Businessman Succumbs to Power of Eno Festival, or Heat Stroke
I originally wrote this for the now-defunct Bull City News in 2016. Come to think of it, it was the last thing they ever published. I try not to think about that too much.
Over the 4th of July weekend, Kent Davis, a recently relocated commercial real estate agent from Ohio, accidentally attended the Festival for the Eno. His life has been irrevocably changed.
After he decided to make a run through the Biscuitville drive-thru for a 32oz “medium” sweet tea, Davis turned his BMW onto Stadium Drive and found himself trapped in a line of traffic heading into the County Stadium parking lot.
“There was a man wearing a wrap skirt directing traffic. I thought maybe he was crazy or on drugs, so I avoided eye contact and followed traffic figuring I could circumvent whatever was going on,” said the still disoriented Davis. “I’m new to Durham and had never heard of the Eno Festival before.”
A confused, and slightly uncomfortable, Davis followed the line of people boarding the Home Lot shuttle bus and soon arrived, still wearing his business suit, at West Point on the Eno. “Honestly, at first I was sort of scared, and the patchouli was giving me a headache. I followed the sound of a banjo and ended up sharing a blanket with a nice tattooed woman and her half-naked toddler. She shared her tea with me. The only thing people share in Ohio is beer. And that is only during college football season.”
Long-time festival attendee and blanket enthusiast, Autumn Leaf, says she was surprised to see a man in a three-piece suit at the Meadow stage. “At first I was like ‘Man, no one wants to stop at a booth to talk 401k options at this event.’ But then it looked like he was suffering the first stages of heat exhaustion. So I offered him some iced rooibos and read his aura while he rested on our blanket. Little Mary Jane took an instant liking to him.”
Davis says the excessive kindness continued as someone offered him a “Vote Bernie” shirt to replace his now-soaked dress shirt and a vendor near the Grove stage gave him a discount on a batiqued pair of fair-trade hemp shorts. “I would never have worn that stuff under anything but extenuating circumstances. But it felt like I was sitting in an Easy Bake Oven in that suit. I was scared I would pass out and find myself in a van driven by someone that calls himself a ‘Space Priest’.”
As the day wore on Davis found himself won over by the outpouring of community and sharing. His afternoon involved participating in a spontaneous meditation circle, dancing to African Bluegrass fusion, and eating from a freegan food van that sourced their food from the composting bins at the event.
“This morning I was closing a multi-million dollar real estate deal and now I just had a thirty-minute conversation with a man named ‘Chet’ who is going to set up a greywater system in my house.” Drunk on the sudden immersion into the crunchier side of Durham, or perhaps just suffering from a heat stroke, Davis declared his intentions to quit his lucrative job, braid necklaces to sell online and “really just start living each day as it comes.”
He was last seen standing near a giant yellow lemon admiring Chaco tans and asking a vendor questions about the airflow of a tie-dye wrap skirt.
