Playa Dust in the Bedouin

"How about The Temple?" suggested Derrick. "They are both that way."

Given that he pointed in the general direction I had been walking when I got distracted by the sound of their torch, I was happy enough with this advice. "Thanks, again."

"No problem at all. You're in the big Bedouin tent, that just got set up this morning, right?" He pointed in the general direction of my camp. "Dude, that thing is awesome."

Realizing they thought it was an art project, not authentic, I smiled, nodded, and simply said. "Thanks."

Taking off in the direction they pointed, I soon found myself walking along with a crowd of people all seemingly headed in the same direction. The sheer variety of costumes was fun. The lack of cloth in a few places was fun too. That was when I took notice of something. I've walked in far bigger clusters of people before. In big cities, certainly in the military during parade, but this was so strange it caught my eye and struck me as profound.

It was a crowd of individuals.

No gathering of suits or uniforms to enforce a similarity upon them. Each person was as different from the ones around them as was humanly possible to be.

Over the heads of the crowd, I began to notice a tall structure appearing. As I got closer I saw it was a wooden man, his arms out at his sides. He was built atop a wooden structure to raise him higher, but I couldn't make it out too well due to the people gathering in front of me. With a hint of irritation, I headed off to the left, cutting a flanking maneuver on this mobile circus of insanity. I was nearly even with "The Man" when things began to thin out.

Looking past him, I saw the empty desert and in the distance a much larger structure. It drew my attention far more than this wooden figure did. With a need-to-know building within me, I took off hiking in that direction, but I quickly saw that the distance however was a bit deceptive. I paused at the edge of the circle of people gathering behind The Man figure and stood there watching the steady stream of bicycles heading out onto the playa.

I was about to turn around and head back to my tent when a large black hearse - with the top removed and the back filled with bench seats, and a bronze head for a hood ornament - pulled up next to me. I recognized it as an attempt at the "Death Mobile" from Animal House.

A large man in a pirate costume popped up. "Need a ride out to the Temple?" He gestured dramatically to the back seat with a cardboard and silver tape cutlass. "Plenty of room, pile in."

Sure, why not.

"Thanks." Stepping over the cut-down side, I was almost settled into the seat when into the car piled a half dozen women all wearing a mixture of black vinyl, fuzzy pink bikini tops, gold chains, and silver top hats. They all but buried me under them in a mad, half-naked, laughing rush.

"Ladies, ladies, plenty of room to go around." The Pirate looked over at the driver - a handlebar mustached man in a WWII helmet of course - twirled the fake sword over his head and shouted "Let's take the cheese!"

The girls all shrieked as a steam whistle sounded loud enough to hurt. We were then all thrown back into the seat a bit.

Somehow as we crossed the playa I acquired a beer - not my brand at all, but it was cold - and a girl wearing mostly leather straps all but magically appeared on my lap. She draped herself across me, took off my hat and placed it atop her pretty head, and smiled at me.

"You're cute." She snuggled into me a bit. The alcohol fumes seemed to all but flow off her in waves. "It gets so cold here at night. Want to be my playa friend for tonight? I need someone to keep me warm."

"Sally! You're a lesbian." One of the ladies reached over and tapped her bare shoulder. "That's a guy!"

The woman in my lap looked back at me and took a moment to make her eyes focus. "You're a guy?"

I nodded. "Last time I checked."

She pouted. "Well, damn. I don't do guys."

"Well, that's good. Neither do I." I grinned at the girl sitting across from her, who was also looking me over. "But, if I'm not going to be your boyfriend, I am gonna need my hat back."

Sally squirmed on my lap a bit. "But this is such a nice hat." As the Death Mobile lurched to a stop, she caught hold of me. "Are you really sure you're a guy?"

"Afraid so."

With a pout, she put my hat back on my head and, as the girls poured out of the car, they took her along. The one who had been across from me stopped, looked me over, and then grinned at me. "I'm not a lesbian. Find me before the week is out."

Laughing softly, I tipped my hat to her cowboy style.

Standing up, I massaged my hip a bit. The old ache. Taking up my walking stick, I made my way out of the car, thanked the driver, and then followed the girls toward the huge wooden structure.

The Temple.

