YET ANOTHER LOVE THAT DARE NOT SPEAK ITS NAME by Jonathan Ames

a thousand-degree flame. Sometimes Ruth worries that she’s not more worried about Casey fighting fires out there. Maybe, if she were in love, she’d be glad Casey canceled the season, instead of disappointed.

Ruth and Casey met at the end of December at an event in northern Greenpoint, nearly Queens. Ruth was pursuing a girl named Natalia. Fresh from Bard, Natalia had half-baked breasts and noodle arms, hair rolled on her head in tawny bundles. She touched Ruth’s wrist whenever they talked, which was not often.

This particular event — one in a series, as Ruth tailed Natalia — was a showcase of genderqueer DJs. DJ Lezz B Friends was spinning Whitney Houston, Bonnie Tyler, and Stevie Nicks into a cacophony of heartbreak. Ruth passed the time with a short, rugged girl in back. Ruth was used to beautiful, flakey girls, getting them for a night here and there, a month at best. She liked the chase, didn’t need the relationship. Casey was squat on the ground with ash-caused blackheads studding her neck and ears. When Natalia absconded with Lezz B Friends, Ruth settled. Then the thing with Casey just kept going. She’d never had an easier relationship, and she had a fondness for Casey that was deep, though sometimes hard to find.

When Casey decided not to firefight again, Ruth was stumped. Their three months together, with Casey unemployed and Ruth avoiding her assignments, were a vacation. But it couldn’t go on. Ruth had to start hustling pieces, get her focus back. The road trip would be a transition into whatever was next. Ruth saw herself gazing out the Bronco’s window, coming to conclusions. She might be ready now to settle into something. She just needed time to decide.

“Don’t be mad,” Casey says. “But the cab is a mess.”

“Didn’t you clean it? I thought that’s why you came out early.”

“I didn’t have time.”

Casey, though unemployed since October, never has time. In her sublet on Nostrand, balled-up clothes build on unpacked cartons. Plates teeter on greasy silverware next to the sink, because the sink is full of soaking bathing suits. Ruth tries not to frown.

Casey laughs. “It’s nice to see you, too, beautiful.”

In the truck, the seats are as soft as sofa cushions. UPS packages, socks, and a pair of rubberized overalls crowd Ruth. There’s a beat-up cardboard box marked Grade A Air Rifle! jammed in the cab behind them and a carton of clay pigeons under her feet. These are the props of Casey’s other life. Distant across the center console, the Bronco dwarfs Casey. The steering wheel is wider than her torso, and she has to angle her arm up to reach the gearshift.

“Prepare for takeoff.” Casey turns the key. They head down Interstate 10.

When Casey was in LA, Ruth tried to touch herself, but couldn’t see it through. She wanted to prove she could fulfill herself alone, but she realized in those few days that she was happier with Casey, ate more and laughed more and felt like a kid. She was nicer, too, less snarky in her writing. She tried to work on pitches in cafes where it was less lonely. But her attention lingered on empty air, drifting from her notes on local rice pudding and unambitious subway gropers. She pictured the wide expanse of country, this truck, Casey’s body on top of her. A life beyond this trip, with a reliable girlfriend for the first time ever.

She reaches across the center console and rests her hand on Casey’s thigh. But the stretch is too far. The tendons in her forearm ache. After a while, she draws away.

They arrive in Joshua Tree in early evening, passing through the roadside town of Twentynine Palms and turning into the park. Casey idles in the truck while Ruth visits the ranger station.

The ranger flips his hand at a board crowded with Christmas tree icons, denoting which campsites are free. Ruth takes a pamphlet and returns to the car.

“Does White Tank have room?” asks Casey. “That’s where I stay when I’m climbing.”

Ruth doesn’t bother trying to recall the cluttered map. “Let’s just drive.”

They pull the Bronco through the turnstile at the head of the park. The road is rough, and the truck hops along.

“I forgot how bad the shocks are.”

The desert is already starting to purple as they drive through Lost Horse Valley, an open plain littered with Joshua trees. The trees are an endemic species, which only grow here. Ruth tries to be impressed about this. She tries to absorb the look of the trees, because she will probably never see them again. They are scrubby and stuck with needles, fanned at the top like hands. Some have fallen over, mummified in the sand. She wonders out loud if anyone ever steals the carcasses, a genuine souvenir.

