Desert Redux (Part Two)

Our hotel observed strict guidelines laid down by the state’s hospitality requirements; rooms cleaned and sanitized top to bottom per CDC mandates, nobody in our room, neither guests nor cleaning services, for at least 72 hours prior to our entering, contactless check in, outdoor corridors, and so on. It was fairly safe, and the hotel was deserted anyway, probably because it was 118 degrees out in the Coachella valley. I don’t often hit the desert during peak summer heat, but it was a different kind of year.

We went out to Joshua Tree on the first day. The place was nearly deserted, what with the high temperatures. Near the southern edge of the park and its cholla cactus gardens, I left the road for a bit, found an isolated spot, not a soul around for twenty miles in any direction, save for my gal and my dog back at the truck a fair distance away out of sight and earshot.

Here’s a pic my girl took of our somewhat confused dog looking out the back seat window waiting for me to return.

And in that dead silence, that arid solitude, I let out what was likely my first ever primal scream.

Pent up from all the frustrations and restrictions and disappointments and tragedies accumulated over the last six months of losing my dogs, and enduring that 2020 American apocalypse of pestilence and politics and social inequalities.

Let me tell you, it was fucking satisfying.

Trashed my vocal cords, but it was worth it.

After that, sunburned and relieved, I headed back to the truck and we made our way over to Tara’s favorite area of the park. We sat and watched the sunset. A warm breeze took a slight edge off the blistering heat. We enjoyed a welcome respite of a few solemn, meditative moments. It was lovely and quiet and beautiful, a fine honorarium for our passed elders.

We decided to take a horseshoe route back home. I wanted to take a quick run through the aforementioned dystopias around the Salton Sea, so the next day we drove southeast from Indio down to the wastes.

Bombay Beach hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I’d visited, still salt-blasted and desolate. A few new artist installations at the mucky shores of the sea were erected. The beaches had dried up several more meters.

In Slab City, there were many, many more campers taking up residence that year. An increased number of arson-derived, burnt and blackened ruins of campsites and vehicles was admittedly concerning. I wanted to introduce my girl to a couple of the artists I’d met years previous in East Jesus, but of course the Covid thing, so we just drove around. Many military vets live out there. I wondered how they were faring with Covid. I expected fairly well, considering their isolation far from any urban crossroads.

An interesting development during our self imposed exile was the news of the CDC’s notifications to public health officials across the nation to prepare for the distribution of a viable coronavirus vaccine as early as October or November, wherein the first dosages would be prioritized to front line health care workers and high-risk populations.

Pharma officials and medical researchers resisted a federal push of approval, claiming their process wouldn’t be rushed by political incentives. It’s good to be detail oriented when it comes to the safety of millions. Virologists use the term ‘adverse events’ when categorizing severe vaccination reactions in patients. The use of vaccines has, on occasion, resulted in a variety of serious conditions ranging from pneumonia and sepsis to diabetes and death. There’s no safe shortcut in epidemiology, much as we wanted there to be. If Pfizer and Moderna played out their science in appropriate trial and test fashion, with peer accreditation and scientific corroboration, getting vaccinated was a must for all of us, for the greater good.

I hadn’t eaten out in over six months. I hadn’t seen a movie in the theater. I hadn’t played poker in the card room at the casino. I hadn’t seen any live music or concerts. I hadn’t seen my friends or family. I hadn’t seen my sons. My whole way of life was halted and shelved and put on pause. It was pissing me off same as everyone else.

I had to be relative about it, though. I wasn’t dead yet. More important, my girl wasn’t and my boys weren’t. However, many, too many, were dead. Husbands lost wives, wives lost husbands, parents lost children, children lost parents. In not seeing the people I loved for the longest period of time in our lives, I was keeping them safe, safer than the bozos hosting block parties and BBQs. It’s because of those folks this country was laid lower than any other. Their patriotic stands for civil liberties were empty assertions. Their downplaying of the severity of Covid-19 was self-serving and heartless. They just didn’t want to be inconvenienced.

Thanks to them, we were all complicit, in being American at all. That was our culture. This was what we all signed up for, including those of us who followed intelligent precautions. If we didn’t move to Canada, we accepted the reality that whatever came next, as a country, we were in it, for better or worse, as a people, connected by nationality while disconnected in virtually every other way. After all those months, those initial platitudes we first tossed around at the onset of the epidemic, the rallying cry of We’re All in This Together – turned out, that was exactly what we were, in it together, and those of us who refused to prioritize community over themselves dragged the rest of us down with them.*

Outside of the States, some interesting mask enforcement options emerged throughout the world, most sensationally a shaming penalty in Jakarta, Indonesia, where those caught mask-less in public had the option to either pay a fine and do community service, or lay inside a coffin to contemplate the ramifications of their in-actions while counting to 100 all while on display for passersby to take photos of them inside the penalty box. Jakarta authorities said it was a good way to impress the relativity of Covid-19’s real potential, in putting naysayers in a real coffin.

That actually would’ve worked wonders here in America, draconian as it might seem. Ignominy is a huge deterrent for the average American. Naturally, the populace would revolt at such an outrageous measure because it involves shame, something we don’t handle very well in this country. The thought of thousands of American anti-masker conspiracy cultists having to endure that humiliation in paying a price for their lack of community contribution did tickle the brain, I admit.

But we were Americans. We had no problem embracing capital punishment, life sentences, and extended incarceration for non-violent drug offenses, especially for men of color. But put a whiteboy in a shame box for not wearing a mask?  AR-15s are brandished for lesser loss of face.

The pandemic laid bare the facade of American exceptionalism. Americans assured in their self reliance and the security of a purportedly unassailable democracy learned their fragility was all too real. It rattled nearly everyone, evidenced by the constant micro-aggressions and increasing macro-aggressions levied every which way, on the internet, in line at the grocery store, in traffic, at crossroad confrontations of protests and counter-protests.

Wade Davis, an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia penned an brilliant op-ed article in Rolling Stone magazine on how the virus, coupled with the embracing of a leader like That Guy, and our continued resistance to social democracy, was heralding an end to the modern American era:

“Covid has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism…at the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world.”

Despite all my disdain for our contemptuous behavior, I still hoped all who disregarded protocols would make it through. I wish ill will or bad circumstance on no one, not even those who might deserve a comeuppance. Nobody deserves to die from hubris. Everyone deserves redemption.

Everyone.

Pending survival, I wanted to return to Anzo-Borrego and take some deep breaths of desert air. I wanted to see the Stones live again. I wanted my boys to live their later lives in a new era of American state, perhaps one that stood for all peoples rather than a select few.

Yes, I wanted that.

I did what I could to help make that happen, including keeping everyone safer by wearing a mask in my Californian communities until it was over, or until a vaccine arrived.

I wasn’t afraid of getting the virus.

I was afraid of giving it to someone else.

I didn’t feel my liberties infringed at all when I wore a mask. I felt like I was performing a required duty to protect my fellow sisters and brothers.

Funny thing is, even if I was wrong about transmission rates and methods of infection (hard medical science showed unequivocally I was not) my intent still remained honorable.

And you, anti-masker or Covid denier.

How about your moral intent in 2020?

Was it honorable? Were you thinking of others before yourself?

Or did you just want your life to resume as usual?

*Editor’s Note: This seems even more prescient in the here and now, one day after 2024’s presidential election.

**Compiled from September 28, 2020