As I stepped inside I felt an almost chill wash over me. There was a silence here. Not that there wasn't sound, but it was all muted. As if to speak in more than a whisper was to break some unspoken rule. And then, as I walked deeper into that silence, my eyes began to take in the many pictures.

The knowledge that I had walked into a giant memorial settled into my bones like the touch of icy fingers.

Turning, I saw hundreds of faces staring out from photos and paper clippings. Scrawled on the wood next to so many of them were words of love, longing, loss, and heartbreak. There were people gathered in small groups, often sitting together on the dusty ground. I saw many a tear run heedless down faces stricken with grief. Cutting winding river trails through a chalky makeup of dusty skin, their tears often ran unchecked. Suddenly it felt like there wasn't enough air for me to breathe.

I turned to leave only to find a man standing directly behind me. Our eyes took in each other's faces, hunting, searching for the signs only men like ourselves ... that had seen the things we had seen ... would always carry. I saw without seeing that he was former military and at least a decade older than me.

"Battle of Fallujah, first and second," he said.

He made the simple statement with zero emotion in his voice. But it was that very lack of anything that spoke so incredibly loudly in my heart. I gave a small nod, acknowledging that I knew where he had been. What he had seen.

I had to take a slow deep breath before I spoke. "Korengal Valley. Four months."

I saw him flinch. A sympathetic wince at the pain I had suffered.

Before I could make any action he stepped forward and hugged me to him. Then, without another word spoken, he placed an odd-shaped token in my hand, folded my fingers around it, and all but vanished back into the Temple. Merging into the growing crowd come to ... worship?

Morn?

Looking down, I realized I held a little brass version of The Man in my palm. He had been made from a brass bullet casing, hammered flat and shaped with a grinder ... from what I could tell. It had a leather lanyard. Too short for a necklace, but perfect for a bracelet. Looking across the playa to the tall wooden figure in the distance, I absently slipped this charm over my wrist and, with my mind full of old thoughts, started back across the desert toward my camp.

I badly needed that nap ... but I also knew sleep was going to be hard to come by.

Step by step I crossed the open playa. As alone as I had ever been, even when I was surrounded by so many people.

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

I awoke from my nap in a rush that sent me flipping off of the thick foam mattress and onto the oriental rug. Huffing in playa dust, I groped for my service rifle, then - hearing the shell about to land close - I curled up against the rug my hands covering my head. Gasping, I counted the half-seconds I had left in my life.

The loud roar of the exploding ripped open the sky, shook the heavens, and a second later an almighty roar leaped up to meet the titanic sound.

Cheering?

Slowly uncurling, I stayed hunkered down on the floor and looked out into the tent. It was thankfully empty of my fellow campers. I was about to push myself to my feet when I heard another shell scream into the sky.

Looking out the open partition and through the rolled-up side of the tent, I saw a bright pattern of colored light blaze its way across the windshield of my van and Gloria's car. Shaking, I managed to pull myself up till I was half laying across the wrinkled, sweat-soaked sheets on my bed. I stayed there for far too long listening to the sounds of celebration so perfectly mimic the sounds of war.

"Just fireworks, John. Just fireworks." Rocking a bit, I gave myself a tight hug.

My sister's voice cut through the panic but then added additional layers."Are you okay? Did you fall out of bed?"

I couldn't will myself to answer.

"John?"

My fists tightened, white-knuckled in the damn sheets. "I'm, alright. Just leave me be. I'll be fine in a minute."

"John?"

I could hear her getting closer. "Please... just leave... Olivia."

A huge double explosion shook the very air around us. I couldn't help the cry of panic that left me. My teeth gritted together, and I all but snarled at my sister as she stepped too close to me. Olivia pulled back but then eased herself past me, and sat down on the bed before me.

"John? It's just me. Just me."

A rapid series of pops sounded so much like gunfire I had to physically restrain myself from diving back to the floor. When her hand came to rest on mine my eyes popped open and I looked a hole into her face from two feet away.

"Please... ," I begged. "leave ... ."

Olivia's fingers curled around mine. "I'm not leaving you like this. I'll just sit here and hold your hand."

