06-11-2309
We woke up late and didn’t even hurry to get ready. We felt confident we’d make it in time. 9 o’clock rolled around and, sometime after breakfast was served, we finally got around to getting on the road. Our party of three set out in the 4-wheeled crawler down the last stretch of our journey before our main destination, the Bonnaroo festival.
It was at this exact same time that my brother pulled his SUV into the parking spot a volunteer in an orange vest waved him into. He had waited so long in line, following the slow moving trail of vehicles, all honking and hollering with excitement constantly for the past hour. On and on it went, to the middle of a grassy field, beside hundreds of others, and enough space between to comfortably fit a tent for each group.
His behemoth of a crawler lurched one last foot forward and came to a rest in the soft, rain fresh soil. He killed the engine and removed the key, his seat automatically un-adjusting to allow him more room to exit. After he set down the keys and remained seated, Zech Lane turned slowly to the rest of his group.
“Now bitches, we are here. Let‘s get high!” he said dramatically, and to much applause and cheer from the others.
Within thirty seconds all four members of their party had stepped down out of the navy blue beast and begun stretching and moaning. Minkus Grambel was the first out; he cracked his back, flinched his head to side a few times and pulled out a cigarette, tapping on a pack that matched the color of his shorts before lighting it.
Rip Gozo was soon after, slipping out of the passenger’s seat on the same side as Minkus. He stretched his arms together, giving out a strange, high-pitched grunt, and patted himself down for a pack of cigs. Finding none, he turned around to face the other Earthling.
“Hey Minkus, can I bum a Red from you?” he asked in a curious tone.
“You say it like we could possibly have another type of cigarette with us,” he retorted quickly, being on the road had made everyone a little edgy.
“I know that’s all we have, I was there when we bought the carton…so, can I have a cig?” he inquired again.
“Oh, right. Of course, man,” Minkus said apologetically as he pulled out the red and white box. “A cowboy killer for you.”
“Thanks,” Rip said as he lit it, and only taking a little puff of it. “I really hope buying all 200 of these will be worth it by the end of this.”
“More like…175. That was one long line, man,” Eli interjected. Mr. Bayer was a dopey looking Earthling in baggy jeans and a ball cap pulled low, but always had an ability to seem inconspicuous; the man would be downright unnoticeable in a crowd of garishly dressed hippies, let alone the likes of Rip and Minkus. “I’m sure I smoked a pack by myself,” he exaggerated, but lighting another as he joined them, walking around from the other back door.
“Guys, we really need to focus on setting up the tent,” my brother, Zech, reminded everyone as he rounded the front of his truck.
“He’s right, we have to stake our claim before the next car moves in, otherwise we won’t have enough room for everything,” Rip confirmed. He had been to every one of these festivals here since the year after I first went. I may have gone first, long ago in the day, relaying tales and fragments of what my memories revealed to anyone who would listen, but Rip was seasoned in the experience of Bonnaroo, this would be his fourth.
“Yeah..that..and I need to sleep,” Zech explained, glaring at Minkus for not getting behind the wheel at any point. He had made the 10 hour trek from Northern Dominia in one long stretch, and sat in line for another two; he desperately needed rest. He held out three fingers, putting them down one at a time, saying “Tent. Blunt. Sleep.”
“But I want to go out and…find something,” Eli moaned to himself, holding his elbows as his eyes searched far off.
“We can go out and find anything we want later,” he assured everyone, though he too looked off into the distance, longing to discover what palpable offerings there were at hand. “Also, it’s gonna be, like, way easier once everyone is done setting up, too,” he said, telling himself more than anyone else.
Zech was removing the nylon sack containing a 4-person tent that belonged to the Grambel family. “Mink, you’re really gonna have to help me with this. Eli, stop rolling that and…well…on second thought, roll it. I think we’ve got this.”
We were still elsewhere in Appalachia about two hours later. After an embarrassing, and downright soaking, stop into a Uber-Mart to stock up on last minute supplies and food to fill up whatever room we had left, our car had reached the end of waiting line for the festival. Ahead of us it seemed to go on infinitely, everyone pulled over to the shoulder to let local traffic through, and quickly behind us, as far back as we could see, it continued on, endless.
