The hand-mic hovered between us and the day like a tooth.
"Will you clarify—"
"commentary," I said, even. "See window."
"See window," Evan echoed, same size. We didn't speed up, didn't slow down. hands visible.
Boone altered the math. He didn't touch the man; he moved the space the man wanted. Palm open at sternum height, elbow near his own ribs, he drew a clean lane a foot to our right as if chalk could exist in air. The body reads that language even when pride won't say it out loud. The mic drifted, just enough.
The supervisor pointed at a brass stud sunk into concrete where private becomes public. "Property line," he said to the bench crew, not angry. "Keep the wheels off our side."
The producer smiled like a weather map and rolled one leg of the bench back half an inch, then let the other two creep forward. Rita took a photo, no adjectives.
Victor looked up at the drone with the patience of a man teaching a dog to heel. "Stay out of the awning," he murmured. The little bee decided to prefer rules to repairs.
The influencer slid again, shoulder aimed at my arm like apology in motion. Boone's palm intercepted air where her path would have been. "no unannounced intimacy," he said, quiet as a posted notice.
Her phone loved the red circle too much to hear English. "We're so live," she told her own face.
Rita's thumb raised the misleading lower-third square into their thread and pinned it with two spare lines. Then she added the Public Record Statement under it, plain: incident number pending if a complaint exists; index isn't a record; no seal, no story; please don't harass clerks. window link sat there like a seatbelt.
Vivian's message arrived as we reached the flat. Hold has five; seventh typing 'process' after reading window policy; exit without comment locks it.
Agent: Don't feed them. Thirty feet to car. Then I tell them 'mid-process' twice like a hymn.
Aisha: If they try 'assault' in copy, respond commentary and drop our notice template. Words: 'allegation under review; bodycams preferred to vibes.'
The hand-mic man performed gravity. He rocked his weight back half an inch, let his own shoe betray him, and said "whoa" toward his lens as if the air had harmed him on cue.
Rita didn't give him a noun. She dropped "commentary" in his chat and pasted the window block beneath, then keyed a number the city recognizes: incident number request lodged.
The bench crew tried another angle — the hand-mic rose into our sightline as the influencer rotated to keep her red dot between our faces and the car.
Boone widened his stance by a shoe and turned his shoulders the way you turn a door so wind can't pop it open. "Walk," he said, a gentle verb we obeyed.
The supervisor made a call with the politeness of a man who prefers not to make calls. The PIO answered, apparently from a hallway with coffee. Thirty seconds later a woman with a lanyard that read PIO in ugly font appeared at the top of the ramp, looked at the bench's back wheel kissing the brass stud, and said, "No," in the tone a city uses when it remembers it owns itself.
"credential," she added. The producer showed a laminate that loved lamination. "Back it off," she said, pointing at the stud. "Off, not 'almost'. This is private. Don't roll into people."
The wheel came back its inch. It looked like nothing. It was everything.
Evan's door waited, a modest machine. He pulled the handle and stepped back so my hand could greet the car first. His other hand hovered near mine — offer, not pressure — and that old wire hummed later under the day's static.
The hand-mic man, unhappy with geometry, lunged one small syllable worth, the exact movement that lets a comment section call it contact. Boone's palm met air. The mic met Boone's forearm sleeve without making skin; plastic squeaked. The man exaggerated a step, let his heel slide, and gasped to his phone, "They shoved—"
Rita's camera was already on the moment the sentence formed. hands visible. Forearm. Sleeve. Air. She posted the still with one word under it: commentary. The window square sat above like a judge.
Vivian: Hold is typed. Chair added 'pending process' with a comma that offends me personally. If you enter the car now, I can pin it and leave the panel without a noun.
Agent: Done. I'm calling it 'no action' for lunch. Don't hand them dessert.
The influencer dialed her smile brighter. "One last thing— just tell them if you're mar—"
"commentary," I said, and put my palm on the roof edge where cameras could read it. Evan mirrored me on the other side of the frame. We let the clip show exactly that — two hands on metal, not on people.
The PIO stepped down two stairs and invoked the magic word that keeps sidewalks civil. "Access," she said to the bench team. "Not ambush. Back up two feet. If you block a car, it's a ticket. If you block a person, I call Facilities, and they like paper."
The producer measured two feet with the tape he had been pretending to bend for theatrics. He actually used it this time. The bench obeyed.
We slid into the space that had been ours the whole time; it just needed to be reminded.
"Seat," Boone said, soft. Evan dipped his head, a thank-you to physics, not to power. I angled toward the open door.
The street gave a tiny siren chirp the way dogs make a sound before they decide whether to bark. A cruiser rolled to the curb at an unhurried pace. Two deputies, uniforms neat, calm as good weather, stepped out. Bodycams glowed their tiny steady bug-lights.
"Morning," the first deputy said, hands where rooms can see them. "We had a complaint of assault in progress."
The hand-mic man lifted his phone toward them as if you can serve papers with pixels. The influencer pivoted so her red dot could harvest a fresh crop.
Boone turned slightly so our hands visible were inside the deputies' picture. "Hands visible," he said to the air and to the cameras and to the minute.
"Good," the deputy said. He looked at the PIO, then at the brass stud in the concrete, then at our palms on metal, then at the four inches between Boone's sleeve and anyone's skin.
"We'll take statements," he said, professional as a level. "Nobody move fast."
Evan's eyes found mine. Not for permission. For map.
"Names, not vibes," I said.
He nodded once.
The second deputy raised a palm toward the bench team without touching a single pride fiber. "Step back, please," she said. "All of you. We can't see if you're on top of each other."
Rita lifted her window card where PIO and the deputies could read it and softened her tone into civic. "Public Record Statement," she said. "incident number on request; index isn't a record; no seal, no story."
The hand-mic man realized he had painted himself into a corner that the internet would not redecorate for him. His phone still showed live. Comments rushed by like rain.
The deputy looked straight into his lens because sometimes people need to be taught manners on their own stage. "Sir," he said, polite to the point of armor, "we're making a record now."
The cruiser's radio murmured something bureaucratic and kind. The street took a breath.