by SJ Cavaletti
“Uh, yeah,” I said, “Coming.”
I didn’t move quickly. I thought I knew who it was. And I wasn’t sure I was ready to meet her.
There was only one person I had called this morning on the road to Uyu. And that had been Gina. She, like us, had become a total Gypsy after her first year at Uyu and had been coming ever since.
I hadn’t wanted to let her know I was here. It worried me she’d try to stop me from my task. Or somehow tell Dixie, and my Mom, with her seemingly magical powers, would figure out a way to stop me. Or maybe Gina would want to hang out with me the whole time and ruin this loneliness that was feeling like a friend. Calling her was a thorn in the side. But I had to.
I had left in such a haste, and with no plan, and if I didn’t want to camp on G ring way out with the novices (who DEFINITELY wanted to meet new people and would be way too keen to make me talk), I needed to see if she could offer me a lifeline. A place to pitch my tent. Gina was very sociable, and I knew she had made some friends she kept in touch year-round.
When I had called her, which seemed a lifetime ago but in reality was only this morning, I was already on the road to Uyu. My plan, my story and my problem came flooding out. When I finally stopped talking and took a breath, I imagined Gina’s hair stood on end.
“Maeve, does your Mom know you are calling me?” Gina had asked, her dry voice, crackling from what sounded like a night out.
I had already been up for hours, driving, but it was first thing in the morning for her. And most likely Gina had stayed in Reno last night, making for a shorter drive to Uyu, but starting out on a hangover.
“No. She doesn’t know. But I’m sure she’ll realize I’m gone soon,” it was seven a.m., “Please don’t tell her.”
“Mmmm…”
“Gina, please. Literally. Please don't call her. I just. I need your help. You know this is what Dad wanted. I have to honor it. And if you don’t know of anywhere to pitch, I’ll get myself a spot somewhere.”
Only silence returned my plea. My defenses went up.
“I’m doing this with or without you Gina, but it would be great not to set up on the Outer. I don’t need the additional misery of G ring.”
Gina told me she needed to make a call and then called me back ten minutes later. I didn’t even play my music, waiting for this precious message. When she finally called back, it was hard to choose between her option and G ring.
“Maeve,” she took a deep breath before saying the rest, “I DO have a camp of people who will look after you. They have enough room since you only have a tent but…”
She paused. A long, awkward pause that made me think we had lost reception.
“Gina?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here. Maeve, your Mom will KILL me if she finds out about this. You and I? We never spoke about this. You hear?”
“Yeah. Course. I hear. So, you have a pitch?”
“I am dead serious, Maeve. I will have your head if you tell her…”
“I won’t! You have my word.”
Another pause. Another deep breath from her end.
“C Ring. Between October and September Roads. You’ll see a big…” She hesitated, searching for her words before she continued, “You’ll see a semi-truck and a very large... igloo. That’s the camp.”
“An… igloo?”
We both knew there was only one thing that looked like an igloo at Uyu. The igloo at Sedna Camp. AKA the Kink Dome.
Crickets. Only crickets sang between us. I wondered what Gina would think if I took the spot. She wondered if I wondered how she knew the people who ran the Sedna Camp. I did wonder how she knew the people who ran the Sedna Camp.
But I simply said, “Thanks, G. You’re a lifesaver.”
She had told me the couple running the site called themselves Tristan and Isolde. Of course they were. Jesus.
And now, I guessed the sing-song voice belonged to Isolde, and it was her who stood outside my tent at this very moment.
Unzipping the flap, a middle-aged woman wearing a very any-beach USA bikini stood in front of me.
“Heeeeey…” she reached out, without introducing herself or asking my name and hugged me. Her huge, natural boobs crushed into my chest. She pulled me in, as if I was a kid back from boarding school.
“Hey,” I said, trying to hug her back.
Even when I had come with my Dad in previous years, at the height of my life’s happy meter, I wasn’t that good at hugging people unless I knew them for like, at least a year. Peaches had been so excited the first time I had hugged her, she gave a high pitch squeal like air out of a balloon.