The police would roll by occasionally to assist, though that was mostly added up to shouting cryptic messages on the megaphone and getting our hopes up by continually saying we were almost there. They couldn’t be bothered to stop and inform us how long we actually had, better to just ride on by and squall at anyone standing in the middle of the road.
Brick, Leona and I waited about 15 minutes before becoming restless, eager to get in and get set up, knowing we were just around the corner from the entrance. It was about this time we started noticing pairs and groups of people bailing out from their vehicles and making a run for the tree line, sneaking in a quick pee break. We scoffed at their impatience, thinking we were mere minutes away from being let in.
“That’s it. I’m gonna get out and start making friends with the neighbors,” Brick said, unfastening his seatbelt.
“By neighbors you mean the car in front of us in line?” I asked, with a slight bitterness since I could have used a tree myself.
“Yep. Looks like a good enough time,” he said, opening the door as he snatched the pack of the cigarettes out of the console. The door slammed behind him, followed by a moment of silence.
“Well, I guess that means we get to be friends,” I said turning to Leona, taking the first opportunity alone with her to have a nice conversation.
Two hours later, at Zech’s campsite, Rip and Minkus returned from a browse through the shops along the thoroughfare to the event center. They managed to lose Eli somewhere along the way, but felt confident he‘d find his way back. Zech was still passed out in the tent, so the two present members opened up the tailgate of the behemoth, sat down and shared a bowl together.
“This is so astro, dude,” the blonde Earthling said, hitting the pipe out in the open, in broad daylight. He passed it back to his pointy eared companion, making no efforts to conceal it.
“Yeah, it’s always really nice here,” he responded flatly, well aware how awesome it was from the past three times he attended. He picked a curl of his dark hair out of his face and hit the little pipe they just. He glanced down at the tiny glass piece with a sour face as he exhaled, saying “Man, I should have bought a bigger one…I guess I’ll just give this one to my mom.”
“How many pipes that you didn’t want anymore have you given to your mom?” Minkus asked, facetiously.
“How many has she given to me?” Rip smirked.
“Hey, you guys wanna hang out over here?” a young woman’s voice called from another campsite. “We’re about to play a game of pong.”
Rip and Minkus looked at each other and nodded, turning to say in unison “Hell yeah!” They walked over with the unfinished pipe to the adjacent camp.
“Oh look, she’s making friends already,” their neighbor said to his brother. His girlfriend turned and gave him a face, sticking out her tongue.
“Shut up, now you have a team to play against,” she explained to him. None of them seemed too bright to Rip, Minkus just thought the neighbors were funny. They handed their new friends the bowl as they joined their game.
At nearly the same time, after two hours of waiting in line, I was finishing up the last pages of my tlog. Well, not the whole thing, just this ‘best of’ collection I have; the highlights, if you will. Realizing these last pages were all about Lou, I cut it short, making an ending out the middle of a random paragraph.
No one noticed, so I put my computer under the seat and picked my texti out of the console to check how long we’d been in line.
“That’s it, time for a beer,” I said to the back seat, holding my hand out and waiting for it to be filled.
Leona obliged, handing Brick and I a red and white can, then getting herself one. As we each cracked open a beer we noticed a crowd of hippies, and other brightly dressed folks our age, out frolicking and playing in the field we were parked beside. The traffic was remaining static in long enough intervals for people to start a game of ultimate or soccer between hobbling from point to point.
The best toy we could find was a beach ball Leona brought for the concert. As quickly as we could, we inflated it and ran out to the field. We soon learned how difficult it was to control such a light object in the breeze, which added a whole lot of unpredictability to the game, but frustrated the hell out of us.
Sometime around 2 in the afternoon Zech awoke, bathed in blue light and sweat, on top of his sleeping bag. All around him were the sounds of celebration: people laughing and shouting, beers popping and fireworks screeching, and music–music coming from more directions than he could count. He stretched, yawned, and unzipped the door of the cerulean tent they’d assembled some 5 hours ago, crawling out into the real world.
