Burning Man

Kevin hasn't seen his bad-boy rock-star brother in ten years. Their meeting, at the festival of the Burning Man, is a shock

Burning Man was heat, dust and madness, and I felt about as out of place as it's possible to feel, in my middle-aged body, in my khaki shorts and knit shirt and sandals, with my expanding belly and soft chest and salt-and-pepper hair cut short, surrounded by the extraordinarily youthful with extravagant manes of vibrant hair and muscular, ripe bodies, either mostly undressed or wildly costumed in getups that ranged, from Fellini to Mad Max. It was the Labor Day weekend Burning Man festival in Nevada. I was about to meet my brother, whom I hadn't seen in more than ten years. I was with a young woman named Chrysalis, no last name, whom I'd met as soon as I arrived at the festival. I pulled up in my Volkswagen camper, parked and got out to look around at the Black Rock Desert, which is an amazingly flat expanse of cracked mud, and she was standing there, a waif of a girl in fat metallic boots over silvery, quilted, space-suit pants that came up to her hips and left her hard stomach bare between their Velcro-tab top and the bottom of a bright-yellow halter. A massive framed backpack hovered over her shoulders like a small building. She struggled under the weight of it. I asked if I could be of any assistance, and she shook her head no, and said she was just about to set up camp. I told her I hadn't seen her when I pulled up, and I offered to find another spot, but she looked me over and smiled and said no, it'd be OK, and we went about setting up our encampments and thus we became neighbors.

My brother had given me instructions to meet him under the figure of the Burning Man, a 40-foot-high wooden statue that would soon burn while 10,000 to 15,000 onlookers danced and screamed and did God-knows-what, certainly lots of drugs. I was looking forward to it. If it weren't for Johnny, my brother, I'd have never known of the existence of the festival. It was his kind of thing, not mine. My brother is a public figure, a rock-and-roll bad boy known all over the world as Splay--guitar player, singer, public madman and pervert from the band of the same name. I am a writer of stories and novels, and because I have made a comfortable career for myself in academe, it behooves me to keep my relationship to Splay quiet. I have no wish to be identified as the writer who is Splay's brother, to walk out the door of my suburban ranch house near Iowa City and find newspapermen and photographers looking to get my reaction every time Splay gets into trouble, which, thankfully, is happening with less frequency as he gets older. Splay is 47, two years older than I. He is still famous, but not as much as he used to be. I hadn't told Chrysalis about him. All she knew was that his name was Johnny, and that we were to spot him by the big red sombrero he'd be wearing.

"More than ten years?" she said. "How come you haven't seen him in so long?"

"Falling out," I said. "Family thing."

"What about?" She tucked her hands into her pants, just slid them down under the waist, so that the heels of her hands were resting on her bare hipbones. She was wearing her big boots and fat pants again, astronaut pants. Same outfit as when we met, only now the halter top was blue--soft, watery, cerulean blue.

"It's a long, long story," I said, and I touched her elbow, signaling her to stop a moment. We were nearing the center of the series of concentric circles that formed the structural pattern of Burning Man. There were a couple of roads--aisles kept clear of encampments--that pierced the circles of vans and campers and tents and lean-tos and whatnots where masses of people were living for the weekend. Often the housing--which ranged from pup tents and trailers to wildly imagined temporary structures made of old parachutes and sticks and scrap metal--was itself arranged in circles, providing a wagon-train effect. We had just passed an encampment where several young women were showering under a line of plastic bags hanging from a freestanding construction of tubes and pipes, and it had taken all my willpower not to stop and gawk at their tanned bodies, and especially at the places where the tans disappeared, where they looked as though they were wearing white-skin bikinis. But I didn't stare. I walked on by as if I often stroll past women showering in the sun.

Chrysalis said, "Do you see him?"

"Chrys," I said. "Tell me the truth. How ridiculously out of place do I look?"

"Oh, chill." She hooked her arm through mine and pulled me along. "You're a writer. You're the real thing. You don't have to get dressed up."

I had given Chrysalis a copy of my most recent novel within an hour of having met her. I explained that I was recently divorced from my second wife and that I was in the process of rethinking my life. She told me she was an artist and an elementary school teacher. She was also divorced, though her marriage had lasted only a few months. It had ended as soon as she told her artist-husband, whom she had been with since they were both sophomores in college, that she was pregnant. He took off. She had an abortion. That was a little over a year ago. She was 22. "It's not as bad as it sounds," she had said. "I didn't want a kid either. I wasn't ready."

As we continued walking toward the towering wooden man, I relaxed a bit, pleased that she had hooked her arm through mine, which was our first physical contact. We strolled in silence, arm in arm. Then she said, "You never answered my question," and leaned into me playfully, nudging my shoulder with her cheek. "What was the falling out about? With your brother?"

