Day two dawns with cold rain. Even in the early morning, the music persists–it gets mysteriously louder, in fact, when you close your eyes. The campsite looks like a place where a plane’s gone down. There’s soggy party wreckage everywhere: soggy paper plates, soggy hot dog buns, soggy shoes and socks, and soggy fazed-out kids. At least 50 still dance, while hundreds more mill about in the mud. One guy sits in the ashes of a bonfire, head between his hands. One girl crouches with a flashlight, utterly transfixed by the tiny spot she’s casting on the earth. Disorientation prevails. You hear a lot of folks struggling with the math of how long they’ve been up.
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“OK, OK people, I hope everyone can hear me. We have a serious parking situation. The shuttle can’t get through. If you’re parked on the gravel road, you must move your car. This is serious. Any car not moved by 8:30 will be towed. You must be completely in the ditch, off all gravel. No emergency vehicles can reach us, no breakfast, no equipment, no supplies. . . . We are completely TRAPPED! The facility is really unhappy about it. And they’re going to start towing. And they’re towing to CHICAGO! And then to MEXICO! Please pass this on to all parts of our lovely village. . . . This pertains to all people who are parked in an asinine position. And I think you know who you are. For example, some people are parked IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROAD! Can you believe it, that because of a few DICKHEADS and STUPID GIRLS, it’s come to this? I’m sorry for swearing, everyone, but this is REALLY FRUSTRATING. All right now, we’ve got quiet time now until at least 1 PM.”
In the silence that follows, the atmosphere inside the trailer becomes queerly uneasy. It’s a sort of system shock to lose the cover of the sound. Dave notes the rain and makes a face. “This sucks,” he says, and then, recalling the music, “That sleep was just not good.” I concur and suggest we hit the nearest big town, Richland Center, for some earplugs. It is at this point that I earn my second cool stare in two days. For a moment Dave just freezes as if waiting for a punch line. And then, smirking, he says, “You are so, so old. How old are you? Do I know you? Did we go to school together? Fuck earplugs. I’m really disappointed to hear you say those words.”
Breakfast is eggs and toast. It feels good to eat, and also to remember that there’s another, quieter, drier world outside that sloppy bowl pocked with tents. Dave downs four cups of coffee, two sugars each, and smokes. He talks, briefly, about his possible move to LA, his Chicago girlfriend, Kara Kane (who should be at the party by the time we return), and the $36,000 investment that he and his Even Furthur partners figure they’ve already recouped. Mostly, though, he talks about rave culture, a subject on which, I quickly learn, his opinions skitter all over the map. “It’s about challenging authority,” he says at first, fully caffeinated and warming to the topic. “It’s about finding a community and, and being empowered. It’s about, I mean these kids are going to grow up to be the leaders of this country. These kids are the top and hopefully they’re going to grow up to be more humanistic, more accepting, more instilled with a sense of beauty and imagination.” He pauses here and then continues, but on a slightly different tack. “I mean, really, it’s all just for fun.” And then, reconsidering again, he says, “Actually, we should go soon, and we need to stop at Wal-Mart, and anyway, I think I’m too wrapped up in this right now to have much perspective.”
As a threesome, we hit the big tent where the pounding is loud and the controlled substances are plentiful. It’s here, and now, that Dave makes known his approach to drugs: “You should take enough to really get off,” he tells me, “not just enough to make you want more.”
That Dave has the opportunity to make this call at all, that he and Tim ever became friends, dates back to an impressively direct bit of outreach. Dave went to one of Tim’s readings and afterward simply invited Tim to dinner and Tim said yes. They talked about Reactor, among other things, and Tim was supportive and impressed. By the time dinner ended, Dave had a standing invitation to visit Tim in California, anytime. After many such visits, Tim’s cancer was diagnosed. And after his cancer had progressed, and he no longer had the energy to complete Design for Dying, the book project fell into Dave’s lap.
I don’t disagree.
