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playing a Joshua tree," said Ira. "Good. I'm glad. It's got to be better than most of those parts you play." Ira was a lawyer. He worked in offices and was plump and pale.

    "Private or otherwise. Listen, just content yourself. I could have another hobby, like practicing the drums. Drive on, MacDuff."

    "Jonathan?" Ira asked. "Mind telling me what we're doing here?"

    Jonathan just smiled, gave his eyebrows a Groucho Marx wiggle. They both adored Groucho Marx. Ira adored living with Jonathan. It made life more interesting. Ira was very proud of living with Jonathan. The guy was maybe seven years older than he was, but already some people thought Jonathan was younger. He did strange, slightly mysterious things like this, drag Ira out to Lancaster, with a secret smile. Ira was so proud that he wished he could tell the people at work about Jonathan. But it was easier if they thought he lived alone and pitied him. Ira carefully looked over his shoulder before signaling and pulling out.

    Ahead the road stretched straight for miles. The distant hills were either blue and smooth or rocky and craggy. There was nothing on them, not even a pimple of shrub. A perfect desert complexion.

    "Why would anyone come to live here?" Ira asked.

    "House prices," said Jonathan. "And anyway, it didn't used to be like this. There used to be grasslands and so many rabbits there was a plague of them. People came and it just stopped raining. The climate changed. They don't know why."

    They came to a town called Pearblossom and another called Littlerod. There were tiny, wooden-frame houses that were like a child's stereotyped drawing of a house.

    "Woe-hoe!" said Jonathan, which meant photo stop. Just outside of Littlerod, there was a stone ranch-style house with a low wooden front porch. The car's turn signal went click click click and Ira pulled the car over to the side. They kept pulling over. Jonathan scanned the landscape, scanned maps, his eyes fierce, his hair in spikes.

    In Palmdale, Jonathan nearly killed them both. Hunched over a map, he suddenly shouted, "Turn! Turn here, now!"

    With an illegal but magisterial sweep, the car did a U-turn. There was a screech of brakes and Ira found himself hemmed in by other vehicles in the middle of the intersection. Ira's breath was taken away. "This better be worth it," he said. As if embarrassed, the car crept forward into a broken, ordinary street.

    "What's wrong with Highway 14?" Ira asked.

    "It's not from Back Then," said Jonathan. "This is the old Sierra Highway. See? The old railway tracks run beside it." His voice was hushed with something like lust. The car tires hummed a broken melody on the road surface.

    "Woe-hoe!"

    Jonathan stopped to photograph an old water tower, perched on wooden beams, with a faded, flaking advertisement painted in a circle on it. They passed a low, stricken arcade of brick shops-"Happy Hocker Pawn Shop." Jonathan photographed that, too.

    "Why?" Ira asked.

    "It shows no one uses this road anymore."

    Jonathan stopped to photograph a railroad sign.

    "Doesn't it take you back?" he asked. "I haven't seen a warning sign like that in maybe ten years." The warning sign had a round black plate with a long, sheltering hood over the light. In front of the crossing, there was a wooden X painted black and white. Jonathan photographed that too. When Jonathan started to photograph the telephone poles, Ira felt compelled to ask him why again.

    " 'Cause of this little plate on it, see, embossed? Pure thirties." The picture was taken.

    "What I mean is why do you do this at all? This whole thing?"

    Jonathan smacked his lips as if tasting something. "I'm trying to piece it together."

    "But why?" Their feet crunched in companionable unison back along the soft shoulder toward the car.

    "Oh," said Jonathan, bundling himself into the car. He looked preoccupied. He put on a pair of mirror shades. Somehow, Ira knew, he gave Jonathan the confidence to dress as he did, despite his