I didn't know what to tell her. I didn't like the idea of lying, but I wasn't ready to tell her my brother is Splay-- and I couldn't explain why I hadn't seen him in so long without revealing his true identity. I hadn't seen him since the Eighties. Once he figured out (which didn't take him long, he's bright enough) that I was embarrassed by him, he stayed out of my life. I felt bad about this, but not that bad. You can't do the things Splay does--or did, at least--and not expect some consequences. Offstage, he has been arrested twice for statutory rape. Ten years ago he got world famous for having oral sex, onstage, with one of rock's billionaires, the guy named Fey Wrey after the old screen actress, the one from King Kong. It was after that event that we stopped talking to each other altogether. Fey had turned his back to the crowd in the middle of an unending guitar riff and made the obvious motion of opening his fly--this is all on camera--and then Splay came onstage and knelt at his feet and gave him a blow job, or at least they made it look that way. Before the show was over they were both yanked off the stage and arrested, and for the next couple of years they were household names. The local priest, your Episcopalian minister--they knew all about Splay and Fey. Everyone did. Their CD sales broke records. Splay made many millions. So he was famous and rich, and one of the minor prices he paid was that he no longer talked to his brother, who was embarrassed by him. Our parents were both gone at that point, which was in some ways a blessing.

I was still pondering how to answer Chrys when I spotted a pair of red sombreros bobbing in our direction. "I'll have to tell you another time," I told her.

Chrys had already seen the sombreros. "I thought you said it would be just your brother."

"I'm not surprised," I said. "He's usually got somebody with him."

When we were about to walk right past each other, I stopped and smiled at Johnny and he recognized me. He returned the smile and caught the woman with him by the wrist and turned her toward us. I offered Johnny my hand and we shook and then stepped back from each other. I put my hands on my hips and Johnny crossed his arms under his chest, and we just stood there looking at each other until the woman with him gestured toward a makeshift refreshment stand and said, "McSatan's anyone?"

I said, "Sure," and we all started for the corrugated-tin-and-scrap-wood McDonald's parody, complete with cardboard cutout golden arches, where a couple of guys were selling juice and sandwiches. McSatan's was situated a bit back from the stream of people, and on the way there we completed the introductions. Johnny introduced the woman with him as Melinda, Mel for short. I introduced Chrysalis as a friend, not bothering to explain that we had just met at the festival.

Johnny was dressed handsomely in a white linen suit over a wine-red shirt. His hair was cut short, much like mine, but it was a lustrous blond, far from my 50-50 mix of dark brown and gray. I was tempted to say, "Hey, I used to know you when you had brown hair," but I didn't. For all his expensive clothes and hair care, Johnny didn't look good. He was thin, and his features were pinched and tense. He seemed jumpy and edgy and simultaneously tired, as if he wanted to catch some sleep but was afraid to. I figured it was some drug he was on. He was still a world-class stoner. According to the tabloids, he was a heroin addict--but you know what that means.

"Johnny," I said. "You look like Tom Wolfe."

"Tom who?"

"Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

Mel said to Johnny, "It's a book. Tom Wolfe wrote it." Then to me: "Your brother doesn't get too much time to read."

"Chrysalis," Johnny said, disregarding me. His eyes moved up and down Chrys with no subtlety at all, as if he were examining a potential purchase.

I said, "Chrysalis is an artist."

Mel smiled, and Johnny made a grunting noise.

I looked hard at Johnny, trying to read him. There was something decidedly different about him. He seemed ... less intelligent. He had almost the look of the dim-witted, of someone who has to think a second or two to form a word. But the Johnny I knew was anything but dim-witted. He was smarter than I was. Things came to him easily; he did better in school. He was quicker. On the street, out with the kids, he had been my protector. If I had a problem, (continued on page 74)Burning Man(continued from page 68) Johnny always knew how to handle it. We walked home from school together most days, me and my big brother, side by side on neat suburban walkways bracketed by lawns. A couple of schoolkids, usually quiet, caught up in dreams. We were big dreamers. We had that in common.

"Johnny," I said. "You look tired."

"You're the one should be tired." He leered at Chrys a moment and then grinned at me.

"Don't mind him," Mel said. "All he ever thinks about is sex." She seemed amused. "You know his reputation," she said, giving Chrys a between-women look.

"Actually," I said, "she doesn't."

Mel said, "Oh," and Johnny grunted, and they both looked as though I had just answered a question for them.

Chrys asked, "Something I should know?"

