Diary: The man ablaze, and we’re outta here

Saturday

8:30 p.m.
This place is looking more like Vegas as the days roll on. Tourists crowd the attractions on the playa. Lights flicker from every angle. In Las Vegas it’s pirate shows and exploding volcanoes. Here it’s burning pyramids and sculptures. We don’t have the fountains of Bellagio, but we have propane tanks sequentially launching huge fire bursts.

It’s the night of the big burn. The Man has been glowing green for days and now he’s got his biggest audience. I’m standing with Eddie, a 12-year-old from Redding, Calif. This is his first year at Burning Man. Straight A’s got him here. He does homework at his camp. He rides around in his dad’s art car and chats with fellow burners. He leaves a journal on a desk in the open playa. At night he retrieves it, takes it back to camp to read the entries, then returns it at dawn.

9:45 p.m.
The crowd is thick and restless. Some are swearing into megaphones. Others are getting stoned and taking photos of themselves. Occasionally Eddie dips out of the crowd and onto the open playa. He’s looking for his dad’s art car. Someone took it for a joyride.

More burners arrive. A drunk woman screams into a megaphone. She says she’s drunk and that she’s going to do some serious damage if people don’t move their bikes. The woman could care less about the bikes. The bikes just happen to be a hot topic. The rangers want them parked behind the art cars. They’re concerned about burners tripping and falling on them. The chance of someone tripping and falling on the drunk woman with the megaphone is probably much greater than someone tripping on a bike. It won’t be too much longer before she hits the ground.

Burners dance on the art cars that have pulled over for the burn. Eddie discusses the fate of feral cats in rural areas and cat/racoon relations and this year’s “Star Wars” convention in Los Angeles.

Fireworks begin. They pop and explode. Burners are cheering. Colored sparks fill the sky. A giant orange fireball explodes. It was more than we expected and everyone is off their rocker. The Man catches fire.

Costumed burners throw their arms into the air and hug. They trip on bikes and light cigarettes. Eddie is full of information. He talks about the British breaking the sound barrier here and explains that there is plenty of room for Burning Man to grow. Burning Man covers a five-mile radius. The playa is 60 miles. “They could have 12 of these before it gets too big,” Eddie says.

The Man has lost an arm. He finally tumbles. The crowd rushes the fire. Those in the back disperse. They have time to kill before the oil rig is torched.

I head back to Center Camp and down the quiet roads leading to Mutts Borough. Outside the RV I can hear Zach spraying off his camera gear. We pack up our camp and wait for Tiffany.

I think about Eddie, his plans for next year’s burn, the stories he’ll tell his friends and his advanced placement in math. He hasn’t thought about college yet or what he wants to study. “It depends on what happens with the world,” he says. “You just never know.”