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Palm Springs

November 9, 2022

It’s almost impossible to come to Palm Springs and see it for what it actually is. You already have a vision in your head: angular mid-century modern homes with large, brightly colored doors, breeze-blocks, shimmering pools, vintage cars, and palm trees. By the time we arrived, we had a certain set of expectations, and anything that didn’t conform felt off, such as when we spied boxes of rat bait or saw a sun-hardened person walking around carrying a spare tire, or kids doing skateboard wheelies in the parking lot glittering with broken glass adjacent to a closed-down bank.

We expected the city to perform for us, and at first, I felt let down that we were not going to spend the winter inside the iconic Slim Aarons photograph from 1970, Poolside Gossip, which popped up every time I’d searched “Palm Springs” back home in Madison.

In the foreground, two fashionable, well-to-do ladies in palazzo pants sit in metal loungers outside a glassy, boxy mid-century home. They chat amiably in front of a turquoise pool while a friend, suntanned and relaxed in a jaunty white sundress, walks toward the pair, her scissored legs reflected in the tranquil water. I’d hardly noticed the mountain towering in the background, although now I could appreciate how it supports the entire scene. The drama and rough edges create a sublime contrast with the cool composure in the foreground.

The photo is a mood: light and uncomplicated, free of laundry, errands, messes, and men—a world that is deliciously unattainable, which I suppose explains the ubiquity of the image. Few people can experience that life, but anyone can buy a reprint of that photo, frame it, hang it on the wall, and dream.

Where, I wondered, as I tasted dust on my tongue and my sun hat kept blowing off my head from the relentless wind, was that version of Palm Springs? This view was different, but it was also more interesting and fraught. Here, everything had been stripped away from the Slim Aarons photo except the background.

From what we could tell from our maps, this area, about ten minutes from downtown, was geographically contained, bordered on one side by busy Palm Canyon Drive while, on the other, it disappeared into the long tail of a mountain cove. An arroyo ran through the middle of it, dividing the flat part where Le Desert sat from the hills.

Grant said, “This feels like Palm Springs before it was Palm Springs.”

“Do you like it?”

“You know what? I do. It feels… real. ”

In our neighborhood in Madison, the homes were mostly built for the same middle-class economic stratum, but it seemed anyone could live here, whether you slept under the bridge by the wash, inhabited a bohemian artist’s shack in the middle of the cactus-filled lot, spent your time in a plunge pool behind a sleek new house with a Ferrari in the driveway, or wintered in one of the mid-century condo complexes from the fifties and sixties called the Coco Cabana and the Sandcliff. Some of the homes were old and made of fieldstone, while others were chubby eighties-style retreats. In the Midwest, houses had attached garages to protect you from the cold. Here, houses were designed for the outdoors, prioritizing patios and porches, and they were positioned to take advantage of the amazing mountain views.

Everything seemed inside out. It made me feel young again to be in a place so unfamiliar, where I hadn’t yet oriented myself, where everything was a new discovery, where getting lost was to be expected—the goal, even. To get so lost that you couldn’t even remember the life you’d left behind.

Much of the Palm Springs housing stock, like Le Desert, was hidden behind tall walls, security fences, and dense foliage. I was beginning to understand that visitors had a kaleidoscopic impression of the city because none had the same experiences of it. While I could see for miles and miles across the desert, there were all these surprising enclaves, entirely separate ecosystems, places I wouldn’t know about and experiences I wouldn’t have unless I was let inside the gates.

Grant and I turned a corner and discovered a long, raised gravel walkway that ran alongside a dried river basin. Several people were walking on it, but there was a tall chain-link fence with a DO NOT ENTER sign at its opening. That’s the thing about being in a new place: you don’t always know which rules you can break.

We saw a little dog prancing in our direction wearing a plastic Mohawk-style outfit. My eyes followed the leash to the dog’s owner. The man’s legs were fit and tan, limbs a sculptor would study to capture the anatomy of the muscles and tendons. He was slim and rugged, his skin as leathery as the palm bark shavings that littered the road. He wore a black skullcap and reflective sunglasses that bounced our images back to us. Despite his youthful physique, his face revealed that he was about our age or older. He could have modeled for Metamucil or Viagra ads. Middle-aged guys didn’t look this way where we came from.

“Basil’s friends!”