“They wouldn’t last,” Casey says.

“But they look as good fallen as standing.” Ruth taps her window at a specimen that could be alive if it weren’t horizontal.

“Drag one of those suckers into any other climate and it wouldn’t last a day.”

The first campsite is called Hidden Valley. A white hand points into an empty expanse.

“That one’s decent,” says Casey. “It’s only four sites.”

“Let’s not stop yet,” says Ruth. “There are a million more.” She’s not ready to get out of the car, cool and cozy with Casey and all her stuff. She flops across the center console, letting her hand drift between Casey’s legs.

The sun is setting and the light’s gone hazy, so, as they drive, they can only see features that cross the horizon. Every so often there’s a pile of rocks that looks like someone’s collection left in a jumble. Casey says they were placed by volcanic activity at the beginning of time. No matter how precarious they look they will never fall.

“Except a natural arch did collapse this year, in Utah. The ranger came in the morning and there was a crust on the ground.”

Ruth imagines all the arches and land bridges and rock piles of the world fainting, one after another, as they grow too weak or dry to support themselves. The dust will fade eventually, and the land everywhere will be flat.

The next four sites are full, including White Tank.

“Shit.” Casey hammers the steering wheel. The vibration travels through the plastic and foam, buzzing Ruth in her seat.

She feels guilty that she’s not being helpful. She takes out the pamphlet, reviews the list of sites. “There’s one more.”

“Are we coming up on it?”

Relative to the whole park they’re still startlingly close to the main entrance. She finds Cottonwood Spring in the southeast corner.

“Let’s see.” Ruth pinches her fingers against the scale key, inching them across the paper park. “It looks like it’s about 35 miles from here. That’s not bad.”

“It’s bad on this road. In case you didn’t notice, we’re going 20 miles an hour. That could take all night.” Her voice is tight. Ruth pictures her commanding her crew at the foot of a blaze, her face lit yellow.

“We could go back to Hidden Valley.” Ruth doesn’t feel like turning around. That feels depressing, against the point.

Casey shakes her curls into her face. “There’s no way it’s still open. You know, we could get all the way to Cotton whatever and have it be full like everywhere else.”

Ruth doesn’t know what the big deal is with camping. She thought they’d slap down the tent any old place, eat, fuck, wake up, walk around in the sand, and get on with it.

The Joshua trees thin and disappear until all that’s left are low shrubs and sticks on the ground. The radio signal cuts out so they play Neil Young. He’s searching for a heart of gold. Ruth reads the summary of Cottonwood Spring. Maybe she can make it lively enough to cheer Casey.

“Featuring semi-sanitary chemical toilets, Joshua Tree’s southern-most campground is okay. Although it sits at a low elevation and does not harbor the park’s signature trees, it has many other features. The most isolated campground, you may view a moderate variety of wildlife. For intrepid explorers, venture to Lost Palms Oasis.”

Casey downshifts over a bump. “What’s that?” Ruth checks the map. “Some hike.”

“They always exaggerate on those things. It always says ‘strenuous’ when it’s like a footpath for babies.” Casey laughs like this is an inside joke among hikers of the world.

Ruth locates the hike, wanting to push this discovery of hers, get back in Casey’s favor. The trail is just a squiggle going off, not too imposing. “Doesn’t look bad.”

“Good,” says Casey. “It’s going to be hot as shit.”

Ruth wakes to the truck easing down a decline. The headlights illuminate the sign for Cottonwood Spring. They troll around the first loop, finding just a single RV. In the flash of their headlights, a middle-heavy older man dips a plate into one of several bins lined up on a picnic table. His skin is reptilian, glowing in the sudden brightness.

Loop B is empty. They choose a site where the road turns, because there’s leftover firewood and room for the Bronco.

It’s only when they get out that Ruth realizes how well the air conditioner in the Bronco works. Even though the sun’s been down for some time, the heat eats her skin. “I thought it was cold in the desert at night.”

