Box Camp, late afternoon

After wrapping up my shift at the bar, I was in a mood to get out of camp. I filled up my canteen, packed my bag, and stood and watched my bike—that single speed salmon-pink beach cruiser I had come to love—get stolen right out of Box Camp.

I caught the man responsible red-handed. He demonstrated little stealth, wearing his neon blue shirt while lifting the beach cruiser out of the communal bike rack, right in the middle of the golden daylight. I happened to be on my way to retrieve it, so in mid-stride, I barked something out to this unknown thief.

“That’s my bike,” I said, coming to a flat-footed stop. He didn’t react. “But you can use it,” I added.

I grinned menacingly as he wordlessly nodded—I guess he heard me—but shuffled backward with the bike in tow, tripping over the confusing mass of tires and handlebars of the overcrowded bike rack.

His gaze was blank and he said nothing. Just shuffled and stumbled his way out of the camp, hopped on the bike and pedaled off, like he didn’t even see me; like I didn’t even exist.

“Aaaaand gone,” I shrugged. I stood still and watched as he rolled out of camp and took a wide turn on to E street and just like that, out of sight.

Rats. Anything can happen in an instant on playa. I began to speculate. Who was that guy? Someone whose friends ditched him in this “industrial” part of town—smack dab between The Black Hole and the DPW Ghetto. Maybe he’d been completely fried and lost for hours. Maybe he gave up trying to find Center Camp and stumbled down E Street, half-delirious, until the cruiser caught his eye—freshly cleaned, glinting, rigged with enough MOOP storage devices to count as a Resto art bike.

“This sweet whip’ll get me home,” he probably thought, picking it out of the rack.

The whole encounter left me bewildered. He barely looked at me. Didn’t register any words. Either he didn’t speak English or he was high enough to be considered no longer on the planet.

Perhaps it was my unspoken Civic Duty to loan this guy a functional bicycle. Perhaps the bike wasn’t even mine to begin with. At this point, it’s no use rationalizing it—it is what it is.

My adventurous plans for the evening now suddenly dashed, I sulked back into the Lamp Lounge, cracked open the bottle of Fernet I was saving for a special occasion, and drank like someone who just survived a polite mugging.

After a quick shot to calm the nerves, I scraped together a cocktail from the mixers at the bar and tossed in a couple chunks of ice from the communal stash. I felt unhinged enough to process this fresh disappointment.

“What is the point of this whole fucking thing? Why are we out here? What are we doing? Are we a functioning society, or is this some kind of lawless Lord of the Flies situation?” I ranted this out loud to literally nobody.

Thankfully, I wasn’t left alone ranting at the bar for long. My foot-massage friend, Kid, ducked into the Lounge where he spotted me and headed straight over.

“Well,” he said with a sigh, “my bike’s gone.” He hopped up on a barstool next to me.

“No shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Small world.”

Kid showed me photos of his bike on his phone and gave me the full detail on his very special ice white playa cruiser. This thing was battle-hardened and well-tested to survive the harsh desert environment—he and his trusty ride had been coming out to This Thing In The Desert for eight years. Almost a decade in the dust.

“I had it parked at Center Camp with a bunch of other bikes, and when I came back out, it was gone. Nowhere in sight,” Kid said, fixing himself a drink from the Lamp Lounge stash.

Black Rock City lacks a decent infrastructure for recovering this kind of “borrowed” vehicle, so you just have to hope that whoever intentionally stole or otherwise gifted themselves your bike will willingly return it to where they found it. The justice system is pretty much “on your honor”, but that falls flat when you run into people who have no sense of honor.

Kid was down in the dumps. He lost a larger investment than I had, and I could feel his pain. I was in no mood to be cheery about our predicament either, so we sat and drank at the Lounge bar for a while before dropping LSD to try and make the best of the situation.

. . .

I’m still trying to make sense of this thing. I get it—there’s elaborate art. There’s beautiful people dancing around a big bonfire. There’s endless and inescapable bass beats passing as music. There’s reckless and abundant drug use—guilty! There’s all this and more in this glowing and pulsing radial city, and there are some people who seem to be here to consume every piece of this party scene.

