The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock Read online

  Anyway, somebody finally came along, this kid Joey Olson, with his entire collection of cards held together in a single rubber band.

  “Hey, Tubs,” he goes.

  I told him, “Keep walking.”

  He apologized for calling me Tubs.

  I put my hand behind my ear. “Come again?”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For calling you Tubs.”

  “Say the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry for calling you Tubs.”

  I sat back. “Approach and state your business.”

  Lou

  My mom came in and sat with me on the couch in her housecoat.

  I was wishing it wasn’t Road Runner. I was only watching because Bugs Bunny wasn’t on, because it was news. I didn’t want her to think I liked Road Runner. I told her how much I wished the dog would kill him.

  She said it wasn’t a dog, it was a coyote.

  I don’t know what that is and I didn’t ask because I don’t care. I was just waiting for Garfield Goose.

  I like when she watches something good with me, something funny and she laughs too, like when Soupy Sales was doing the Mouse one day, that’s a dance he does, and she laughed out loud. But then later on I did something stupid, I did the Mouse in front of her in the kitchen. She was ironing and she nodded and smiled, meaning “Very nice.” I was embarrassed.

  There was a commercial now and she got up. “Let me just check on something.” She went over and changed the channel.

  Bishop Sheen.

  “No, Mom.”

  She kept turning.

  I don’t like Bishop Sheen. He reminds me of Dracula, the way he stares at you, and that long cape he wears.

  She turned to a news guy and sat on the floor. He was talking about what’s going on with the Russians and their missiles, all that. She was listening hard, you could tell.

  “Ninety miles from the mainland,” the guy said.

  I keep on hearing that, Ninety miles from the mainland.

  “Is there gonna be a war, Ma?”

  “I don’t know, hon.”

  That scared me a little, the way she called me “hon” like that.

  Bishop Sheen

  They have thrown down the gauntlet and they have reminded us that the choice before the world is either brotherhood in Christ or comradeship in anti-Christ, and it is for us as a free nation to choose the truth, to choose the good, to choose and affirm God!

  Toby

  Joey Olson approached and stated his business. He wanted a Minnie Minoso card.

  I said, “So do a lot of people.”

  “Okay but look what I got for ya.” He started coming up the steps.

  “Stay,” I told him.

  He stepped back down.

  “Continue.”

  He said he’d give me a Jim Landis, a Don Schwall, and a Hector Lopez.

  That was pretty funny and I laughed.

  He added Wayne Terwilliger.

  I sighed like I was tired, very tired.

  He offered up some more nobodies I already had.

  I told him I might sell him a Minoso.

  He said he’d give me thirty-five cents.

  More humor.

  He made it forty.

  I told him to come back when he was ready to get serious.

  He said he was serious.

  I told him to get off my property.

  Forty cents for a Minoso. Who’s he think he’s dealing with?

  Minnie Minoso is a colored guy but he’s probably the most popular player on the White Sox. I don’t know why, I don’t follow baseball. All I know is, guys are always wanting to get their hands on a Minoso. So there’s no way I’m selling one for less than a dollar and a half, at least for now.

  Next year, who knows?

  Look at Roger Maris. Before last year I couldn’t get more than a quarter for him but after he beat Babe Ruth’s record I had a nice little bidding war going on. This one kid even offered me his dog. I hate dogs. I had three Maris cards to work with and I ended up with six dollars and fifty cents, a Swiss army knife and that dime-store turtle I mentioned.

  I named him Timmy. I thought maybe I could put together a little show, you know? Set up a tent, charge admission: Toby Tyler and His Turtle Timmy. But I couldn’t train that stupid turtle to do anything, even roll over, even when I put him on his back—he would just kick his legs around and stretch out his neck, looking at me with this sad little ugly face: Why, Toby? Why?

  I ended up trading him to this kid Phil Burlson for that paperback I told you about, Shameless Lady. Ever read it? It’s about this lady named Ramona who’s totally shameless, if you know what I mean. There’s this one part, she’s in a hotel room completely naked with two completely naked Mexican guys, Juan and Pedro, except she doesn’t know which is which. And here’s the thing: she doesn’t even care.

  That got to me.

  She doesn’t...even...care.

  Ralph

  Base hit out to right field, Cavaletto runs over, scoops it up nice and easy, throws it back in—hard, on a line to second base, one bounce, perfect.

  The shortstop, this kid Stu Gardner, yelled out, “Attaboy, Ralph!”

  I punched my glove.

  I wish I had a nickname, maybe “Scooper,” you know? For the way I scoop the ball up so good.

  Attaboy, Scooper!

  I punched my glove some more.

  I like my glove. It’s real old. It used to be my dad’s. The fingers are like sausages and when the ball hits the pocket it makes a fat sound. On the strap it says Spalding and along the last finger it says Marty Marion—he used to play shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals. Dad says he was really good, a really good fielder. Dad used to play second base for a semi-pro team called the Bruins. He says he was really good, like Nellie Fox. He wasn’t bragging, he was just saying. He doesn’t brag. Maybe sometimes when he’s drunk. But then the next day he’ll say, “That wasn’t me talking, that was a fella named Jim Beam.” That’s the name of the whiskey he drinks, Jim Beam. “That was Jim Beam talking,” he’ll say. But I don’t know. It wasn’t Jim Beam doing the drinking.