Mel said, "Why don't you come back to our trailer with us? We can get something decent to eat." She was wearing a bright-yellow sundress, with red flowers to match the sombrero. She was in her 40s, at least. Her skin was thickening and there were lines around eyes and mouth that showed her age, but she was still attractive and had obviously once been stunning.

"Shit," Johnny said, and then looked at me. "This heat's fucking with me, Kev, I need a siesta."

Mel put her arm around Johnny's waist.

Johnny said to Mel, "It's the fucking heat."

"It is hot," Mel said, and she seemed suddenly anxious to get Johnny away. "Why don't you two come by a little later? We'll send someone for you."

Johnny nodded to me and then turned to Chrys. "Chrys," he said, his grin openly lascivious, "I'll see you later."

They walked away into a line of moving people and disappeared.

When they were well out of sight, I turned to Chrys and said, "That was weird, wasn't it?"

"About as weird as you can get." Chrys seemed to think about it a moment, and then she laughed. "They'll send someone for us? Is your brother, like, an escapee from an asylum?"

"It's a long story."

"Of course."

Chrys seemed amused but on the verge of deciding we were all lunatics: Johnny and Mel, and me along with them. "Maybe I should explain a few things to you," I said.

"Good idea."

We started back to our encampment.

Chrys said, "I can't believe the way he was coming on to me--with his girlfriend right there. Not to mention you. I mean, he must figure we're together. Right?"

"He was outrageous," I said. "Are you offended?"

"You old guys," she said. "You're all crazy. You should meet Mr. Miller, our assistant principal."

Then it was my turn to laugh. I said, "I find it hard to think of you as a schoolteacher."

"You're a schoolteacher!"

"I didn't say it was hard to think of me as a teacher. That's not hard at all."

"So why is it hard to think of me?"

I didn't respond right away. I considered not responding at all, to see if she might be willing to drop the subject. It was obvious that I had hit a sore spot. Suddenly her shoulders were stiff, her face tight, her lips pressed together. From under her sexy blue halter and space-suit pants, from under her hare body and youthful skin, I saw the schoolmarm emerging, the woman she had the potential to become: stiff and cold and barren. It was distressing. I turned my best smile on her. "Because you're so young and beautiful," I said, trying to sound comically flirtatious, "because your beauty is so becomingly dressed in the robes of artistic spirit--"

She shoved me. "Stop it," she said. "Tell me the truth." The stiffness disappeared and she returned to her youthful self, though she still seemed worried. She stepped closer to me and hooked her arm through mine. We were walking with the crowd, in a stream of people, and when a young man walking toward us caught Chrys' eye and smiled at her, she ignored him. "You think it's a mistake, my teaching, being this young and teaching? I mean, shouldn't I be in Paris or something, being decadent, hanging out with Van Gogh types instead of with Mr. Miller, who cops feels off me whenever the hallway's crowded?"

I said, "Look around, Chrys. Look where you are." At that moment we were walking past an elaborate castle-like structure, complete with moat and drawbridge and a pair of young women in shimmering veils dancing on the battlements. "Van Gogh would have cut off his other ear for a chance to hang out here for a weekend."

Chrys brightened at that notion. She smiled genuinely. "This is wild, this place, isn't it?"

We had been moving away from the center of Burning Man, back toward our encampment, but there was still craziness going on all around us--and there was a tangible sense of growing excitement as the day wore on toward the climactic burning, which would happen some time after dark. All around us there was dancing, and little parades, and singing and music. It felt to me like a Bourbon Street of Alternative Culture, a Bourbon Street picked up and dropped in the middle of the desert. "Wild, absolutely," I answered. "But too hot. Must be a hundred and ten. I'm looking forward to my air-conditioning." We were nearing the van and the tent. "Why don't you come in and take a nap with me," I said. "It'll be too hot in your tent."

"A nap?"

"Sure," I said. And then, emphatically, "A siesta!"

Chrys seemed amused with me. "A siesta," she repeated.

"Us old guys," I said. "We get tired in this heat."

"Right." She pointed at the van, which was now directly alongside us.

"It's probably a blast oven in there," she said. "Honk when it's cool." She went on to her tent and threw back the flap, then crawled in.

•

I had left the van's windows open a crack, so it wasn't exactly a blast oven--but it was close. I cranked it up and turned on the air and in ten minutes it was cool enough to climb in and straighten things out a bit. I liked my van. It was one of the few possessions I took away from the divorce. Alicia, my ex-wife--my second ex-wife--was an entirely domestic creature: a woman of minivans and suburban houses, of Little League and den mother-dom. Men kept disappointing Alicia. She divorced me when a student I had slept with showed up at our front door, wanting to have a talk with her. The fact that I was deeply sorry about what had happened, that I hadn't intended for it to happen, that it had been a one-time thing, a mistake I swore would never happen again--all that made no difference. Alicia had had it with men. When that girl showed up at the door, it meant I was gone. Alicia pitched my stuff out the windows. I drove away in the camper.

