Burning Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

so bad. The reality is that several nights a week I find myself burning to death.
    The dreams feel real. Nothing in my mind tells me that I’m dreaming. I relive what happened. I smell the smoke and feel the fire. All my despair comes back; all my pain returns. My flesh manifests what I feel. When I wake up, my skin isn’t just hot, it’s burning.
    When I was a kid I remember my friend Craig Steinberg asked me, “You want to see a match burn twice?” I told him I’d like to see that, so Craig struck a match, blew it out and then pressed the hot tip into my flesh. It hurt, but it didn’t quite burn the flesh. That’s how a match burns twice.
    That’s how it is with me. I keep burning. I am the burning man.
    In my research I had found one doctor who had written about this phenomenon. He called the dream sequences “mental metabolization,” and according to his research certain patients relived their burning again and again, “often very realistically.”
    His conclusion was an understatement. On a few occasions I awakened from my dreams of fire and pulled back my compression garments only to find my skin red and blistered. No dream should be so vivid. It doesn’t help matters that I can’t talk about my dreams to anyone but Sirius. I know the LAPD wouldn’t give me my job back if there was any hint of lingering PTSD. It makes sense to err on the side of caution if your employee is carrying a gun.
    That’s why I was working so hard pretending all was well. That’s why I had agreed to this public luncheon and ceremony. The truth is that most of the time I feel like the Martin Sheen character in Apocalypse Now . I am Captain Willard waiting for a mission in my hotel room in Saigon.
    I took a few deep breaths. By this time Maureen would be looking for me. I reached out and scratched Sirius behind an ear, and he responded by leaning his head into my hand. His presence made the impending ordeal a little more bearable. We exited the booth, and I paused at a sink to splash down my face. As I patted myself dry, I avoided looking at my reflection.
    We made our way out to the hallway. In the distance I could see Maureen standing in the midst of a circle of people. She was nervously wringing her hands and didn’t seem to be talking quite as much as usual. Her head turned in our direction, and when she caught sight of us her relief was visible.
    Pointing our way she said, “There they are!”
    Several photographers broke from the pack. I didn’t smile—with my scarred face, the result looks like a grimace—but I did my best to look affable.
    One of the photographers directed me with his hands: “Can you turn this way, Officer Gideon?”
    I did as he asked. Judging from the angle, he preferred my bad side over my good. I guess scars make for more compelling photographs.
    “We need the dog in the shot,” another photographer said.
    “Give the lady what she wants,” I told Sirius, and signaled him in his pose. My partner doesn’t think he has a bad side.
    Maureen introduced me to Kent McCord, who was emceeing the event. For a time McCord had been the face of the LAPD, playing the role of Officer Jim Reed on the TV show Adam-12 . We posed for a few obligatory shots and then chatted for a minute.
    McCord wanted my opinion on a few cop jokes that he was planning to use on the crowd. “Shoot,” I said.
    “How many cops does it take to screw in a light bulb?” he asked.
    “How many?”
    “Just one, but he’s never around when you need him.”
    I gave it a thumbs-up, so he tried another. “So this man has to work late, and when he’s driving home he gets pulled over for speeding. Now the cop notices the driver has these tired-looking eyes, so he says to him, ‘Sir, I can’t help but notice that your eyes are bloodshot. Have you been drinking?’ The driver isn’t happy with the insinuation, so he says to the cop, ‘Officer, I can’t help but notice that your eyes are glazed. Have you been eating