I was told that this is the place to “find your tribe”, but maybe this party-world is not the place for me. Maybe the spiritual side of Burning Man is so muted that it’s hard to hear over the sound of the marauding party/art cars. Maybe the ‘influencers’ flocking to each piece of art to do their TikTok dances are cluttering up those spaces for the people who actually pause to reflect. “It takes all kinds to make the world,” sure, but at the risk of being extremely judgemental, I have to wonder if some kinds are simply better at making the world than others.

. . .

Within an hour, the Lamp Lounge began to swell and breathe. Not literally—there was very little wind. Between the acid and booze, my brain had shifted gears and I was now officially seeing things, and from the look of the dilated pupils and Cheshire smile on Kid’s face, so was he.

In the midst of our tripping, a grey-haired man strode into the Lounge, delivering a large cooler of water for the camp. He wore ornate black cowboy boots, black denim jeans, and western-style black dress shirt. The black bandana tied his whole outfit together—A member of the “Fluffer” tribe.

He hauled the full cooler over to the bar and plopped it on the counter like he was throwing a bale of hay. He gave us a curt greeting and we immediately trauma dumped our overlapping stories of stolen transportation.

He was kind enough to listen to us and waited until we finished. “So...” he paused, thinking it over, “you can’t find your bikes?” Kid and I nodded in unison.

He laughed. “Fuck your burn! You didn’t lose shit. The playa liberated you from your expectations.”

Kid and I exchanged a bewildered glance and he continued unfazed.

“Don’t you see? Now you’re free to wander more than ever, you little shits.”

Kid reeled back in his barstool and laughed maniacally, and I couldn’t help but join him. Something about this was truly tickling, and that despair about losing his beloved bike burned away into a kind of raw, feral hilarity.

The Man In Black left, shaking his head. He still had a job to do—deliver water.

Giddy with booze, acid, and whatever piece of playa wisdom that was just dumped on us, Kid and I moved our pity-party up the steps to the Lounge’s observation deck.

We took in our immediate surroundings on this little strip of E-Street, and, when the sun was precariously low in the sky, coordinated a very precise sundown howl. Maybe the people who borrowed our bikes heard us.

While the vastness of the playa makes it seem like walking is an inefficient way to travel, there’s so much more to notice while on foot. On a slow, leisurely stroll, the world is so much more interactive. Camp barkers will holler at you to fill a barstool in their lounge or climb into their sex swing. Overly touchy people might spontaneously hug you or throw a braid of beads and candy around your neck. Art cars roll along the city streets like prowling discos and just might offer you a ride into the unknown. The city is full and alive, a proper dense metro, and seemingly everybody on playa is feeling the festive vibe—the procession, the music, and masquerade of a carnival dropped into this desert survival setting.

Our burdens largely lightened, Kid and I left the Lounge and sauntered into our nearby neighborhood to explore what we might have biked right past, aimlessly wandering the inner streets toward whatever looked most interesting.

Once the dark of the night began to densify, the neon glow of the city came online. I turned on my string of fairy lights I had adorned to self-illuminate, and as a backup I had my trusty, dorky, headlamp, and one of those handheld halogen flashlights—for safety, and to illuminate the unlit.

I’d heard disaster stories of people leaving camp without lights and getting smacked by bikes, or worse—run over by art cars. “Darkwads”, as they are derogatorily named, are a scourge, and a clear rookie mark of someone unprepared.

As Kid and I continued our saunter down the 6:30 radial, we crossed an intersection while a manic, fur-clad, orange-and-green glowing cyclist made a sudden and lurching left turn and almost crashed into us.

It started a terse and rude exchange of who had the right-of-way, but in the end the playa provided us with no injuries. I decided to take it as a sign to get off the road, while Kid pressed on, in a trance of his own.

Thankfully, I spotted a nice, bright firepit nearby encircled by very inviting camp chairs.

