Miracle Manor

Lois is dead. I was expecting the call, but it was still a blow. It was a big blow. Lois was special to me.

Lois owned a motel in Desert Hot Springs called Miracle Manor. It was a modest operation--seven rooms grouped around a garden that overlooked a terrace area, and here was the pool, Jacuzzi, barbecue pit, etc., and beyond this the view--across the valley to Palm Springs, with Mt. San Jacinto towering behind. There was an apartment for Lois and a room for the housekeeper. The apartment featured a nondescript collection of furniture and fixtures circa 1950 (the coffeehouse look), and there were some paintings Lois banged out during her Franz Kline period and a vast collection of souvenirs and memorabilia gathered during her travels. She was a great traveler.

The clientele at Miracle Manor was a mix. Anyone could pop up at any time. There were young kids who didn’t have a dime. Lois put them up in return for some gardening or repair work. There was the occasional rock or movie star. I met Bette Midler there.

There was a feeling to the Manor. Your perception of time was altered. The past and future dissolved into the present, and you were left with the moment at hand--handed over to Lois. That’s why it was called Miracle Manor. Lois was a guru type. She had a speed dial to a being called Omra who had revealed himself (I think it was a him) to her on a trip to South America. She rang Omra up, and they consulted on the best way to straighten out you--or your colon.

I was from Buffalo, not a place where mysticism flourished. In Buffalo the emphasis was more on Italian shoes and football pools. But out we came to bask in the sun and dunk in the hot tub, followed by a vicious massage or one of Lois’ patented turbocharged facials while she carried on with Omra in their private chicken-talk lingo.

Something about this place made Los Angeles--the meat grinder--seem a million miles away.

*

I KNEW LOIS FOR 20 YEARS. MY MARRIAGE WAS IN THE TOILET, a divorce was pending and I was in dire need of therapy--not from a psychiatrist. A friend told me about the Manor. I called, Lois answered, and she said, “You’ll be in Room 2. The door will be open. Do you need a bathrobe?”

Why not?

I jumped in the car and hit the San Berdoo east, and in two hours I was in the room. There was the robe on the bed, and I threw on my Speedo and jumped into the hot tub, where I introduced myself to a blond who worked as the personal chef to a movie star. I sat soaking, talking to the blond and drinking in the view, and I said to myself: This is the place. I was right.

That night there was a cookout. There was a cookout every night. It was veggie one night and non-veggie the next. This night it was non-veggie. Lois, as I said, was a guru type, and she threw down her share of vitamins and liver pills and acidophilic pills and yeast tablets and so forth, and she shopped strictly organic, but none of it excluded a good steak or vodka martini. Later I got myself in solid by flying out sausage from Scime’s on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo.

We ate, and I was invited to view a psychic surgery video.

Why not?

Some guy from the Philippines who had written a book on this subject had turned up at the Manor and fed Lois the rap. Lois and psychic surgery were like peanut butter and jelly. She read the book and took off for the Philippines. She met a bunch of these people, including the top guy, and invited him to stick his hand in her stomach and remove some diseased material that had been bothering her. She returned, feeling much better, with this video.

This thing is an eye-opener. Here is this Filipina lying on a table. She is fully clothed, with her sweater pulled up to show her stomach. Here is the psychic surgeon. He has a burning look and amazing hands. He presses with his fingers into the woman’s stomach. He does this in a tentative way at first and then a little more insistently, until his fingers actually slice through her skin and enter.

Now there is blood. It is all over the place. He probes around inside the woman’s stomach for a little bit. There is no anesthetic. If a guy can stick his hand into your stomach, why would you need an anesthetic? The woman is lying there in a state of perfect relaxation, with her eyes open and an expression that suggests she is trying to put together a winning combo for her next Lotto ticket.

The surgeon removes some stringy black gunk from the woman’s stomach. He sticks his hand back in. He removes three or four more pieces of stringy black gunk. End of operation. His assistant wipes the blood away with a sponge.

