By the second day at Black Rock City I'd managed to train myself to stop staring, although I'd still look at things/people just as intently. Everyone was an artist and a lunatic and a mad scientist all at once. The first night we all headed down to the central area together, and I got my first good look at the Man. Up close, he looked more like an electrical tower than a person, because you couldn't really see the head from the bottom. He was covered in neon tubing, little twinkling LEDs, ribbons of reflective fabric, and luminous paint. When they lit him up after sundown, he looked like a giant carnival ride, although Median said he wasn't going to move until the last night, just before they burned him down.
After staring at the Man for a while, we wandered around some more. There was always something going on - we saw a group of girls in mylar ballet costumes dancing to what I eventually recognized as the Sugar Plum Fairy dance number from The Nutcracker, sped up and almost obscured by booming drums. Later on, Median took us to a smaller tower that looked like a silver tree and introduced us to some people he knew from a website in California. I found out that after Burning Man he was going to the University of California at Berkeley to study computer science. I was impressed - I'd always found math hard, only Median said it wasn't really like math, but more like speaking another language or a secret code. Inri and Phenex were also going to Berkeley; she was going to be taking Peace and Conflict Studies, and Phenex was planning to study Rhetoric. That kind of surprised me, because Phenex didn't really talk much, although he was always giving you looks that made you think he'd said something anyway.
Median's friends were kind of cool, although my father would have disapproved because a lot of them said they were witches, although the way they said it sounded like "witches", if that makes any sense. Like they were just calling themselves that, but it wasn't really the right word because the right word hadn't been invented yet. Fata Morgana, a tiny woman with black hair and henna tattoos all over her face and hands, took me into her tent and gave me a tarot reading. I felt a little uneasy, because fortune-telling was a sin, but she was being so nice I didn't want to say no. Her (huge!) tent was draped with black velvet inside so no light and very little noise could get in from outside, and she had small lanterns with bulbs inside that changed colour hanging at each corner. There was incense burning in a small brass pot hanging from the ceiling - it smelled like violets and cloves and made my eyes sting a little. She poured some cold, mint-flavoured tea into tiny glasses, then we sat down in the middle of the floor on big, soft pillows, and she laid the cards out on a bright yellow scarf.
In a triangle pointing towards me, Fata put down "The Heirophant," (upside-down), "The Chariot", and "The Ace of Swords". In another triangle facing herself, she put down "The Star," "The Sun," and "Judgment," which looked a lot like how Dad said the Rapture would be. She frowned and said that I'd just liberated myself from an oppressive authority figure through an act of will (which was true, although I wouldn't have gotten all that far if Median hadn't picked me up), and that I would be "Awakening to my inner light." I wasn't sure what she meant, and the incense was really starting to make my eyes sting, so I just nodded and thanked her and went back outside. I didn't notice Median go into her tent, but about fifteen minutes later he came out and as soon as he saw me he gave me another one of those big lopsided grins of his and two thumbs up.
19.3.07
Ain't Got no Money and I Ain't Got no Hair
So... in a potentially regrettable burst of enthusiasm / lapse of judgment, I decided to sign up for U of C's HeadShave 2007 for cancer research / awareness. Ever since then, I've been pulling my hair back and trying to see if there's any sort of weird bumps on the less-visible portions of my skull and hoping to all the gods that I'll end up looking more like Natalie Portman in _V for Vendetta_ and less like Britney Spears in rehab / the loony bin. In either case, I'm somewhat curious to see what it'll look like growing out, as I haven't seen my natural hair colour since 1990.
I've also been amusing myself with various outrageous lies in response to the inevitable question of why I shaved my head. I mean, the cancer fundraising answer is certainly worthy and reasonable, but I also like some of the following:
1. (on a day I'm wearing my tricorn hat) "Arr... to get rid of th' lice!"
2. "I've converted to Buddhism." (which, for those of you familiar with my dilatory and meandering search for Truth (TM) is alarmingly plausible, at least until you factor in how snarly I get on a vegetarian diet)
3. "I needed to prepare for my upcoming trepanation."
