” He snapped finally at the man.

The rest of the folks had cleared out, leaving behind the bones of tents and trash scattered about, despite Harding’s warnings of potential fines or imprisonment.

“She’s weak, she’s moving though, it’s the buzzing, it’s really getting to her,” the man began, turning back to the entrance. Harding continued behind the man as if invited, shoving him through the threshold. Tommy then too ducked and followed suit, into the hole in the slung-about fabric.

Slumped on an upside-down milk crate and a pile of blankets sat a young woman, gray-skinned, visibility fragile, and missing chunks of hair, her toothpick arms appeared to be moving busily beneath her shawl, packing what looked like rocks and scraps of metal into a canvas sack.

“That’s it, that’s all, time’s up!” Harding called as he stepped foot into the makeshift abode.

“I know. They’re almost here!” She looked up at the men, smiling a toothless grin.

“We’re already here, missy, let’s go!” Harding took 2 steps — the room’s length — towards the woman, grabbing her by her thin, little arm. He pulled, and with a jerk, off it came.

Harding took 2 steps back to where he’d been, thin, gray arm in hand.

“It’s the buzzing!” The dirty man insisted, shaking his head.

Harding tossed the arm to the floor before the woman’s feet, “Get up, and get out! City ordinance!”

With that she stood, looking from her sack to her arm and back again.

“Can you grab that Jesse?” She asked her companion, jerking her chin towards her severed appendage.

“You know I got too much of my own stuff to carry! Ah, here: I’ll put it by the road we can come back and get it once we get back settled somewhere.”

“Nope,” Harding all too was happy to correct them. “Clean up crew’s about to cut through, grab up all this junk — that too,” he pointed to the arm, “Straight to the dump!”

“It’s not really of use now, anyway, is it?” Jesse tried to reason with his lady.

Jenny frowned.

“It’s just… hard to hold both ears without it, and the buzzing…”

Tommy didn’t like the buzzing much either, but he had earmuffs. And also, two arms.

Without second thought, he pulled the earmuffs from his ears and over his head, extending them to the frail, gray woman before him.

Her frown grew into that same toothless smile they’d witnessed as they’d met her inside.

“They may spare you,” she nodded as she reached for them.

The buzzing grew louder as she pulled them over her head.