The H-Bomb and the Jesus Rock by John Manderino Page B

homeward, that goofy-looking veil all cockeyed, fluttering around.
    Ralph sat down again, slow. Then he looked at me. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me.
    “What,” I said.
    He whispered, “Did you see?”
    I said, “Yeah, that was pretty close.”
    He kept staring at me.
    I told him, “Hey, I didn’t tell her to go running—”
    “It was a miracle.”
    I said, “Excuse me?”
    “Didn’t you see?”
    “See what? Why are you whispering?”
    “The rock,” he said. “It saved her life.”
    “How do you get that?”
    “ You saw.”
    “ Yeah I saw. I thought she was roadkill.”
    “Right,” he said, nodding, all bug-eyed. “But then she wasn’t .”
    “And? So? What’s your point?”
    “The rock saved her life. That’s proof .”
    “Proof of what?”
    He shook his head, slow. “It’s not...just...a rock.”
    I hate religious people.
    I said to him, “What...are you... talking about? The thing almost got her killed. God you’re dumb. Get off my property.”
    He did. He got up and went walking off.
    I called him a moron.
    I called him a halfwit.
    I called him an imbecile.
    He just kept walking away, swinging his arms.

Ralph
    I didn’t even hear him. Well, I did, but I didn’t care. He could call me anything he wanted, him and his mom. I just saw a miracle, an actual miracle.
    The Miracle of the Rock.
    It saved Lou’s life.
    I had no doubt about that.
    No doubt at all.
    Hardly any.
    Little bit.
    I mean, let’s face it, Fatso had a point: the thing almost got her killed.
    That’s what happens when you get goofy. Lou would never run out in the street without looking both ways, but she was goofy over that rock. She had a crush on it or something.
    I forgot I still had that stupid hat on. I yanked it off.
    But still, you know? The way that car all of a sudden swung away from her? Before she even ran out? Like the rock was making the car turn away. Let’s face it, no ordinary rock could do that.
    Or else...maybe the guy was just trying to miss the rock so he didn’t get a flat tire. Maybe that’s all it was.
    Maybe that’s all any thing was.
    No.
    That was the devil in my ear, that was Satan. He’s always doing that, whispering in my ear like that, trying to make me doubt stuff.
    I told him, Begone, you.
    And he was, he was gone.
    All right. So. Here was the story, The Miracle of the Rock, the way it went:
    The boy and the little girl find a rock that looks like Jesus.
    And so on.
    Then the giant mother washes away the sacred face, kicks them out, and they’re all three sitting there on the bottom step. Looks like the rock was just a rock after all. Oh, well. Fatso throws it out in the street.
    But the little girl still believes and runs out into the traffic, trying to save it. And so? The rock saves her.
    Because it wasn’t...just a rock...after all.
    The End
    Not as big a story as I’d had in mind, I mean with the Pope and the Russians and all that, not even close. But still a pretty good story, pretty good ending anyway, pretty happy one, wouldn’t you say? I would. It made me feel good, like we probably weren’t going to get blown up today after all, or even tomorrow.
    But just in case, I headed towards the church, for confession. There was that toast we stole.

Lou
    My mom was watching the news on the couch. I tried to get past her, quick, so she wouldn’t see the rock and make that face of hers.
    But she saw it. “Is that the...”
    “Jesus. Yeah. Got Him back.”
    She made the face.
    I went in our room and put the rock on the dresser again. It wasn’t really Jesus, I knew that. But it still had one eye, like Garfield Goose this morning, and a little bump underneath. “Aw, don’t cry,” I said. Then I felt embarrassed, talking to a rock.
    I took off my veil and put it back in the bottom drawer and closed it.
    Ralph thought the rock really was Jesus, or anyway from Jesus. He gets goofy. One time we were peeling potatoes and he thought one of them looked like Ed Sullivan