He was instead astounded by how surreal it was; standing up in a pool of vivid colors and sounds. He seemed to be treading in a sea of tents and cars that spanned as far as he looked in any direction, the horizon spiked with masts and waving flags, alive and brightly adorned. Giant balloons floated off in the distance, tethered to the ground by massive lines, and bottle rockets exploded in the sky nearby.
Rip and Minkus returned from another neighboring camp, waving goodbye to the pierced lesbians they just met. Minkus had a smitten expression on his face his companion was more than eager to wipe off.
“Just cause you’re extra feminine doesn’t mean they’ll find you any bit attractive,” Rip said, popping his bubble.
“Shut up. A man can dream, damn it.” He paused a moment to think, then said to himself “she kinda reminded me of LZ.”
“Well, look who’s finally alive. I mean, huh-what?” Rip quickly deflected, lest anyone notice how snarky he is all the time.
“Mornin’,” he responded, letting the joke roll off his back. What happened to Eli?” my little brother asked, noticing that his crew was short a member.
“Eli?” asked Minkus in a tone that made it seem like they’d been joking about him for a while.
“Yeah,” Rip continued, glancing at him with a smirk. “We haven’t seen him in hours..
“The man completely disappeared after we smoked and you passed out,” Minkus expressed with concern, but not enough to go out looking for him.
“Oh, but come on. We’d never find him out there; it’s, like, too insane,” Rip interjected with a swish of his hand.
“You’re right, it looks crazy from here,” Zech agreed, peering about for a second.
“If you really want to see something, check this out,” Minkus said, leading everyone to the side of the resting beast, where he climbed to the roof by stepping up the ladder and the wheel cowling to the hood. “The view’s amazing, guys. C’mon up here,” he waved to the others to follow. “And bring that fire, Rip.”
In a minute they were passing around the bowl, sitting 2 meters above everyone else’s heads, atop the blue back of the sleeping behemoth. To every direction there was excitement and joy; festivities raged to the horizon line. They could see the pulsing veins of fellow concertgoers between the other tents and vehicles, flowing like blood to the core of the several hundred acre event. They trailed with their eyes until they were all looking forward in amazement, jaws open.
“Holy gork!”
“My gorking heavens!”
“Shit, we can see the main stage from here,” Zech said, finally starting to wake up a bit.
“Wow guys…this is going to be a good year,” Rip said humbled, thinking it may be his best trip to this etesian Elusian so far.
An hour later, I was seated where I had been for what already felt like an eternity, head on my hand as I stared out the window of Brick’s crawler. I sighed, lit another of the non-menthol cigarettes I bummed from one of my neighbors. We’d started to get friendly with the adjacent cars in the few past hours.
To my left were the guys who drove down from New Tros, ready to take their X as soon as it got dark. On the right, behind us in line, were the guys from some other part of New Ganymede who debated whether or not they should fire up the grill the next time we come to a stop. And directly in front of me, knife-kid was at it again, beheading any wild flower he saw.
“That kid who seems to despise flowers is back,” I reported lazily. Leona hardly stirred from her book but Brick opened his eyes at least gave him a glance.
“That guy’s still choppin’ away, huh?” the Martian muttered, rolling his head back over where he was resting.
“I wonder what those poor, white flowers ever did to him,” I said to myself as I turned back to him, exhaling slowly. After another moment, I suddenly felt very fed up and started to climb out of the window as I exclaimed “That’s it!”
“How many times are we gonna go through this, you’ll never make it in on foot,” Brick hardly opened his eyes as he spoke.
“No-No, not again. I’m just gonna sit on the roof,” I said as I pulled myself out and up onto it.
From here I could see further ahead than I had before, and I definitely didn’t like what I saw. Nothing but the same thing over and over: tie-dye and technicolor crawling along the side of the road at a slug‘s pace.
I leaned over the driver’s side and pounded on the roof. Brick stuck his head out and stared at me irascibly. “Hey-” I started.
