Leave me in East Jesus
Story from Secret Show 11.12
It was Margaret 1 and mine’s first time in the desert. We spent two nights in Palm Springs, at The Ace Hotel, charging Caesar salads and piña coladas to the room from our poolside chaise lounge like we had trust funds.
Day three we rented a Jeep that didn’t have aux cord capabilities and drove to Joshua Tree. The bathroom at our Airbnb was unattached and in a galvanized grain silo, which we’d run to in the middle of the night with a flashlight, no city lights to guide the way.
Our first night there we laid outside on chaise lounges to star gaze like we were working to make ends meet.
Eight bright lights in succession appeared in the sky out of nowhere.
“Are those…?” I said in a whisper, barely audible, not wanting whatever I thought it was to hear me.
“I’m gonna cry, Andrea,” Margaret 1 said as she gripped my hand.
I had difficulty breathing.
Margaret 1 and I had been obsessed with aliens since we were 10 at a summer arts camp. We had free rein of the high school where it took place and during lunch I would walk into the abandoned library and look around. It was there I found my first book on aliens that I would read before bed, believing that would be the night I was gonna get abducted.
So there we laid in the desert air, on the chaise lounge, and I knew my abduction had arrived.
The lights disappeared after what felt like hours but probably a minute in total. We slowly got up, without talking, and headed inside.
I was near tears.
“Should we talk ab…” Margaret 1 began.
I looked at her and shook my head and crawled deep under the covers.
Margaret 1 played on her phone beside me. I found it odd she wanted to spend her last moments on earth playing on her phone. I wanted to spend mine like a normal person: riddled with fear and anxiety. (This was before TikTok; now of course I’d want to scroll until I saw my favorite tarot card reader.)
She laughed beside me. It was a comfort that her laugh, one I’d loved for almost 20 years, would be the last sound I’d hear.
“It’s Elon Musk’s space lights. It’s not aliens,” Margaret 1 spurt out in her giggle fit.
I popped my head up out of the covers.
“What?!”
“It’s just Elon Musk. They’re his satellites.”
She read an article out loud to me as I debated which was scarier: aliens or billionaires.
Night four, we found ourselves ordering margaritas at a bar made to look like an old saloon in a western. I felt like I was on a movie set which made the sunset of hazy pinks, blues, and purples even more surreal.
Waiting for the band to start, we began talking to an older man drinking a Coors.
“Aliens are definitely real,” he said and took a swig. He was dressed very conservatively, which reminded me of home.
“My friend worked for Bill Clinton in the White House and he was in the Oval Office when Bill was debriefed on aliens. “Oh my god” he said, “oh my god,” in a pretty good Bill Clinton impersonation.
“And it’s not just aliens. It’s lizard people too,” he continued.
“Do you have a zipper?” Margaret 1 asked.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he said as he got up. He left his Coors on the bar.
Music started playing under the stars right as Elon Musk’s satellites trailed above us.
I gazed up and then brought my attention to the stage where I saw one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen.
He was tall, with cheek bones that could cut diamonds, a bass guitar hung across his chest.
“I’m going to fuck him,” I said to Margaret.
Margaret nodded her head, “I believe you,” she said and ordered a beer.
When they got off the stage I found my way to the lead singer.
“Hey, you mentioned the radio station here; I love that station.” Which was true. Since our Jeep didn’t have an aux cord this is how we’d been listening to music. We’d been disappointed we couldn’t play U2’s “Under the Joshua Tree” in the national park as we recreated the album cover.
By the way, saying you love the radio is an incredible ice breaker. Men love talking about the radio. They’re like FDR. I like the radio too but it’s because of my first crush (you guessed it, my dad!) and grew stronger because of the subsequent crushes.
We had the lead singer eating out of the palms of our hands when the bassist walked up.
*heart eyes* *kissy eyes* *Slick Wolf awooga*
“Hi,” he said and tipped his newsboy cap. I said he was hot not that he was fashionable.
Margaret stayed at the bar and talked to the lead singer as I walked around Pioneertown with the bassist, peaking behind saloon doors, chasing tumbleweeds, ultimately sitting on a whiskey barrel discussing success.
I had just turned 30 and felt like a loser. Talking about my career (non-existent) or what I wanted (seemingly unobtainable) or my relationship (over) was embarrassing. All I really wanted to do was gossip and laugh with my friends.
“I recorded an album,” Ryan said.
“That’s so cool. Are you wanting to move to LA to try and make it?”
He looked at me quizzically and frowned.
“What do you mean make it?” he said with mimed air quotes.
