The Time Before
Joshua Tree, which many assumed was a town in California’s Mojave Desert, was actually not a town at all but rather a census-designated place, or CDP, a third-level political division akin to a barrio or township—less than a city, more than a ward—known largely for the national park of the same name (The Monument, locals called it) that rubbed against its outskirts.
The boundaries of a CDP have no legal status; they may not correspond with a local’s understanding of the area or anything that appears on a map, and so it didn’t much matter that no two residents thought of Joshua Tree exactly the same.
Criteria established for the most recent census required that a CDP name be “one that is recognized and used in daily communication by the residents of the community” (as opposed to a name developed solely for planning or other purposes) and recommended that a CDP’s boundaries be drawn according to inhabitants’ regular use.
To that end, Joshua Tree shared undefined borders with both the Yucca and Coachella Valleys, and to the east, Twentynine Palms, and boasted a population of just north of seven thousand.
Joshua Tree remained unincorporated, and a municipal advisory council acted as an official liaison between the community and the government of San Bernardino County.
Eight months ago, Joshua Tree’s population grew by two when Jesse del Ruth and Norman Alfano completed their elaborate renovation on the home down a private drive near the southern outskirts, the one that had been for sale for nearly two years as it came down in price every ten weeks like clockwork.
They liked the vague definition of Joshua Tree, how it could mean as many things as there were people in it, and had many a laugh comparing the town that wasn’t a town to their marriage that by its own definition was unconventional, and was at the mercy of voters or state legislators or the Supreme Court.
The house was a bit of an architectural oddity that wasn’t to everyone’s taste (and sadly in need of repair), and Norman, despite his professional expertise, soon realized how difficult it was to secure the required permits.
He talked about joining the advisory council to put his stamp on the community soon after they moved in.
“We need to shake up this town!” Norman would proclaim to Jesse whenever their renovation hit a bureaucratic wall.
“It’s not a town so much as a CDP,” Jesse would remind him.
“You’re not a husband so much as a life sentence.”
They would go back and forth like this, each trying to drive the other a little more mad until one of them would break and laugh, which someone always did, and then they would close the debate with a kiss.
Neither of them ever joined the council, although they did go to several meetings before Jesse put two fingers to his temple and mimed blowing his brains out from boredom.
The house was little more than a listing online, a bit of a pipe dream really, when Norman first laid eyes on it.
He would scroll through the photos and fantasize about retirement under the shade of the trees and evenings in the cowboy tub that sat ten feet from the deck, until a drumbeat inside him grew steadier, louder, convincing him it had to be his.
As a couple, they had talked about the desert in no uncertain terms; it was a place they had escaped to often from the drudgery of L.A.
, first to the clothing-optional resorts for men in Palm Springs, then to private rental homes in Rancho Mirage, but in terms of uprooting their lives and moving there?
It was Norman leading the charge. And it was Norman who was most excited when their move-in day finally came.
“We have four foam rollers?” Noman asked as they unpacked in their new space. “Why do we need four?”
Jesse thought the time for that question was when they were packing, not unpacking; now that the rollers had made the move, what difference did it make?
“Yes, we need four.” Jesse lectured him on the pillars of foam rollers: density, surface texture, shape, and size.
This was knowledge that aging brought. He was surprised Norman didn’t know—no wonder he was so uptight.
Eventually Norman gave in and all four were pulled from an oversized box, Jesse agreeing they could throw out a weighted medicine ball (which was leaking sand) and those large rubber bands with differing tensions, an impulse buy during the early days of COVID when both of their gyms were closed.
“Does Joshua Tree even have a town gym?” Jesse asked as he sorted some of their workout gear for the garage.
To which Norman replied, “Joshua Tree is not a town.”
Norman turned his attention to another box that wouldn’t budge. “What’s in here, weights?”
Jesse peeked and confirmed that was exactly what was inside.
Norman protested again—they never even used weights at home and yet they’d paid to move them—before Jesse calmed his husband.