“What?” he snapped quickly.
“We shouldn’t have smoked the last of our weed last night.”
“I know, I realized that already,” he said glaring, “or sacrificed the last of it for luck last night, you Callitian.”
“Yeah, my bad. Look…we should have slaughtered a goat…or Leona,” I said jokingly.
“Haha,” his mood changed a bit. “No we’re trading the blonde for hallucinogens, remember?”
“What’s that?” she finally interjected, sticking her head out the window too.
“Nothing, go back to reading, hon,” I said, dismissing her. She gave me a puzzled look and shrugged, withdrawing back inside. Brick chuckled again and retreated as well. I remained on the roof, finishing my cigarette as I stared at the anxious line, slothing its way along.
Another hour later and Rip was just getting back to the camp, excited to smoke what he just bought. He was almost frolicking by the time he bounded into the site, greeted by two pairs of confused, blue eyes that only said goodbye to him a minute ago.
“Guess what I got, like, three camps away.”
“What, what?” Minkus asked, hoping it was something better than the brick weed he’d brought from up north.
He removed a baggie that contained a black, lumpy substance, and held it aloft, shouting “Mmmm-opium!” This lit up the eyes of the other crew members, excited to add the first exotic drug to the list for this trip.
“Did somebody say opium?” an optimistic voice called from around the car. Eli Bayer stepped out of nowhere, as if summoned by the tarry stuff.
“Yes, in fact, I did…Where did you come from, El?” Rip asked, feeling most confused of all.
“Huh? Oh, I was just in there,” he said, pointing to open driver’s door of the 6-wheel’d truck everyone was currently seated on the tail of.
“Really?” Minkus turned in amazement, obviously not even knowing he was there. “How long?” Eli just shrugged and joined them, sitting on a cooler with a jacket on top for a cushion.
“Now if only we had another pipe to smoke out of,” Rip started to mutter, staring at the little blue one. Not even a minute later, a large hippie came roaming passed the camp with a massive black case.
“Blown glass pieces! Finest Quality! Get them while they last!” he shouted in all directions, unashamedly. The crew just looked at each other a moment before, responding.
“Yo, over here!” Rip said, acting as representative for them. The salesman came over and displayed his wares: truly the finest of triple blown glass they had ever seen.
“I made these myself; all the ones you see here in blue don’t change color because I blew them with silver,” the artisan explained. Rip immediately gravitated to one of these metallic blue pieces, particularly such with what seemed like a sidecar-handle. Zech locked eyes with a different, sturdy one shaped similarly to a gavel. Both had strange honeycomb patterns that seemed to sweeten the deal. They noticed the prices though.
“I really won’t have enough for other stuff this weekend if I spend a hundred on this,” Rip complained. Zech was getting his wallet out.
“But it’s so gorkin’ awesome, man. You have to get it,” Minkus pleaded.
“It really is a pretty one,” Eli even added with his mysteriously present southern drawl..
“I can throw in one of these chillums here for free,” the man offered, still holding the case with one arm as he pointed to a series of short one-hitters in the front. Rip spotted a white one that looked surprisingly like a squid and snatched it up.
“Yea, ok. I’ll take these too then,” the dark curly haired Earthling said, bowing his head as if in defeat.
“And I’ll take this one for 75,” the light curly haired one said, handing over the money immediately.
“I appreciate it, pleasure doing business with ya’ll,” he thanked them and disappeared, but could still be heard, continuing to advertise himself nearby for a few more minutes.
“Wow guys, that was real lucky,” Minkus was still in a bit of shock. Rip and Zech continued eying the new pieces of their arsenals.
“I really wish I had some dank weed to christen this thing properly,” my brother said, seemingly to no one. Some force seemed to beck their call, as another, even brighter dressed hippie came trading through.
“Headeez! I‘ve got Orange and Purple!” he bellowed as he rounded another site and entered theirs.
“Yo, over here!” everyone yelled.
