The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock Read Free Page A

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