Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

Brian unrolled his sleeping bag on the dirt directly in front of the car, then sat on top of it, listening to his iPod while the two couples each put up their respective tents. Gary and Joan’s was the simpler of the two, and they were set up and ready to go before Reyn and Stacy had finished arguing over where to pound in their stakes. Gary walked over to the open trunk and grabbed a bag of spiced pita chips. “Why don’t you put everything in the backseat?” Reyn said. “It’s cooler.”

“What about the ice chest? Should I—?”

“Just put it on the seat. If any of us wants anything, we can open the door and get it.” Two bearded, shirtless guys about their age ran by, squirting each other with Super Soakers. “Besides, I don’t want anyone else stealing our stuff.”

Gary moved the ice chest and snack sacks to the backseat of the car; then he, Joan and Brian ate chips while Reyn and Stacy finished putting up their tent.

“I guess we’re done,” Reyn said, stepping away from the tent to look at it.

Brian held up the empty pita chip bag. “We are, too.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Gary asked.

They all looked at Stacy. She was the one who’d been here before, who’d convinced them to come in the first place, and if there was any sort of program, schedule or timetable, she would know.

“Why don’t we just… explore?” she suggested. She waved her hand toward the motley collection of structures in front of them. “Within Black Rock City there are many villages, and they all have their own artwork, manifestos and music. That’s the best thing about being here.”

“Aren’t we going to be in trouble because we’re not building something?” Joan asked.

Gary smiled. “We could dig a latrine.”

Stacy sighed. “That’s the spirit.”

A gray-dreadlocked man in a loincloth danced by, blue zodiac symbols painted on his hairy chest and arms. Behind the Joe Strummer cube, in front of a tie-dyed Bedouin tent, a group of young women in colorful gauzy dresses stood in a circle with their eyes closed, holding hands and chanting.

Brian rubbed his hands in a parody of greed. “Just point me toward the E.”

Reyn and Stacy laughed.

Gary looked meaningfully over at Joan. The two of them were the weekend’s sober chaperones, the in-place equivalent of designated drivers. Although Gary liked an occasional beer, he was deathly afraid of drugs, and Joan came from a strict religious background and did not even drink. So it was their responsibility to make sure the rest of them did not overindulge or get involved in potentially dangerous activities.

“Oh,” Brian said in a tone of exaggerated simplicity. “I almost forgot. I have my own.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a wrinkled plastic sandwich bag filled with pills. “Ta-da!”

Gary’s heart lurched in his chest. “Where did you get that?” he demanded.

“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Clean.”

“What if we’d gotten pulled over? What if a cop found that on you? We’d all be in jail right now!”

Brian grinned. “This will all be gone by Sunday. The car will be totally clean on the way back.”

Gary was furious. “You stupid asshole!”

“I’ll punish him,” Reyn promised. “I’ll make sure we drive past that test range on the way home.”

“Hey, I wasn’t joking about that!”

“It’s my car,” Reyn reminded him.

“Then I’ll catch a ride with someone else.”

“Let him,” Gary said. He reached for Joan’s hand and turned away, pulling her with him as the two of them headed through the crowd toward some of the villages and artwork. The festival had an overall theme, as it did each year, but he’d forgotten it and could not tell what it was from the installations around them. Behind a long white wall, onto which were tacked photographs of isolated smiles, he heard the sounds of acoustic guitar and flute. Joan pulled him in that direction, and he allowed himself to be led. “Can you believe that asshole? Carrying drugs?”

“You knew this was going to happen,” Joan pointed out. “What did you think they were going to do when they got here?”

“I didn’t think there’d be drugs in the car with me.”

“Just because they’re into that doesn’t mean that you have to be. As I understand it, that’s what Burning Man is all about: letting everyone celebrate in their own way.”

“You’re very nonjudgmental,” he said.

She performed a small curtsy. “It’s one of my most attractive qualities.”

Smiling, Gary kissed her. “You’re good for me,” he said.

They walked around the side of the wall and saw a bald woman and a long-haired man seated in folding chairs atop a provisional stage. The woman was playing flute, the man guitar, and they were performing for a group of twenty-odd people sitting cross-legged on the bare dirt. Gary and Joan moved to the back of the crowd and stood there, listening. But the duo did only two more songs before vacating the stage for an angry poet who started shouting his work into a child’s Mr. Microphone toy.

Gary and Joan wandered away.

“So, did you tell your parents you were coming here?” Gary asked.

Joan looked shocked. “Of course not!” There was a pause. “You?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sort of. I mean, my parents aren’t the hippest people on the planet, and I don’t think they’d ever heard of Burning Man before, so I didn’t tell them details about it. But they know I’m here.”

“I’m jealous,” she said. “I wish I had that sort of relationship with my parents.”

“You’re jealous of my relationship with my parents?” He shook his head. “Your envy is sadly misplaced, young lady.”

The sun was getting low, but the air was still hot, and they went through an intricate maze made out of palm fronds before taking refuge beneath a giant umbrella spraying mist on those below it. Finally they made their way back to their own camp. The ice chest was out of the trunk and on the ground, and over it Reyn had fashioned a type of awning to provide shade, raiding the box of black trash bags they’d brought and clamping the ends of three bags between the tops of the car’s passenger doors while affixing the other ends to some sticks he’d found and stuck in the ground. Reyn’s little hibachi was set up next to the tents, and Stacy was cooking hot dogs over charcoal. She grinned. “Want a wiener?” she asked.

“Already have one,” Gary told her.

“I can vouch for that,” Joan added.

The others laughed. Stacy used a fork to pick up the hot dogs that were finished grilling. She piled them on a plate, then put on two more for Gary and Joan.

Brian looked apologetic. “Sorry, man. I should’ve told you I was carrying. I just didn’t think about it. Honest.”

Gary nodded. “It’s all right.”

“I guess I assumed you knew.”

“It’s okay,” Gary assured him.

Brian dropped his voice. “Then do you think you can get him not to drive back by that radiated area?” He touched his crotch. “I don’t want my guys here contaminated. And I’m sure you don’t, either. We have to think about the future, bro. We’re not going to be twenty-one forever.”

Gary clapped a hand on his back. “I’ll see what I can do.”

That night there were fireworks. A rave started up in one of the villages and gradually spread outward through Black Rock City, the pulsing music growing louder as additional speakers were improvisationally added. Brian was blissed out and disappeared somewhere in the strobe-accented darkness, while Reyn and Stacy slithered together to slow music that only they could hear. Gary danced with Joan, completely sober. For the first time, he thought he understood Burning Man, and though he wasn’t on the same wavelength as most of these people, he still felt part of it all.