Playa Dust in the Bedouin

She shook her head. "A few more glasses of that and I would be a wine-drunk sister, in dire need of a diabetic testing kit." Olivia took a deep sniff. "God, that smells so good. I've been hanging out with Gloria so much and she's a vegetarian. I don't think I've had steak in months."

"Vegetarian, huh? We'll have to plan for that with our meals."

Olivia gave a small shrug. "Once we get there I'm not sure how many of us will be in camp together at one time anyway. With twenty-four-seven parties and all the cool art activities that are going on, we might be just wandering in to grab something and pass out. Least ways that is what Victoria said she did a lot of last year. I so badly wish she was going to be able to be there. You would love her. She is such a sweetheart, but will mother you to death if you let her."

Chuckling, I put the meat on a plate and shut off the grill. "I had a staff sergeant that was the same way."

My sister followed me back into the kitchen. "Wow."

"What?" I paused in mid-step.

"My brother just mentioned something about his time in the military." She parked her butt on the bar stool by the breakfast nook table where I normally take my morning coffee. "It's not a first, true, but it's as rare as finding hen's teeth."

I gave a dismissive shrug and began to slice the steak to toss into the frying pan with the peppers. "I went where they sent me. Did what they told me. And came back home when they let me." I paused in mid-slice. "Sorry, but I really don't like remembering some of the things I saw, so I don't bring it up."

She absently played with the packs of sweetener on the table. "Might help to talk about it. Not with me, but maybe with someone ... you know professional."

With a mild snort, I drizzled oil into the pan. It was nearly hot enough. "I'm about as sane as I ever was. No need to go giving a psychiatrist nightmares listening to me talking about stuff that's past." I looked over at the cooker. "Check the rice for me. The little green light there says it's done, but it might not be to your liking."

She rolled her eyes and got to her feet. "Changing the subject. Same as always."

Dropping a double handful of peppers into the hot oil, I shrugged. "I come by it honestly."

"Yeah, from Dad. He's the world's worst about never talking about things he doesn't want to." She dug a fork through the rice. "You at least don't vanish out the door and go bowling every time something awkward comes up."

"I was always more partial to shooting pool," I mumbled, pushing the peppers around to make sure they cooked evenly. "Easier to carry a pool cue than a sixteen-pound bowling ball."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." I left the stove and went to the fridge. I fished out two beers and popped them open on the metal opener above the trash can. "Lugging around that heavy bag? A second set of shoes? That's just crazy talk."

Sitting the second beer on the kitchen island, I slid it across to her.

With a shake of her head, she took a sip. Then a second. "Well, your taste in wine is horrible, but this is a really great beer."

"Like I said, a friend left it." Shrugging, I took a sip of my own much darker stout. "So tell me about Gloria, the vegetarian."

Olivia watched me go back to cooking knowing I had successfully switched topics. "You're not getting in her pants. She's my age and into younger men ... who will talk about their feelings."

Grabbing the steak, I added it and then went to work on building a thicker sauce in one corner of the pan. "Never know. It's going to be a long week out there in the desert and the nights will get awful cold."

My sister shook her head. "Nope. Not a chance."

Grabbing a large bowl, I tossed the food all together and dumped it, steaming, into the bowl. "Stranger things have happened. And besides I'm a great cook."

"Vegan, remember?" She brought the rice over to the table.

"I can manage vegetables. I grew up with you didn't I?"

The look she gave me was worth it.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

( Day 1)

The headlights made the road before me seem to stretch out into infinity. Appearing from the darkness, never-ending pavement that vanished beneath us, only to reappear. Only the odd bit of rock, scrub brush, or sun-faded signage marking the miles changed the looped image.

Olivia was asleep beside me, her seat leaned way back. The occasional light snore rising above the sounds of the road.

With seven hours of driving behind me, I was feeling the miles weighing down my eyelids.

I was about to give in and pull over for a nap when ahead of me I saw a line of red lights beginning to build. Like a train of crimson stars, they snaked through the hills and valleys ahead of my half-circle of lights. In the distance, maybe a few miles further away, I saw the lights tightening up, then bend around a sharp turn. I had to slow as I closed on this snaky procession of breaking vehicles. The van was nearly at a rolling stop when I saw the signs for a turn-off appearing ahead.

