Day 5

*From yesterday

Friday, then and now. Today is the unlucky one, the 13th. I fear for what lies in wait for me tonight. What depraved dangers will covetously catch at my soul. It is a friend's birthday, and a dance party and a reunion. It will not end dry. As I type, I have my phone in one hand and a rosary in the other. Preemptory prayers; I'm pleading to St. Monica, reciting St. Francis. 

Back to Burning Man. Friday was the night I needed a prayer most. Funny, how cyclical things often are. 

I woke and dined on the finest of foods. Those fit for champions; fruit cups, coconut water, multi-vitamins, flaxseed Aussie-bites and organic peanut butter. I may have also eaten some potato-chips, because I remember wiping salty flaky crumbs from my beard. It could have been dandruff, or the dusty crust one picks up in the desert from practicing sustained neglect and embracing homeless hygiene. Either way, the meal was decadent and satisfying. I saw The Profuser eyeing me enviously as he munched on some stale pistachios that had fallen on the ground. He washed them down with a nice 80 degree bottle of Propel. I, on the other hand, had left the my coconut-water in the shade, and was treated to a tasty 70 degree dose of potassium fortified hydration. At Burning Man, it's all about the electro-lights. 

Prof was still out of commission Friday. I went with him to the medic earlier in the week, where they assessed his ankle-itis. Apparently, he had danced his ankle into oblivion, crushing it under the weight of his frenzied jiving and jumping at Pink Mammoth. So while he mended his wounds, I set out with Tonya to cruise the playa and drink some frozen drinks at Distrikt. 

When we arrived, we danced our way to the shade and safety of the bar, ready for a salubrious potion said to soften anything sharp. As Tonya produced her ID, with dread I realized I had left camp without mine. Luckily, I was traveling with a seasoned professional. Teaching me a trick she had learned in junior-high, she applied moisture to her freshly stamped skin and pressed it carefully against my wrist, deceptively duplicating the mark. To celebrate, we stormed the bar and demanded they provide us with an abundance of icy beverages, or else. We were going to breeze our frains. 

With heads like ice-boxes, we mounted our metal steeds and peddled toward Kim's camp. Kim alerted us of a free pizza giveaway nearby and we bolted for the baked bread, but arrived too late. Disheartened, we set out to find friends at Disco Knights. From there, with reinforcements, we marched to Celtic Chaos and danced in the courtyard of a castle, protected from the powerful gusts of dust that gushed past whiting out the sky. Each of us clutched a cup full of punch and steadily sipped it like an IV drip. Our medicine. 

On our return home, we swung by the French Quarter searching for scraps, but couldn't scrounge even a Canadian Nickel. We arrived back at the camp and I dined on what could have been chili, but what was probably a protein bar. I showered and slipped into my pink rabbit onesy. With a beer in hand, I hopped on top of the winnebago just in time to catch the sunset. I slow danced with the sun, rocking it in my arms and laying it inside a tectonic cradle. In appreciation of my dance, neighbors on a nearby RV invited me over to drink some home-brewed absinthe. It tasted like a deliciously devilish licorice. I thanked them for their generosity and gracefully departed. 

Walking back to the camp, all the creatures were stirring. We decided to meet at Robot Heart and dance to our hearts' content. I let everyone know I'd be seeing Random Rab at 5am, and invited anyone who was interested to join me, knowing no one would show up given how late his set was. We rode out and half of us arrived at Robot Heart. I literally danced my fucking tail off. We swam and floated around the art car like a school of fish as it traversed the darkness. Like a butterfly I fluttered away to discharge an actor in search of an exit. I left the bathrooms and headed back to the party. In my absence more of our crew had arrived and we danced. Instinct told me it was near 2am and I broke off to see Beats Antique at the place Random Rab would eventually play. I arrived an hour late and had missed their set. So I did the only thing I could: ex tea sea and much rooms. 

Enjoying my solitude, suddenly, a shit crashed my party. It rushed the gates and stood aggressively pounding on my back door. Quickly I hopped to my bike to gather a roll of toilet-paper and scrambled to the potty. The line was long and my entrails were so bloated and heavy that I thought they hung between my knees. After what felt like centuries, I made it inside the vile stall and realized I was wearing an animal onesy. How was I going to get this off without touching the walls, which were smeared and sprayed with piss and shit. Shit!

