“Thanks, Jerry.”
Before we rejoined our families, I put it in the trunk of my car. I had fallen in love. I had found my mistress.
For the next eighteen years, when I finished a big deal and needed to get out of Dodge, I hiked to Warren View and recovered that exhilarated state of mind. As Frank had instructed me, I got my wife used to the fact that I went away now and then — without leaving a name, phone number, or address of the place I was going. Every rendezvous, I took off from the Swiss Health Resort in Desert Hot Springs, headed for the Black Rock hike, and spent an afternoon of bliss on the plateau lying in a comfortable perch above the trail and gazing across the Palm Desert at magic San Jacinto.
The LA Times article, with its map of the hike, moved with me from my black Saab to a green Jeep Cherokee, then to a black Highlander. On the early encounters, I took the map from the trunk and carried it along, also checking my directions with a compass. But after I learned the route by heart, I stopped using either and left the map behind.
I don’t remember seeing it when I organized my things in the rattan baskets.
I passed through undulating Moreno Valley’s cobbled hills of sand and grey until I reached the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains — the gorgeous sisters of the San Gabriel range. Lines of patient cars crawled up towards Big Bear and Arrowhead resorts. I continued east towards the haunting wasteland that’s been a beacon for dreamers and outcasts for centuries.
In the shadow of monster trucks, my Passat reached the San Gorgonio Pass, the only passageway to and from the high desert in the 1850s for resourceful rustlers who fattened stolen cattle in the high hills of Joshua Tree, then drove them through the pass to markets on the coast. I passed the off-ramp to Palm Springs, where the pass opens to a mile-wide expanse of wavy grasses, rimmed by the brown foothills of the mountains, and dotted by giant wind turbines.
I turned right off the interstate and picked up Route 62 for the short stretch to Desert Hot Springs, pulling off at Indian Canyon to arrive at Swiss Health Resort, the same restful place I always stayed. The lot in the rear was uncrowded on the hot afternoon, and after a few rings on the buzzer, still nobody came to open the motel registration room. Then finally, ruddy-looking Ursula, the proprietor, came up the steps from her private rooms to greet me.
“Hello, Ed. So nice to see you.”
“Same here.” I sat on a couch as she went behind the counter to get my paperwork. She was writing up my bill. “So, when is breakfast?” I asked.
“So sorry, Ed. We stopped offering breakfast.”
“Not enough visitors this weekend?’
“We’re not set up for it anymore, with the financial crisis, and some of the regulars stopped. But I just baked some multigrain bread; if you like, I can get a loaf.”
“Sure.” I nodded.
She went back to her place, and I recalled Ursula’s busy breakfasts in past decades — I saw people waiting to fill up on Swiss Muesli, hard-boiled eggs, fresh vegetables, and colorful jams of berries and prickly pear. As I wondered when exactly was the last time I was there, the smell of her wonderful multigrain bread came in. It distracted me from telling her where I was going the next morning. “Here you are.” She handed me the bread and bent her silver head over the paperwork, wrote the $5.00 bread charge to my total, and addressed me from inside her space. “Karl is still doing the water-massage, would you like that?”
“That sounds good.” I had never tried his special massage in all the visits to the place. It sounded like a fantastic way to start the weekend and might actually wash the last buyers off my skin.
“He has a 7 p.m. opening. Is that good?”
I floated face up in the indoor pool on that Thursday night buoyed by multicolor noodles. Karl stepped into the water and greeted me politely, but without any warmth, in his Swiss accent: “You’re here for a one-hour water massage?”
“Yes, I am,” I answered, knowing how relaxing it would be. The tall, muscular man walked behind me to cradle me in his arms and began to massage my back. He carried me to the center of the warm pool.
“Do you like firm massage?”
“Yes.” His stiffness impressed me. It’s not like he hadn’t seen me fifteen times before. Or hadn’t talked to me about the special access his property had to the underground hot springs. But I knew I was in for a treat. I thought about the Allstate Insurance ad, “You’re in good hands,” and I closed my eyes. His finger tips pressed across my waistline from hip to hip, then he massaged my back, moving upward and outward from my spine. I went into a reverie. I imagined myself leaving my room in the morning to take my car up Route 62. I’d reach the campground parking lot, and, dressed in my shorts and short sleeves, would tackle the familiar trail, finding my way from the black-pebbled channel to the yellow grasslands and up to the green forest for the view. I saw myself eating lunch nestled in a crag above the trail, across from San Jacinto and the Coachella Valley. Then, I would drive back, and everything would be like always, a blue-sky feeling on the pool deck of the resort.
Karl and Ursula had invested in new beds and bedding. I pulled back the coral and yellow weaved covers and untucked the lower edge of the fine cotton sheets from beneath the mattress. My travel bag lay unopened on the second bed. I set out my outfit for the hike: my hiking socks, short sleeve white shirt, underwear, and shorts. I cut two thick slices off Ursula’s luscious bread and slathered both with crunchy peanut butter, then gingerly placed these together, cut the sandwich in half, and wrapped it in aluminum foil. Ursula had left several delicious tomatoes on the kitchen counter. I took one and put it in the fridge in a plastic bag with the peanut butter sandwich. It was close to 10 p.m. when I filled a glass with some cold goat milk and then finished off half a bag of Sara Lee Bordeaux cookies. When I closed my eyes and pulled just the right layer of sheets and coverlet over me, the last thing I noticed was my box of granola, next to the sink, waiting for morning on the kitchen counter.
For all my anticipation of a wonderful day, I woke on Friday morning very weak in the already warm room. Once my feet reached the floor by the bed, I ran to the bathroom with cramps from diarrhea. At 7 a.m., yellow morning light illuminated the asphalt lot. At its edges, the view of grey desert gravel and scraggly grass was very unmotivating. My mind agreed with my body’s weakness, and despite the months of anticipation, I told myself “forget the hike,” flipped on the swamp cooler, crept under the covers, and slept.
Two hours later, my cell phone woke me up. It was Britten, a client. We had circled beneath every beaux-arts facade and each goddess and gargoyle of the historic core, as if we were Jason and the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, and we’d still not found him a deal. When he realized he had awakened me, he suggested we talk later. Foggy, I stumbled around the room. It was around 10 a.m., and if I were to take the hike, I was two hours behind schedule, but I decided to go. I threw on my outfit. I left the box of granola untouched, opened the fridge and filled a glass with peach juice from Trader Joe’s. The glass slipped from my hand, and I watched shards disperse on the linoleum. I bent to mop up the little glass islands from the peach sea. Standing, I tossed the paper towels in the trash, then grabbed my peanut butter sandwich and tomato and headed to the parking lot, determined to reach the gorgeous vista.
I stopped for coffee. After grabbing a styrofoam cup to fill, I noticed a family in the front window nook at a white formica table. The waitress had just brought some sunny side up eggs on white plates with bacon. She leaned over the bony-armed father to pour his coffee. The t-shirted man smiled at his son, and the buxom wife in a work shirt beamed at the kid. I turned back to the vat and flicked up the dispenser. The waitress behind the restaurant grill window asked me, “Anything else you want?”
“No, but where is the cream?”
“There