"Are we there yet?" Olivia mumbled next to me, half awake.

I eased us to a stop ten feet behind a popup camper trailer, being towed by a Suburban. "Looks like we're getting close."

"What time is it?" She half turned in the seat.

I glanced at my phone on the console beside me. "About 2:30. Sorry, 3:30, I forgot about the time change."

My sister mumbled an acknowledgment. "Wake me when we get to the entrance." She turned away, snuggling deeper into her pillow against the window.

"Sure."

Moving at the speed of a rum-drunk sloth, we eased around the corner and left the paved road for compacted gravel and desert sands. The trailer lights ahead of me gave a small lurch and then we did the same. I heard some gear shift around in the van behind me. I looked in the side mirror and watched the trailer we were hauling pass the rut in the road easily. There were already two cars piling in behind us and another joining that growing line.

We topped a small hillock and rounded a curve. Ahead of me, I saw the line of red brake lights stretching off for miles.

With a sigh, I eased us forward a foot more. "I'm betting you get a good long rest, sis."

Her soft snore was my only answer.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Apparently, a zombie can drive a van. "Brains ... brains... ."

Five hours later, with slow surges of a few hundred feet at a time, we finally approached the multiple gates. The long line in front of me had become a widening flood of red lights till - a few hours back - dawn broke revealing the huge number of vehicles spreading out before us.

"Jesus," my sister whispered.

Glancing, over I saw that Olivia had finally awoken. How anyone could sleep through that many stops and starts and the sun blazing into the windshield is beyond me. But then, even as a kid, my sister could sleep through an airstrike.

"I wasn't expecting this," she mumbled. Turning, she stuffed the pillow behind her among our piled luggage. "This many cars! It's insane."

I shrugged. "Eighty thousand plus people takes a lot of transportation to move. This is really pretty impressive that they can manage this many people with any kind of organization. It could be chaos so easily."

Olivia pointed at the seemingly endless lines of cars in the dust. "This isn't chaos?"

Shaking my head, I eased us forward toward the tall flags another few feet. "No, not even close. I've seen chaos. This is simply crowded, dusty, and slow." I chuckled. "Toss in a few dozen camels and a couple of trucks filled full of refugees and I've seen this same thing on a dozen roads in Iraq."

Suddenly my sister sat up. "Hey, is that Jim's truck?"

Looking ahead to where she was pointing I saw a truck that at least looked kind of familiar. Before I could say anything Olivia threw open her door and went running ahead to say hello. With a sigh, I reached over and pulled her door back closed. It must have been them because she walked along beside the truck for a few feet as we moved forward again. Although we seemed to be moving in inches, those rows of flags seemed to advance much quicker now.

Gazing out over the cluster of over-packed cars spread out ten lanes wide, I remembered a similar sight. A column of refugees fleeing the madness that was an endless war. My eyes darted to the sides of the road with a hard-won reflex. I hunted and searched the sandy ground looking for disturbed places where an IED had been buried. It was several moments before I could make myself stop and then I was visibly trembling. I tightened my hands on the truck's steering wheel till my knuckles whitened.

The person appearing suddenly at my driver's side window about gave me a coronary!

She made a rolling down motion ... and, ironically, this van is old enough that you have to actually roll the window down by hand.

"Only one in the vehicle? Do you have your ticket?" she asked, pulling down a dusty mask enough for me to hear.

I fished our tickets out of the console next to me. "It's two. My sister ran up there to our friend's truck to say hi."

She looked ahead to where I was pointing, frowned, and then with a wave of her hand caught someone's attention and - using a few hand signals I recognized - directed him to Olivia. The man walked over to my sister quickly.

"Please stay in the vehicle unless directed to get out," she told me as she looked over my tickets but didn't take them. "Decal is in place, you get two brownie points for that and these look good. Hang on to them. Miss," she raised her voice as my sister was escorted back to the passenger side door. "... we do ask that you stay inside the vehicle till you get to the greeters. It's dusty out here, people can't see and they will run over you."