I'm not quite sure just how long the fireworks display outside lasted. Probably not more than a few more minutes, but to me it was the midnight mortar barrage coming in over the Hesco sand barriers to land among us. To send friends screaming for cover. To make the dark of night bright as day with the flares they used to show their snipers where we were.

Slowly, without me being really aware of her doing it, Olivia had moved herself around till she was sitting in front of me, and I was all but laying across her lap, my face resting against her bare thigh. Her arms hugged me tight and she held me, much like our mother would have.

Blessedly, the overhead display finally ended. Music, hard pounding music filled the night. Oddly enough it was such a familiar thing as bass-heavy techno music that began to bring me back to a sense of calm. That and the soft contact with Olivia's skin. It was also around that time that I began to take real notice of just what my sister was wearing. How little there was to it, and just how awkward close a position my face was in.

Minimal silver cloth bikini, with a fuzzy fur coat that looked like someone had fleeced a pink sheep. Looking up, I saw a silvery tiara atop her head. Her eyes looked at me softly.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Want to talk about it?" She squeezed my hand.

I shook my head.

She sighed. "I came back here to get my cup and a folding chair. I found a bar - not far from here - and I was going to sit there and listen to music and just hang out with people. Come with me. They have the beer you drink, it's free, and no one will bother you. I promise. They're good people." She got to her feet and, leaning over, put her hands under my arms. "Come on. I'm not going to take no for an answer."

Judging that I was either going to be dragged kicking and screaming to this bar or give in and walk there with a bit of my shredded dignity still intact. I allowed her to help me up.

Her arms came around me in a fierce tight hug.

"I love you, brother. I wish you would talk to me, but I ... kind of ... understand that you can't. But ..." She looked up into my face, her eyes glittering. " ... I'm here for you either way, big brother."

Smiling, I hugged her back. "I never could say no to a half-naked woman in pink fur."

Olivia grinned and looked down at the display of cleavage she was showing. "Oh, so that is your weakness, huh? Well, I will keep that in mind." Reaching out, she took my hand and tugged at it. "Come on."

"Free beer, huh?" Reaching out my free hand, I scooped up my hat and stuck it on my head.

She smiled. "Everything here is free, remember? Well, at Central Camp they sell coffee and ice, but other than that pretty much everything."

Outside there was a smell that almost stopped me in my tracks, and would have if she hadn't been dragging me along. I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't even have noticed the burnt cordite smell from the fireworks. As I stumbled along after her, memories floated before me like visions rising up from within the fog of time. That smell hanging all around us as the machine gun barrels heat pinged. The too-high laughter of men just happy to be alive. Happy to know the enemy they never saw was now dead.

Then the silence as we discovered bullet holes through our clothes. As minor shrapnel hits began to sting from the sweat pouring off us in the humidity-thick air.

We all developed the habit of checking ourselves after a firefight. And then checking out our buddies beside us.

That habit drew my eyes over Olivia.

My sister walked a bit ahead of me, tugging me along by my hand like she did back when we were little kids at Chuck E. Cheese. She was far from that little girl with pigtails and braces. Olivia was a woman well grown into her curves and this outfit - little more than a few panels of silver fabric and string - show that to a tee. As her pink fur robe thing opened up and I caught a flash of her hip and ass, I felt almost uncomfortable that here I was checking her out. But then I could hardly be blamed. She was truly stunning. And it wasn't just the way her clothes fit her. It was the flash of her smile, the quickness to laugh, the way her brown braided hair flipped around like a ropy banner. There was still an innocent beauty to my sister that any man would have happily signed away his earthly soul to bring closer into his life.

I tightened my fingers in hers and brought her to a halt. She looked at me puzzled.

"Thank you," I said, after a moment of staring at her.

"For what?"

Hesitantly, I stepped closer to her. "Not leaving, when I asked you to."

Olivia smiled that beautiful smile, then she was in my arms again giving me a tight hug. "Never leaving you, big brother. Not even when I find you crying your eyes out like a little kid."

"I was not crying."

She poked me in the ribs. "Yes, you were. Boo hoo hoo."

My eyes narrowed. With the speed of my military training my hands shot from around her back, under that fluffy robe, and found the exact spot along her rib cage where I know my sister to be the most ticklish.

"Eek!" Olivia squirmed trying to get away. "No! No tickling! No! Stop it! Eek!"