After several days on the road, it felt great to be recognized. It was the first moment I felt we were really here.

“I saw you chatting with the Canadians. I hear you’re from Wisconsin,” he said.

Grant said, “Word gets around fast.”

“Coco runs Le Desert’s switchboard. She probably knows your Social Security numbers and blood types by now.”

“Who’s Coco?”

The man smiled mischievously. “Oh, you’ll hear her screaming at me. She drives the mobile spa that takes up two spaces in the lot. Basil told me you were coming. I’m on orders to look out for you. I’ll show you around, tell you where to go and where not to go. This path here is our version of the New York City High Line. I’m Hobie, by the way.”

He shook Grant’s hand hard enough to dislocate his shoulder. When I reached my hand out, he ignored it and leaned in to kiss me, European-style, on both cheeks. I hate it when people do this; it makes me feel unsophisticated and awkward. I turned my head instinctively, whiffing his distinctive scent of eucalyptus and sunscreen, and inadvertently brushed my lips against his thin ones. The experience was not unpleasant, and I don’t think he meant it as an accident.

“That’s quite an outfit.” Grant pointed at the little dog.

“She needs it to protect her from the coyotes.” Hobie pointed toward the arroyo and we saw a few darting into and out of the sagebrush. “People come here. ‘Oh, it’s so pretty,’ they say. They have no idea. Over there, under the viaduct? That’s where the meth heads live. Next to the Araby Trail on the other side, they found a pipe bomb some nutjob hid by the parking lot. And, of course, the coyotes are more than happy to tear an animal to shreds. This is definitely not a place to let your pets roam freely. I won’t even tell you about what happened to Mushman.”

“Mushman?” Grant asked.

“My last dog. I named him Harvey Mushman because that was Steve McQueen’s racing name. Steve lived up there on Southridge Drive.” Hobie pointed at the ridge along the top of the mountain where palm trees stuck out along the ledge. “I rode across the desert with Steve on a motorcycle when I was sixteen, the year before he died.”

“Steve McQueen, the actor ?” Grant was as impressed as I was. “The King of Cool?”

Grant’s posture was different, as it sometimes was when he confronted men who oozed masculinity. I could see him trying to take up more space, stand straighter, his chest puffed. Hobie was the human version of Grant’s Jeep, representing a sort of alpha-dog manhood Grant could never aspire to. Instead of feeling threatened, Grant was flush with admiration. So was I, at first.

“Steve and my dad were friends. They got into all kinds of trouble. Good trouble.” Hobie grinned.

“You’re from here?” Grant’s voice reflected his disbelief. Until that moment, we’d thought of Palm Springs only as a place people visit.

“Sure am. Born and bred. I went to Palm Springs High. My dad and his brother owned Le Desert way, way back when it was still a hotel.”

“You’re a Palm Springs OG,” I said.

“I am that. Not too many around anymore, but if there’s a place to find us, it’s here in Araby. That’s what this area is called. Home of the freaks, the artists, the oddballs, or it used to be. You’ll fit right in.” He pointed at the road that trailed off in the mountains. “Howard Hughes had a place over there. He kept his girls inside and covered up his windows in tinfoil. After he died, Smokey Robinson rented it, then Eva Gabor. Eva, she was like you, Kim. She had zest. ”

I blushed. He thought I had zest?

There was something off about Hobie that I couldn’t put my finger on. His forthrightness made me wonder if he seemed different simply because he wasn’t midwestern.

“You’d run into Lucille Ball or Sammy Davis buying groceries. This was their community. We treated them like anyone else. I sold Christmas trees to Frank when I was a Boy Scout. Up by Steve’s on Southridge Drive is Bob Hope’s house—the one that looks like a spaceship. You can see it better from the trail. It’s huge, as in two swimming pools huge, as in way too fucking big huge. When Tony Randall visited, you know what he asked after he had a look around? ‘Where’s the gift shop?’ And see over there? The one next to it with the round roof? Look familiar?”

Absolutely nothing looked familiar to me; I felt as if I were on Mars. He pointed at a glassy home that looked as if it were about to fall into the cove.

“That’s the Elrod House. You probably know it from the Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever. If you think it looks great now, just wait until it’s all lit up at night.”

