Video posted by user guido-gothdad

CC: What people think I mean by "Hoop Dancing".

Officer Abbacchio, bi-colored hair loose in a ratty pair of black sweat pants and a worn gray t-shirt stands center screen, back to the camera in his neglected back yard, a cheap pink hula hoop with a price still dangling from it around his waist. The Dollar Store hoop plops lamely to the ground to "Banjo Beats".

Hurling a worn sneaker at the screen, he pivots, mouth outlining, "Fuck you!" as the screen goes black...

…the screen lightens, revealing him kneeling in full regalia, black, white, and purple, a feathered headdress topped by antlers, impassive face below his masking sunglasses painted white. As "Baby Banjo" crescendos, a tribal refrain added to it, he rises to a full, unexpected seven feet, deploying not four hoops but twelve in a swirl of fringe and ribbons, executing a slow, majestic turn in the semi-darkness, uncannily long arms moving like an eagle's wings, taloned feet precise.

Likes: 300

Ms. Nix, tapped the screen of her cell phone, raising the count to 301. Last June she'd come into Leo's back yard looking for her cat and walked in on him neck deep in a hot tub eating what at first she thought was a rubber kitchen glove. He'd been grumpy about the whole thing until she brought him a peace offering, freshly baked persimmon cake. They'd sat drinking coffee and eating cake while overlooking the covered hot tub, her cat on the nearby fence washing it's face, and made their peace.

Turns out he was a closet hoop dancer, having taught himself the moves while making his own regalia by watching YouTube videos and performing in his overgrown back yard, pretty certain that if his mother's people didn't want him, he especially wouldn't be welcome at a pow wow.

By the first week of the academic year, they were keeping toothbrushes in each other's bathrooms.

An avid TikTokker, Ms. Nix also convinced Leo to get his own account – he didn't have to tell anyone where he was or who he was.

The first videos were awkward but they got better, with her as videographer and him turning around and facing the camera for the first time, double rows of needle sharp teeth, naturally black lips and all, tonight.

And tomorrow, because shoes sucked ass, Leo told her over a plate of raw pot roast sliced thin, he was going to go to work barefoot.

If the powers that be didn't like the way his black claws sounded against the floor tiles at Merston High, he'd invoke the accommodation laws.

He was, after all, a RAD.

Savoring the bright gold, orange, and red leaves in the peace of a late Sunday afternoon while wearing her favorite pair of hot pink Converse and artistically mismatched socks, Josie wandered the neighborhood, watercolor kit in a Goodwill Gucci handbag and the old wooden folding chair that she'd painted bright aquamarine over the summer under one arm debating which view was the prettiest.

She could set up in the middle of the Stein's driveway and paint a picture of Mount Jefferson.

Meh, just not in the mood for the Cascades.

She could turn around and do a generic picture of a mixture of maples and pines where a steeple stuck straight up into the cobalt blue of the late afternoon sky.

Blegh. You could see that in any free credit union calendar – like the one hanging in their kitchen from three years ago. Aunt Raina kept it because she liked the pictures. Today it was March.

And then there was that cool, hexagon house with all the wooden doo-hickies, iron railings and fancy bushes the next block over… oooooooooohhhhhh, there were twin hard maples out front— they'd turned full bright red last night… twin hard maples in full glory vs. the Cascade mountains.

Eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh… the trees were awfully pretty, and if she made a painting of them, it was almost as good as owning them.

The Cascades would always be around, but Autumn leaves had the depressing tendency to drop off the tree and turn brown.

Then Uncle Mike would rake them up for the Steins.

The maples won.

Happy that a decision had been made and that it was an aesthetically pleasing one, Josie trotted towards the coveted trees, planning on setting up across the street from Hexagon House and getting in a painting before the Golden Hour faded.

Oh.

Josie stopped; there was somebody working in the yard.

She'd hoped to have the world to herself and here was somebody wearing overalls digging around in the flower beds surrounded the unusually-shaped house.

Fuck.

Couldn't you do this some other time?

She watched the boy in overalls pry up and overturn a huge mass of knobbly roots with a digging fork. His blond hair was braided down his back, and he wasn't wearing a shirt despite the crisp mountain chill. He looked up at her with huge green eyes and quickly looked back at what he was doing, face turning beet red.

Hey, she knew him, a freshman. What was his name? Josie put down her stuff, pulled out her little notebook, and consulted it.

Gio, oh, Giorno… freshman – she didn't know Giorno lived here. Or maybe they'd hired him to do yard work, like the Steins had Uncle Mike as part of their rent.

"Hey." she called, suddenly not so annoyed at him ruining her privacy. "Hey! Hi Giorno!"

The boy finally looked up at her, thin face neon in the golden light. "Hey." Reaching behind him, he snagged the worn flannel shirt that he'd hung off the porch railing and pulled it on.

Used to Uncle Mike wearing little more than cutoffs and work boots after hours, Josie said. "Sorry, you don't have to do that. I mean, put on your shirt."

"Nah, I'm good." He slammed the fork into the dirt and leaned on it. "You're Josie Schmidt. From up the street? I have your sister Maggie in Interior Design I."