Then she was free of my hands and I was chasing after her. My sister darted around a tent, then tried to do a double back, knowing I was faster than her. I caught her and pulled Olivia to me, my teasing fingers hunting all down her side.

"Quit it!"

My hand caught the cloth of her bikini top, she tugged sideways, and my hand was under it before I could stop the motion. My sister gave a mild shriek as my thumb found its way into the humid warmth under her breast.

"Not the boobs!"

Giggling, I slipped my hand free, pulled her to me, and threw my arm around her shoulder, tucking her into my side "Come on sis. Take me to this bar before we have an accident and something naughty happens."

Olivia gave me a look and poked a finger into my ribs. "I just got felt up and you think something naughty 'might' happen!"

"Nah, that wasn't a felt up. That was the accidental placement of a thumb." I looked down at her. "In the event of an actual felt up my whole hand would have been involved and there might be a need for therapy afterward."

"Being felt up by my brother would certainly qualify as a - 'in need of therapy' -- moment in my life." She bumped my hip with hers. "Who knows, it could have led to dancing."

We were close enough to this bar that the music was reaching us. With a smile, I took her hand and turned to face her. "I used to like dancing. I've been known to do a pretty mean Two Step, I know The Git Up, and I can old school line dance with the best of them."

I tipped my hat and then my boots shuffled in the dust a bit.

My sister gave me a roll of her eyes and walked off to the bar in a huff. As she walked in, I heard people call her name in greeting. A large bearded man who looked like Blackbeard the Pirate hugged my sister like he had known her for years.

She pointed at me. "Robert, this is my brother John. For the love of all that is holy, can you please get him a beer? He drinks that stuff that looks like shoe polish."

He looked over at me and a bright smile appeared in that forest of a beard. "Guinness?"

I grinned back nodding. "Absolutely."

He ... Robert? ... gave a happy roar and, turning my sister loose, dashed to the bar. I looked in amazement as he took down a harp glass from a shelf, put it under what looked like a genuine Guinness tap, and began the pour. I smiled when he stopped it at the perfect level and sat it to the side. Reaching back he picked up a second glass that already had a line of foam.

"I can't let a brother of the dark hops drink alone, now can I?" With a grin at me, he worked to fill this one. "John, did she say?"

Looking over my sister was standing talking to a group of women dressed in yellow caution tape and blue LED lights. One of them took off a string of lights from around her arm and draped it over Olivia's neck.

When I looked back, Robert was looking at me expectantly.

"Sorry. Yeah. John Quigley."

Robert the Pirate waved that away and picked up my glass topping it off. "Last names are about as useful out here as a condom machine in the Vatican. Here you go, John." He held out a hand stopping me from drinking till he filled his own glass. He lifted it high. "Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting, and drinking. If you cheat, may you cheat Death. If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart. If you fight, may you fight for a brother. And if you drink, may you drink with me."

Grinning, I lifted my glass. "Slainte!"

My mouth flooded with that cold familiar taste. Bitter, roasted, chocolaty, and strong it flowed across my tongue. Normally, I would have taken no more than a long sip through the foam, but Robert's eyes over the edge of his glass were challenging me and I kept drinking till, like his, my glass was empty.

With a laugh, he reached for my glass to refill it again.

"Kat!"

Hearing my sister's voice call out behind me, I turned to see her throw open her arms and hug a rather plump woman who returned that hug so fiercely that she all but tumbled them both into the women behind. With much laughter, the two ladies were caught and steadied as they hugged.

So ... then we were six.

My sister hooked her arm and all but dragged the woman over to where I was standing. "Kat, this is my brother John. We're hoping that, between the two of you, you can keep the rest of us from dying this week."

The lady looked at me, did a slight double take, her eyes narrowing, and then shrugged and moved to hug me.

I took a step back.

I'm sure the look on my sister's face would have been something to see, but I missed out on it. My eyes were boring holes into our newest camp mate's face. I had made the connection almost instantly but it took her a second or two longer. Then her mouth dropped open in a perfect 'O' of surprise.

"Quigley!" She had that same quirky smile. "Oh, my god, I didn't even think about Olivia's last name when she said her brother was named John." She threw open her arms to hug me. "John Quigley! How have you been?"