Day 68
Day Sixty-Eight
Jesse went to the Ace Hardware in Twentynine Palms after class and filled a cart with the kind of items that would cause any sane cashier to put him on some sort of watch list. A shovel, a pickax-looking thing called a mattock to break through stubborn roots (although he debated, he passed on an auger), work gloves, and lots of plastic tarps on which to place dirt.
He tried an extra-friendly demeanor so as not to arouse suspicion, but overcorrected and came off as maniacal.
No matter. It was almost closing and the cashier only cared about leaving.
Still, he sped home with one eye on the rearview mirror, paranoid he was being followed.
Randall had, after all, observed someone and Jesse’s behavior since then had only grown more erratic, but today as far as he could tell he was in the clear.
In the yard, he surveyed the ground for the perfect spot, ultimately deciding there was no place like the middle.
And then he grabbed his new shovel, placed the tip in the dirt, and jumped on it with his full body weight.
It didn’t hit concrete, but he was just getting warmed up.
He tried to avoid all thoughts of the future as he dug, at least as they pertained to Norman.
Would he advertise for his husband? Officially have him declared missing?
Or worse, dead? He could write a hell of a death notice, that was for sure.
Really put the “bitch” in “obituary.” Norman Alfano of Joshua Tree (a census-designated place), architect, beloved son and brother, tolerated husband.
Norman designed buildings for hip replacements or the treatment of varicose veins.
A devoted fan of sushi even though he lived in the desert and there was nary an ocean in sight, he was also a regular presence in the kitchen with a passion for standing in front of the exact drawer you needed to open and somehow had invented the art of holding a coffee mug loudly.
No, Jesse couldn’t imagine doing any of that, especially while digging a hole that resembled a grave.
He had to speak to Norman, get a message to him (and hopefully, in turn, a reply), to know with some certainty if he was forever gone.
He refused to end up like his mother, whose tolerance for the world and for others was rapidly shrinking, who didn’t even care to talk about his dad.
After days of digging, and in a moment of marijuana-fueled clarity, he came up with an idea how to do exactly that—communicate with Norman.
He surveyed the massive hole he’d obsessively dug, and the mounds of dirt piled on tarps, pulled off his gloves for the day, and treated himself to a long shower before heading out.
The Integratron loomed large in Joshua Tree lore, a cupola structure about forty feet high and painted a shocking white to stand out against the cobalt sky.
It was built in 1959 by ufologist George Van Tassel, who claimed the plans were given to him explicitly by extraterrestrials from the planet Venus; Howard Hughes, an aviator himself, had provided funds for its construction.
It was Norman who had first suggested they go, and Jesse was almost embarrassed by his former resistance to such New Agey things now that his eyes had been opened to their significance.
Van Tassel died in 1978, and the structure languished in various states of disrepair until three sisters bought the property and refurbished it as an acoustically perfect construction and made it available for meditation and sound baths, reflection, and connection, accompanied by the tones from twenty-two quartz-crystal bowls.
Why twenty-two and not twenty-one or twenty-three, Jesse did not know.
But the twenty-two were advertised to create binaural beats for the purposes of rejuvenation, and Jesse was in no position to argue.
The drive from Joshua Tree was insignificant; Landers, home to the Integratron, was not far.
But Jesse, heart racing with anticipation, felt like he’d run a marathon by the time he arrived.
He turned off the radio to regulate his breathing, the way he would outside the doctor’s office when he was worried his blood pressure would register too high.
If he wished to be in tune with the earth and her secrets, he had to first be in tune with himself.
How could one reasonably expect to sense the surging of magnetic fields over the drowning roar of one’s own deafening pulse?
He had to get ahold of himself. He didn’t have the money or advance planning to arrange a private visit, so he steeled himself for whatever other weirdos might have booked time in his session.
He imagined women in long skirts and jangly bracelets and men with angry yellowed toes in sandals, and perhaps a few lesser members of the Polyphonic Spree.
The more he conjured images of his fellow sound bathers, the more his heart would race again, so instead he tried to recite the ingredients for the famous New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe (cake flour, bread flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs), something he suddenly had an insatiable hunger for.
Besides, this was supposed to be a journey inward.
It was perfectly acceptable to shut everyone else out.
He just prayed there would not be any children.
Since Jesse had arrived early, he walked the grounds minding his own business, in awe of how the structure itself looked both effortlessly integrated with the landscape and like a completely alien craft that didn’t belong at all.
As he circled the structure, he tried to be in tune to any vibrations the land might be emitting (surely the location of this thing, random as it seemed, was no accident).
He even got down on his knees and laid one ear to the ground.
Dogs had extrasensory detection. He’d read they were sensitive to Earth’s magnetic field and would align along the north–south axis before relieving themselves.
If animals were aware of small variations in magnetic fields, perhaps other beings were, too.
Why would humans be the only species left out?
Jesse immediately dismissed this as nonsense before realizing that’s exactly why.
Human beings were not open to these sorts of things, inventing religions and cults to explain away what was actually magnetic and spiritual.
Alas, anything he thought he might be picking up could have just as easily been reverberations from the sound bath still in session.
And the only thing he now had in common with dogs was that he, too, now had to pee.
He found the restroom (with no idea of its axis alignment) and then waited outside, away from the vibrations, picking at the growing calluses on his hands until one began to bleed.
When he heard the crunch of tires on gravel and car doors open then slam, he became self-conscious and slipped back inside.
Like everywhere now, the Integratron had a store, a small gift shop that carried T-shirts and mugs and candles, yes, but also crystals and pendants that promoted continued healing long after your session was over.
Jesse asked the clerk for a bandage, which she happily provided, and then studied each item the shop carried like he was looking for just the right souvenir, but it was impossible not to blanch at the prices, the gross consumerism that couldn’t leave even spiritualism untouched.
When they were out of his size in the one T-shirt he found unoffensive, he bought a selenite palm stone, something he could squeeze in his hand to calm himself.
He judged a small group of young white women, birthday revelers or bachelorettes, who oohed and aahed over the elaborate incense holders but only bought shot glasses and one Christmas tree ornament; he hoped they weren’t going to be in his session.
Others lingering seemed more palatable; he even caught the attention of a woman with long white hair who looked like she just wandered out of the fields of Woodstock, having no idea the era of free love was over.
She seemed as wary of the young women as he was, and Jesse relaxed, knowing he had at least one kindred spirit.
Minutes seemed like hours as he waited to be called in for his sound bath, and Jesse knew inherently he was putting too much pressure on whatever was about to happen.
Answers would come, or not come, and he tried to convince himself this had to be about the experience itself and he could not judge whether it was transcendent.
Unfortunately, that was an impossible task.
In better news, the bachelorettes left, but not before one put a fistful of dirt into her small purse, leaving behind several mints and an old ChapStick to make room for it.
It was horrid behavior, littering and thieving combined, and Jesse was appalled.
Fortunately, so was Woodstock, who had picked up the young woman’s trash with a surprising grace before their car had even spun out of the parking lot.
He turned to Norman to express his fondness for the woman, momentarily forgetting he was not also there.
That had to be a good sign—he felt Norman’s presence.
Instead he mouthed, Thank you when he next caught her eye and she nodded, then poked around the building like she was looking for something (or someone), too.