14: Group Participation

"Lulu!"

"What!"

"Grab my sweatshirt!"

"Where is it!?"

"It's in the bin!"

Our clothes were in large tupperware bins. We were told it was better to use bins, easier to organize and better at keeping out the dust, but none of that made sense to me. The clothes are in the bin, which isn't airtight anyway, then you take the supposed playafree clothes out and then you, that's right, put them on your dust covered skin and then walk out into a windstorm. Yeah the bins are big help that way! But the argument for plastic bins over the usual backpacks we use for camping is that out here on the playa, the backpacks would get ingrained with playadust. Cause the shit is everywhere.

I stood straddling my bike as tents rattled and shifted. Lights flashed behind the blue nylon as G and Wags rustled within one, and Lu wrestled with the zipper on our home. Siv was rummaging around in a cooler and he came up two handed and grinning. The beer arc to my hand made me smile. We toasted from a distance.

We were making a pit stop at the camp in the middle of our Thursday night playajam. We'd been to The Edge, we'd been to the Man, we'd been through The Maze and now it was time to refuel. Five fresh Sierras laid in ice in the small, soft cooler strapped to rack on the back on my bike. My headlamp was on. I was ready to go.

"LET'S DO THIS PEOPLE!" I shouted into the camp. "THE PLAYA ISN'T GOING TO ENJOY ITSELF!"

"Not again!" I heard G call from his tent. "You have to come up with something else to say!"

"Tell it to the beer 'cause the Bones don't care. LET'S GETTA MOOVONIT!"

"I can't find your sweatshirt!" Lu called to me, exasperated.

"Forget it!" I hollered back. "Let's just get going."

"You know," Mish said to me, "you're kind of impatient sometimes."

"Oh, thank you, that's so nice of you to say! WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG?"

They both laughed and then Siv did a hop skip while Mish did the crazy bike wiggle funny face fun time let's go dance now!

"I can't believe you guys rode up right then," Mish told me.

"We were really right about to leave," Siv added.

I took a big sigh to pull in the delicious dust and then blew it out as my eyes lidded over and the awesomeness of perfect timing washed through me and I said "It was great. It was perfect. I'm so glad we get to all do this together tonight! BUT WE HAVE TO GET MOVE ON IT IF WE'RE GOING TO HAVE ANY FUCKING FUN ON THIS FINE THURSDAY NIGHT!"

"Bones. God! Just relax they're almost ready," Lu said to me as she walked up and tossed me my sweatshirt.

"Thanks baby," said to her and snatched a kiss as she mounted her bike. I watched happily. Then G and Wags strolled back into view from the dark corners of Curvas. In seconds we were gone 'cause there was so much more to see.

I was suprised to find us passing the roller disco again. I figured we would have checked it out before now, and yet once again, we rode by. There were a few people out there, but not many. And the idea of getting off the bike, slipping off the Crocs and strapping on the skates just seemed like such a process when we were already well on our way back to the playamadness. The din of party called us.

Out on the Esplanade we finally stopped at the ginormous art we'd passed time and again the last 24 hours. It was large. It was at 6oclock, right in the center of the curve. It was at least seventy feet tall. Three arms hung off and down from the central trunk. They jutted out about twenty feet, and hung down about thirty feet. At the bottom of each large arm was a large boulder. A rock. Three of them at least ten feet wide. These three boulders were at the bottom of three hefty arms all attached to a large central trunk. The arms with their rocks spun from the top of the trunk. Hanging from the bottom of each rock was a rope. The rope was around ten or twelve feet long. If you stood up and grabbed it, you could pull on the rope and make the three arms turn and the other people hanging from the other ropes could turn upside down or swing like monkeys or help out by running around in the circle too and make the whole damn thing turn like hell. G hung upside down for at least four rotations. Lu couldn't reach the rope so I lifted her. Then I pulled hard, making the whole damn thing rotate but not nearly as fast as I thought we could, and when I was done I was tired. Only working together made it fun.

Up the road a bit was a lifesized game of Operation. We had played it the first night and smiled again as we passed it. The thing was in perfect proportions. The paintjob was exact. The funnybone and butterfly and breadbox and monkeywrench were all there, nestled in their red crevaces, surrounded by a form-fitting ring of metal beneath the yellow plywood painted surface. The nose was a rudolph-red nose. The operee was plump, naked and wide-eyed, just like in the small, original version. And when you took the salad tongs wrapped in rubber and saw the wires running over to the car battery, you knew it was going to hurt when you missed. Many did. But Lu scored four in a row. I matched her, but couldn't take it over the top. Instead, on the last one, reaching across for the funnybone after a quick buzz, I just went for it and pegged the tongs to the the metal edge and pretended to be shocked so hard my body stated to flip out, but I was only kidding. They mostly knew that.

"We played that last night, too," Mish told me as we rode and I relayed our Operation Experience of the previous eve.

Then we came to the Thunderdome. We'd passed it a few times, but this was our first upclose experience with this particular dome. I was captivated. Seeing the humans strung from the interlocking triangles, just sitting up there on the dome, looking down, watching the action, well there was just no place else I could be. I dropped my bike on top of Lu's and everyone else's and I headed directly upwards.

From behind, I heard Wags say, "It's much better if we just all pile the bikes together. Harder to..." but I was at the PVC. I gripped the cool white cylinder, reached for the one above, pulled my left foot, and then I began to climb.

The Thunderdome was filled with freaks hanging from every junction. I passed three rows of people before finding a niche to tuck in to. Below I saw Lu and Mish begin to work their way in to the crowd surrounding the bottom perimeter. Then the fights began. They did it just like the movie.

Black-clad, pissed off large dudes brought the contenders out with shouting and fanfare. The guys were strapped in around the legs and hung from straps across their backs. The surly men running the show pulled each guy back so his feet were off the ground and then they let them fly. In their hands were large, black q-tips, but the tips weren't all the q, and when they came flying at each other, it got harsh. Boffo sticks were swung hard. Heads were rocked back. Blows to the bodies delivered grunts and groans as they struggled almost suspended on large rubber bungie bands. Whenever their limbs would tangle too much, the leather clad thundebouncers would wrangle in and pull the contestants apart and then pull them back and let them fly one more time at each other's faces. It was brutal mayhem, and I was happy to be a freak above, instead of a brute within. But it was all of us there together that made it ridiculous and edgy. We shouted. The swinging sticks and thuds against bodies. The guys who set it up roaming, scowling. The glowing neon sign at the top of the dome. The playa behind littered with roving forms of freaky glow and artcars that barely missed taking the life of a human that worshipped it at high speed.

I got the shout and it was time to go. Five pink oval faces looked up at me and I began to climb down. The night was going off and once back on the bikes and riding down the esplanade, I marvled at the fact that we didn't all just pile up into one huge bike accident, over and over again. That somehow despite lyseric acid and liquor, despite pot and shots and way too many bikes and all the insane distractions, that somehow, together we just barely slipped by grazing atoms already thick with dusty friction to slide on through the night and roll right by one another to the next inclusive adventure that we of Burning Man had to offer to each other.