It was not a good time. I got in touch (continued on page 166)Burning Man(Continued from page 74) with Johnny after living alone for a few months, on a night when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself, isolated and estranged from everyone I had ever loved, including my only brother. I told him what a mess I was, how unhappy I was, that I needed to see him again. The first open space Johnny had on his calendar was Labor Day weekend, festival of the Burning Man.

And now ... here I was. I tidied up the back of the van, spreading my pillows and sleeping bags over sheet-covered foam cushions. Then I honked the horn, pulled out a few books and made myself comfortable. I stretched out and looked up through tinted windows at a bright-blue sky. A minute later Chrys tapped at the back door, then pulled it open and climbed in.

"Ummm," she said. "This is definitely a lot better. My tent is broiling." She sat up with her back against the front seat and pulled off her boots. "You were going to explain a few things," she said. "Remember?"

"Oh, right," I said. "About Johnny."

"Right. About Johnny." She pulled off her pants, revealing slight bikini panties, and then the halter top, revealing her breasts, before climbing under the open sleeping bag and pulling it up to her chin. She undressed as perfunctorily as if I had been her longtime roommate.

It took me a second to steady my breathing. I wanted nothing more than to feel the weight of her breasts in my hands. "Give me a second," I said. "I need to recover."

She smiled playfully. "Come on under here with me."

"Come on under there with you," I repeated, exaggerating the stunned disbelief I felt. "Sounds good to me." I undid my belt buckle and started getting out of my clothes while she watched.

"Your brother," she said, reminding me to explain.

"My brother--" I hesitated a moment, folding my shorts and tossing them toward the back of the van. "My brother is rich," I said. "And as we all know, the rich are not like the rest of us."

"How rich?"

"He's megarich. Hundreds-of-millions rich."

"Hundreds of millions? Really? From what? What's he do?"

"Music industry."

"What's he do in the music industry?"

"Long story," I said and slid under the sleeping bag. I was naked from the waist down. I hadn't taken off my shirt because I didn't want to expose all that un-muscular flesh.

Chrys cuddled against me as soon as I was under the sleeping bag, and then the conversation ended. She took a condom out of a leather change purse and handed it to me, and we were making love within minutes. I finished way too soon, leaving her not even close to being satisfied. I felt embarrassed, but she seemed OK about it. I tried to finish by touching her, but she wouldn't let me. "No," she said. "That's so mechanical."

"I feel like a kid," I said. "Like an inexperienced boy."

She kissed me gently, lovingly, on the forehead. "An inexperienced boy," she said, "wouldn't have a clue there was a problem."

"You have a point there." I settled myself into my pillow. I wanted to tell her I loved her. I felt the words knocking at some inner door, asking to be let out. I didn't speak them. But I felt them. I closed my eyes.

I didn't actually fall asleep, but I could tell by the way Chrys appeared when I peeked up that she thought I had. She looked around the van, taking things in, observing. She pulled a copy of my last book from between the front seats and read the back cover. I let her think I was sleeping because I was afraid she might want to make love again--and I knew there was no way. I wasn't sure how much Chrys knew about older men. When she got dressed quietly and sneaked out of the van, being careful not to wake me, I was relieved. I put on my shorts, turned onto my back and lay with my arms crossed under my head. I contemplated the possibility of a serious relationship with Chrys, and the difference in our ages came up as a major problem. But then, middle-aged men marry younger women all the time.

I let myself imagine what it might be like to marry Chrys, and all the complaints about me from the women I had lived with came to mind immediately. I was moody and sullen and wrapped up in my writing. I was temperamental and persnickety. And it was true. I wasn't an easy person to live with. But still, she seemed to appreciate that I was a writer. It was possible that she'd be willing to put up with me--or, even, that I might change.

I didn't get a lot of time to follow this train of thought before Mel approached the back of the van, peered in through the tinted glass and then knocked. She was wearing the same bright-yellow sundress with red flowers, but she had lost the red sombrero, and I noticed how attractively her auburn hair was cut and styled. She wore it short and parted left of center. As she turned her head, it moved uniformly, in waves, with the fluidity of water. I opened the back door and she climbed in, smiling brightly. She said, "Hello, Kevin," and looked down at the second pillow and the mussed blankets beside me. "Where's Chrys?"

"In her tent." I pointed to the window. "Where's Johnny?"

She tucked her legs under her and folded her hands in her lap. "You know, you're the only one other than me who calls him Johnny."

