His

To see the Prophet bend down for the Maid was too precious. His joy came from the great belly, which would not leave, no matter how many times he walked with strange dogs down the sidewalks. Prophet was always saying that he must get fit to die, and then he would go into his room for long days of study.

On this occasion, Maid Maria of the Alcatraz region was attempting to scrub the stove until it would look brand new. She has the perfect ability of reassembling the new from the old, and we were constantly surprised to bring her old heirlooms and even babies. She had a purple holy water in a spray bottle and a towel of an unusual weave and then she looked up to the ceiling or the heavenly bagabos tree in the yard (depending on when we ask) and this woman could take away rust or sins. It was really uncanny.

Now, before the Prophet had become infatuated with this servan,t he said to me, “For this I cannot marry. Where I come from there is the classes and we must obey the style of our ancestors.” [sic]

I had never seen a man disobey his base urges for the classes and had to ask, “What has the semblance of manners ever given you? “ We were all very old and could not hope to entertain the loves of our youths. I asked if his God did not give us Genesis to give meaning to the parable: ‘God doesn’t want us to be alone.’

Prophet was so cute and threw his hands up like anyone could really understand these things. His mouth said it was impossible and still his belly jiggled like it was profitable. I noticed that Maid Maria of the Alcaraz would actually stop to share in his babble. The woman had great microphones in her ears and was not hired to listen to the prophet or to even notice that he existed, except that he wore so many tennis shoes for walking that she spent great time to rearrange them. She giggled at his foot powder because he was trying to be a clean man.

I could hear them talk in the kitchen for hours, week after week, we had to actually remember to make a mess or the Landlady would skip a session and then Prophet would walk very slowly and silently. Not even muttering his prayers. The neighbor dogs would follow with leashes in their mouths but the Prophet had his mind on heavenly things. He could not stoop to listen to the confessions of Jeff-the-Jack-Terrier or Bernie the Mountain Dog. No, this man, this Prophet, was dealing with the honorary vinegar of a widower – he said he was only waiting to die because his task was made complete.

One day there was a great storm and the artist amongst them had left the screen door alone as sentry because he said the summer is for smells and passions. He should not separate the house from the elements by a thick pane of glass sliding for a door.

The wind came in and lifted the latch, then it threw the screen door off its tracks, brought in all the pestilence from the trees, possums finding the sectional couch – feral cats wandering around the high corners of the house, nosing the portraits of the Landlady’s heir who had decided to grow large and had to move away. There were leaves that even made it into the coffee pot, the flour mixed with dust, and the commercial frying pans had a tinge of lust.

The exterior wood wall had fallen down, and so the path around the housing complex was open and wounded travelers were attracted to the light. Landlady is always saying to turn off the lights. We woke up with a small family of pig farmers and wandering shepherds in the house. They brought all manner of bugs and beasts and said they needed to wait out the storm. Why didn’t we have a Ring Doorbell camera in the backyard?

Prophet, in his great understanding of the situation, knew that our house had become a manger, and he timidly asked if any of the new people might be with child?

There was not a single pregnant homeless person among any of them.

“Then get the hell out!”

He threw his arm to the north, which could be generally regarded as Sacramento or Santa Cruz. All of the wandering things go to Sacramento or Santa Cruz. There is no secret, “The lord wishes me to be a joyful giver. GET OUT.”

Bless him. I was going to go the other way and check them for angel wings. We cannot refuse to host angels because then we will be refused in the last days and God will say, “Get away. I never knew you.” So long as none of the possums, cats or homeless people had wings, we should be ok.

It really was a godsend because Prophet was already calling Maid Maria on his cell phone and asking if she might come over for an emergency cleaning. I looked at the slow-moving cold people and put a finger to my mouth. This means “shhh,” and if you put up one finger afterward, the international acknowledgement is “Give it a minute.” We all waited while Prophet made a cleaning date with the fair Maid named Maria.

The LandLady was not immediately able to manage the situation because Friday nights are for her drinking, and the drinking comes with the restful sleep of when the brain drains its reservations. She slept with the dreams and cares of the innocent.

For this reason, we were able to offer each of the homeless people a warm bath and put their clothing in the dryer if they felt it would not last through the washer. We set out the fine china and filled their throats with tea. Prophet became very relaxed because he knew that Maid Maria could renew anything. She would sanctify the feral cats, slime the possums so they could scamper up their trees. Maid Maria could make each of the goatherders resemble businessmen. She could turn their wine into iced tea and mold some veneers for their teeth.

Yes, Prophet was very excited with this calamity but recognized that there was so much work to be done that he wouldn’t have very much time to whisper his little jokes of comfort to the lady. They had to pretend to be working should the Landlady rouse. There was also the possibility that the storm would cease and that the homeless visitors would want to go out to the sun again, that they should sneak to some form of freedom… So Prophet opened his enormous wallet and begrudingly asked me to go to the market. The man hates touching money, but it is the only way to keep Maria among the throngs of believers. They must believe that they are slightly welcomed, encouraged to make small messes, and I would go to the store despite the raging tempest to throw them out.

Screw that. I downloaded the Walmart delivery application and then gave my local store a call. “What do homeless people like to eat?”

Earl, the clerk who picked up the phone at last, could only tell me what was mostly stolen: condoms, cosmetics, and steak.

“Yes. Give me that.”

I tried to reconcile the odd list of ingredients approved by the almighty Walmart with the actual needs of men. Looking out at the living room with our guest finally deciding to watch Dual Survivor on Roku, they looked like the kind of motley band who didn’t worry about cosmetics and condoms and steak. From my perspective, a good steak must be refined in a refrigerator for many hours – it is not the sort of food one chooses if they are constantly herded to new campsites by police. Chud burger? Maybe. But definitely not steak.

