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

nowhere—”
    “He’s getting away, Ralph.”
    “Right. Let’s go.”
    We went after him.

Bishop Sheen
    And in my imagination I could see a great change coming over the hammer and the sickle. I could see that hammer being held aloft by millions of men, and looking now like a cross. And that sickle, I now saw it becoming the slender moon under Our Lady’s feet...

Toby
    Walking along cradling the head in my arms, I was singing to it right out loud:
    Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl, Duke, Duke...
    And you’re not going to believe this, I know, but the head actually started singing along , doing Duke , Duke ,while I did the high part:
    As I walk
    Duke, Duke
    Through this world
    Duke, Duke
    Nothing can stop
    Duke, Duke
    The Duke of Earl
    Duke, Duke...
    After a while, guess who joined me, my little gypsy pals. They didn’t join in , or even say anything, they just walked along, one on either side. But I was glad to see them. Like I said, I was going to be needing them. I just had one little question: What’s with the headwear? Ralph still had that goofy-looking stocking cap on and she was still wearing her First Communion veil. I didn’t mean to be nosy ,but...
    Then all of a sudden it hit me.
    All that crap I fed them, about them being like the children of Fatima, they ate it up so completely they were dressing the part now.
    I had to laugh, and I did. “You kids crack me up,” I said, “you know that? You really do.” And I laughed at them some more.

Ralph
    Fatso could laugh all he wanted, I didn’t care. Like I told Lou, they laughed at the children of Fatima, laughed and laughed. And now, guess what, they’re practically known as saints.
    Plus, the next time you happen to turn on a lamp? Think about Thomas Edison, how hard they all laughed at him .
    And speaking of inventors, you know who else they probably laughed at? Albert Einstein, inventor of the atomic bomb. And now who’s laughing? Nobody.

Toby
    Actually, that was good, the two of them dressing up like that. It would help with my mom, help her to see them as Fatima types instead of what they really were, a pair of serious nutcases.
    They stayed with me onto my property and up the porch. I sat on the top step with the head in my lap, Lou on my left, Ralph on my right. Nobody spoke. I kept humming “Duke of Earl,” to show them how worried I was. Mr. Pappas across the street hollered out some gibberish and pointed at the sky. I nodded at him and smiled.
    I was surrounded by insane people. Including the one in the house.
    Anyway, sitting there I gave the situation some thought. To get Mom to shell out for my ten-cents-a-minute-with-Jesus scheme, I needed these two loonies to keep playing the children of Fatima—the attitude, the headwear—but not seriously , not so they believed it themselves, or else no matter how big a slice I let them in for they would just keep trying to steal back the head.
    Couldn’t have that.
    So I said to them, “Look, you want to be the next children of Fatima? Get Mary to come down on a cloud. Because I got news for you: this rock isn’t gonna get you there. You show this to Father Clay he’ll laugh in your face. Or else? What he’ll do? Keep it and tell everyone he found it. He was going to bed one night and there it was, on his pillow.”
    “Father Clay wouldn’t lie,” Ralph said.
    “You’d be surprised.”
    “Liars go to Hell,” Lou said, meaning me I guess, for lying to their mom.
    “For ever ,” Ralph added.
    “Oh, really?” I reached behind me for the empty plate. “So where do thieves go?”
    That shut them up.
    “Face it,” I told them. “ You saw the movie. Those kids were shepherds. They didn’t go scrounging around for empty bottles. They didn’t go stealing people’s toast right off their porch. And I’ll tell you what else they didn’t do, they didn’t go around playing The Children of Fatima. Know why? Because they already were .They didn’t have to pretend. Mary came all the way