I was embarrassed for saying the wrong thing and started to stutter, “Oh, I don’t know! Maybe because in Nashville everyone is trying to make it. Success.” I mimed air quotes back.
“I play in the greatest house band in the world. I live in a home I built and get to make art with my friends. I’ve succeeded.”
My heart sped up a little. I felt like Mr. Krabs meme. Success could be this? Success could be this easy?
“Wow,” I said in awe. I wanted to see the house he built.
Editor’s note: the house he built was made out of shipping containers.
Margaret and the lead singer found us.
“Let’s head to my house and I’ll make us food,” the lead singer said. If Ryan was the hottest man I’d ever seen then the lead singer was his antagonist. I was not surprised Margaret was into him. But he seemed kind and had great taste in music.
I looked over at Ryan and he nodded his head.
Recently, I heard this theory on how much of a girl’s adolescence is watching boys do things: skateboarding, soccer, video games. Boys playing while girls witness. Perhaps it’s hard for men to understand girls because their adolescence wasn’t formed by watching. They weren’t listening to the complex conversations girls were having while watching from the sidelines. The jokes we made at their expense, at our own. They weren’t watching us play; they just knew they were being perceived.
At 1 am in a house in a desert that looked like it could be in Laurel Canyon, we did just this. We watched the boys do things. Make quesadillas, tune guitars, sing. We perceived them.
When Ryan started playing a deep cut Paul Simon song I thought maybe I could live in a shipping container.
As he played, Margaret was telling the lead singer about her PhD in clinical psychology. Ryan’s ears perked and he started playing quieter to listen. He had told me on the whiskey barrel he had once wanted to be a therapist.
If I were to try to entangle which parts of my personality are mine and which were formed by Margaret it would be seemingly impossible. As teens, we’d stay up late into the night discussing the books we read, boys, the horror films we watched, our faith, the war in the middle east, and would you rather questions. Our last question, a tradition we still uphold to this day, was to simply say the names of two of our other childhood girl friends in the form of a would you rather. We were almost certain of our straightness but open to the idea of queerness. No topic was off limits and that spilled into our discussions with friends and strangers alike. I’ve always believed there is something radical about our curiosity and if it rubs some the wrong way then so be it. They’re not for us.
I’ve also always believed there was something extraordinary about our intelligence. That few could hold a candle to our minds. So when Ryan was piqued by Margaret’s doctorate I wasn’t surprised. But as he listened and asked questions I realized he wasn’t interested but rather intimidated.
Margaret was merely asking questions from our learned adolescence of watching boys play but he believed she was psychoanalyzing him. I wish he had been able to watch us as girls writing SNL sketches to perceive us better.
I lost myself in a daydream of how I’d decorate the shipping container but came to when I heard Margaret ask Ryan if he was bi.
“Why would you ask me that?” he said defensively.
“I thought this was California!” Margaret said, genuinely confused back.
“And you’re wearing that little hat,” I said.
I watched Ryan’s 6’5 body stand up and throw his guitar to the ground.
“She wasn’t psychoanalyzing you!” I said, standing up my 5’8 frame. I had nothing to throw but my arms up in the air.
“You guys think you’re smarter than me,” he continued, voice just below a yell.
The lead singer started playing the piano. I appreciated the background music because Margaret and I stood in silence.
With that, Ryan went outside and slammed the door. Margaret and I exchanged a sympathetic look and I headed after him to hug his thin frame. My head landing in the crater between his ribs.
“It’s okay if you’re bi, we weren’t pushing you to come out.”
He kissed the top of my head and unattached my body from his. “I have a girlfriend.”
I started to laugh.
“I want to kiss you though,” he said and leaned back against the house.
“I wanted to fuck you so looks like we’re both not getting what we want,” I said and leaned next to him.
“I’m sorry I yelled at your friend,” Ryan said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of American Spirits. He offered me one and I shook my head.
Day five I FaceTime’d Taylor from the Jeep as I drove to the lead singer’s house to pick up Margaret.
“So then he just told you about his girlfriend while he finished his cigarette?” he asked. He was baking a quiche.
“Yep and then he asked for my number.”
“Only you,” Taylor said as he whisked his eggs.
When I pulled up Margaret was already standing outside with the lead singer, who was rummaging in his car. I told Taylor goodbye and rolled down my window and when Margaret and I made eye contact we burst into laughter. Success.
The lead singer walked over and handed me a CD. “The radio might go out on your drive. I think you’ll like this.”
Margaret and him hugged and then we peeled out of his driveway.
“Well,” she started and we both laughed.
Then we partook in my favorite activity: retelling the events from the night before.
