The Monarch was being a pain in the ass. It had worked perfectly before they dismantled it in Oakland, so the fuck-up had obviously happened on Jake’s watch, during the reassembly in Black Rock City, something to do with the exposed gears and the dust. The beeotch had been wobbling all over the proving ground at Trans Bay, shaming the fuck out of him. He was glad that he was so high up (in the Pod Formerly Known as Anna’s) that no one, not even Amos, could see him blushing.
“It’s veering to the right now,” he hollered.
“I know,” said Amos with a note of strained patience in his voice. He was manning the left pod, one of three connected to the wheels. He was also in charge of the wings, which had just proven unflappable in the worst sense of the word.
“We can’t take this out on the playa,” Jake groaned. “We look like a wounded duck limping into the reeds.”
Amos knew better than to agree with him. “It must be fixable. Let’s have Incandescence take a look.” Incandescence was the Burn name of Lisa Gelb, the asshat in the right pod. Nobody liked using that stupid name, since it made you slow down for it, just the way she did. She had been a sergeant in the army before her transition, and she wanted your attention all the time.
In-can-des-cence. Hup-two-three-four.
Amos was obviously enjoying himself, using Lisa to goad Jake out of his funk. Jake didn’t feel like being goaded out of anything right now. This overgrown tricycle had lost its reason to live even before it got here. He had not made it to hold a poster of Anna. He had made it to hold Anna. He had made it to give her wings.
Now the Monarch itself seemed to sense that the game was over.
Lisa was looking up at him expectantly. “Lemme at it, dude,” she said. “I think I know how to fix it.”
Of course you do. And if you don’t, you’ll make some shit up.
Jake hopped out of his pod and monkeyed down to the ground. “Have at it, Incandescence. She’s all yours. I’m through with this shit.”
“You leave it to me, little feller.”
This was provocation, pure and simple, but before Jake had a chance to respond, Amos had taken Jake by the arm and led him away from the scene.
“Why are you being such a dick?”
“Me? Did you hear what she called me?”
“She’s pissed. You haven’t let her anywhere near the Monarch since we got here. What harm can it do to let her have a shot at it?”
“You watch. She’ll take total credit for it for the rest of the week. She’ll act like she saved the day.”
“There are worse things that could happen.” Amos raised his brows knowingly, irritatingly.
“Like what?” asked Jake. “Being spared a lot of blank stares on the playa?”
“C’mon. Who cares?”
“It won’t work without Anna here.”
Amos shot him a WTF look.
“Not the machinery—the whole concept. That poster makes it look like a friggin’ memorial or something. Like a Chinese funeral procession.”
Amos chortled. “It would be working fine if it were Chinese.”
“You blame me, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t give a shit, personally.”
“You’re judging me about something.”
“Well, I think you’re kinda being a man about machinery.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. Can’t relate, sorry. It’s like a bad NASCAR movie. If you want that kind of butch, you’ll have to find another cis queer.”
He felt the beginnings of a smile, so he crimped it into a smirk.
“Let’s go to Center Camp,” said Amos. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
Burning Man’s commitment to gifting and radical self-reliance dictated that only two items were available for purchase in Black Rock City: ice and coffee. Jake enjoyed both nods to corrosive capitalism in the form of a large iced soy latte in the big tent at Center Camp. Then he and Amos cuddled up on a lumpy beanbag angled toward one of the performance spaces. The beanbag was what had attracted them, not the zoned-out guy on stage reading from a stack of papers. If not for his ponytail and Utilikilt, he might have been Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future. His audience was skimpy and scattered, but they gave him their attention, hooting and clapping whenever he stopped long enough to signal that a response would be appropriate.
Amos frowned. “Do you think that whole thing’s a poem?”
“Sounds like it. About GMOs.”
“Oh, you mean like—”
“Yeah, genetically modified . . . whatever.”
“Organisms.”
“Right.”
They were silent while the guy on stage droned on. I spit on your alien corn. I curse your zombie wheat, your amber waves of evil . . .
Finally Jake said, “It was smart of them to put the poetry next to the caffeine.”