  We used to play catch together, me and Dad, in the backyard. I would use the glove and he would use his bare hands, tossing me pop-ups and grounders, always telling me, “Two hands, Ralph.” Guys who one-handed the ball were hot dogs. That’s what he called them, hot dogs.

  But you know what I like the best about my glove? The smell of it. If you put it over your face and take a deep breath it smells really good, like old leather, like old times, like my dad. I don’t mean he smells like old leather, it just reminds me of him, that’s all, of when we used to play catch together.

  So that’s what I was doing, standing there smelling my glove. Then everyone started yelling, “Ralph! Ralph!”

  Lou

  My mom put Road Runner back on and went out in the kitchen.

  The dog painted the side of the mountain to look like a tunnel so the bird would try to run through it and smash himself into the mountain but the bird ran right through like it was a tunnel, but then when the dog chased after him it was the side of the mountain again and he smashed into it.

  I got up and went out in the kitchen.

  She had a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. She wasn’t drinking it though, or even holding it. She was just sitting there with her hands in her lap.

  I told her about the dog painting a tunnel and how he ended up.

  “Huh,” she said.

  “We’re all out of bread,” I told her, so she’d get up and get dressed and quit sitting there like that. “I ate the last piece,” I said. “Sorry.”

  But all she did was light up a Lucky.

  I asked her if she had any money.

  She told me I didn’t need any money.

  “For you,” I said. “For the store. You’re going, right? Aren’t you?”


  She set the Lucky in the ashtray and felt around in her housecoat pocket. “C’mere,” she said. I went over and she turned me around and pulled my hair back into a ponytail and tied it up in a rubber band. Then she did something else, she gave me a quick hug from behind.

  So that got me worried some more.

  Then she patted me on the bottom and told me to go get dressed. I was still in my pajamas.

  “What about you?” I said.

  “Me, too.” She squashed out her Lucky.

  I could come to the store with her as long as I wasn’t a pest, she said. But I was afraid Ralph would come back while I was gone and go out again. I told her we needed bread and vanilla wafers.

  She said we didn’t need vanilla wafers.

  Toby

  Mr. Pappas across the street came out on his porch again, with his newspaper, and held down his thumb at me. Then he settled into his reclining lawn chair. That was a first, holding down his thumb. I guess the news isn’t good. I guess we’re all going to die.

  Too bad we don’t have a fallout shelter instead of just a basement. That would be so nice. There’s this kid in my class, Allen Pelletier, his family’s got one. Picture this. The Russian missiles are on their way and everyone’s banging like crazy on the Pelletiers’ iron door:

  —Please! Help! Let us in! Oh, God! Oh, please!

  Meanwhile the Pelletiers are in there opening a family-sized can of Del Monte apricots in extra heavy syrup.

  —Did you hear something?

  —Nah. Must be the wind.

  And they all laugh.

  But then afterwards, you know? When they came out? Probably wouldn’t be quite so funny.

  I saw this Twilight Zone about a little bank teller with thick glasses taking his lunch break down in a vault so he could be alone and read, but they drop the bomb while he’s down there and when he comes out again everything’s all just rubble. He ends up feeling so lonesome he’s going to shoot himself. But then he sees this library with all the books spilled out, so now he’s all happy, happier than he’s ever been, because now he can spend the rest of his life reading in peace, which is all he ever wanted. But then, just as he’s sitting down on the steps with a nice fat book, his glasses fall off and break. Everything’s all blurry. He can’t see the print. He just sits there saying, “It isn’t fair...”

  I felt so sorry for that guy.

  “It isn’t fair,” he kept saying.

  I was practically crying.

  My mom says I have a tender heart. And you know what? She’s right.

  Ralph

  I missed the fly ball out to me because I was standing there smelling my glove.

  Everyone was yelling my name and I took the glove away from my face and there was the ball coming down about ten feet away. I could have caught it easy if I saw it right off instead of standing there smelling my glove.

  So instead of being an out, the third out, inning over, the guy ends up on second base, while the guy on third trots in with the tying run. Then the batter after that gets a hit and the guy on second scores. So now we’re losing because of me smelling my glove.

  The next guy grounded out and we all went in to bat. Nobody said anything. They didn’t have to. I knew what they were thinking:

  —Nice going, Ralph.

  —Way to help the team.

  —No wonder your father drinks so much.

  Lou

  Garfield Goose was finally on.

  I like Frazier Thomas. He’s the guy who talks to Garfield. He has a big round friendly face like a cherry pie.

  You only see Garfield’s head. He talks but it’s just his big shiny beak clapping together. Frazier Thomas knows what he’s saying though because he’ll say things back, like, “Oh, now you’re being silly, Gar.” He calls him Gar.