"Splay." I tried out the sound of the word. "I can't imagine it."

Mel looked at me as if she found me slightly mystifying.

"Who exactly are you to Johnny," I said, "if you don't mind my asking?"

"Exactly? That's hard to say with a guy like Johnny. I'm his companion."

"How long?" I said. "How long have you been his companion?"

"For about ten years," she answered, punctuating her words by cocking her head and smiling with an exaggerated brightness, which was amusing, as she obviously intended.

"Jesus," I said. "You could be his wife."

"Well," she said, "actually, I suppose I am, in common law. Sure. I'm his wife." She folded her arms under her breasts. She had a look that was a mixture of mirth and surprise. She seemed to find me funny--and a little odd. She added, "I'm also his pimp, his drug supplier, housekeeper, financier, secretary, gofer. You name it."

"Pimp?"

"Sure." She took a deep breath, signaling that she was about to launch into a long explanation. "Everybody," she said, "wants to fuck Johnny, but they're afraid he's got AIDS--which he doesn't, by the way. I make sure they know that, that he doesn't have AIDS. I bring it up in conversation. 'Man,' I'll say, 'I make Splay get an AIDS test every six months, so long as he wants to fuck me' Then I'll show them the results of the last test. And it's all true. I do make him get an AIDS test every six months if he wants to fuck me, which he does every once in a while."

"Everybody?" I said. "Wants to fuck Johnny?"

"Oh, God. You don't want to hear," she said with an air of confidentiality, as if there were things she'd love to tell me. "Absolutely everybody. You shocked? He's your brother."

"That he is," I said, and I had no idea what to say next. I sat there with my legs stretched out in front of me, barefoot, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, looking--I imagined--like some country bumpkin seeing the city lights for the first time.

"So," Mel said. "Why don't you get Chrys, and we can--?" She gestured off into the distance, in the direction from which she had come.

"Actually," I said, "why don't you get her?" as I opened the back door for her. "Give me a couple of seconds to get my sandals on, et cetera."

"No problem." She climbed out the back, brushed herself off and started for Chrys' tent. Once she slammed the back door shut, I went about finding my sandals, straightening up, and brushing my hair. When I shut down the van and stepped out into the heat, Chrys and Mel were waiting for me. Chrys looked a little pale.

Mel put her hands on her hips and said, as if reprimanding me, "I can't believe you didn't tell her who your brother is!"

Chrys said, "Your brother is Splay? Really?"

"Are you impressed?" I put my hand on the small of her back, and the three of us headed into the flowing line of people, all of whom seemed to be moving toward the center of the circle. We walked three abreast. I asked Mel, "How'd you know where to find us?"

"We have our agents," she said.

Chrys laughed much too loudly.

I said, "Jesus, Chrys. It wasn't all that funny."

Chrys said, "I guess I'm a little nervous." Then she added emphatically, "He didn't look like Splay! I mean, I'd have never guessed it, and I've probably only seen him like a billion times."

Mel said, "You can't see shit at a concert. And MTV is all makeup." She put her arm around Chrys and gave her a hug. "Believe me," she said. "He's Splay. He likes you, too--as was probably obvious." She laughed girlishly, almost giggled.

The rest of the way to the trailer, Chrys and Mel walked arm in arm, chattering. I fell back a step, glad to be left out of the conversation, which was all about Splay, concerts and other rock celebrities. I was feeling a little surly.

•

I pointed as we approached a trailer the size of a semi, twice as big as anything nearby. "Splay's playhouse on the road," I said, attempting an impression of Robin Leach. Neither Chrys nor Mel noticed the effort.

"This is it," Mel said, and she led us up a small metal stoop. Chrys and I waited as she unlocked the door. I was a step down from Chrys. I touched her on her thigh, gently, patting her, really. She gave me a pleasant smile. I'm sure she meant the smile to be friendly, but I bristled at it. It was the kind of smile you give someone when your mind is on something else.

Mel opened the door and guided us into an attractively furnished living room that looked more appropriate to a house than to a trailer. Once the door closed, it was quiet inside. The air was still and cool, almost chilly.

"Nice," I said. "Some trailer."

"Mobile home," Mel corrected. "We spend a lot of time here." She pointed down a narrow corridor. "Why don't you go get Johnny? He might still be sleeping." She put her arm around Chrys as if they had been friends for a lifetime. "Chrys and I will find something to eat." Side by side, they looked like mother and daughter--and in the trailer light it was clear that there were more than enough years between them for that to be possible. Alongside Mel, Chrys looked like a baby, the skin of her cheeks had the rosy glow of baby fat, while's Mel's skin looked pulled and tucked, as if it had seen a surgical procedure or two.