Is there a scar or wound or gaping hole left by the surgeon’s hand entering her stomach? No. There is nothing. I sit there with my eyeballs wobbling in their sockets.

The guy also did brain tumors.

The next day I was back in the hot tub talking to a woman--an acupuncturist. She had 15 needles sticking out of her head. The subject was psychic surgery. I said I failed to understand not only how this could be done but how no scar or wound occurred as a result.

She said: “Do you know anything about quantum mechanics?” I said yes. I was interested in science and had read several popular accounts on this subject.

She said: “All matter is composed of atoms. The atom is the basic building block. What is the structure of the atom? It is composed of a nucleus of protons and neutrons and other particles. Whirling about in orbit outside this nucleus and at a vast distance from it are the electrons. It is the distance between the nucleus and the electrons whirling in orbit about it that is the key to the theory of quantum mechanics. It means that matter--even elements of the most concentrated type and heaviest mass at the high end of the periodic table--is composed largely of empty space. If you can visualize this situation correctly and precisely analyze the pattern of molecular distribution, you can enter this space. Do you see what I am getting at?”

I said: “Yes. On the other hand, I have never heard of a psychic surgeon winning the Nobel Prize for nuclear physics.”

*

AFTER LOIS DIED I DID A PAINTING: LOIS IS IN THE foreground. She wears shades and a big hat. She holds the dog, Andre. There is the pool, and in the pool, floating topless on an inflatable, is Vera, the model from Yugoslavia. At poolside in a coma, spilling over the sides of a chaise, is Jane, a 300-pound lesbian, and next to Jane is Henry, a building contractor, doing a handstand in his jockstrap. There is the table we gathered to eat at and, next to it, the grill and on the grill, sizzling away, is a small mountain of sausage from Scime’s.

That was Miracle Manor.

How old was Lois? Another mystery. She had been cagey about her age. She was one of those people who seem years younger because of the vitality of their spirit. When she died we found out that she was 76. She had the kind of resume you acquire via sheer longevity. She had been a writer, a painter, a singer, an entrepreneur. She was Canadian and had lived for a few years in Paris and Morocco, where she operated a nightclub with herself as featured vocalist. She was married once, to a businessman who owned a car dealership in Los Angeles. She wound up in a house in Malibu, and there her true calling was revealed: hostess. Eventually the marriage failed. There were no children. She moved to Desert Hot Springs and bought the motel.

The week before Thanksgiving I got a call from Joe, a regular.

He said: “Lois is sick. She has cancer.”

I went out to pay a visit.

She looked bad. She had lost weight and her morale was down. She was trying but it wasn’t there.

There was a basket of cards and letters. They had spilled over and were scattered here and there in her room.

She said: “I’m getting some wonderful letters.”

I said: “You put out a lot of love, Lois. Now you’re getting it back. That’s how it works.”

It took a while--three months. I went out a few times, and each time it was worse than the last. For everyone. At some point she was confined to her room. At least she was home.

I got a call and went out for the last time.

They had her fixed up with a device strapped to her hip and a self-operating implant to squirt morphine when the pain got too bad. The intervals between hits were becoming shorter.

I sat next to the bed. She was skin and bones. She had no color. Her saliva glands had dried up and her lips were split and bleeding. She had jaundice and her eyes were yellow. It was frightening.

I took her hand. I started to cry.

I said: “There is another Miracle Manor, Lois. And in this other Miracle Manor we will all be together.”

She died and the Manor was sold--to an architect and his girlfriend. The architect was a ‘90s type, a postmodern type. The place was redesigned to within an inch of its life--right down to the covers on the fuse box. It was a good job--in the best possible taste. That was the problem. The prices for the rooms tripled, and there was an attitude to go with. It wasn’t a Lois attitude.

There was a service, well attended by family and regulars. I said a few words. I said: “Lois had a gift. She had many gifts. But her greatest gift was her gift for friendship. She lived her life and invited us to come along for the ride. In this respect she was an artist. Her canvas was Miracle Manor--and on it she created a masterpiece.”