We walked down a sandy berm and headed in the direction of Le Desert; already it was established that wherever Hobie went, we would follow. What a snake charmer he was. I was on my guard. As Polly used to say, it was the men with charisma you had to look out for. Still, I felt suddenly vain, acutely aware of how I looked in my wrinkled clothes, comfy shoes, and bucket hat that reminded me of an Amish bonnet. Nothing could be less sexy. Less zesty.

Hobie continued his history lesson. “When I was a kid, this area was considered outside of town, Wild West and all that. Not many wanted to come this way. This was the outback. The settlers needed big lots to keep their buckboard wagons. There were no streetlights, no gutters, no curbs. I could tell you all day about the women who founded this town, the date and citrus farmers and fights over water rights. They used to hang blue lights outside the hotels and golf clubs that meant Jews weren’t welcome. One of the finest architects in Palm Springs, Paul Revere Williams, was black. Nobody would sit on the same side of the table as him, so he had to learn how to draft his plans upside down. Just wind me up, I can tell you the good and the not so good. I pick up a few shifts as a tour guide in season. That’s decent money—well, unless the Canadians are on the tour. Canadians don’t tip.”

“What else do you do?”

“I make jewelry.” Hobie reached into his shirt and pulled out a black beaded necklace with a brown gemstone. “This is tigereye. It gives you confidence.”

“You don’t seem to be lacking in that department,” I said.

He smiled. “I had a bad dune buggy accident in my twenties.” He lifted the corner of his beanie to show us a spot on his forehead with a divot in it. “Ever since, I just say what comes to mind. That’s why they only call me in for tours when there’s an emergency. I tend to tank their Yelp ratings.”

Someone started a leaf blower. A shirtless jogger went by. Men in pairs walked dogs of all sizes. I heard the clip-clop of horse hooves as a gorgeous brown quarter horse loped past, ridden by a man in a helmet.

“Now these lots are getting snatched up for millions. Don’t get me started on the tourists who come here to go to splash parties, the idiots hanging on pool noodles drinking expensive cocktails. They don’t care about the history.”

“What’s that?” I pointed at a fence that stretched for a quarter of a mile, maybe more, with desert on the other side. “It looks like a migrant border crossing.”

Grant said, “Or a religious compound. An upscale Waco.”

“Smoke Tree Ranch, one of the most venerable Republican institutions in the country.”

“That’s where Basil’s mom lives,” I said.

“You’re visiting Mel?”

“You know her?”

“I’ve known the Underwoods my whole life. My daddy was their draper.”

“Their what?”

“He made their curtains. His drapes hung in all the houses here, including hers. You’ll see them. He hung drapes for Liberace, Dinah Shore, Frank, Elvis. Go to Sunnylands, his silk drapes are still there.”

“Did you inherit the business?” Grant asked.

“Nah, people buy blinds now. As we say, it’s curtains for drapes.”

Grant laughed a little too loudly. Dort once said her father “laughed in Ph.D.”

“You should consider yourself lucky to have an invitation,” Hobie said. “It’s where captains of industry play cowboy.”

“I’m going there for lunch today.”

“You didn’t tell me you had plans,” Grant said. I wasn’t used to having to share my itinerary with him. It was disconcerting to have him know or even care about my every move.

Hobie put his arm around Grant’s shoulders. “You hike?” Hobie spoke to him the way Trent had back home, as if he were about to call him little fella. “We could hit the trails while your wife meets with the queen.”

“I’m not his wife,” I said.

Hobie seemed curious. “You’re his lover?” He looked at me as if picturing me in bed. “Nice job, man.” He gave Grant a high five.

I could tell Grant was ambivalent about hiking; in all the years we’d been together, he’d seemed out of place in nature. He wasn’t inclined toward exertion, and it was beginning to show. Unlike most men, he wasn’t physically competitive and didn’t need to work out his stress hitting or chasing a ball. His idea of exercise was a holdover from high school gym class and involved a smattering of jumping jacks and push-ups.

Hiking had never been something I’d imagined people did here. I don’t know what I thought people did—float around in a pool all day? Drink Aperol spritzes until they keeled over?

“Where would we go?” Grant asked.

“He likes to have a destination,” I said, talking about Grant the way I might to a babysitter when the kids were underfoot.

“We’ll take Shannon, right there.” Hobie pointed at a sinewy tan path I could just make out, winding its way up the face of a mountain that seemed as tall and as straight as a wall. “We can start you off with a baby climb.”