“This is cold.” Casey puts on a headlamp and pitches the tent on a piece of flat earth. She throws her boulder pad and sleeping bags inside. Ruth bumps into a pointed palm and a tiny square on her arm fills with blood. She’s surprised at how tears spring into her eyes, because it doesn’t even hurt. She wonders if she’s feeling emotional at seeing Casey again, or if it’s just the old feeling of being a kid in the big dark wilderness.

Casey carries a plastic prism, a can of propane, a knife, and a tin of children’s ravioli to the table. She opens the prism and removes a spidery wire tripod. She screws it on the propane valve and opens the tin with the knife. Then she sets the can on the wire tripod and turns a key. A blue ring of flame grabs the bottom of the can. Until the final step it looked like nonsense. If Casey weren’t here, Ruth would starve.

They share a plastic fork to eat the ravioli. Ruth hasn’t eaten since the plane. The food is delicious, though she’s sure if there were any light she’d see the beef inside the pasta shells is gray and powdery, like it’s been through years of treatment since it was last part of a cow.

They pee by the truck, not bothering to find the washhouse in the dark. Casey says that when you brush your teeth, you should spin your head as you spit the paste. “So it doesn’t concentrate in one area and, like, kill plants.”

Ruth whips her head from side to side, foam squirting like a rapid-fire sprinkler system. Casey laughs.

They put on clean T-shirts and zip into the tent. The walls are made of mesh so you can see the stars. Immediately Casey gets on top of Ruth and works at her between the legs until Ruth relaxes. When she comes she can’t help yelling. Her shout cuts the desert and she slaps a hand over her mouth.

“Don’t worry,” says Casey. “I’m sure that old guy likes it.”

Ruth had forgotten that man doing dishes. She shivers as she realizes there’s only a piece of mesh to protect them. She weasels into Casey’s armpit and they look at the stars.

“I love having you around,” says Casey.

The words rest in the air caught between their faces and the sky. Casey has never said anything like this before. The words frighten her, even though she doesn’t want to lose Casey, doesn’t want to be alone like she was for those few days. Alone with her shitty self. She doesn’t say anything.

“Really,” Casey says. “I know I’m not effusive. But I love this.”

Ruth turns to the flank of the tent. This isn’t how she pictured this discussion happening. She needs more time to think, to figure out if this relationship is right. From Casey’s breathing, Ruth can tell she’s trying not to get upset. They both pretend they’re asleep. When the moon rises, it’s as bright as day.

In the morning, Ruth’s skin is welded with sweat to Casey and the nylon weave of the boulder pad. The sun blazes through the mesh, a sunburn is already spreading on her naked legs. She wrenches free and flees into the air.

Outside, it feels like noon, though the sun dawdles at the horizon. Ruth unlocks the back of the truck and digs for breakfast. All she can find is tinned fish. Heaps of it stacked in silver bricks.

Casey appears and pulls a brown package out of the mess, marked with the letters MRE. “This is what we ate on fire.” Casey rips the packet open. Inside are slim cardboard boxes. She opens the thickest one and puts the packet with water in a plastic bag. Steam pours out. She rips open the bag and passes it to Ruth with the grubby ravioli fork. Inside is a yellowish substance, tough as baked sap.

“This is supposedly the worst ration,” Casey says. “Vegetable omelet. But they all taste the same. It was stupid how people argued over them.”

Ruth wouldn’t want to imagine any of the rations tasting worse than this. She gets down as much as she can.

They pack the backpack with a few liters of water, peanut butter sandwiches, health bars, and a wax sack of peanuts. Casey throws in the toilet paper and some hats. To add weight for more of a workout, she includes Ruth’s novels and rocks from the fire pit. She packs other stuff too, that Ruth doesn’t see. The skin of the bag bulges by the time she’s done. They apply sunscreen. It’s barely eight in the morning and they’re ready to go.

As they set off, Ruth realizes how exhausted she is. They must have gone to bed later than she thought. Plus she’s not in the best shape. Casey always wants to run with her but Ruth looks skinnier when she doesn’t exercise. When she used to bike her jeans stretched like sausage casing.

Eventually they come upon a faded sign that reads, Lost Palms Oasis 4.2 miles.

Casey halts, letting sand pool over her sneakers. “I thought you said it was short.”