‘Enshrined into the constitution but largely kept from the public eye is ‘The Great American Burn-Pit,’ a tradition that is at once reviled and sustained by the same Neo-Christian demographic that spurns and espouses forgiveness. A remnant of the Revolutionary War, federal regulations state that anything burned in ‘The Pit’ is legally nullified. Originally meant to entice British Loyalists to join the independent Americans, ‘The Great American Burn-Pit is now largely filled with felony evidence, including the occasional instance of human remains that somehow make it past growing crowds of police and federal investigators who operate something like a tactical game of ‘Red Rover,’ attempting to catch the break in their case before it is swept permanently from the table.’

I don’t know how anybody makes it past the police on a normal day. ‘The Great American Burn-Pit’ is thick with law enforcement, and I say this understanding that at least a third of the people in civilian clothes are likely also undercover cops. A frustrated crowd surrounds them, hurling insults and sometimes surging ahead in a way that makes me wonder if anyone has ever slipped backward into the fire, a homicide for an instant before it lapses into an accident with no legal ramifications.

A man in the crowd attempts to throw something over the police and into the pit. The item, a balled-up, bloodied piece of cloth strikes the handle of a pool net, thrust up from a woman in an FBI cap. It unfurls and the agents dogpile it. The man tries to run but they chase him down. Several more items are burned while attention is drawn to this incident. The man, led away, claims the original throw was a decoy.

Seems reasonable, but it isn’t my fight.

I’ve read that the last mass-burning was a spectacle. Several hundred pounds of narcotics were haphazardly launched into the fire. The law enforcement contingent became stoned and paranoid. They fired on the civilians, killing dozens and, upon sobering up, shoved the bodies into the pit.

No charges filed.

-traveler