I once rented an old run-down, swamp-cooled shack in Cave Creek, Arizona that my brother fittingly called "the hovel." Actually, my street, Scopa Trail, was the dividing line between the poor, bar-hoppin' cowboys of Cave Creek and the rich, latte-drinkin' summer home owners of Carefree. I was on the wrong side of Scopa, so to speak.My shack is the largest building on the right side of the picture. There were two other shacks on the property, one was an old adobe (bottom left) where a middle-aged massage therapist named Gloria lived with her much younger Mexican boyfriend (and any number of his Mexican buddies, all of whom made and invited me to eat kickass barbacoa on a regular basis) and another adobe where two guys lived (top left) who once saved me from a rattlesnake in my kitchen, but that's a whole 'nuther story. All the shacks were owned by a crotchety old lady named Mrs. Peters. The dirt-road entrance to the property sported an old faded wooden sign marked "Petersville," which Mrs. Peters later pointed out to me with great pride.
It was actually a very historic compound, since it was used in the early days as an overnight resting place for sheep herders bringing their flocks from northern Arizona down to Phoenix for slaughter. It was also where I perfected my oft-requested coyote imitations - both the lone howler as well as a pack going after an unlucky bunny in one of the dry washes on either side of my shack.
When I met Mrs. Peters and a younger (well, he was probably 45ish but anything was younger than Mrs. Peters) real estate guy to see if I could rent the place, she said (in her screechy granny voice), "Honey, are you a kreeshtian?" I was a bit taken aback but replied, "Well, I'm, uh... Catholic." That's a big uh since me saying I'm Catholic is a big nuh-uh. But whatever. She said, "Ha! Catholics aren't kreeshtians!" Then she wandered off to another room, muttering to herself. The real estate guy sized me up in my little corporate suit and said, "You don't really look like someone who would live in a place like this." I wish I had said, "I don't look like a Catholic either." But I didn't. I just smiled. He didn't know that, as in most aspects of my life, I prefer (or somehow always fall into) the bizarre vs. the conventional.
Anyway, somehow Lisa The Heretic was approved as a tenant, as long as I could promise Mrs. Peters that it was ok for her to periodically bring people over to my place to view the only lilac tree in Cave Creek, which was just outside my living room window. I agreed without a single thought as to the very real possibility that one morning, while I was buck-ass naked in my country-life living room, I'd look up to see five old people staring at me through the lilac flowers.
Mrs. Peters regularly showed up at weird times, always chaufferred by some conscript, since she was too old to drive. Her most loyal chauffeur was a one-armed, bee-keeping, trench-digging, tractor-renting Cave Creek Cowboy who also served as our handy man and groundskeeper and only put up with Mrs. Peters because he was hoping she'd leave the property to him in her will. (He told me this. And I think, in the end, he got what he wanted.)
Every time she visited me, she lectured me on kreeshtianity and told me that the best way to be a kreeshtian was to watch Benny Hinn on the TEEvee (a pronunciation I have found only in the wilds of Arizona). Benny is the guy who wears white suits, sports a hairdo that somebody once called Niagra Falls and is famous for healing people by hitting them and making them fall down and go boom. Each time Mrs. Peters brought up Benny, I'd point out the fact that I sadly didn't have a TEEvee, which shut her up until the next visit.
One day I had to go to her house for some reason and she kept me there for hours in the dark (all the windows were covered in aluminum foil and then draped in thick dark cloth), peering at her dusty photo albums while she told me long stories about EVERY photo. Next I was compelled to admire her Baltic amber jewelry collection, apparently passed down by her Latvian ancestors. She loved her ancestors but hated her good-for-nothing' kids. But they would get their comeuppance when she died, thank ye Jesus, since she had purposely excluded them from her will. This conversation about her will led directly to Benny Hinn. I started to zone out until she said, "As a matter of fact, I have hundreds of acres of desert land I want to will to Benny Hinn so I called his people and told them that if Benny wanted the land, he'd have to come to Arizona personally to see it."
Well, that got my attention.
Me: So... did he come here?
Her: Yes! Last week!
Me: Wow. Personally?
Her: Yep! He flew his very own plane over here and he and a couple of his people arrived in a big limo so I could take them out to my land and show it to them. I had all the papers with me for him to sign and everything.
Me: A limo? Out in the desert?
Her: Yes, that was stupid. You would think if they are as close to Jesus as they say they are, they would know these things.
Me: Uh...huh. So, how did it go?
Her: It didn't go very well. No.
Me: No?
Her: Well (she averted her eyes and fumbled a bit with her plastic daisy broach - the amber was only for looking, not wearing)... the problem was... I couldn't find my land. We drove around and around and around for hours out in the desert and I just couldn't find it.
Me: Ha! Hahahaha! (I couldn't help myself.)
Her: IT WAS NOT FUNNY!
Me: (forced serious face)
Her: Benny got so mad at me that he wouldn't speak to me and they just drove me back here and dropped me off and left for the airport without even saying goodbye or thank you or ANYTHING.
I'm surprised Benny didn't hit her and make her fall down and go boom, right after he signed the papers for the mystery land. Heck, even if it didn't exist, he's very skilled at selling things that aren't real. He'd find some sucker watching him on TEEvee to take it off his hands. But personally, I hope the one-armed bee-keeper got those hundreds of acres of land. I'm sure he needed a place to keep his dogs, just like Jan and Paul Crouch.