My sister huddled in on herself a bit, then pointed out the windshield at the guy walking away. "That's what he said. I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Virgins. Great." She muttered with a mild hint of harassed disgust, then she looked back at me. "Please stay between the cones. If you run over my cones you will piss me off. Just up ahead your van and trailer will be searched. Then they will move you forward."

With a nod, she left us to go to the car behind us.

Sticking the tickets back where they had been, I rolled the window back up, looked over, and realized there was a film of dust over everything in the cab already.

"Wow." Olivia reached up and wrote her name in the dust on the dashboard in front of her.

"Yep, going to need to take a leaf blower to this thing next week just to get the dust out of everything. Been there done that before." I eased us forward. Ahead I could see that several vans, a couple of RVs and some tow-behind camping trailers had been opened up and people were rummaging around inside checking on things. The list of what not to bring - that I had so religiously insisted everyone who was going to camp with us follow to the letter - was suddenly going to become very important to the speed of our forward progress.

Not that our forward progress wasn't being measured in inches.

I'm sure it wasn't an hour later when I pulled up to the vehicle check, it just felt like it was. For me though, it wasn't the fact that a person I had never met was about to open up my van, and trailer and then search through everything that I had brought that got me suddenly excited.

It was the fact that a big truck moved and I saw the square phone booth shape of a port-a-let.

A guy in a black vest came up to my door. "Alright, we're going to have to take a quick look inside, if you don't mind. Even if you do mind for that matter. If you can open it up for us."

"Sure thing." Hopping out, I opened the twin panel-style back doors on this old cargo panel van, then walked around and threw open the latch arm for the trailer. "If my sister stays here to help you, do you mind if I walk over to that little tan box? My eyes are floating and I feel like I'm about to take a ten-two hundred."

The fellow chuckled. "By all means. We'll check your load while you go leave a load."

"Thanks. Olivia! I'll be right back."

She waved me on as she moved into the back and mostly got in their way by trying to find something in one of her pink Rubbermaids while they searched for the things we shouldn't have brought.

Trying to look like I was not doing a latrine sprint, while I sprinted for the latrine, was a very valuable skill I had learned in the military. It involves ridged disciple and a clenched spinster muscle you couldn't drive a steel pen into. And, when I got there, it was all of that I had come to expect from overly used public facilities, worldwide. Still, I had important paperwork that needed to be filed and beggars can't be choosers, as it where.

By the time I got back, they were closing up the trailer and Olivia was sitting in the passenger seat in a royal funk over something. As I walked up the guy I had first met closed the back of the van.

"Everything come out alright?" he asked with a grin. He shot a thumb towards the closed door. "Ex-military, am I right? I can always tell," he said at my nod. "You probably know to within an inch where everything inside there is stowed. If you get bored this week come see us here at the Gate. We can always use volunteers that are organized."

I gave a shrug and an answering grin. "I've got seven newbie campers to watch after for the next week. Bored I'm not sure I will have time to get. But, I'll keep it in mind."

He patted my shoulder and moved to the next dusty vehicle waiting for its search.

As I hopped back inside, I saw a lady in a similar black vest waving a set of flags gesturing for us to move ahead. What she was doing was more interpretive dance than semaphore, but I got her meaning and eased forward now following a line of small flags.

"I couldn't find my tiara."

Trying to keep an eye on the ill-defined road and look over at my sister, my gaze went to the top of her head. "Um..." I pointed with my chin.

My sister gave me a look "I mean my gold one!"

"Oh." Following flag girl's directions, I headed over towards a line of white sail-like canvas wedges with colored flags atop them. Cars were parked between them and people were getting out. I saw a dozen people being hugged and as I got closer I could hear bells ringing. "Um, you wrapped it into a blue scarf, if I remember right. Same box as you put the white dress and pink Tutu."

My sister gave me an odd look all the way till we pulled up between two of the white wedges.

"Yea! You're here! Get out, get out, get out!"

A man that would be perfectly at home in either a Mad Max movie or a stage show for the Rocky Horror Picture Show appeared at my door the moment the van stopped. On the other side, a woman in rainbow colors had already half-pulled Olivia from the passenger side and was more dancing with her than hugging her.

Climbing out, I couldn't help the smile that appeared on my face. This guy's energy was infectious.

"Oh, I am so glad you are here! Can I hug you?"

