A pound of lambs

"Give me a pound of lambs" said the short balding man in the brown leather coat.
He was standing in my kitchen while I ate a ham salad sandwich. I hadn't seen him come in.
I was resigned more than surprised or angry at his appearance; my wife refuses to let me lock the doors. She is from North Dakota, where it's against the law to install a domestic deadbolt. So we get all sorts of lunatics seeping into our place.
I did not feel the need to respond to the short balding man in the brown leather coat. He, apparently, did not feel the need to repeat his request. It was a standoff, then. I ate my sandwich, he stood there -- all five-foot-two of him.

When my wife came in I was drinking a glass of horchata. The short balding man in the brown leather coat gave her a start.
"Cripes!" she yelled.
"Give me a pound of lambs" said the man.
"Who's this?" she asked me.
"Dunno" I said, rinsing my glass in the sink. "He showed up while I was eating my lunch. I didn't offer him anything to eat, by the way."
"What's his name?" she asked me, her mouth forming an unpleasant moue.
"Dunno" I said as I wiped down the counter top. "I'm not encouraging him with inquiries." 
"Give me a pound of lambs" said Shorty, as I had decided to call him. His voice was neither irritating nor soothing. Everything about him invited a mild dyslexia.
I offered to make Suzy, my wife, a ham salad sandwich, but she silently pulled a container of yogurt out of the fridge and sat next to me spooning it into her mouth. I could sense she wanted to tell me something unpleasant. 

"Give me a pound of lambs." I noticed Shorty's shoelaces were untied, and frayed. I wondered if he would leave if I asked him to leave. Well, I wouldn't ask him. It was Suzy's bright idea to keep the house unlocked; she could ask him to leave, or fly to the moon, or whatever she wanted.

My back suddenly started to itch. My skin is very dry this time of year. I keep a bamboo backscratcher in the kitchen for dry skin emergencies, so I was vigorously reaching for the sweet spot with it when Suzy told me she had bought a mirror online for six-hundred dollars. 

I immediately had to drop my backscratcher and leave the house, so I wouldn't say unruly and crude things to her. I left my phone behind. Shorty followed me out the kitchen door. I felt sucker-punched. 

We walked to my brother's sign painting shop. He wasn't there, but his assistant let me sit in his office and doodle on some canvas with an old dowel and a bucket of black paint. I should have told him to keep Shorty out, but didn't have enough interest in my own privacy to make the request.

"Give me a pound of lambs." I felt sorely tempted to flick Shorty with some black paint. Then it occurred to me that maybe he was married, too. Maybe he had to run away because his wife had bought a sheep farm. Maybe his wife ate nothing but yogurt, as well. Maybe he was unhappy with himself because he was unhappy with himself. But probably he was just a reiterating imbecile caught in my drift. He symbolized nothing about me, and we had nothing in common. I have always despised brown leather coats. 

My brother came back pretty upset. Our mother was dying, he told me. She was in the hospital right now, tubes running in and out of her, and dying and asking for us. 

"Give me a pound of lambs." 

"Who the hell is that?" my brother asked me.

"My wife's uncle" I said, feeling avenged. 

"Well, c'mon -- we'll take my truck to the hospital. What about the uncle?"

"Oh, he might as well go with us" I said airily. My brother just shook his head and pulled brushes and stepladders out of his truck to make room for us in the cab. 

Mom was pretty bad. Her wrinkled skin lay on her like rows of yarn. Her eyes were gummy. She could talk, but she didn't want to talk. I wanted to hold her hand but she had so many tubes and things attached to both of them that all I could do was pat her on the shoulder. 

"Is she going?" I asked the doctor. He said yes, it could happen pretty soon now. So my brother and I sat in her room amidst all the half-eaten casserole dishes sent by her neighbors, waiting and sniffing.

"That one must be apple cobbler" said my brother, pointing to a white ceramic dish.

"That's gotta be tuna fish casserole" I said, pointing to the tin foil container on the window sill. "I wish someone would push it out."

"Give me a pound of lambs." I'd forgotten Shorty was there. Now was definitely the time to give him the old heave-ho. I buzzed for the nurse. At the sound of Shorty's voice Mom tried to sit up; we helped her.

"Charlie, is that you?" she said weakly. "Is that you, Charlie? I knew you'd come back for me!" She lay back, tears streaming down her face. 

The nurse came in and said "Yes, what is it?"

"My father wants a pound of lambs" I told her.