The woman, “Isolde,” pulled back, her hands still on either sides of my arms.
“Maeve, right?” Her smile made my face hurt and her head of wild, braided hair, woven with bright pink extensions were like some tripped out lion’s mane.
“Yup. Yeah…” I lifted a corner of my mouth into a semi-smile even though I didn’t feel like it, “Thanks for taking me in. Isolde, is it?”
“Ah. Yeah. Sorry. I just full on hugged you like some crazy lady without even introducing myself. It’s just that… any friend of Gina’s is a friend of ours. You know?”
Gina was “friends” with the people that ran Sedna? The people who curated the infamous Kink Dome? Known to be sponsored by Trojan condoms? I wondered for a minute if Trojan also did dental dams. Or if the Lickalottapusses just took their chances with STDs.
I couldn’t resist asking. “How do you know Gina?”
Isolde turned around and pointed to a tramp stamp on her lower back. It read DADT. She turned back around, lips curled upward, her teeth biting her lower lip, cheeky and coy.
I waited for her to say more. She waited for me to respond with some sign of understanding.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” she finally said. “DADT?”
Oh God. Had Gina gone there? Geez. Maybe my Mom and Gina weren’t that similar after all. Prickles sneaked onto my cheeks and compelled me to make sure this Isolde knew where I stood. Threesomes, orgies. They weren’t my thing.
“I hope it’s okay that I don’t… you know, participate. If you know what I mean.”
Isolde raised her arm high and dramatic and let it fall on my arm, touching me again. “Oh no, hon. Don’t worry about that. A couple other people here never go in the dome either. I reassured Gina, and I wanted to come by and reassure you, too. There’s no pressure here. And actually, I’m not sure you’ll even notice dome activity. It’s pretty insulated.”
She gave a giggle. It was quiet, musical and childish and reminded me of Peaches. She laughed like that, too. Isolde’s affinity with one of my friends back home warmed me to her. And that she was trying to reach out and make me comfortable went a long way.
“Do you need anything?” Isolde asked, “Gina didn’t say much, but she did say you left in a hurry and might benefit from some ah-sist-ahnce.”
She flicked her long braids over her shoulder.
“Well, I don’t want to drain you,” I said, feeling a little sheepish but knowing I’d have to get over myself quickly, “I could use some power and an airbed adapter. If I’m lucky, you’ll have one that matches my deflated mess of a bed?”
“Girl. If there’s one thing we know how to do around here, it’s inflate. Limp is not in our vocabulary.”
She offered me another one of her giggles along with the cheesy comment, and it coaxed a genuine smile out of me. Isolde was sweet. And we had little in common. Probably the perfect campmate for a week. Especially under these circumstances.
“Come with me to the semi. We have had SO many air mattresses over the years we have a selection of doo-dees for all kinds of beds. I’m sure we have something or can at least botch together a solution. And you can meet Tristan. He’s in there trying to untie the lights from last year. We’re always so exhausted after a week here we don’t pack things back up as well as we should.”
Ah. I could return the favor.
“Well, so
unds like you scratch my back, I scratch yours,” I said, “I’m really good at untangling things. Necklaces, Christmas lights… Contracts.”
Isolde turned around from leading me.
“Ah. Are you a lawyer, too? You only look like a baby. Gosh, you can’t tell how old anyone is these days.”
“Too?”
“Like Gina.”
“Oh, yeah… she’s not a lawyer?”
“She isn’t? Funny, she seemed like one. Really helped us with a partnership contract at our company.”
“Well, she sees enough of those every day. She might as well be a lawyer. Anyway, I am. Only just though. Actually, I’ve not even started my first proper job. I’m supposed to do that this fall. Two weeks after I get back from here, actually.”
“How exciting! So, how do you know Gina?” Isolde asked.
That question. It broke me like glass dropping on a marble floor. Quickly. Dramatically. And into a thousand pieces. I knew Gina because of my Dad. My heart pinched and my voice box hardened thinking about him.