“Should we text him?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m going to tell him that I’m sorry for how the events of the night played out. And ask if he thinks aliens are real,” Margaret said as she typed from my phone.
When Margaret and I were 15 we read “Into the Wild”. When Margaret and I were 21 we watched the film adaptation, which features a scene at Salvation Mountain. For a while we had a bucket list of places we wanted to visit and this was one of them. Located only an hour south of Joshua Tree, we had our chance.
Salvation Mountain is a man made mountain of found objects and paint that preaches God’s Word. It’s one of the most beautiful pieces of folk art I’ve ever seen. It expands for a quarter of a mile, parts of the mountain hollow, decorated inside as well. The word of the Lord written in bright reds, pinks, and oranges on pastel blue and green plaster.
When we arrived, the sun was so bright that I thought my retinas were burning beneath my sunglasses. I was overwhelmed with the vastness of the art; huge and intricate. I was overwhelmed by someone else’s belief.
It looked alien to me. Otherworldly and odd. I felt like I was on a different planet. I imagined I was an alien. Would this make me believe in God?
The lead singer had told us to drive even further south, to East Jesus, another exhibit of folk art in an area called “The Slab” that looked straight out of Mad Max.
The art was made of plastic bottles, and tires, and baby doll heads. I could see how this heat would make you believe this was art. My skin felt on fire as we walked by a church made out of a shipping container. I mourned the sacrament that would never take place at Ryan’s.
As we stared at some stained glass, a man walked out drinking a Coke. I thought it funny to see something so corporate in an unincorporated place.
He introduced himself as Boulder and the more I stared at him in the sun the more attractive I found him. He could also be an art piece. I thought I was beginning to lose my mind.
Boulder spoke my favorite sentence I’ve ever heard: “Not everyone who goes to Burning Man lives in East Jesus but everyone who lives in East Jesus goes to Burning Man.”
He told us that if we needed a place to stay, if the world ever got too much for us to bear, we’d find home there. “But if you’re coming at night, let me know beforehand, because we have enough ammo for a militia.”
“Was Boulder kind of hot?” Margaret asked as we buckled ourselves back in the Jeep.
I was glad that if I was insane, I wasn’t alone.
We drove back listening to the CD the lead singer had given us, an African rock album. Later, I’d play this CD for my ex and tell him the story. “He must have gotten this mix CD like during his travels. Handed to him by someone who hoped he’d get them signed,” I explained. I sometimes still believed success to be black and white.
“This is a very famous band, Andrea,” he responded. I’d later look them up on Wikipedia and I wouldn’t say they were “very famous” but they did have a Wikipedia.
Margaret and I were grooving to them in our seats when a text came in.
“Ryan says he’s sorry too,” I said. I had a pit of anxiety like I always do when a guy I know doesn’t like me texts me back.
“It’s not the first time or the last time we humiliate a man,” I said out loud as I typed it. We laughed.
My phone dinged.
“All he said back was true,” I looked over at Margaret, speechless.
“True?!” she shouted.
We laughed hysterically. Success.
“Turn around and leave me in East Jesus!” I screamed.
We spent night five at a sound bath where we’d whisper our deepest wishes into an alien portal. I whispered “abolish corporate greed,” Boulder’s Coke flashing in my mind. I don’t know where that wish came from; all my wishes usually pertain to love.
We spent night six watching the sun set over an empty bar covered in an alien mural, reading out loud our favorite poems to one another, swigging beer as the air turned cold. I wished for a jacket and Margaret, seemingly hearing it in the recess of her mind, handed me hers. Back to wishing for love.
On our seventh morning, we loaded up the Jeep and blasted our new favorite CD as we drove away from our desert abode. We were fellow travelers on our way back to verdant hills and shadowed valleys, taking in the last of the moon and sun hanging parallel in the sky over the golden earth of rock and sand. I saw a string of eight lights way in the distance, identified but still foreign.
There are many things that are alien to me: the desert landscape, the notion that you would have to arrive at the end most corner of our country in an unincorporated town to find home, how satellites work, that a girl’s intelligence could undermine a man’s, that one could look up to the stars and believe that this is all there is, that success could ever be more than laughing with your best friend.
Current successes:
making Italian Pastina soup every week since April featured it on her insta story a month ago, last night with homemade bone broth
Heart the Lover by Lily King (I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe lmao)
the three bucks that keep hanging out in my front arbor
getting down my Christmas tree from the attic with Carly
showing up for my friends while they do really cool things
ordering and “installing” new knobs for my gas range stove
making Margaret 1 laugh so hard at a prank she peed a little