My gut-wrenching Burning Man

It had been a celebration This story begins pleasantly enough, but a glance at the column at right may guide you as to whether to continue. Due to budget considerations, I recruited a friend from a neighboring community to be the party favor for my buddy's birthday. This explains why I was on the road at 3:30 a.m. after a celebration. I was driving the party favor back home, when he pointed through the windshield and said, "Was that flames?" The birthday boy and I looked but saw nothing. Everything changed A block or two ahead, however, everything changed. Suddenly we saw something in flames adjacent to the road. Apparently the fire had rolled out of the roadway from when the party favor had first spotted it. Due to its cylindrical shape, my first thought was that it was a trash container on fire, having rolled over on its side. But a few seconds later, birthday boy yelled, "Arms and legs!" I stopped the car almost adjacent to the fire. One of us raced ahead for help and two of us pulled a blanket out of my car and ran over to the burning man. Time stalls It's always amazing how in these high stress incidents, time stretches out interminably. The burning man had righted himself and was now on his feet. I could look into his face. He was completely engulfed in flames from head to foot. My mind egregiously produced an old word study word: self-immolation. I also noticed several bystanders just looking. One man with tousled hair was only in his boxer shorts obviously having jumped out of bed to be here. I recall wondering why no other bystanders were helping and my paranoia suggested I was the fool for giving aid. Surely this couldn't be self-immolation I thought ­ this man must be a victim of some plot. I smelled what the newspaper story says was paint thinner. Two white circles for eyes and a rasping wail I felt the terror in the pit of my stomach as I appraised the burning man in front of me. He was completely cinder-black ­ the only feature I could make out were two white circles where his eyes should be. His eyelids had already burned off, I surmised later, and I was looking at the whites of his eyes. He continued a rasping wail (that I cannot forget) and arm-flailing. When he fell over again, we got the blanket over him and snapped it down completely covering him. The flames were snuffed and for one second we had the thrill of saving him. Rescue is thwarted Of course, we didn't realize then that he was wrapped in towels soaked in a flammable liquid. The flammable liquid soaked through the blanket and suddenly the flames erupted again. The terror and sickness in my stomach became so intense that writing about it now almost sickens me. My rainbow towel burns I had a rainbow beach towel (Gay beach pride is not cheap!) in the car too and so all we could do was try to shield his head before the towel caught fire. I was very close to his face then and am still haunted by those white circles where his eyes should be. I noticed the sheaf of papers that was near him and the paranoia set in again, because now the watching crowd had grown but we were still the only ones trying to help. Why was this man on fire with a stack of documents nearby? Fire truck arrives Then he rolled into a ball on his side and gasped one breath before the flames became intense. We could hear sirens in the distance now as we stepped back to avoid being more burned ourselves. A police cruiser arrived but even the officer stood back adding to my paranoia. We retreated to the car as the fire truck arrived and a fireman jumped out and ran over to the fire, which had diminished now. The fireman stared a second before he realized it was a human being in flames in the fetal position. As he retrieved an extinguisher and with one squirt doused the remaining flames, we re-entered the car and decided to drive on. The crowd now blocked our view as we headed down the street. Daylight dispels some demons The next day we returned to the scene in the daylight to achieve some closure. The newspaper article had provided some explanation and relief from paranoia. The streetscape seemed much less menacing ­ my recollection had been that buildings towered over us. Of course, the closest structure was only one-story tall. The burn marks on the pavement seemed much smaller than they should have. It was only then that I noticed the hair on my right arm was singed off.   One of the ways I've attempted to excise this searing event from my psyche (besides this web page) is the annual burning man event in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Zozobra

Public self-torching snuffs out lonely life By Judi Villa, The Arizona Republic May 21, 1997 MESA -- If Leandrew Grayson had problems in his life, he didn't let on to his neighbors.    On Sunday, he told one of them how happy he was that his rent was coming down $21 a month. On Monday night, he smiled and exchanged pleasantries with another as he helped water her tree.    Then, hours later, in the loneliness of his own bathroom, Grayson wrapped himself in towels doused in paint thinner and stepped outside to bring a very public end to his very private life.    He used his own chair to climb a fence into a parking lot in the 700 block of South Alma School Road and he flipped a cigarette lighter, touching the orange flame to his body.    "I just can't believe he would do that," neighbor Lounell Broadway said. "If he had worries he didn't show it. That's why I was so astonished. He seemed like he was a happy man.    "Nowadays, you think you know a person, and I guess you don't."    Neighbors and passing motorists tried desperately to snuff the flames that engulfed Grayson shortly before 4 a.m., but he was burned beyond recognition.    "Son of a gun," Fire Capt. Gil Damiani said, "I've seen a lot of stuff in my days, and I'll tell you what. This one will stick with me."    Lying next to his body, Grayson, 61, left five or six copies of an 83-page rambling missive, portions of which appear to be directed toward President Clinton and portions of which outline his infatuation with a lady bus driver.    "I don't want to hurt and cry no more," it said in pages dated Sunday.    The typed pages are full of government and police conspiracies and spattered with names of prominent people, including Gov. Fife Symington, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and U.S. Sen. John McCain. It's mostly incoherent and unrelated thoughts also touch on racism, women in the workplace, illegal wiretapping, purposeful medical malpractice, voodoo and murder.    Friends said police told them Grayson had a history of mental illness. His missive indicates he tried to set himself on fire in February at the state Capitol but that his lighter wouldn't spark. It was news to all of them.    They remember Grayson more as a neighborly gentleman who brought cards and treats for birthdays, who befriended their children and grandchildren, who wrote poetry and dressed neatly right down to his shined shoes.    Educated and polite, he was a war veteran and a retired salesman who often rode the bus into Phoenix, rolled his own cigarettes and walked with a cane. Though he had health problems, he didn't talk about them much and, in fact, was eagerly awaiting a new pair of dentures.    "The last time I talked to him, I didn't notice anything," said a neighbor, Juanita, who didn't want her last name used. "He was over Sunday. He said, 'I'm very happy.' I can't believe this. I want to get in and read his mind."    Grayson had a son and daughter but had been estranged from them for many years, Juanita said. He didn't know if they were alive or if he had grandchildren.    In a letter he wrote to neighbors last year, Grayson said that his father had been murdered and that the police spied on him because of family problems he'd had in California. When he'd walk to the corner store late at night and the street lights would flicker, he'd be convinced it was officers signaling each other about his movements.    Grayson never talked about being lonely, but neighbors figure he must have been. In the nearly two years he'd lived in the apartment complex, he rarely had visitors and no one had come by for quite awhile.    "He used to say, 'I have nobody,' " Juanita said. "I feel very sad. Nobody to bring him flowers. Nobody to bury him."

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