“Mind if I sit?” I made eye-contact with the camp host and gestured to an empty spot.

“Sure! Come on in! You want a beer??” He was eager and oozed gratitude, as if he was actually thrilled to share.

“Of course, if you’re offering,” I said, tucking myself into the fuzzy camp chair. “Gotta stay hydrated.”

He smirked and winked at me and handed me a cold one. As I cracked it open, he fired off his first question.

“What’s your playa name?”

I gulped and almost choked. “Ah, shit, man. I don’t know.”

He laughed. “Shit Man—that’s a name.”

I laughed, too, realizing how easy it is to get caught up in this weird name-identity thing.

He grinned wide and offered his hand to shake. “I’m Uncle Art. Nice to meet ya.”

I sat with Uncle Art and gazed into his campfire with profound fixation while we chatted about these Burner aesthetics and archetypes. About the “real” Burning Man: Sharing beers with people. Letting strangers into your camp and treating them with kindness. Making art small and interactive and picking up trash.

After some beer’s worth of conversation, I asked him for his one essential piece of playa wisdom, something that everyone ought to know. His grin softened and he nodded, knowingly. He let the question linger, and the space filled with chaos and noise and people swirling around the two of us sitting still at this little bonfire.

“There are two kinds of people out here: Fires and Neons.”

“That’s it?” I asked. I sipped the last of the beer and he offered to take the empty.

He didn’t need to follow up; he attended to the campfire with a kind of determined certainty. I took a moment to feel its warmth and appreciate the flickering flame while the sounds of an intense, vivid, glowing party throbbed around us. I thanked him profusely for the beers and the soft spot to land, but now, fully intoxicated, I felt it was finally time to find a place to dance.

4:30 & B, deep night

After a long, hard night of proper partying—truly the sweaty spectacle of these orgy-esque dance domes is something to experience—I was feeling frazzled and needed a place to rest. The combination and ill-effect of the drugs I had taken lingered in my body and had reached their peak—I needed a place to tuck in and shut down. The only trouble was, after all this aimless walking, I had no idea where I was. Completely lost and on foot, I could see The Man towering above it all, so I could roughly place myself on the 4 o’clock side of town, but even then it would be an hour of guesswork to navigate back to my own camp, if I could even orient myself. I needed a place to crash nearby.

I shuffled through the next intersection, 4:30 & B, and found a big camp on the corner—a dome. A huge, canvas hexagonal dome, its mouth facing the street, gently illuminated with blue LED lights.

The inside of the dome, another big empty dancefloor, was dimly lit and cold when I found it, except for a large pile of throw pillows and comforters in one corner. It was relatively quiet here—most of the booming dance music had moved out to deep playa. This particular inner street had little activity—it must have been close to 4 in the morning.

I crawled under the covers and propped myself against the bed of pillows and gave myself a heavy cat nap.

About 45 minutes of dizzying unconsciousness later, I startled awake as a group of silhouettes came shuffling in, looking for somewhere to come down. I squinted from beneath the mass of blankets—most of them seemed like rave scene caricatures: fishnet leggings, a little leather, and each faintly emitting light—pinks and greens and blues—from glowstick necklaces approaching the end of their lifespans.

Suddenly feeling alert and very aware that I was crashing out in someone else’s campsite, I climbed out of the nest I had made for myself as these new people hesitantly approached.

“Oh, it’s ok,” I composed myself. “I was just leaving.”

With a look of relief, they sighed and shuffled toward the makeshift bed, taking the space for themselves.

In the faint lighting of this dome, I thought I recognized one of the faces. She looked identical to a lover I had once had in the past. Long straight hair, freckles in the same places. Same raspy voice, same glint in her eyes. She was out of it, too, seemingly exhausted and needing sleep. She was wearing a spaghetti string tank top and the shortest of shorts and even in the near-darkness I could see the goosebumps up and down her arms and legs.