"Yeah." Josie flipped her aqua box braids over one shoulder and set down her suddenly heavy chair. She paused, opened it, and sat down, giggling as a thought hit her, "Ummmmm, Giorno. Did you see Officer Abbaccio's feet?"

"Yeah, umm, like a velociraptor? Or Godzilla?" Relieved by the change of subject, Giorno pulled off his gloves and shoved them in his back pockets, "I know we're not supposed to ask, but what kind of RAD IS HE? I mean," the boy paused, motioning self-consciously at the beginning of a ruff poking out of his shirt collar, "I'm a werewolf, that's obvious, but what the hell has FEET like THAT?"

"I dunno, but… ummmmmmm… you should have seen Ms. Goode. She about wet her pants!" Josie's giggle quickly became a belly laugh, Giorno right alongside her as the lace curtain in the nearest window twitched. A grinning blond man wearing green lipstick peered out, only to abruptly disappear.

The two of them had both had run-ins with the well-meaning normie Diversity Counselor and her unasked-for lame advice, so watching her dance around the subject as Officer Abbaccio went about his rounds, big ol' taloned feet sticking out from the cuffs of his standard issue cop pants, trying so hard to ask him what he was without asking, was PRICELESS.

Josie even overheard Uncle Mike telling Aunt Raina all about it during lunch over the phone when he was out by the kitchen dumpster on a smoke break. Uncle Mike hadn't laughed that hard since Jeremy the dog rolled over in his sleep and fell off the back stoop.

The man's face reappeared, and then just as abruptly disappeared, like somebody had yanked him backwards. "Dio! Leave them alone!" another man's voice ordered.

Frowning, Giorno glanced up at the window and then back at Josie.

The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds before the boy said, "Josie, want some Iris rhizomes? I got lots; these are the good ones, historics! I collect them from abandoned houses… uh, hi Dad."

"Hello, and you are?" Startled, Josie stared at the tall blond man coming out of the deepening shadows of the elaborate porch, a pink and white apron over his elegantly draped suit, and green lipstick as he all but ran down the now shaded stairs, an opalescent glass tray of cookies in one well-manicured hand, and a stack of napkins in the other, "Giorno, who's your friend?"

"Hey, dad." Giorno turned, "Uhhhhhh…" the tall man handed him a cookie, which he passed to Josie.

It was chocolate with white chocolate chips.

It was also still warm.

"I'm Josie. Josie Schmidt... sophomore. He has Interior Design I with my sister." Josie said, looking down at what she held, dark face hot. Suddenly living in somebody else's guest house was embarrassing in the presence of such grand people. "My uncle works at the school." She mumbled, adding, "He's a cop."

Her socks were mismatched and her old pink high tops coming apart at the seams.

The laces were knotted and frayed. Somebody'd Sharpied a smiley face on one scuffed toe.

The smiley face was smudged and cockeyed.

"Yes, of course. You're Josie." Giorno's dad handed her a napkin.

Josie took the heavy softness of it.

It was cloth, not a folded paper towel like at home.

It also had initials embroidered on one corner.

There was a long, silent pause all around.

Finally, the tall man licked his green lips, pale tongue darting from one corner of his mouth to the other before saying, "I know your aunt and uncle – I'm their lawyer. They're very proud of you— so glad to meet you at last!"

Josie couldn't help noticing another large man in workout clothes standing in the doorway, facepalming.

"This is my dad, Dio." Giorno gestured up at the other man, "That's my other dad, Johnathan. We live here."

"Sorry, I gotta go. I have chores to do before Aunt Raina gets home from work." The taste of cookie flat in her mouth, Josie abruptly folded her now tacky blue green chair and shouldered her tasteless Gucci bag full of cheap Wal-Mart paints, brushes, and paper in the dull twilight. "Nice to meet you, Giorno's dads."

"Hey, still want some irises?" Giorno held up a huge, lumpy root topped by a fan of flat, green leaves. "These are the good ones, they're magenta and date back to 1893!"

"No thanks," Josie said walking away, wanting to sink into the earth. "I don't think the Steins would like me digging up their pretty yard." She then added, "Thanks for the cookie, though. It was nice." It was being a military brat all over again; you never owned anything you couldn't carry in a cardboard box because you didn't own anything you lived in and there was never enough money to go around even if you got to see castles in Germany.

"I get it. So, when you get your own place? I'll plant flowers for you!" Giorno jogged after Josie as she made her way home. "And hey, I've seen your paintings in the cafeteria display case at school. Wanna hang out tomorrow after school? I do printmaking - I have my own little press in the basement and everything. I make and sell custom greeting cards. You can make some if you want to. Bring your paints!"

Josie stopped, looking up at distant Mt. Jefferson, golden in the fading light. A crow landed nearby on the wrought iron fence and made a rude remark in crow to nobody in particular.

Josie studied Giorno's eager face. He didn't sound like he thought less of her and her family for being so… poor. Anyway, the Schmidts were good as anybody else – Uncle Mike said so. Why be ashamed of what she was? Of what they were?

She grinned, "Yeah, sure. I'd like that!"