The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock

by John Manderino

  “You mean, about—”

  “Don’t you read the Bible? Revelation?”

  “We’ll come back later.”

  “Chapter seventeen?”

  We walked away, me pulling the wagon, Lou alongside.

  “‘These shall make war with the Lamb!’” the woman hollered out. “‘But the Lamb shall overcome them!’”

  “Don’t look back,” I told Lou.

  “‘For He is Lord of lords and King of kings!’”

  “Just keep walking.”

  Toby

  I knew they lived on the other side of the viaduct, around Parnell somewhere, but I didn’t know the address, so I stopped off at home to check the phone book.

  Mom was napping, worn out from being scared, I guess. I stood in her bedroom doorway looking at her there, on her back, in her muumuu, slippers off, holding a rosary on her stomach, practicing being dead.

  Poor thing.

  But you know? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a tiny part of her that kind of wished she really was dead. She’s been acting all scared and hysterical about these Russian missiles coming to get us, but I think there’s a little tiny part of her that wouldn’t mind. I mean, what would she be leaving? What’s she got down here?

  Cake and candy, TV, and me.

  And she’d finally be back with my father. Which is all she really wants. She’s always talking about it, how happy they’ll be, how “joyful.” So I don’t know why she doesn’t just paint a great big bull’s-eye on the roof:

  Right here, Mr. Khrushchev.

  I looked up “Cavaletto” in the phone book, for their address. Nothing. They probably didn’t have a phone, or a toilet, or silverware. I’d have to go looking around for their wagon, that’s all.

  I washed up and put some clean clothes on. Then I put together a couple of sandwiches to eat on the way: baloney, lettuce, relish, and lots and lots of mustard.

  I love mustard, don’t you?

  I’ve never been much of a ketchup fan. I think it’s a boring thing to put on your food. I’ll put it on my french fries, sure, but that’s about it. And mayonnaise. Don’t get me started. I hate that stuff. In potato salad, fine, go ahead. But people who put mayonnaise on a sandwich? On an ordinary sandwich? I don’t want anything to do with those people.

  I’ll bet my little gypsy friends put it on their toast in the morning. I’ll bet they spread it on their pancakes.

  Lou

  Our mom didn’t see us, she was out in the kitchen ironing. She does a lot of ironing, mostly for other people, for money. We knew she was ironing because she was singing. She always sings when she irons, I don’t know why, she hates ironing. But maybe that’s why she sings. I sing when I’m doing my homework, like I’m way far away from it, out there singing. She was singing Johnny Cash, but in a high shaky voice. It sounded funny that way:

  “‘I keep a close watch on this heart of mine...’”

  Anyway, that was good, her being out in the kitchen. We didn’t want her to see the Jesus rock. She wouldn’t make us put it back, but she would make that face of hers, with her mouth to one side.

  Even the rectory lady didn’t believe, you could tell. She was going to leave it on the porch, like a jack-o’-lantern.

  Daddy said he was going to bring a pumpkin home tonight and carve it. I hope he remembers.

  I’ll probably go this year as a hobo again. I don’t know about Ralph, if he’s even going. Last year nobody knew who he was supposed to be. His costume was just his pajamas and bathrobe, a rubber cigar in his mouth and a paper crown on his head. People kept saying, “Who are you supposed to be?” He wouldn’t answer. Then he finally just went home. I still don’t know who he was supposed to be. Probably someone from a story. I told you, he reads a lot of stories, whole books even. But I don’t. So how am I supposed to know? Or anyone else?

  We put the head on the dresser. It looked good up there.

  So. Now what? I sat on the mattress. “What’re we gonna do now?”

  He kept standing there with his arms folded staring at the head, thinking hard.

  I flopped on my back and spread out my arms and looked up at the ceiling. “What’re we gonna do now, Ralph? What’re we gonna do?” I like whining.

  He told me to stop.

  I got up on my elbows. “Are we in a story?” I like when he puts us in a story. “Is this a story we’re in?”

  He was still staring at the head. He said he wasn’t sure. Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and went walking around, frowning down at the floor.

  “What’re you thinking, Ralph?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Ralph?”

  “Quiet, will you?”

  I whispered, “What’re you thinking?”

  He covered his ears.

  I let him think.

  Toby

  I checked at the rectory—it’s on the way, behind the church. You should have seen the two lines for confessions: all the way outside the church and down the block in both directions.

  You gotta chuckle.

  I banged on the rectory door. This little bitty lady opened it and said, “Can I help you?”

  I said, “Hello down there.”

  She didn’t even crack a smile. “Can I help you?” she said again.

  I asked her if two greasy little kids happened to come by here with a Jesus-looking rock.

  “Yes they did and I sent them away. Father is much too busy to be bothering with—”

  “What about the rock? They leave it here?”

  “No. I suggested they leave it. I told them—”

  “So they took it? They still got it?”

  “And I hope they don’t return. As I said, Father is much too—”

  “So what did you think?”

  “What did I think?”

  “About the rock. Think it looked like Jesus?”

  She gave a shrug. “Slight resemblance.”