It was one of those moments between wakefulness and dream where it is hard to tell the difference. I snapped out of my trance to guide her into the still warm spot I just vacated. She whispered a hoarse “thank youuuu” as I lifted the duvet and tucked her in. I remember how her shoulders relaxed the moment she snuggled into the warmth of a makeshift bed on playa, releasing a soft moan of comfort.

Of course I wanted to lie down beside her. Of course some old animal reflex twitched in the back of my skull and urged me to climb right back under the covers with her. But if “Safety Third” is a motto thrown around out here, “Ask First” ranks higher.

Rallying from my nap and ready to get my ass back to my own camp, I left the sleeping ravers behind to enjoy a walk in the brisk morning air, through the stillness that had settled over the whole playa.

Lamp Lounge Observation Deck, pre-dawn

Still buzzed enough to enjoy the long walk zig-zagging through the deserted playa streets, I finally arrived back at the Lamp Lounge.

Aside from that brief nap, I’d been awake for over 36 hours and just had enough charge to climb the stairs to the deck above the Lamp Lounge, where my whole evening had started. At this time in the early morning, all the sound systems had finally gone quiet and I could oversee the city’s hush. It was a welcome relief, like someone had finally turned off the pressure cooker, and I threw a heaving sigh to bask in that sound of solitude.

However, I was alone with that feeling for no more than one minute. Climbing the stairs behind me was a woman from another one of the nearby staff camps, looking like she too had spent her entire night out. She noticed me standing by the deck’s wooden bench, smiled, and walked over to sit, gently pulling me down to sit alongside her.

“I’m Stacey. I’m from the ticketing camp,” she said, honest and disarming. She rested her hand on top of mine and I could feel the slight chill on her skin.

“I… I’m Scott. I’m from Box Camp,” I responded, finally able to drop the pretense and be honest. I gave her hand a little squeeze.

She leaned into my shoulder and rested her head against mine like we’d been dating for years. She slipped an arm around my waist, scooched and cuddled her body to get comfortable against mine, and yawned.

“Wake me up when the sun rises.”

I nodded as she closed her eyes, and I let my gaze linger softly on her face. I matched her sleepy inhale and exhale and let my breathing settle into hers. I could feel her weight melt into me while I propped myself against the hard wooden bench.

I didn’t, couldn’t, move a muscle. Her warmth was comforting and welcomed, and I appreciated how quickly we’d moved from friendly strangers to cuddling strangers.

It was in that moment she’d given me a gift of something untangible—maybe it was trust, maybe it was human warmth—and I felt honored to hold it. I became a living boyfriend pillow, a cushion for her, a soft place for her to land while she caught a few winks of sleep at this desert wasteland carnival.

Of course, the acid was still echoing through my system, riddling me with these edgy, kaleidoscopic, and fractaling visions, but my inside world had gone tender. Each moment here with Stacey was calm and forgiving, despite the creeping insanity from sleep deprivation and the rigid, uncomfortable bench on which our bodies sprawled.

Waiting for the sun to rise, I had plenty of time to think. I tried to imagine what I’d say to Stacey when the sun came up—whether I’d say anything at all, or just melt into sleep alongside her.

The wait felt like it would be without end, like watching a clock with no batteries. The final moments of the night were holding on tenaciously, refusing to give in for an impatient viewer waiting for the dawn. The whole entire city dropped away and my focus was on the horizon—just two little souls on a wooden bench, clutching, waiting in an endless stream of infinitesimal moments for the sun to rise again.

But then: a golden crack at the edge of the world. The impossibly midnight hues gave way to a graduated blue and purple and pink. A soft, brilliant orange bloom; first light.

“It’s here,” I whispered.

Stacey stirred, and a hint of a smile spread across her face. She blinked and snuggled into my shoulder a little deeper. This seemingly mundane thing of “holding space” might be the most responsible thing we can do for each other in this chaotic, dissonant universe. After a night of blaring chaos, this quiet, centered calm is a near-orgasmic experience.

We sat in the light a while longer, content to let the sun rise slowly and warm our faces, its sobering light burning off the cold chill of the dark night.