  Garfield was all excited today because it was his birthday and all his friends were coming, Romberg Rabbit and Macintosh Mouse and everyone. Sometimes when Garfield gets excited he starts banging his beak on the ledge in front of him. So that’s what he was doing, banging his beak. Then one of his eyes came off.

  I sat up.

  Toby

  My mom came heading up the sidewalk in her muumuu and babushka, step by step, all redfaced, huffing and puffing, ankles hanging over her shoes.

  Poor thing.

  She made it up the walkway, to the porch. Then she stood there, down at the bottom step, holding on to the railing with one hand, hanging her head, catching her breath.

  “Lotta people?”

  She nodded.

  “Get a seat?”

  She nodded.

  “Father Clay?”

  She shook her head.

  “Rowley?”

  She nodded.

  “Good sermon?”

  She nodded.

  “Let me guess: ‘Pray for peace.’”

  She looked up at me. “‘The whole world,’ Father said, ‘the whole world is holding its breath.’” She glanced at the sky. “Come in the house,” she told me, climbing the steps. “I want you to come inside.”

  I laughed. “Ma, that’s not gonna make any—”

  “We’re going to pray together.”

  “Now wait a minute.”

  “Please don’t argue with me.”

  “I’m not. It’s just, I got all my stuff—”

  “I’m so scared, honey.”

  “All right, don’t start crying.”

  She stood there with her chin—her chins—all a-quiver. “I’m so afraid,” she said.

  “They’ll work it out,” I told her. “They always do.”

  “I want you to come in the house, Toby. Now.”

  “All right, look. Tell you what.”

  “No. No deals. Do as I say.”

  “I’m all set up here, Ma. I’ll have to bring all my boxes back in.”

  “I’ll help. Come on.”

  “Leave it. Just...I’ll get it. God.”

  Lou

  Frazier Thomas said, “Now look what you’ve done, Gar. You’ve lost an eye.”

  And he picked it up off the ledge. It was just cloth, just a little round piece of cloth, and he stuck it back on. But before he did, there was Garfield with only one eye. Where the other one should be, it was all just blank. Frazier Thomas said, “What will the boys and girls think?” Then they went back to talking about Garfield’s birthday party.

  But Frazier Thomas looked like he was embarrassed. His big face looked all hot and blotchy, like he was still wondering what the boys and girls will think.

  I thought it was okay. Garfield is just a puppet, I already knew that, so I thought it was fine. Except, it bothered me a little, the way it looked. Just for a couple of seconds, where his eye was supposed to be it was all just smooth and blank and Garfield had his beak wide open like he was thinking, Oh my God, oh my God!

  They were talking now about getting some carrots for Romberg Rabbit, for the party.

  I got scared.

  They kept wondering how many carrots they would need. Probably a lot, they said, because Romberg really loved carrots, that was the one thing he loved more than anything else, so they better make sure they got lots and lots, and I started thinking, What if they don’t get enough? What if Romberg gets really mad? What if he goes crazy? What if he has a gun?

  I knew that was a stupid thing to be scared about but I didn’t care, I just kept wishing my mom or Ralph would hurry up and get back here.

  Toby

  “We can stand, that’s all right,” I told Mom, and folded my hands to show her you can be just as religious on your feet. She agreed. I don’t think she really wanted to kneel. So we stood there in the living room side by side in front of the picture of Mary on a cloud with a slice of moon beneath her feet. I was hoping we could just run off a couple of quick Hail Mary’s and let it go at that, but Mom wanted to talk to Mary, personally, and I was supposed to repeat-after.

  “Dear swe
et blessed holy Mother of God,” she started.

  And I said, “Dear sweet blessed holy Mother of God.”

  “Please?” she said. “Don’t let us die? Don’t let them kill us?”

  “Ma, don’t beg.”

  “Repeat, Toby. No comments please.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Where was I?”

  “Begging for your life.”

  “I was praying. There’s a difference.”

  “Be that as it may.”

  “Forgive my son, Mary. He knows not what he says.”

  “Can we get on with this?”

  She got on: “Blessed Mother, help us in this time of need? In this terrible crisis?”

  She waited.

  “Terrible crisis,” I said.

  “Help our president. He is a good man, Mary—a Catholic.”

  “As you know.”

  “Help him to defeat the Russians? They’re trying to destroy us, dear Mother.”

  “Trying to wipe us out.”

  “They hate us, dear Lady, so much.”

  “You can just feel it.”

  “They hate us because we are good.”

  “Let’s face it.”

  “Because we are free.”

  “They’re jealous, that’s what it is.”

  “Help us to stop them, dear Mother.”

  “To crush them, Mary. To flatten ‘em out.”

  “All right, dear.”

  “Like roadkill.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Annihilate ‘em.”

  “That’s enough.”

  “Wipe ‘em off the face of—”

  “Will you stop?”

  I couldn’t. “I hate them, Mary! I hate them!”

  “Toby...”

  “Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em!”

  “Sweetheart...”

  “Kill ‘em all!”

  She grabbed me in her big fat arms and held me tight, my face in her giant bosom. “Do you see, Mary?” she sobbed out. “What they’re doing to us? Do you see?”