It didn’t look like a baby climb to me, or to Grant, who visibly blanched. “It looks hard.”

“If you want easy, I can get you a Netflix subscription.”

We rounded the corner, and I realized to my delight that we were back at Le Desert, thank goodness, because my foot was starting to ache. The homeless guys were resting on the grass between the sidewalk and the road.

Hobie scowled at them, but lit up when he saw our truck, already covered in dust, parked in Basil’s spot in the shared lot. “Pickups aren’t allowed in the lot.”

“It’s not a pickup truck, it’s a Jeep.”

“Same difference. But that’s a nice adventure mobile, I’ll grant you that.”

“She’s ours,” Grant said, puffing with pride.

I hated that he kept referring to the truck as she.

“You can get into some good trouble with a truck like this, take it to Ladders and the Chocolate Mountains, explore some abandoned gold mines. Take her out to the Anza-Borrego Desert.”

Grant was positively beaming. This was the happiest I’d seen him in ages, which made me happy. I had no idea it was the exact moment that would lead Grant to his great hiking misadventure.

“For sure. Anytime. I’m down with that.”

Down with that? Never once had he used this phrase in my presence. It’s funny how men need to connect over something external, an object or an activity. I wouldn’t have imagined Grant and Hobie as friends; they were not two sides of the same coin. They weren’t even the same currency.

“Does she have a name yet?” Hobie asked, kicking a tire.

Grant seemed alarmed. How could he have neglected to think of something so important? “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s bad luck to ride a horse with no name. Wait a minute, you know the Jeep comes from general purpose. It’s like an army thing. So maybe a general. General Grant ? That’s what we’ll call her. I hereby christen her the Ulysses S. Come on, let’s go. There’s a cairn at the top of the hill. You can throw a rock on it and all your wishes will come true.”

A few minutes later, Hobie knocked on the door to pick up Grant. His little dog was on its leash and started humping Grant’s leg.

I had changed into a dress for my lunch with Melody, brushed my hair, and put on mascara for the first time in weeks. Hobie eyed me up and down. “Why don’t you dress sexy? You look like a teacher.”

Grant’s face was glowing with zinc sunscreen. His legs were white. I could tell he was nervous he wouldn’t be able to keep up.

“You have hiking boots?”

Grant shrugged. “Just tennis shoes.”

“The incline is almost four thousand feet. What if you lose your balance, or a rattlesnake bites you?” Hobie raised his two bent fingers to look like teeth for emphasis.

“A rattlesnake?” I asked, alarmed. I’d never seen anything bigger than a garter snake back home, nothing with venom.

“Not many this time of year. But come spring, you’ll see them sun themselves on the trails in the morning.” Was this supposed to be comforting? He added, “It’s the baby rattlers you need to worry about. They move like Slinkies, no control. Come. Let’s find you a stick for balance.”

“I’m fine, really,” Grant said.

“You’re overconfident.” Hobie’s tone was scolding. “That’s going to get you into trouble, my friend. And not good trouble. You’re what, one hundred eighty pounds? Two hundred? That’s about the same size as a bighorn sheep. The mountain lions eat sheep every day, so why wouldn’t they look at you and say, ‘Hey, there’s a meal’? You’re going to need a stick because it makes you bigger. Here’s what you do. You walk a ways.…” He began walking ahead of us, stopped suddenly, and jerked his body to the right so fast that I jumped. “Then you walk a little more.…” He did the same thing, but looking back from his left. “That’s what we call a crazy Ivan. I wear a pack even if I don’t have anything to carry. I like to cover my neck because mountain lions always attack from behind. Still don’t think you need a stick?”

“When’s the last time you heard of someone getting attacked by a mountain lion around here?” I asked.

Hobie shrugged. “Years. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”

We followed Hobie to the back corner of the property. He was full of swagger and bravado. All these dangers he warned Grant about seemed made-up, the product of his head injury. I thought he was just trying to look tough.

“See that back wall?” Hobie asked. “Can you read what’s written on it?”

I squinted. The paint was chipped and it was hard to make out, but someone had written THE 121ST MINUTE on it.