How he had been the only Dad in the world that would have been proud of me for independently making a home next to the Kink Dome. He would have mentioned how far I had come. Told me to go for it and stretch my senses and meet new people with different views and ways of being. My Dad who this year wouldn’t see anything of Uyu but the inside of an urn.
Thankfully, Isolde took my pause and silence for something else.
“Never mind,” she said, “Don’t ask, don’t tell, right? Anyway, if you really want to help in the back of the truck, Tristan is gonna love you. I always ditch him for this part. So frustrating.”
Back in the tent after sweating bullets in the semi-truck come incinerator, I wished I had changed before helping with such a tedious, sticky activity. Now, one of my only shirts for the week smelled of faint B.O. and lavender oil. Even that reminded me of my Dad. He had never let me buy antiperspirant.
I sat down on my now inflated air mattress and pulled my plastic box of costumes close to see what I could change into. I found a high-waisted vintage bikini that was black with white ribbon running along some seams. That would do. I dug around more for something I needed more than almost anything else. Because I had only half a tube of sunscreen.
My parasol. The first item Dad had bought me for Uyu. I opened it up and admired his choice. He had known me so well. It was opaque lace throughout the middle and the holes gradually got bigger, the outside looking more like a spiderweb. I ran my fingers along the crocheted fabric and tried to do like he told me to.
Dad had always told me not to miss the past, but to be grateful for it.
I took a deep breath, calming myself but also trying to cool down, when my Dad’s black lunchbox caught my eye. I really didn’t want to touch it. Even though he was gone, I felt like I invaded his privacy and stole his secrets pillaging that lunchbox. But I needed it. It was as important as my tent.
Two months before our first Uyu, he called me when it had arrived in a delivery. He video called me at college and sent me some random black-and-white photo on text of a bunch of men from the thirties.
“Look at this, Maeve. Isn’t this the best lunch pail you’ve ever seen?” He lifted the box into view. "They don’t make ‘em like they used to.”
He held up the oil black, steel lunchbox, big enough for a thermos, and at least six sandwiches. Bigger than any practical lunchbox would be,
“Did you get the photo I texted you yesterday?” He asked.
“Yeah, the one with the construction workers? I might need an explanation.”
He had sent a photo of eleven men, in what I guessed to be the nineteen thirties or maybe forties, casually eating lunch on a beam of a skyscraper, hung a million miles in the air, with nothing below them. They smoked, they ate, they chatted, and they looked totally relaxed even though one small move would send one, or maybe even all of them, free falling to their deaths. One of workers had a lunch pail just like the one my Dad had bought.
“For me,” he continued, “This picture just represents so much. Do you see it?”
He looked at me, his eyes wide, waiting for me to possibly agree and have a revelation, but I didn’t.
“It’s like the quote,” he continued, in his effervescent way, “You heard it? That the bird doesn’t fear whether or not a branch is strong because it believes in its ability to fly. You know that one?“
“I know it now.,”
“Seems so appropriate to take this sentiment to Uyu.”
“Dad. These guys can’t fly.”
“No. But they believe in their ability not to fall. Same thing.”
And then he had looked at his lunchbox, lovingly, and we said goodbye.
That lunchbox hadn’t been used for food. It housed my Dad’s gifts. Uyu had a no money, gifting only. The only thing that could be bought was coffee and ice in the City Center. But people traded and gifted many things. Gypsies set up smoothie shops and bars, totally for free. If you were so inclined, you could give the operator something in return. Maybe a bottle of champagne, a bracelet you made, or a piece of jewelry or a painting. Maybe give them a massage. It was a no-commerce event, and yet people still gave and received.
My Dad had loved this element so much that he had added things into that lunch pail throughout the year. In my speedy departure, I hadn’t looked inside, but shook it and it had felt full, so I grabbed it. My own gift collection had but a couple necklaces, some Kiehls lip balm and some handmade leather belts my friend Peaches made before my Dad got really sick. She had given them to me specifically to take to Uyu.