4. "I had to sell my hair to pay my gambling debts."
5. "Lost a bet. Don't want to talk about it."
6. "I've joined the Hare Krishnas. Want to buy a flower?"
7. "I didn't - it just all fell out last night. Damnedest thing."
8. "Tried giving myself a haircut. Don't want to talk about it."
9. "Got attacked by a trichophage. Don't want to talk about it."
I've also been amusing myself with various outrageous lies in response to the inevitable question of why I shaved my head. I mean, the cancer fundraising answer is certainly worthy and reasonable, but I also like some of the following:
1. (on a day I'm wearing my tricorn hat) "Arr... to get rid of th' lice!"
2. "I've converted to Buddhism." (which, for those of you familiar with my dilatory and meandering search for Truth (TM) is alarmingly plausible, at least until you factor in how snarly I get on a vegetarian diet)
3. "I needed to prepare for my upcoming trepanation."
4. "I had to sell my hair to pay my gambling debts."
5. "Lost a bet. Don't want to talk about it."
6. "I've joined the Hare Krishnas. Want to buy a flower?"
7. "I didn't - it just all fell out last night. Damnedest thing."
8. "Tried giving myself a haircut. Don't want to talk about it."
9. "Got attacked by a trichophage. Don't want to talk about it."
8.3.07
And See Ye Not Yon Bonny Road? (Mage)
Phenex rubs his jaw, then rakes his fingers impatiently through his dreads.
"Could warn a brother, Median. You know that shit makes my teeth ache."
Median grins at him, looking not at all contrite.
"Sorry 'bout that."
"Mind filling me in? Inri might be willing to take in strays for no reason, but considering she's a sleeper and underage, I've got a suspicion there's another reason we're keeping the kid."
The other man stares out the window, his eyes briefly turning the colour of a funnel cloud.
"It's highly likely that she's going to awaken. Best guess would be sometime in the next week, give or take a couple of days. Somehow I don't think Child Services is equipped to deal with that."
"Shit. So why not tell Inri?"
"Because I'm going to do something that'll make it a virtual certainty, and I know she won't approve."
* * * * * * * *
I don't know what I was expecting. Although really, even if I'd been expecting something, it wouldn't have been what I was expecting, if that makes any sense.
Around two on the second day of driving, we turned off the main highway onto a dusty side road. For another hour, there was nothing to see except cracked, sun-baked ground and the occasional piece of bleached wood, bone, or a tumbleweed spinning along. Then I saw something glittering in the distance.
"What's that?"
"Wait."
The others were all grinning. Inri looked like she was about to start bouncing up and down like a little kid. So I squinted out the front window for the next half hour, watching the gleam ahead spread out and upwards, although the heat shimmering up from the sand still kept me from making out exactly what it was. Once, I saw a man zoom across the road on what looked like an easy chair slung between two motorcycles, trailing multicoloured streamers behind him.
Finally, I could see RVs, buses, geodesic domes, tents, antennae, and the huge skeletal steel form of a man towering above everything else. Median turned to me and grinned wildly, his spiky blond hair seemingly standing on end with excitement.
"Welcome to Burning Man."
* * * * * * * *
For the first couple of hours after we'd found a spot to park the van and set up the tents and camp beds, I just wandered around aimlessly. I made sure to note the landmarks along my route, so that I could find my way back to the others if I got lost. It was still overwhelming though. I'd never been to a place like this or seen people like these before - it kind of reminded me of pictures in old National Geographic magazines of tribespeople in Africa, except instead of bones and feathers and cowhide the people here were done up in fiber optic cable and bubble wrap and computer parts. They were all really friendly though - even more so when they found out it was the first time I'd been there. And it wasn't the skeevy sort of friendly that guys at the bar put on when they're trying to get me to go home with them either - I don't think most of the people I met had any ulterior motives besides making sure that I was having a good time.
"Could warn a brother, Median. You know that shit makes my teeth ache."
Median grins at him, looking not at all contrite.