  “Aw, come on. Did you put your glasses on?”

  “You’re a bold thing, aren’t you.”

  “Do you like that?”

  “No, I do not. I find it very offensive in someone your age.”

  “Oh, now...”

  “Have you been to confession?”

  ”I think that’s kind of personal, ma’am, don’t you?”

  “Our Lord is ‘kind of personal.’”

  “Good point. So let me ask you this. Would you pay a dime to visit with Him for a minute? On a personal basis? Just you and Jesus? A full minute? For ten cents?”

  “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. Enjoy the weather.”

  Ralph

  I remembered something. “What about those little books they handed out at the movie—what’d we do with those?”

  “What books?” Lou said.

  “About the children of Fatima. Little booklets they gave everyone. I didn’t even look at mine, did you?”

  “They gave out booklets?”

  Extremely inattentive, that’s what Sister Marie Monica wrote last year on Lou’s report card. “Get up for a second,” I told her.

  I checked under the mattress—that’s where everything ends up—and sure enough, there it was, one of them anyway. We sat together. I let her hold it and turn the pages. There were pictures: a church they put up where Mary appeared...a picture of a crowd all waving hankies...then a picture of the three children of Fatima, the real ones, standing there in a row.

  “They look grumpy,” Lou said.

  They did.

  Their names were underneath. Jacinta, the little girl, was about Lou’s age, in a veil, with her eyebrows down low and a hand on her hip. She looked like someone who didn’t put up with a lot. Her older brother, Francisco, was wearing a long stocking cap like in the movie, standing there real stiff. He looked like he had to use the bathroom.

  We didn’t care about the other one, the cousin
.

  “Hang on,” Lou said, handing me the booklet. She got up and went over to the dresser and opened the bottom drawer. She took out her First Communion veil, all wrinkled up, and put it on in front of the dresser mirror. She smoothed it down a little. Then she stuck her hand on her hip and turned to me with a frown, eyebrows down low.

  I nodded. That was good. That was real good. So I told her to hang on and went in the closet and came back with this long red stocking cap Gram gave me for Christmas last year. I never wore it because of the way it looks, like for an elf or something, but now I put it on and stood next to Lou in front of the mirror.

  “Wait,” she said, and turned the Jesus rock around so He was facing the mirror too.

  We looked at ourselves, all three of us. Nobody smiled.

  Toby

  You go under the viaduct and when you come out again it’s like a whole other town. It’s poor.

  I hate poor.

  We’re not rich, me and Mom, but my father was a big enough bigshot with Mutual of Omaha so we’re pretty well set because of him dying. But what I would like, I would like to be rich, and not just rich but filthy rich. Or anyway rich enough to have a staff. That’s my dream, to have servants—a chef, a maid, and a butler.

  Especially a butler:

  —You rang, sir?

  —Change the channel, will you?

  —As you wish.

  —And bring me some more of those Peeps, just the heads.

  —Very good, sir.

  I went trudging up and down Parnell Street looking for their crappy little wagon. I wouldn’t call the neighborhood a slum exactly but it was definitely slummy. Even the sun seemed a little weaker here, like margarine instead of butter.

  This was probably the most walking I ever did in my life. I was sweating again. I hate sweating. I wasn’t seeing any wagons or even any people around, but I felt like I was being watched, like people were peeking through their curtains wondering who’s this fatboy, what’s he doing in our scrawny neighborhood?

  Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this dog.

  Lou

  I was standing there with Ralph and Jesus in front of the mirror and got this great idea. “Know what we should do for Halloween, Ralph? Go as the children of Fatima. You know? You could be the brother and I could be the...what’s the matter? What’s wrong with that?”

  He was looking at me in the mirror with his mouth to one side—Mom’s look. “This isn’t trick-or-treat,” he said. “We’re not playing dress-up here.” He gave a big sigh and went walking around the room again, in his Francisco hat. “This is serious, Lou. Serious.”

  “Okay, okay.” He didn’t have to get all mad.

  Anyway, nobody would probably even know who we were. They’d open their door and say, Who are you two supposed to be?

  —The children of Fatima, who do you think?

  —The children of what?

  —Of Fatima! The children of Fatima!

  —Oh. Here’s your candy.

  —Keep your candy.

  Toby

  The ugliest, hungriest-looking thing I ever saw was standing there blocking my way, growling low like he was thinking, “Mmmmm, this looks delicious.”

  I looked around. “Help,” I said, not very loud. “Somebody?”

  They were probably all watching through their curtains, smiling, nodding their bony heads.

  I told him, “I don’t even belong here, okay? I was just leaving,” and took a step backwards.

  He took a step forwards.

  I apologized. I told him I wasn’t leaving. “Why would I want to? I like you. I wish you were my dog. I’m serious.”

  He didn’t believe me, you could tell.

  I kept at it. “I would call you ‘Buster’. We’d be friends: I would throw things and you would bring them back in your mouth, that’s called ‘fetching,’ you would fetch for me.”

  He took another step, still growling.

  “Or I would fetch for you,” I said, stepping back.