He grabbed Norman by the waist and they swayed like they were at a middle school dance, Jesse holding the medicine ball between them like a chaperone might place a balloon, until it leaked sand everywhere (at which point he set it aside carefully), whispering in his ear the whole time about a move being an opportunity for reinvention. “We can be anyone here.”
Norman relented and spun Jesse around, dancing to music only they could hear. Jesse was right, the move was supposed to invigorate their relationship. “You know what I was thinking back in L.A.? As the moving van was all packed and pulling away?”
Jesse didn’t.
“What if it just…exploded.”
“The van?”
“Yeah.”
“Then all our stuff would be gone.”
“Exciting, right?”
Jesse thought about that for a moment, what a real fresh start would be like. What it would feel like to own no foam rollers, or clothes or books or dishes or memories, and then he said with all sincerity, “You’re weird.”
The glass and concrete house, from the right angles, disappeared completely into the arid landscape when the sun was at its most blinding.
At dusk, it was a womb of warm light that glowed, the tamarisk trees muting the tall windmills that blighted the distant horizon.
It made them feel like pioneers of sorts, and Norman an astronaut—indeed the dry land that stretched undeveloped to the distant mountains could easily be mistaken for Mars.
The pergola out back provided shade for lunch, and when they needed a break from unpacking they ate takeout pizza from a place called Sky High Pie.
“From here, it looks like the earth could be flat,” Norman mused as he reached for another slice.
“Maybe it is.”
Norman gave his best Oh, you think so look. The pizza they chose, one of the restaurant’s signature pies, was topped with a fried egg. Norman poked at the egg and the soft yolk jiggled. Jesse reached over to help, pulling a slice from underneath it.
“All conspiracy theories are at least eighty-five percent true. At least according to my mother.”
Norman shook his head as he bit into his lunch. A kalamata olive rolled off the slice. “I wish it were flat, then it would be easy to push you off the edge.”
Jesse laughed and rewarded Norman with a kiss, then tenderly wiped pizza sauce from his husband’s face. Did other couples talk to one another like this? Maybe they were pioneers in that way, too. “Eat up. We still have to put the bed frame together before it gets dark.”
Indeed it was pioneers—Mormon pioneers—who had trekked across the Colorado River to arrive where their house sat now, naming the sharp, Seussian trees that dotted the landscape after the biblical figure Joshua; the trees’ short trunks and outstretched limbs cast shadows that reminded the settlers of worshippers dropped to their knees in supplication.
Everyone who came to Joshua Tree arrived a little bit lost. Even today, the small, offbeat dirt roads, many of them unnamed, would short-circuit the average GPS.
“Do we really want to settle where Mormons did?” Jesse remembered asking after the first time they saw the house; they had shared smash burgers at a saloon called the Tiny Pony, flirting with the handsome waiter as they mulled over making an offer.
(“What’s good here?” they had asked, both about Joshua Tree and the Tiny Pony; the waiter replied, “I am.”) Granted, Jesse’s knowledge of Mormons was limited to what he’d learned from the Broadway musical by the South Park guys and a distaste that lingered from the election of 2012.
He didn’t want the hand of god reaching down from the sky to bury golden plates anywhere near his yard—he’d just as soon be left out of it.
“Are you kidding?” Norman countered as he sipped his cocktail, the Big-Ass G&T. “Utah has some of the most spectacular land in the nation. It’s home to five national parks!” The way he saw it, when it came to real estate, the Mormons knew what they were doing.
Jesse let it go, and when they left (with the waiter’s phone number scrawled across the bottom of their check), they agreed that if their offer was accepted they would make the Tiny Pony their new local place, and come back for the chorizo breakfast tostadas, if not more.
After the Mormons arrived, the ranchers and miners soon followed, looking for their own bite at the promise of California.
The Joshua trees provided homesteaders with abundant materials for their corrals, while miners found use for the wood as fuel for the steam engines used in processing ore.
And a mere century later, the artists and homosexuals came.
Instead of a hard way of life, herding cattle or mining for silver or gold, Joshua Tree’s two newest residents were determined to find tranquility here, a place where they could enjoy each other’s company again away from the hardships and social pressures of city life that emboldened the worst versions of themselves.