On the way to the corridor, I passed a window and saw that the trailer was situated with a perfect view of the still-unburned Burning Man, who loomed up in the center of the circle with his arms raised, as if to embrace all his children. The window was directly above a tall table with a pair of high benches on either side of it, and I sat for a moment and took in the view of the statue and the scores of people milling around its feet. I found it amusing that even in an artistic and anarchistic gathering such as this, money and fame obviously brought you some privileges--like a front-row view of the festivities. I closed my eyes a moment and leaned my head back on the booth and tried to gather myself. I tried to empty myself of the anger I was feeling toward Johnny. He was my brother. I had asked to see him, not the other way around. If his wealth and celebrity made Chrys behave as if she were about to meet God, that wasn't Johnny's fault. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. From another room, which I guessed to be the kitchen, I heard Chrys and Mel chattering over the sounds of dishes and drawers opening and closing. Directly across from me was another window above another table-and-bench set, and through that window I could see a parade of figures costumed in long, flowing robes with cowls, marching toward the center of the circle. I watched them awhile and then pulled myself up and shook myself off, to cast away the bad feelings.

I found Johnny in his bedroom, standing alongside an unmade bed. He was dressed in a white robe over black pajamas. He was looking down into the palm of his open hand, in which there were three multicolored pills. He saw me a second after I entered the room and popped the pills into his mouth, washing them down with a glass of water that was on a bedside table. For a moment I was pissed. Then I decided, Fine, maybe he'll get stoned enough to make an ass out of himself in front of Chrys.

"Kevin. Christ, man--" he said. "Look at you!" He was smiling. "You've gotten old!" He crossed the room and gave me a hug, which I returned, tentatively. He felt frail in my arms, bones wrapped in skin.

I pulled back and said, "You're looking a bit thin, brother." I held his jaw in my hand. "A bit pinched and tight in the cheeks." I made a face that asked, Are you OK?

"Too much drug-drug and booze." He smiled wryly, and then patted me on the shoulder and walked past me toward the living room.

Mel and Chrys were waiting at the table where I had sat a moment earlier. They had dishes of food and wicker baskets of snacks spread around. Four frosty bottles of beer marked our places. I slid behind one bottle, alongside Chrys. Splay slid in next to Mel, and downed half his beer in one long gulp. Mel gave him a look, which he ignored.

Chrys said, "I still can't believe you're Splay," and she put on this coy, cute expression I hadn't seen before. She said, "I mean, I know, now that I know...I can see...but...Splay's, like, an image. You represent rock or something. It's just that I can't believe you're really Splay...sitting here like this."

Johnny and Mel seemed thoroughly entertained by Chrys. Johnny said, "Want me to prove it?" and he opened his robe and started to pull apart the fly of his pajamas.

Mel slapped his hand. "Stop it," she said, and she and Chrys laughed.

I said, "That's not really true, is it? What you're supposed to have done to your--"

"My dick?" He looked as though he couldn't believe I was asking the question. "Where do you think Splay comes from? That's the whole--"

"I thought it was all tabloid. You really did that?" Then all three of them were looking at me as if I were from another planet. Johnny was supposed to have had an operation on his penis. He was supposed to have had it splayed, cut along the midline so that the head fanned out to either side, which--I had read--was what Aborigines do in some sort of ritual ceremonial thing. But I never believed that Johnny actually had it done. I thought it was more of the same old rock-and-roll hype and hysteria. I didn't think he was crazy enough to actually do such a thing.

Johnny said, "It's historic, Kevin."

Chrys asked, "Didn't someone do a Ph.D. dissertation about it?"

Johnny said, "A kid from Rutgers."

Mel said, "He got it all wrong. But it was a publicity coup. We went from a big-time rock group with a five-year life span to cultural-icon status in months. We went from making big money to outgrossing most small nations. The Rutgers guy, you wouldn't believe his analysis. You wouldn't believe the significance he finds in Johnny getting his dick cut."

"Significance?" Johnny said. "Money. That's the significance." Mel offered Chrys a concerned look. "We're not being too cynical for you, are we?"

"Actually," Chrys said, adopting that terribly cute demeanor again. "I was just wondering--" She looked away from Johnny to Mel. "Is it true that it's--"

Johnny grinned and Mel looked sly and smug. I knew what Chrys was asking. According to the news stories, the splaying operation was supposed to enhance the sexual pleasure of both parties, but especially the woman's.

Mel said, still with the sly look, "Why don't we all get high and talk about that." She climbed over Johnny and disappeared into the bedroom.

I asked Chrys, "Do you get high? I mean, do you want to do this?"

Chrys just gave me a look, as if the question were too silly to answer.