“That’s been there since the fifties. When Hollywood worked on a studio system, the actors weren’t permitted to travel farther than two hours from the sets in case they were needed while in production. Where we are? This is the very farthest point on that circumference, the last stop. That’s what made the town a getaway for the stars, and this area is as far as you could get if you had some funny business. If only these walls could talk. Speaking of talking, enjoy the commentary now because I don’t like to chat much when I hike.”

I almost laughed. Hobie hadn’t shut up since we’d run into him.

“I don’t like the sound of voices and, no offense”—he looked at me—“especially women’s voices.”

“Well, I’ve heard a lot of your voice this morning so I’m looking forward to some quiet myself.”

“I like you,” he said. “You’re like Coco. She also doesn’t put up with my shit.” He nodded in the direction of one of the units and scowled. “She hates me.”

He approached a tree, or really an overgrown bush. It had leaves that didn’t even look like leaves, more like old, curly pubic hair, messy and soft, depleted of color. An owl hooted in the canopy. A worn sign nailed to the base read THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND.

Hobie plucked off a long, thin leaf and without any hesitation about personal space reached for my hand and rubbed my thumb against it. Grant had the soft hands of an aristocrat; Hobie’s were hard and worn. I looked at the ground, embarrassed by the guilty little zip of energy that passed between us. Hobie said, “Taste it.”

I did. “Salt.”

“Exactly. This is the salt cedar, or tamarisk. The tree sweats, just like we do.”

“It’s a beautiful old tree.”

He stopped and looked at me, serious. “Beautiful? Their roots go deep into the aquifer. They can go through three hundred gallons of water a day. They reproduce like rabbits. They’re growing where they don’t belong, sucking resources. This right here is a worthless weed, that’s what it is, and you know what we do with weeds.”

I jumped when Hobie whipped out his jackknife. He made a gesture in the air of cutting the tree in half. Grant seemed impressed, but I was suddenly worried about sending him out into the mountains with this guy.

“I’d take her down myself if it weren’t for the petunia planters on the ‘garden committee’ who insist we preserve this tree because it’s been here a long time. Makes no sense. Should I keep a tumor that’s been growing for a long time in my nuts?”

With precision, he cut a long, straight branch off the tree and stripped it clean. He showed us a piece of the purple-blue bark before chucking it on the pebbly ground. “The tannins are used to tan leather. At least it has some use.” He folded his knife into his sheath and tossed it to Grant. “You can have this one. I have a drawer full of better knives than this. It’s another thing you’ll need when you hike.”

You’d think this guy was going to take Grant through a field planted with land mines.

Hobie grabbed his little dog, threw her into his backpack, and gestured at the gate. “You have water?”

Grant shrugged.

“Never hike without water, that’s the first rule. Dehydration is a real thing here, no matter what time of year. You don’t want to be like the Germans who came here in the summer and headed to Joshua Tree in their lederhosen. They never made it back. You can hallucinate if you haven’t had enough water. You can panic. You can—”

I’d had enough. “Hang on, I’ll see what Basil has,” I said.

“Basil? I’ve only seen that guy drink bottled water from Australia.”

I ran into the kitchen and looked in every cabinet. Nothing but fancy Italian barware. That’s when I had an idea. I thought it was pretty clever of me to rinse out the box of chicken stock we’d used the night before and fill it up with water. I handed it to Grant.

“You midwesterners sure are resourceful!” Hobie couldn’t stop laughing, and Grant blanched. He looked like a little kid whose mom had just shown up at school with a change of clothes in case he had an accident.

“Let’s go, Swanson.”

Was I worried? Not at all. The way I saw it, Palm Springs was a utopia where nothing could go wrong.

I followed the men out of the compound. It felt like walking out of a spaceship into a different world. Once again, balance had returned to our relationship. Grant had his thing to do, and I had mine. As Octavia said, “I like my men busy.”

Soon, I’d head over to see Melody and face my past.

Grant waved to me. “Bye, Kimmy.” My heart bloomed with tenderness in these moments when I could see the little boy in him.

Already my own wish had been granted. Grant had a friend, and for the first time in a long time, he had something to do.

Hobie flashed me a flirtatious smile. It was difficult to know what to think of him. Still, I was immensely grateful. This was like sending Grant off to a rehabilitation center and putting him in the hands of a professional, someone who knew more than I did about coaxing him out of his funk since the college closed.

I had the sudden feeling that Hobie, this perfect stranger, had the power to save our relationship—or end it.