"Sorry 'bout that."
"Mind filling me in? Inri might be willing to take in strays for no reason, but considering she's a sleeper and underage, I've got a suspicion there's another reason we're keeping the kid."
The other man stares out the window, his eyes briefly turning the colour of a funnel cloud.
"It's highly likely that she's going to awaken. Best guess would be sometime in the next week, give or take a couple of days. Somehow I don't think Child Services is equipped to deal with that."
"Shit. So why not tell Inri?"
"Because I'm going to do something that'll make it a virtual certainty, and I know she won't approve."
* * * * * * * *
I don't know what I was expecting. Although really, even if I'd been expecting something, it wouldn't have been what I was expecting, if that makes any sense.
Around two on the second day of driving, we turned off the main highway onto a dusty side road. For another hour, there was nothing to see except cracked, sun-baked ground and the occasional piece of bleached wood, bone, or a tumbleweed spinning along. Then I saw something glittering in the distance.
"What's that?"
"Wait."
The others were all grinning. Inri looked like she was about to start bouncing up and down like a little kid. So I squinted out the front window for the next half hour, watching the gleam ahead spread out and upwards, although the heat shimmering up from the sand still kept me from making out exactly what it was. Once, I saw a man zoom across the road on what looked like an easy chair slung between two motorcycles, trailing multicoloured streamers behind him.
Finally, I could see RVs, buses, geodesic domes, tents, antennae, and the huge skeletal steel form of a man towering above everything else. Median turned to me and grinned wildly, his spiky blond hair seemingly standing on end with excitement.
"Welcome to Burning Man."
* * * * * * * *
For the first couple of hours after we'd found a spot to park the van and set up the tents and camp beds, I just wandered around aimlessly. I made sure to note the landmarks along my route, so that I could find my way back to the others if I got lost. It was still overwhelming though. I'd never been to a place like this or seen people like these before - it kind of reminded me of pictures in old National Geographic magazines of tribespeople in Africa, except instead of bones and feathers and cowhide the people here were done up in fiber optic cable and bubble wrap and computer parts. They were all really friendly though - even more so when they found out it was the first time I'd been there. And it wasn't the skeevy sort of friendly that guys at the bar put on when they're trying to get me to go home with them either - I don't think most of the people I met had any ulterior motives besides making sure that I was having a good time.
5.3.07
The Lady Vanishes (Mage)
"So where are we going again?"
Median gave me a lopsided grin over his hamburger.
"Black Rock City, Nevada."
"Yeah, but it's not on the road map..."
"That's because it's only there sometimes. When the stars are right..."
The weedy black guy called Phenex snickered, then tried to cover it up with a theatrical show of choking on a french fry. Inri, a classic hippie type with long blonde hair and a huge duffel bag full of floaty tie-dyed clothes, smiled absently and looked out the window.
"Seriously, though - it'll be fun. And it's not like you had any other plans, right?"
"Well, no -"
Inri's gaze snapped back to me, pinning me to the sticky vinyl seat.
"I'd like to hear more about how you came to be on the highway in such a state. I know; you said you're running away from your dad, but there's more, isn't there? I mean, you don't even have another change of clothes with you. What, specifically, happened to make you leave?"
And for some reason I told them. Everything I could remember, anyway - even the stuff that seemed like a bizarre nightmare. And they just sat there, not even touching their food, and nobody laughed or interrupted or said I was crazy. At the end, Phenex swore under his breath and drained his now-cold cup of coffee. Inri nodded slowly and reached across the table to rest her hand on my arm.
"Rosemary... has your father behaved strangely before this? Have he or his deacons ever harrassed people for no reason or committed other violent acts?"
"Well, he beat up this one guy in Lubbock because he said the guy had some sort of mark on him. I thought maybe it was a Satanic tattoo or something, but he'd never done anything like that before Mom left..."
"What kind of mark was it? Do you remember exactly what he said?"
"Some kind of tower... an iron tower?"
Median looked at Inri, and I got the impression that they wanted me to leave, so I went to the ladies' room for a few minutes and read the graffiti on the walls.