The clock in the HUD of brick’s crawler showed a few past five o’clock. I grumbled as I looked down into the pack of cigarettes I’d bought this morning. I at least consider myself lucky that I’d bought two, but that meant I’d really only have one the weekend. As I lit it, Brick turned to me.
“Hey, put your tuni back on, I’m getting sick of my playlist.”
“Uh, I exhausted mine hours ago, but I guess I could find something obscure,” I said, spending the next moment in complete silence, spare the click of the selector wheel. I sat, running scroll-wise for what seemed forever, eventually forgetting what I was doing and just absent mindedly spinning my thumb around as words streamed by unintelligible.
“Pick something, the click is maddening!” Brick had been getting impatient.
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” I picked the next thing I saw, something we’d listened to on Luna, but it was long enough ago by now. “Damn it, why aren’t we at the shows yet, we’re missing out on so much right now.”
“Its ok guys, I’m sure we’ll be there soon, I mean…how much longer could this line be?” Leona asked rhetorically.
“It’s just we’ve been in this car for so damn long,” Brick moaned. “I think this is the longest we’ve been in these seats consecutively this entire trip,” he stated, looking to me to confirm.
“Well considering that we’ve gotten out and to play on every rocky out cropping along the way, or at least sat down in a restaurant for a good portion of time each day, even if it was a fast food joint, I’d say yea, this has been unbearably long and I hope it ends soon,” I said to two nodding heads. We had no idea how close or far we were from getting in.
It was about the same time, only a couple of miles away, that Rip, Minkus and Eli left the camp to go on another excursion into the vibrant world that surrounded them. Zech remained behind to mind the camp, an activity that wouldn’t require too much of the already fatigued lad. The others attempted to establish a viable path out of the three rows of other camps that impeded them from reaching the closest lane.
When they’d reached the already well trodden path, they came to join the gaudy, surging mass making its way to the junction between the event center and camping areas; a giant arch constructed in the middle of the farm with the words ‘Bonnaroo’ illuminated for all to see, though it was only slightly visible unless you were quite close by.
Rather than tag along the column of slowly moving bodies to the stages, the gang became distracted by the glittering attractions of the thoroughfare vendors. All sorts of baubles and trinkets dangled from leather thongs on the posts holding up the blue tarps of their shops.
Belly dancers and fire jugglers played in the street to bring attention to the shop, some waving about smoldering bunches of incense that filled the entire avenue with a pungent but memorable aroma. Brightly colored fabrics woven of natural fibers were sold alongside wood carvings and incense burners; screened tee shirts beside music memorabilia and ash trays. Every manner of smoking device available on display for all to lust for sat at their fingertips, and all could be theirs for the right price.
“This is what heaven is like, right,” Minkus asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
“No, not at all,” Rip argued, “this is so much better!”
A roar of excitement filed its way back through the line to us, catching my attention and stirring me from my daydreams. It was just after 6 by the clock in the dash, and it looked like we were moving a considerable amount, compared to the last hours of drudgery that amounted to very little.
We suddenly came around a corner, a sharp right off the street with which we’d become sickeningly accustomed, onto an even more secluded, backwoods road. This really looked like the home stretch, and by the applause of all ahead and behind, there was no reason to believe it wasn’t.
We watched people in other vehicles climb out their open windows and sit, sideways on the door as if on a railing. It looked like a good idea, so I grabbed my guitar and followed suit, hanging onto the wooden instrument as we crept along at a few miles an hour. I tried to play anything but the same song I had been for days, the one I wrote right before this trip started, but eventually launched into a 6 minute rendition of it. And still, we kept crawling.
“We’ll be set up in no time, guys!” I shouted with glee, though my excitement began to wane when I looked ahead again to see red break lights flowing at us.
An hour later and it had begun to rain over the 700 acre and its surrounding areas. Hard rain; heavy and unrelenting to those improperly covered or prepared for such an occurrence. Three individuals, particularly so, began their withdrawal back to the car. A slow retreat though, none seemed to be too bothered by the downpour.