Amos chuckled and pulled Jake closer. “Feeling better?”
Jake conceded that he might be, that coffee worked miracles.
“You know,” said Amos, “if Anna were here—”
“—it would be totally fucked. I know.”
“Well—not that bad, but . . . she’d be feeling bad for you . . . and you would be feeling guilty. For no good reason. So—you’ve been spared all that.”
“The sucky part,” said Jake, “is that Marguerite and Selina get to be right.”
Amos hesitated. “They don’t have to know that.”
“No?”
“Fuck no.”
The guy on stage had become louder and more singsongy. He had begun to chant, in fact.
Canto, Monsanto, canto, Monsanto.
“What does canto mean?” Jake asked.
“It’s a verse in an epic poem.”
“A long one, in other words.”
“Look at that stack of paper, Jakey.”
“Let’s just wander away casually the next time they clap. We don’t want to insult him. He’s only got eight people listening.”
“You think he’s noticed?” Amos stood up, dusting off his butt. “C’mon. I’ve got some Mormon underwear you gotta take a look at.”
That did not happen right away. They had errands to run before dark, and the last thing Jake wanted was to come back early and find Lisa—fuck Incandescence—still grunting away over the Monarch, telling anyone who’d listen how fucked up the reassembly had been. So they headed off to Arctica, one of the two camps where ice was sold, to buy cubes for their evening cocktails. A lean silver-haired woman of sixty or so was whaling away with an ice pick, her back turned to them. Jake should have recognized her—he would have, anywhere back in the city—but here she was completely out of context. The pigtails threw him too. And the pink-and-white-striped dress. The whole getup, really.
“Jake! It’s Mary Ann!”
“Oh, hi.” He laughed and hugged her awkwardly across the counter. “You look so much like . . . Dorothy, right? I didn’t even—”
“I’m a candystriper, actually.” She swept her fingers along the edge of her dress as if that would explain everything.
Jake shrugged. “Sorry. You know I suck at the femme stuff.” He was rocking from foot to foot, nervously aware that it was his turn to introduce Amos. What would he call him with someone new? Was it too early for boyfriend?
“This is Amos Karpel.” He made a feeble hand-wobbling gesture between them. “Mary Ann Singleton.”
Amos gave her a sleepy smile. “I’m trying to make the connection between the uniform and the ice.”
“Oh . . . well . . . there is none. I just work Arctica for the hoot of it. People are always so glad to see you. Mostly though I work the night shift at the medical tent.” She arched a well-penciled eyebrow. “Totally untrained. Hence Candystriper.” She wiggled a silver pigtail at him. “My playa name. World’s oldest teen volunteer.”
Amos smiled. “So what do you do?”
She shrugged. “Clean ’em up. Talk ’em down. Whatever the doctors want. There’s a lot of dehydration and puncture wounds. You’d be surprised how many people step on rebar. I’m always saying ‘gross,’ which doesn’t help a whole lot. I have to pretend that Candystriper said it in character, not me.” She tilted her head in acknowledgment of her silliness. “Don’t worry. Jake will explain me later. It’s lovely to meet you, Amos. You’re very cute. How many bags, gentlemen?”
They ordered four bags, all they could fit in their bike trailer. “We can give one to Lisa,” said Amos, “if things work out with . . . the Monarch.”
Jake gave him a withering look.
Mary Ann glanced between the two of them. “Is there royalty here or something?” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I’m very discreet. That’s the way it’s done. Anne Hathaway was here last year, and she just—walked amongst us.”
“The Monarch is an art car,” Amos explained. “A Monarch butterfly.”
“Oh . . . of course . . . wow . . . like down in Pacific Grove. That’s sounds amazing.”
“We made it for Anna.” It tumbled out of him just like that. He wanted Mary Ann to know. She went way back with Anna, and she would get it.
“Is she here?” She sounded more aghast than excited.
“No, it’s just . . . a tribute.”
“Oh—well . . . that’s good. This would be a little rough on her.”
“That’s what everybody keeps saying.”