I really needed gifts, this year more than ever, because with my lack of preparation, I’d need to at a minimum trade for water, sunscreen, maybe a shower and some food that wasn’t called Carb Killa.
I changed into my bikini and headed out. Giving one last look at my Dad’s urn, a tear came to my eye but dried as soon as it arrived in the arid desert air.
4
I threw a necklace around me when El spoke loudly from his room where he got ready, too, “So we’re heading to Magpie first, right?”
“Yup.”
Magpie was where we started every Uyu. A venue set up like a small, intimate jazz club, there was a stage, a dance floor and proper instruments. Real musicians. And that was what I loved about rock, too. People actually touched objects that made noise. Objects that were unpredictable. Objects that took time and talent to master.
Uyu was a big time techno EDM kind of place. Not my thing, but it had grown on me over the years because I had so many positive memories now associated with clubbing here with my friends. Still, I craved the sounds that made my soul quiver. If I had a bit of filling up with man-made music, no matter what they were playing, I warmed up. It primed the pump and I could jam the rest of the night, the rest of the week.
My tribe started there for me. Sometimes the music was good, and we stayed for hours, other times, it was too chill to stay long. I respected the musicians, especially the brass and woodwinds who brought their tools into these elements. The gypsum dust was killer. It was commitment to potentially destroy your tool. I didn’t even like bringing my guitar here. But I did, of course. Because I hadn’t been anywhere without it in over ten years.
El spoke again, “You worried about running into Jason there?”
I flopped down on the bed. I was. Jason attended his first Uyu last year and knew all my crew. He had bought a ticket for this year.
I tossed El the kind of silence that meant not to ask again. I hoped he’d take the hint and drop it. But, like I said before, El wasn’t good at getting the drift.
He came into the doorway of my bedroom, rubbing lotion into his hands and asked again as if I hadn’t heard him, “You worried about running into Jay?”
Still sitting on my bed, I bent down to tie my boot. I didn’t want El to read the lie on my face. I didn’t have to lie to El. He was my boy. But I didn’t want to get him to worry about me either. Or launch into some d
iscussion where we tried to solve the problem now. I just wanted to have a night off from the drama.
“Naw man. It is what it is. Karma will get him.”
“I still can’t believe he just sent you a text. You spent years cultivating those songs… the shows were filling up… I mean…”
“I KNOW, El. I get it. He was a total douche. I’m not saying I’m not mad. Or that I won’t have to walk through the aftermath eventually. I’m saying I don’t want to talk about it.”
I looked up and his giant brown eyes grew wide, his mouth just as round. “Oh. Yeah. Cool. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s fine.”
I stood up, towering over El in my Uyu boots, which with their platforms made me a good six foot six. My head bent to fit under the low ceiling of the caravan.
“Let’s get outta here.”
Walking out of the motorhome, stepping into the hazy, purple air of the setting sun, I wished El hadn’t brought up Jay. I had had more than enough hours in the motorhome to think about my fuckwit bandmate.
EX- bandmate.
Ex supposed best friend.
Yesterday, when I read that text, it was almost impossible to believe the guy screwed me like that. For a split second, I even thought it had been a prank.
But then, thinking more, he screwed everybody and everything. Dude even talked about putting it up a horse once. The drugs stole him and his senses so slowly over the years it took a while for me to see just how far down the rabbit hole he’d gone. In moments of speaking a bit of sense and truth to myself, I wasn’t always sure I wanted to take the long road with Jason. Nothing I had said shifted him into cutting down. I had tried. I really had.
It was loyalty that had kept me there. Not logic.
Over the past four years, I had been cleaning up my act. Less drinking. Less women that I didn’t think I’d want to talk to in the morning. I even considered maybe even finding an actual girlfriend. Small time band groupies weren’t exactly wifey material and at my age, the good ones were being taken. El’s positive influence changed me for the better.