The one with strong Ionian features (dark curly hair and pointy ears), a brand new tie-dye shirt, and a new blanket wrapped around his shoulders, woven of coarse pink and grey fibers, lead the way. Behind him, the Earthling with blue eyes hid his buzzed blonde hair and slightly pointed ears under a brand new blue hat as he nestled his arms, warm underneath his favorite sweatshirt. Trailing in rear was the dopey looking one with dark hair and blue eyes who wore nothing but a t-shirt, but was too busy staring the new piece he had bought himself, the little blue chillum he imagined he’d get to use plenty.
Surprisingly, the fourth member of their crew was awake when they returned to the camp. The youngest one, skinny and pale with light blue eyes and long, curly blonde hair sat in the wide open cargo bay, noming on a box of cookies, dry and safe from the storm underneath the large hatch, swung up above him. He scooted back to let them in, seating himself on top of someone’s luggage.
Rip simply shook out his blanket and folded it up, the material dry as he was underneath it. Minkus swapped sweatshirts and wrapped the hood of his wet one around the inner handle of the large hatch to let it dry. Eli took off his soaked t-shirt and put a sweater on over his damp back, muttering something to himself as he hung his only shirt over a seat‘s headrest.
“Alright, who wants to get high,” Rip said, removing his tool kit and some freshly purchased supplies. Three eager faces responded by huddling up close to where he sat, the glow from the dash illuminating them all from behind.
At that same moment is when I noticed it beginning to rain. I was just thinking to myself that it had gotten dark all of a sudden when tiny points of moisture began to strike the windshield and my arm hanging out the window. I saw, already, that there was no one left playing outside or hanging out on someone else’s hood and started to roll up my window, the others doing so as well when they realized why.
We obviously weren’t at the gate yet, the short cut or whatever we thought we had taken ended up being just another lengthy leg of the line. There was no considerable end in sight and we sighed as the drizzle became a rain and then a downpour.
Two hours later and it was still coming down hard on the exterior of the vehicle, pounding arhythmically for what seemed like forever on this already infinite day. There wasn’t even music playing anymore, we only ran the engine to keep the air circulating while the windows were closed. Brick feared if the line kept going any longer that we’d run out of gas before reaching our camp. I tried to reassure him we’d never be able to burn the rest, but words like ‘never’ ‘could’ and impossible meant very little in these conditions.
“I wonder how the others are enjoying the festival so far,” I grumbled as I looked back out the window into the dark, wet nothingness.
“This isn’t so bad, you know?” Minkus said, turning to the others. “In fact, I think it’s kinda cool. As long as we’re dry, I don’t care if we’re missing any of the bands.”
“I wouldn’t want to be out at any of those shows in this weather, anyway,” Rip decided, pausing a second to think if any of them would even be worth getting soaked for. “No, it always seems like a good idea, but it only gets more and more miserable as the show goes on.
“What do you mean, that doesn’t sound like a good idea at all,” Minkus objected, turning to see Rip wasn’t being the slightest bit serious.
“You think Klay and his friends made it in ok?” Eli spoke from where he sat in one of the forward seats.
“I hope so,” Rip answered. “I thought they would have called the second they got in, but maybe they’re too tired or all their phones are dead,” he reasoned.
“Ok, look. There’s no way that all of their phones are dead. No, I think they just haven’t gotten in through the gates yet,” Minkus stated pessimistically.
“Well that sucks because they’re gonna have to cut the line off eventually,” Rip began thinking to himself. “Man, I hope they get in soon.”
“Seriously, I dunno how much longer I can stay awake,” Eli said groggily, obviously already starting to doze off.
“All we can do is wait I guess…” Rip said to the rain still falling outside.
Another two hours later and the rain had let up. At this point, we’d been in line nearly 12 hours now, and half a day of this monotony had worn on us greatly. We were, without a doubt this time, certain we were approaching the final stretch.
The locals were out here, set up all the way on the other side of the lawn from their trailers and track homes–front row seats to the freak show passing by. In folding chairs with a can of beer in their hands, they watched the procession march on ever slowly from the edge of the road. An entire day of amusement just came to them, better than anything they’d be able to find on teli.