My anus, spasming and seizing, insisted on urgency. I hurriedly unbuttoned the suit, squirming and wriggling, playing a frightful game of operation; my nose already reddening. The drugs weren't playing well with the stench, inadequate light and the sensation of impending doom. Frantic, hopping around the port-a-potty like a frightened rabbit on meth, I got the upper half of the costume below my waist while clutching the rest safely against me. I bent over and blasted a cannonball of feces from my ass capable of sinking a ship. It sounded like curdled milk spilling from a milk-carton in fast-motion. 

Over the next few hours, in the throes of hippy-flipping, this occurred several more times. I was the Easter Bunny at Burning Man, hiding wet chocolate eggs inside darkened port-a-potties. Each time the bathroom becoming more and more gruesome; my supply of toilet paper ever dwindling. On one occasion, I watched an attractive Asian girl open one of the blue doors, shine a light inside and promptly about-face, returning to the line beside me. Thinking the booth to be simply out of toilet paper I approached and opened the door. What I saw can't even be adequately relayed here. But I'll try. It was truly horrific. A port-a-potty in need of an exorcism. The byproduct of 24 hours of sloppy drug-induced human excrementation, allowed to fester and pile up out of the container like a brown Pyramid at Giza. There was literally blood sprayed onto the floors and walls, mushy mounds of shit like steeples sat on either side of the bowl. An irrefragable human sacrifice had been made inside, that much was clear. I too about-faced and walked back beside her, horror all about my face. "Can we commiserate about that," she asked. "I don't know what I just saw...how...I...it..." was the only reply I could muster. We hugged deeply out of fear and disgust. She smelled good and her skin was soft. The sound of a door opening separated us and she said farewell then walked in. A second later she had exited and I asked "another nightmare?" "No toilet paper," she said. "Here," and I handed her my roll. She smiled and told me I was cute, tore a piece for herself and kissed me. Another door opened and like that we were gone. 

I arrived at the dance-camp and Random Rab soon began his set. Out of the crowd, Seamus emerged with open arms, and we embraced. Shocked, and tripping, I felt my face didn't adequately convey my happiness at his arrival. Seconds later, before I was finished processing his presence, Krista appeared. I was overwhelmed by the gesture and lauded them. The excitement stirred something in my stomach and I went from a 0 to shit-your-pants in seconds. Not wanting to seem ungrateful, I tried to stay and chat, thinking "mind over matter." I realized the mind is almost always over matter, but what matters is that you don't have a smattering of matter in your bunny onesy that changes you from pink to brown. I told them I had to run to the bathroom, and left my canteen with them as collateral. As an offer of good faith that I'd return. 

I took off sprinting. After my previous trips to the shit-rooms, I'd had enough sense to leave the roll of TP in my pocket, to eliminate the time it took me to retrieve it from my bike. My bowels were quaking at a 9 on the Richter scale. From the way things were looking, I was about to create a new Chicxulub crater right there in Nevada as I stood in line. Thankfully, the playa was spared and the toilet took the brunt of that burden. "When will this end," I asked myself aloud in the stall. Either someone outside or in the adjacent stall replied, "when the fat lady sings."

When I returned to my friends we danced to melodious beats accompanied by live vocals and stringed instrumentation as the sun came up behind us, warming our backs. After the show we rode out to Robot Heart for Lee's sunrise set. I was hesitant to go given the nearest bathrooms would be a bike-ride away, but I wanted to show solidarity. Especially in the face of my very un-solid stools. Soon though, the crude began bubbling, and like Jed Clampett I inherited its fallout. I told Seamus and Krista I had to go, and I made my way back to my bike. As I walked, a beautiful girl spotted me and leapt to her feet. She ran toward me and jumped into my arms. Surely she must think I am someone else I thought. "Who are you," she asked as she wrapped her arms around me. "Oh my god you're so soft and cute and cuddly," she added. The unfathomable cruelty of the universe at this moment was fully directed at me and only me. Of all of the possible moments for a gorgeous girl to quite literally fall into my arms, this has to be the one? With my asshole puckering, my rectum recoiling, shit slithering through it like a liquid snake tsunami, she found me. "I want to hang out with you, you seem fun; what's your name," she asked. I gently released her and as I walked toward my bike softly said, "I'm the white rabbit and I'm late...I'm late." "Aww! You're funny! Oh my god where are you going, you can't leave," she said sadly. Tearfully, from the physical and emotional pain, I peddled off.

I wanted to cry.

I was flattened by the irony of being cock-blocked by my anus.