  He kept coming.

  “Jesus loves you, Buster!”

  He stopped, and cocked his head.

  Ralph

  I walked around looking through the little Fatima booklet. I don’t know what I was hoping to find—I didn’t really think it was going to tell you what to do if you come across a rock that looks like Jesus—but there was some pretty interesting stuff. “Listen to this,” I said, and read out loud to Lou, from a prayer to Mary: “The hope for peace you brought long ago to the children of Fatima is needed today more than ever.”

  Lou agreed. She was still in front of the mirror, working on her veil.

  The book went on about those three messages Mary gave the children. Sister told us about those.

  The first one was about Hell and how we’re all going there if we don’t start behaving and saying the rosary every day to help us behave. Mary even gave the children a little glimpse of what it’s like down there. Sister said they couldn’t speak for three days afterwards, that’s how horrible it was, what they saw.

  The second message was about Russia and how everyone has to pray for the Russians to believe in God instead of Communism. Sister said in Russia if they find out you believe in God they torture you to make you say you don’t believe. Kevin Bellamy asked her for an example and she said sometimes they pull out your fingernails, one by one with a pair of pliers, and nodded around at us, meaning yes, they really do that. Kevin Bellamy asked her for another example but she shook her head and said the important thing was, how many of us could stand being tortured like that without denying our faith? She told us to put our hands down, she wasn’t asking for a show of hands.

  The children never told what the third message was. But the older one, Lucia, wrote it down for the Pope to open in 1960. So that was two years ago and everyone’s still waiting. I don’t know what’s keeping him.

  The booklet had a picture of the Pope in a beanie praying to a statue of Mary in a crown, the Queen of Heaven. There was a dove down by her feet. That’s for peace, the dove, peace on earth. I couldn’t tell if it was a real dove or part of the statue.

  Toby

  I told Buster Jesus is our Lord and Savior so we all have to be good because that’s what He wants. “He wants us all to be very good,” I said, “every one of us, dogs too—Jesus loves dogs, did you know that? He had a dog when He was down here, a little dog named Pepper, that’s right, uh-huh, uh-huh.”

  Buster cocked his head to the other side, wanting to hear more about this.

  “Jesus loved that little dog so much,” I said, shaking my head at how much. “They were always together, even at the Last Supper. Jesus fed him scraps under the table, did you know that?”

  I was getting a little carried away, but let’s face it, there’s a lot of stuff we don’t know about Jesus. Maybe He did have a dog. Why not?

  I went on, “In fact? The very last words Jesus ever spoke? Up on the cross? Know what they were? ‘So long, boy. Be seeing you in Paradise.’ And then He died. For you and me...and little Pepper.”

  Buster made a whimpery sound.

  Then? Know what he did? He came walking up, his head hung low. He was sorry. Sorry for being a bad dog and scaring me like that. I patted him on his knobby head, telling him, “I know...I know...”

  Then he turned around and trotted off, to start his new life. I watched him all the way down the block and around the corner. “Good boy,” I said, and started walking on home.

  I was going to be a good boy too.

  Ralph

  All of a sudden, walking around, I had a scary thought: What if the Pope already opened the third message? What if he already read it but didn’t tell anyone because of what it said, because it said we’re all going to get blown to smithereens. We didn’t pray for Russia like Mary told us to, so in two more years—meaning now—there’s going to be World War Three, that’s our punishment, the whole world going up in a mushroom cloud, and the
Pope didn’t have the heart to tell us. He’s such a nice old man—you could see from the picture, his face, how nice—he just didn’t have the heart.

  I explained all of this to Lou.

  She was still working on her veil in front of the mirror, using bobby pins to make it stay. “Okay,” she said, “but what about the Jesus rock? Where does that fit in?”

  I told her, “That’s the question.”

  “And what’s your answer, Ralph?”

  “I don’t know. Let me think about it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I walked around some more.

  Toby

  I figured Jesus must have sent that dog to save me. He knew if I got scared enough I would turn to Him, and He was right. And I was going to stay turned. I was going to pray and be good and love everyone, even trashy people.

  I was walking fast now. I was all wet from sweating but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to tell Mom the good news. She’d be so happy she’d be crying. “Oh Toby,” she’d say, and put her big fat freckled arms around me. I would let her. We’d both be crying. I was almost crying already.

  Then I saw their wagon.

  Lou

  Ralph was all excited, explaining the story he finally figured out we were in. It was a good one. It was called The Miracle of the Rock. It even had the Pope in it.

  Sometimes, though? I don’t know for sure if we’re pretending or not. Sometimes Ralph pretends so hard it’s hard to tell. Like when we used to play army, I would shoot him and sometimes he would fall down dead and just stay dead. You could do anything, tickle him or drip water on his face or pile stuff on top of him or even kick him in the ribs, and he would just keep being dead. You had to kick him really hard, and even then. This one time I was kicking him and kicking him and he just kept laying there dead, so then I got scared because I thought maybe he really was dead—from me kicking him—and I started crying, but then he got up and yelled at me for kicking him after he was already dead. “What more do you want?”