One particularly hairy Earthling, seeming to barely have had a cut or trim since the turn of the millennium, decided to thrust himself into the spectacle. He made his way down the line of foreign vehicles, meeting and greeting every single one of the ill humored, brightly colored individuals with his beer-free hand. He informed us we were in Asbury, a promising detail according to what I’d remembered seeing on the map. Then he was on his stumbling, stuttering way to the next car down the line, the odorous oaf.
Next there were even vendor tables; unofficial, redneck-run kiosks offering everything from cold beer to ponchos and bug repellent, and all for three times the price that we saw them for anywhere outside in the real world. But this was a trap from here on in, no way to get out now so we’ll jack up the prices. Welcome to our amusement park–hope you enjoy the ride.
Less than half hour later and we were finally at the gate, one of the last cars before the cutoff. Suddenly, after hours of seeing nothing but other vehicles on either side of us, looking back we saw nothing but an empty road. We look forward and we’re the next car to show our tickets and get our bracelets. They also gave us garbage bags, which we brought plenty of, but they were out of event programs, which could have been really useful to have at the time.
We joined the last pack being led to their camp sites, and sat tangled with it for mere seconds compared to what we’d just been through. We wanted nothing more than to wait and rest a short while after we’d pulled into our lake front property, but we knew time was against us, and it could start raining again any second.
We started to set up our shelter, stomping out a square of grass large enough to lay down a tarp and then stretched out nylon construction. The tent up easily enough, and we were just getting inside for the first time to assess how much space we‘d have when the deluge resumed.
“Wow, good timing, guys,” Leona said, shocked at how well that worked out.
“That was pretty near perfect I must say,” and I did, sighing with relief.
“Eh…not too perfect,” Brick interrupted in an unsettling tone. “We’re leaking,” he said, pointing up.
We could see that the seal on the fly was weak, very weak. Water began to pour through all the seams of the hexagonally shaped top-piece of the tent, and the main layer wasn‘t designed to hold back moisture . We futilely held towels up above our heads to stop the flow until it lightened up enough to go out and do something about it.
I cut up one of the ponchos I bought at Uber-Mart for 50c and we used duct tape on the other seams, making it as waterproof as it would ever get. Brick and I made a ring around it twice with our rolls and covered every single spot and crack we could find, Leona helping by doing the same inside.
We all prepared to call it an evening, deciding it was probably too late to try to find anything to smoke, and that we should cut our losses and try early in the morning. That’s about when I realized that Zech was bringing my sleeping bag and ground mat, and none of our crew had brought a real blanket with us.
I called him up immediately, he answered the third try. “Hello?” his groggy voice crackled from my texti’s speaker.
“Hey bro, we’re in, where are you?”
“Uh..I dunno,” he paused a moment, “do you have a map?”
“No? No, they didn’t give me one.”
“Oh, well…I don’t know how I can be helpful right now,” he admitted.
“Ok…is there anyone still awake who could be more helpful than you?”
“Uh…no.”
“Well…thanks?”
“Night,” he said, his voice disappearing with a beep.
I ground my teeth together for a second before giving up, letting out a regretful sigh. “Guess I don’t get a sleeping bag tonight,” I shrugged.
I ended up using a giant hippie tapestry as a blanket, and a genuine, Venusian poncho as a sheet on top of the inflatable pool floatie I was offered as a mattress–luckily with a pillow built in to it. And, at least, I was given the middle, more comfortable of the three spots and least likely to roll up against the damp side of a tent in your sleep.
Unfortunately, like each other night of the trip, Brick began to snore heavily once he passed out. Each of the other times I had been stoned enough to ignore it, or was given a separate room entirely. Instead, I was sober, uncomfortable, and not properly covered. I rolled over and looked at Leona, deep in dream already with self-molding earplugs nestled deep enough to even drown out one’s own voice. I leaned back over, flat on my back, staring up at the top of tent until, finally, a kindly bullfrog serenaded me to sleep.