* * * * * * * *
"We're fucked," Median mutters.
"Not necessarily," Phenex replies. "The van's warded, so her trail will have gone cold where we picked her up."
"And by the sounds of it, his little cabal is fairly isolated. They're dangerous in their own territory, but beyond that they probably don't have contact with other, more organized Banisher groups. From what Rosemary told us, it sounds like he's an Obrimos, which means that unless he's figured out how to cultivate other arcana, he doesn't have access to anything that might lead him to her. Or us." Inri smiles at him reassuringly.
Median pulls out his calculator and starts punching in numbers furiously. There's a faint, high-pitched whine that could be mistaken by a casual observer for some mechanical problem with the air conditioner. After a few moments, he relaxes, his shoulders dropping.
"Okay. Okay - you're right. The odds are - I won't say infinitesimal, but acceptably low that he'll be able to track her. And once we hit Black Rock, there's going to be so much background noise that she'd have to be broadcasting like a goddamn radio tower to attract any sort of attention at all. And even then, it's our kind of people there."
"We're cool then?"
"Yeah, we're cool."
"I'd better go fetch her from the bathroom then."
Median gave me a lopsided grin over his hamburger.
"Black Rock City, Nevada."
"Yeah, but it's not on the road map..."
"That's because it's only there sometimes. When the stars are right..."
The weedy black guy called Phenex snickered, then tried to cover it up with a theatrical show of choking on a french fry. Inri, a classic hippie type with long blonde hair and a huge duffel bag full of floaty tie-dyed clothes, smiled absently and looked out the window.
"Seriously, though - it'll be fun. And it's not like you had any other plans, right?"
"Well, no -"
Inri's gaze snapped back to me, pinning me to the sticky vinyl seat.
"I'd like to hear more about how you came to be on the highway in such a state. I know; you said you're running away from your dad, but there's more, isn't there? I mean, you don't even have another change of clothes with you. What, specifically, happened to make you leave?"
And for some reason I told them. Everything I could remember, anyway - even the stuff that seemed like a bizarre nightmare. And they just sat there, not even touching their food, and nobody laughed or interrupted or said I was crazy. At the end, Phenex swore under his breath and drained his now-cold cup of coffee. Inri nodded slowly and reached across the table to rest her hand on my arm.
"Rosemary... has your father behaved strangely before this? Have he or his deacons ever harrassed people for no reason or committed other violent acts?"
"Well, he beat up this one guy in Lubbock because he said the guy had some sort of mark on him. I thought maybe it was a Satanic tattoo or something, but he'd never done anything like that before Mom left..."
"What kind of mark was it? Do you remember exactly what he said?"
"Some kind of tower... an iron tower?"
Median looked at Inri, and I got the impression that they wanted me to leave, so I went to the ladies' room for a few minutes and read the graffiti on the walls.
* * * * * * * *
"We're fucked," Median mutters.
"Not necessarily," Phenex replies. "The van's warded, so her trail will have gone cold where we picked her up."
"And by the sounds of it, his little cabal is fairly isolated. They're dangerous in their own territory, but beyond that they probably don't have contact with other, more organized Banisher groups. From what Rosemary told us, it sounds like he's an Obrimos, which means that unless he's figured out how to cultivate other arcana, he doesn't have access to anything that might lead him to her. Or us." Inri smiles at him reassuringly.
Median pulls out his calculator and starts punching in numbers furiously. There's a faint, high-pitched whine that could be mistaken by a casual observer for some mechanical problem with the air conditioner. After a few moments, he relaxes, his shoulders dropping.
"Okay. Okay - you're right. The odds are - I won't say infinitesimal, but acceptably low that he'll be able to track her. And once we hit Black Rock, there's going to be so much background noise that she'd have to be broadcasting like a goddamn radio tower to attract any sort of attention at all. And even then, it's our kind of people there."
"We're cool then?"
"Yeah, we're cool."
"I'd better go fetch her from the bathroom then."
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