Johnny said, "We've got some firstrate grass, special stuff. You get high, don't you, Kevin?"

"Occasionally," I said, not bothering to tell him that the last occasion was about 25 years ago.

Mel climbed back to her place and I noticed she had changed into a pair of velvety red slippers. She dropped one fat joint on the table and lifted another, which she passed to her lips. She lit up, toked and passed the joint to Chrys. When Chrys handed me the joint, I inhaled only a tiny bit of smoke, concerned that I might embarrass myself by going into a coughing fit.

Chrys said to Johnny, "I've always been curious about the Rats Sing video. Did you really mutilate yourself when they were taping? The part where you drag the razor across your chest?"

Mel said, "Trade secret."

I passed Johnny the joint and to my surprise he handed it to Mel. I guessed the pills were enough for him.

"Really?" Chrys said. "You won't tell?"

Johnny said, "It was red paint."

"Johnny!" Mel passed the joint to Chrys. "You'll disillusion her."

"Right," Johnny said. "OK," he said to Chrys. "I really do mutilate myself--regularly. And I've attempted suicide eight times--"

"Six," Mel corrected.

"And I occasionally drink the blood of rats, and--" he turned to Mel. "What else?"

"You sleep in a coffin."

"With a live rat," Johnny added. "That's true."

Chrys looked like she believed him for a second, and then she started to giggle when she realized he wasn't serious. I took a second toke and felt myself getting immensely sleepy.

"Can you tell me this?" Chrys asked. "Did you and Fey Wrey really have sex onstage like that? I mean, it looked like it, but no one ever really, you know, documented it."

Johnny leaned over the table and wrapped his hands around Chrys' hands. "I'm straight," he said. "Always have been. Still am."

Mel said, "Another publicity coup. Act of genius."

I took a third, long toke and felt darkness closing in around the edges of my vision. I tried to shake it off. I couldn't remember ever feeling so deliciously sleepy.

Johnny turned to Mel, still holding Chrys' hands, and said, "Do you know what I remember best about that night? That's the night you talked me into technology stocks."

"And that was years before the market went through the roof." Mel leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "You're welcome."

"Mel's my CEO," Johnny said. "CEO of Splay Industries. She makes seven figures a year in salary alone. She's got an MBA from...where?"

"From Wharton." Mel flashed me a bright smile.

The conversation stalled for a moment, and then Chrys asked, "Is Fey Wrey as crazy as everyone says?"

Johnny shook his head, appearing a little annoyed at the question, as if he were tiring of Chrys' naivete. "You know what Fey and I talk about when we get together?"

"Commodities," Mel said. She looked at Chrys. "Bore you to death."

Chrys said to Johnny, "You and Fey Wrey talk about the stock market when you get together?" She looked down at the table a moment and then started giggling convulsively.

I said, "Jesus. What is in this grass? I can't keep my eyes open!"

Johnny said, "You're getting old, brother."

Mel lit up the second joint. "I think it's laced with some designer crap. Winston gave it to us."

Chrys said, "Winston from--"

"The same," Mel said, and passed her the new joint.

I said, "Gee, you guys mind if I just go to sleep here?" I put my head on Chrys' shoulder.

"Here, little brother," Johnny said. He went to the table and booths opposite us and, with a couple of movements, he dropped the table and pushed the booths together so that they formed a bed, mattress and all. I must have been really stoned, because it looked like a magic trick to me. When I said, "How did you do that?" everyone laughed.

Johnny said, "Knock yourself out, Kevin."

I wasn't sure what Johnny meant, but the bed looked like a piece of paradise to me. I dragged myself to the booth and dropped my body onto the mattress. I closed my eyes with something like orgasmic pleasure. The last thing I remember is hearing Chrys and Mel talking, and then Mel telling Johnny to pull the curtain for me, and opening my eyes long enough to see Johnny pulling a curtain around me, turning what had been a table and benches into a small bedroom. I remember thinking the words mobile home, and then cuddling up into the mattress and giving myself over to sleep.

•

When I opened my eyes it was dark. From beyond the trailer walls I heard music and the sublittoral drone of water, water rolling in waves against sand and rocks--until I remembered where I was. Then the sound of waves turned into voices of the crowd shouting and screaming. I tried to sit up, thinking, from the noise, that I must be missing the burning, but my head felt heavy and I didn't move, and I must have fallen asleep again because the next time I opened my eyes the noise had abated, though I could still hear occasional shouting and music.

