UFO


What, I imagined, if he really did come to LA?

I quickly looked around my apartment at clothes stacked on a chair, the dishes I hated washing and bits and pieces of Polly’s chewsticks across the carpet. If someone stops by, I can chuck things in my closet and shut the door. But what if they’re coming to stay with you? Despite not having been in church for years, I felt somehow guilty faking a clean apartment for a Preacher. So where do I hide the closet? Where do I hide the porn?

I had no idea what Preachers eat. I pictured mashed potatoes - the dark horse of the dinner table - hard work, hearty ingredients and loved by everyone. Scallions are a nice touch, I think, and I do love scallions. Perhaps some roasted garlic... yumbo. Soon it would no longer be mashed potatoes but some other dish and I was to blame. If I can’t make something as simple as mashed potatoes, how could I expect to properly bake bread?

The answer, of course, was Martha Stewart. She’d surely have a recipe for Communion Wafers. Protestant Puffs or Christ Crepettes, photographed on a vintage alter with a hand stitched Chapel Cloth. After laying the thin sheets of pastry on a marble cutting board, use a small circle for a template. I suggest a shot glass. I’d stare through the oven widow at dozens laying on a cookie sheet, waiting for each one to puff to a golden brown. Martha would have dip as well : Holy Guacamole or Sunday Salsa. The sweet mango cuts through the sinful bitterness.

I’m also not big on red wine. Ok maybe with a thick slab of filet mignon but not as a habit. Pink is almost red and while Cosmopolitans are pink, Absolut Citron seems a far cry from the “Blood of the Lamb”. I decide the issue is more symbolic than semantic and here’s hoping the Preacher agrees.

I doubt he smokes which could be problematic. He might have, once, during a long dark night of the soul where he went out in the desert and questioned his faith while puffing a Camel as people often do. I think it was the desert, maybe not, but he was riding a motorcycle. He rode on the highway out to the middle of the desert and stopped his bike to look up to the sky full of stars. He gets off his bike and falls to his knees, crying “WHY, SWEET LORD? WHY?”

Well that’s what I would have done but the Preacher is different. In his picture he seems more the protagonist who has an epiphany during a close-up of his eyes. Somewhere, deep inside, he finds god. Fade In on migrant workers working with the Preacher to build a new chapel for the village. Montage of happy orphans, families gathered for worship, firm handshakes between the Preacher and the Preached and his hard work ending... well, here. In Los Angeles at the apartment of a 42 year old man with AIDS.

I’m used to making pilgrimages, going someplace and expecting a miracle. Fortunately I’ve come across quite a few and even after one, you always take the trip back. You make the journey again and again because you just never know. Now that I’m The Place, the destination and not the traveler, I realize it’s not where you go that attracts the miracles, it’s what you bring with you. I bring a killer music collection, my love for Polly and finally, I can bake bread.

There’s a knock at the door and I grab an oversized T-shirt off the top of the pile on the chair. I quickly look in the mirror at the cloth wrapped around me like a kimono, like a warrior would wear, a samaurai. I reach for the lock on the door, ready to welcome whoever is there.

7:17:09 PM    sro home /