Eye of the Burning Man: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Series) by Harry Shannon Read Free Book Online

did my best to cover the dead air, and my poor choice. "Most couples are not fighting about what they think they're fighting about. There are always underlying issues, generally relating to our childhood experiences."
    "Okay."
    "You can think of those issues like plates in the earth that shift seismically from time to time and cause earthquakes in the relationship. The trick is to understand one another well enough to see those quakes coming. We have to either head them off, or at least process them in a more adult manner."
    "I see," she said.
    "Good. Thanks for calling."
    "Thank you for the advice."
    That was three pounds of uncut, semi-profound bullshit, I thought. And no matter how you slice it, my country ass is in deep trouble tonight . I took another caller.
    "My name is Gene," the man said. "I was thinking about the sixties. Free love, whatever happened to that idea? That we could all just, like, hang out together, get high, and kick back. I really thought that was cool. I mean, the closest thing we have now is that Burning Man Festival out in Nevada. You're from Nevada, right?"
    "Right," I said, somewhat cautiously, "from up north, around Dry Wells."
    "I just thought you might have gone to that Burning Man thing out there. It's coming up again."
    "I know a little about it. As the old joke goes, I spent a year there one weekend. I was pretty blasted at the time, and I had just gotten thrown out of the Seals for fighting."
    "For what? "
    "I know. Kind of like getting tossed out of a casino for gambling, isn't it? Anyway, it's a blur, but the Burning Man Festival kind of represents everything I have tried to change about my life, so I'm not enthusiastic about attending again."
    "If you can remember it, you weren't there?"
    "I do recall that it's pretty pagan, and originated near San Francisco."
    "Look, I loved it. People come together and paint themselves blue, man. They run around naked and create art with just their bodies, or whatever is lying around. You can make a statement. Take 'shrooms or acid, smoke a lot of great weed, all kinds of good shit. Oops."
    This time I didn't move quickly enough. The offending word went out over the air. "Careful, I don't want the FCC down on my neck. I don't have Stern's deep pockets."
    "Mick, check it out again, might be more fun sober."
    "I doubt it. I think I wandered around in shock the first time, and I was pretty wild back in the day. It just seemed too hippie."
    "Huh?"
    "Sorry. My stepfather was a real redneck who served in Viet Nam. He didn't care much for that lifestyle. I think that rubbed off on me."
    "Those were the good old days," Gene said wistfully. "We had our priorities straight."
    "Oh, really?" I said, dryly. "Is that so?"
    "Yeah, we were out to change the world back then. We stood for something. Now look at what's happened."
    "I hate to echo a conservative like George Will, who is just to the right of Attila the Hun, but think it over, Gene. Let's take a closer look at what free love and recreational drug use in the nineteen sixties have given us here in the 21st Century. Ready?"
    "Okay. Sure."
    I went off on a rant. "We got AIDS and some new forms of sexually transmitted diseases that are highly resistant to antibiotics. We got pot that is up to twenty times stronger than what John Lennon smoked. We got miles of inner cities devastated by a cocaine and crack epidemic and now also reeling from the abuse of crystal methamphetamine, Vicodin, and Oxycontin. We have truly staggering levels of drug addiction nationwide, a total disintegration of the nuclear family without a logical, disciplined replacement on the horizon, and the genders at war in a way previous generations never dreamed could happen."
    "Yeah, but . . ."
    "I'm not finished yet, Gene." I got up and began to pace. "We have lost respect for men, for integrity, and to an extent even for the women feminism was intended defend. Someone explain to me how pornography has liberated the ladies, okay? We have