My head felt better, and after I lay still a few more moments, my thoughts clarified and I remembered exactly where I was and what was going on. I sat up slowly and rubbed my eyes and opened the curtain and found myself looking at Mel, who was looking back at me with an expression somewhere between sultry and wickedly amused. She held Chrys in her arms, Chrys' body stretched across her lap, like Mary holding Christ's body in Michelangelo's Pietà. Chrys' head was turned toward Mel's breast, not suckling, but pressed against it, as if for comfort. They were both undressed, as was Johnny, who was fucking Chrys while Mel held her. Chrys' body and the pained expression on her face suggested she was absorbed completely in sexual pleasure. Above her, Johnny's naked body was so thin, he looked like a skeleton. He looked ghastly to me, a rack of bones pushing himself slowly in and out of her. He looked like something from a Halloween decoration. Beyond Johnny, through the window, I could see the figure of the Burning Man, a few flames still playing along the torso and head.

When he noticed me, Johnny stepped back, and I saw him fully exposed, with no part of himself buried in Chrys. I had to turn away. His penis looked like a twisted flower, its head engorged and misshapen, mutilated. I rubbed my eyes and stood up, acting as if I were waking in the suburbs of Iowa City to a typical morning scene. When I looked back, they were all looking at me--and I realized they were waiting for me to join them, that the look was an invitation. I smiled and stretched and yawned, and then walked out of the trailer. Outside, on the steps, I hesitated a moment. I was thinking, This is it. I don't want to see the guy again. Ever. I took a breath and went back into the trailer. They hadn't missed me. Johnny was leaning over Chrys and she was moaning with pleasure while Mel stroked her forehead. I said, "Johnny. You've always been a fool," and I saw a look of fury flash over his face before I turned and again walked out of the trailer.

I'm not sure what I was feeling as I walked away: relief? sadness? Emptiness mostly, I think. Nothing, with sadness and anger hovering around the edges. I walked. The Burning Man had burned. There were lots of people around, throngs of people looking excited or tired, pumped up or crashing. Many in costumes. I walked toward the Burning Man, and when I came upon two empty lawn chairs inside a drawn circle on the cracked desert, I stepped into the circle and took a seat. There was no one in the immediate vicinity: It was a little shadowy spot ten feet beyond a ring of tents and parachute structures, where a couple must have gotten away from their friends to watch the burning. I didn't think they'd mind if I rested awhile. I looked up as one of the Burning Man's arms fell to the ground and exploded in a bright splash of red embers. People roared their approval. Then Johnny stepped into the circle and sat alongside me. He was wearing one of Mel's red slippers and one of his own, and the black pajamas, with the top inside out. He fell heavily into the chair, as if he were exhausted.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

He looked at me for a moment without speaking, his face a mask of amused disgust. He reminded me for a moment of the Johnny I knew as a kid, my older brother, the guy I always turned to when I did something stupid. He said, "I followed you. I ran after you when you left the trailer. I was going to wring your neck before I remembered I couldn't wring a puppy's neck, let alone a big old guy like you." He paused a moment. "How'd you get so old, Kevin?"

I sat up in my chair and leaned over to look closely at Johnny. He was sweating and pale. If I weren't so fed up with him, I'd have been worried. "What the hell's wrong with you, Johnny? Don't tell me you have AIDS," I said. "Or is it just the drugs?"

"What drugs?"

"The ones I saw you popping in the bedroom."

"Those are medicine, Sherlock. I take medication every four and six hours."

I waited, prompting him to explain.

"I don't have AIDS," he said. "What I've got is kidneys that are nearly gone, a liver that's a wreck, and last year I had a stroke. Sometimes I can barely talk."

I leaned away from Johnny, and then I looked away.

He added, "I'm around another year, it'll be a gift."

I didn't know what I wanted to say. I rubbed my forehead hard with the heel of my hand. Fact was, even finding out about all this, I was still angry with him. He must have been able to feel it.

He said, "I've read your stories, Kev. You're a moralist. They're all--what's right, what's wrong." He shook his head, as if dismissing my stupidity.

I didn't bother responding.

He said, "What is it you expect, Kevin? You think you figure out the rules you'll be happy? You think you can live a pleasant life?"

I said, "Not with you as my brother, Johnny."

He answered, without hesitating, "I am your brother. That's the way it is, Kevin. Way it is." He was quiet for a while, and then he laughed an unpleasant laugh that went on and on.

I was silent. I had nothing I wanted to say. When Johnny finally managed to stop laughing, he leaned toward me and put his hand on my forearm. His fingers were dry and rough, like an old man's, and I was surprised--at the feel of my brother's hand. Above us, the night sky darkened. Around us, the noise of the crowd diminished. We remained there like that, with his hand on my arm--brothers, looking up at the black husk of the Burning Man, the charred figure, wrecked and smoldering.

"Van Gogh would have cut off his other ear for a chance to hang out here for a weekend."