Mary Ann loaded two bags of ice onto the counter. While Amos was transferring them to the trailer, she made a hasty hand signal to Jake that asked, Are you two an item? Jake reddened on the spot, and the exchange was not lost on Amos.
“We’d better be,” he told her, grinning.
“Well, let me tell you something.” Mary Ann put her hand on Jake’s shoulder. It was chilly from the ice and felt good. “This is one of the finest men I’ve ever met.”
“Mary Aaann,” said Jake, sounding, even to his own ears, like a kid saying “Mooom.”
“Shut up, Jake. I’m saying this.” Her hand remained on his shoulder. “This man literally saved my life.”
“I did not literally save your life.”
“Okay then—my sanity. It was the worst moment of my life, and Jake was there—so there—being kind and strong and comforting.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Amos.
There was no way to change the subject but do it himself. “So what are you doing here? I mean, it doesn’t seem like your sort of—”
Mary Ann drew back in mock indignation. “What? I don’t look like Burning Man material?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have—”
She laughed, cutting him off. “DeDe and D’or and I are doing a plug and play, so just shoot me now. We’re the Ladies of Woodside. That’s what the Candystriper thing is all about. I’m doing penance for my luxury. And I should be, believe me.”
“Nice RV?”
“Huge. Oh my God.”
“How huge?”
“Reba McIntyre huge. You guys should come over. Hang out. Take a shower.” She gave him a wicked look. “I won’t tell. Your radical self-reliance is safe with me.” She leaned into him, as if she were about to offer him drugs. “A sit-down barbecue with cornbread and coleslaw and chocolate cake. And showers.”
Amos’s face was hard for Jake to read. Was he charmed by her energy or slightly repelled by it? “Get thee behind me,” he said, smiling.
She threw another bag on the counter. “I wasn’t going for Satan.”
He laughed. “Nowhere close.”
“There’s no virtue in missing out,” she said.
A long, confusing silence hung in the air.
Jake jumped into the breach. “Anna’s been loving the Volcano.”
“Oh . . . good. It’s not too much for her to manage?”
“Well . . . I do that for her.”
“Of course. That’s so sweet.”
“Not that often, but . . . sometimes before bed.”
Mary Ann smiled at him wistfully, sharing Mrs. Madrigal for a moment, then shooed them both away “Go! Make delicious cocktails! There’s a line here!”
As Jake and Amos left with their wagons, Mary Ann hollered a final imperative. “And marry him, Amos . . . if you get half the chance.”
Do you hate her?” Jake asked as they unloaded the ice back at Trans Bay.
Amos thought for a moment. “I sort of don’t.”
“Yeah—me too.”
“How did you save her life . . . or whatever?”
“Do you remember that shed I showed you at Michael’s house?”
“Where the old guy killed himself?”
“Yep. . . . She was with him.”
“What?”
“He shot himself in front of her. I showed up a few minutes later. All I did was call the police and let her cry on me. I guess it was kind of a bonding moment.”
“I would say . . . yeah.”
“That and our hysterectomies.”
Amos remained unruffled. “She had one too? Not for the same reason, I take it.”
“Hers was for cancer. Just a few months before mine. She spent some time with me in the hospital. I’ve never forgotten it.”
“Then I won’t,” said Amos, giving him a tender look.
The Mormon underwear made its debut as soon as night fell. Amos came slouching through the tent flap, his chest hair spilling from the scooped neckline, his circumcised cock straining parabolically against the thin polyester blend of the fly.
“Excuse me, sir. May I speak with the lady of the house?”
Jake told him he must have the wrong house.
“Okay, then, what am I supposed to say?”
“In the first place, they’re not in their underwear when they come to the door. Or just their underwear, anyway.”
“So what did this guy say? The one who used to sit on your lap in his underwear?”
“I don’t remember. Just be yourself, Amos.”
Regrouping, Amos shook out his arms like a runner before a marathon. Then he grabbed his cock and snarled out his words backwoods style.
“I spit on your alien corn,” he said. “I curse your zombie alfalfa, your amber waves of . . . whatever.”
Jake laughed and threw a sneaker at him.