Pablo dropped the dead end of his smoke to the ground and reentered the tent, barely noting that the door sign now read simply REPAIR CAFÉ. At the top of the sign was typed the name of what elsewhere we have called the neighboring town.

TWO GROUPS INTRODUCING THEMSELVES

Marc:

“O.K., I guess I’ll start. I’m Marc, I’m—oh, he/him/his—I’m in advertising. I mean, I’m a poet, but I work—I’ve been working—in advertising. Freelance. Women’s cosmetics. [Pause.] I never lead with what I do for money, not sure why I just did. Weird. I’m a—I guess I organize. I work with empty-lot reclamation in the city. I mean, not for pay. I make the posters, social media, outreach materials … anyway. So I wasn’t sure if I’d come up, but then I did—I mean, I’m here for a bit. I’m, uh, trained in Swedish massage, weirdly. So, you know, if you’re stressed. Ha. I guess I’m—I don’t know. Can I stop there?”

Leslie:

“I’m Leslie—she/her, for now—hi, everyone, and welcome. So, I don’t know, by way of introduction. Hmm. Well, I keep thinking about—I wonder if any of you have heard of this thing, I’m kind of obsessed—the Rose of Leary? Here, I’ll draw it. [Leslie draws on a whiteboard that has been leaned up against the wall.] O.K., so it’s not a personality test, per se, but more of a tool for decoding dynamics when they happen, and for intentionally modifying your behavior to rebalance things that have gone off. So it’s not that one of us is an Above person and one a Below person—or one an Opposed and one a Together—but that when you—like, if Kim or whoever were to interrupt me right now he’d be displaying Above behavior, and if he were interrupting me because he was worried about time, afraid that we’d run out of time before everyone could be introduced, or whatever, I mean, we have nothing but time at the moment so that’s a bad example, but anyway, if that was why he interrupted then he would actually be displaying Above-Together behavior, which is basically dominant but supposedly beneficent, and I’d likely respond by agreeing with him and cutting myself off, which would basically be the submissive position, but all in the interest of togetherness, so the point is that if Kim were to interrupt me but in an aggressive way—sorry Kim, I’m just using you as an example!—to, like, insult me or just to take over the conversation, then I’d have a different response, still submissive but also either rebellious or withdrawn. See how it maps onto this wheel?

[Pause; Leslie takes a breath.]