They were all pointing to the screen and giving their own interpretations of cleansing brackish water. The hosts on the show were set in an Ozarkian Woodland, with tremendous heat and bugs as large as a fist. The dozen or so visitors instantly realized that they were not Survivors of a plane crash; they did not have to worry about finding humans, they were very blessed with public parks and could even afford dog companions. The crowd was very silent in their humility as the truth became abundantly clear: They were nearly spoiled on the beach.

Nearly twenty minutes later, at the end of the first episode, Maid Maria drove over with her emergency lights flashing. A cleaning emergency. She took the guest parking spot despite the angry looks of the Homeowners’ Association peeking through their window blinds. Normally Maid Maria parked and carried her cleaning supplies several blocks but this was an emergency.

Prophet opened the door immediately and was so proud to have a filthy house, a missing door, and a reason to see his love for many hours. Maid Maria just stood in the doorway, completely stunned. There were so many imperfections in the house that it was like a foreign crime scene and her soul cried out for direction.

“Isn’t it wonderful? I will help you, of course.”

Prophet took her skinny little wrist and walked her in the house. It must have been their first contact because hair began to grow on his bald head. He muttered, “I imagine we start with the kitchen. Let me help you take out all the dishes from the cabinets.”

Many of the cabinets had lost their doors in the windstorm and Prophet bounded to the garage looking for wood putty and a screwdriver. It seemed that his leaps were twenty years younger than his former age. Maid Maria never looked so alone, so skinny, tears coming down her face with the faucet running. She scrubbed her own fingers for so long that I thought the skin might come off and clog the disposal.

From the kitchen table, I understood. A Catcher in the Rye, how the sand is a sieve on the beach, and the more we try…

I whistled to the homeless people and the cat trying to sleep on a ten-foot-high shelf. The patio furniture was all in ruin and the outdoor fire urn had been knocked to its side. There was no way to BBQ them any steaks or hand out cosmetics and condoms. “Hey everybody. Why don’t you join me in the garage.”

It wasn’t actually a request; they came to understand. The garage took only a minute to back out the Landlady’s Mitsubishi Mirage and the wind blew from the opposite direction of the house. We were on the lee side of the storm and quickly pushed the aluminum BBQ grill through the side door and gave the couple much great privacy as we could muster.

I pointed to the old television, a cheap brand of smart TV which had been secured under a dust blanket and told them to place it over the cat crate (where someone caged the possum). They plugged in the television and figured out how to mingle with wifi while I opened the steak packages, which just arrived, and I try to dry rubb them with whatever spices I could find on the storage shelves.

Each of the guest were stopped from viewing their Dual Survivor show as I made sure they knew that the steak did not have time to relax, that it would possibly be very chewy like jerky and that Maid Maria could not fashion them any veneers until the house was in order. Did they understand?

It is very important to keep the garage door open because even natural gas can get people lightheaded or poisoned by the carbonic exhaust. The blessed steak does not save us from the invisible death. And there was plenty of Sam Peligrino bottles and gallons of Crystal Geezer water from Shasta, not that mountain with arsenic. We all must come to the mountain.

**

After many hours, I decided to peek into the house – Dirt is better than babies to keep couples together. I could see no sign of a great romance that I had hoped was burgeoning.

The cabinet doors were returned and looked mostly upright and straight. All of the dishes had been dried, the floor had been waxed, so where were the two lovebirds?

I peaked around the corner to the living room to see if the feral cat had decided to eat. No, the rug was vacuumed with great complexity to the lines of the vacuum; the careful eye of Maid Maria has chosen a royal crest, the portraits were all dusted and I had to cock my head at the boyish painting of little Pepito who always looked evil to me when I thought that this came out of the LandLady’s body. Now he grinned like a little lad who just had his first ice cream. It was very sweet.

But where were the Prophet and his Maid? Surely they couldn’t have cleaned the whole house after a storm in a manner of only a few hours? A singing Maid with the power over birds and mice could not have swept so fast and picked up all the items to be dusted. There was a tranquility in the house that happens right before I decide the kitchen is too clean not to use.

Clean kitchen always inspire the artist to throw things in a pot, to cut the onions from their shells, to contort the stank of hygiene to boughs of rosemary and garlic. White wine in a butter bath? I needed to search for the lovers, but suddenly felt called to make a Greek salad because our guest would have digestion problems without a salad.

“Prophet?”

There was nothig.

Landlady came down the stairs, stretching her arms in the furry white robe of tranquility. She acted like there was never a storm and a mob of homeless shepherds who sought our house for refuge. She did not remotely understand that the BBQ in a garage would probably leave a grease stain on the finished ceiling, and I only dared to introduce her to these ideas after she sipped her first coffee.

“I had the most marvelous dream, Thomasino.”

That’s nice. I looked hopefully around the corners for Prophet to save my life. All the rentals had tripled in cost, and I didn’t want to be out scampering on the town to find a new family.

“When I woke up, Paav was holding me in his arms…”

Landlady looked so excited, like she had felt a thousand kisses, like she had sailed to where the sea lost its breath. I didn’t know what to say, “Who’s Paav?”

Just then, one of the homeless shepherds came down the stairs, singing and swinging an amber yellow eel of rubber. He looked at me, and my eyes got bulging bright.

I pointed to the downstairs toilet and hoped he had the good sense not to clog the pipes.