At my puzzled nod, he all but slammed into me. My first thought was that his need for a bath this early into the event could be an issue before the week was out. But then I did a mental adjustment back to the hot lands of years back and the smell wasn't even bad when compared to the funk of forty thousand years I had often encountered while over there. Nothing human on this pretty blue Earth beats the piss-encrusted rear end of a camel in rut for gagging stench.

"Welcome home!" He looked me up and down. "First time here? Are you a ... virgin?"

I was about to answer when my sister called out "Yes, he is!"

The guy made a naughty naughty gesture with his fingers. "Oh, I love virgins! We have to baptize you in the playa. You do know you're going to get dirty this week, right? Why not start now! Dust angels!"

Laughing at him, as much as anything, I followed him over to a place where the dust looked to have been disturbed a few hundred times. My sister was already there, down on the ground making an angel in the dust. When she flipped over onto her belly I saw that Olivia had dust all over her ass now.

"Lay down, lay down, and let the dust bring you home. The dust is magical!" Reaching down, he scooped up two handfuls and tossed them high making a miniature fog of dust drift off towards the center of the camp. "The very breath of life."

Humoring him, I laid down full length upon the warm dusty ground. I made a wide-armed angel then turned over. I breathed in the powdery dust.

My adrenaline spiked.

For a few scant seconds my heart raced, my hands clenched into fists, and I felt a long remembered and familiar panic flash through me! I had to convince myself that I was in a tank top and shorts rather than dusty tan BDUs. That my baseball cap wasn't my Kevlar cover. Then another sudden flash of terror that I didn't have my rifle had to be dealt with.

Pushing up, I hid what I was feeling. I went over and rang the bell. I watched my sister do the same. Saw the happy joy on her face as she screamed out "I'm a burner!"

I thanked the man as I took my map, hand booklet, and listened to his instructions about the speed limit in camp. All the while I hid what was within me at that moment.

Fear.

Fight or flight hovering right there on the edge.

Olivia was all but bouncing. "Oh, that was so much fun. I've got dust everywhere now!"

I heard her. I heard my sister and I didn't. My eyes were focused on a star-shaped scar on the back of my hand as I gripped the steering wheel.

"John?"

The smell of dust was so heavy in my nose. Chokingly heavy, so hard to breathe.

"John!"

Startled, I looked over at Olivia. For a half second, I didn't even recognize my sister. It was the look of worry on her face - so similar to our mother's look when she heard I was going to join up - which brought me back to where I was.

My sister reached over and placed her hand atop my hand. "Are you okay?"

Sucking it up, I nodded, put the van into gear, and moved out into the wide-open desert before me. I soon found myself following a small RV, but at least we were finally moving at a speed a tiny bit faster than a grandmother on her walker.

"John?"

Ignoring her concern, I changed the subject. "Look at the map and navigate us to where we're camping. I've got to keep my eyes out for stray naked hippies on bicycles."

"What is our area again?" she asked, unfolding the clock-shaped camp map.

I had to think for a second. "7:00 and H. The open camping area, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's right. I wanted to camp closer, but Victoria said it would be better for us to not have to deal with camp registration for our first year. It sucks though, we will have to bike forever to get where the big parties are."

Looking over at a line of tall brown and blue cubes. "I'm more concerned with port-a-let placement. Too close is worse than too far." I saw a street sign pointing inwards towards the tall structure in the distance that must be The Man. "There is 7:00."

Taking the turn, I saw the RV head off around the long curved dusty road.

"There's Gloria's car!" Olivia all but jumped out of her seat. "That must be H."

I shrugged "Or maybe she's just parked in the middle of nowhere; a poor vegan, lost, starving in the dust."

Olivia reached over and popped my arm. "You will not spend the whole week teasing her about her being a vegetarian."

I dodged the blows. "Alright, I won't tease her ... all week. Maybe just on the days that end in the letter Y."

"John!"

"Okay, okay." Pulling in beside the dusty Toyota RAV4, I saw the tall redhead get out and come running around to the passenger side of the van. Olivia jumped out and the two ladies hugged like they hadn't seen each other just a week ago, or so. I had hardly shut off the van when Jim pulled his truck up beside us.