of Jesus that Gramma Frieda gave me. His chest is open and His heart is wrapped in roses and thorns, but it doesn’t bleed. He looks down at the art books Mom put on my bed: Leonardo’s Gifts and Pastoral Landscapes of the Romantic Age.
Groovy. Mom never lets me look at her art books.
On the cover of Pastoral Landscapes, a golden sky turns black as it disappears into a blurry stand of trees, a place too thick and dark to make out what’s happening inside it.
In the living room, Mom and Dad laugh and talk. My best friend Judy calls them Romeo and Juliet.
A rock hits my bedroom window screen. “Watch!” Lauren calls from the driveway. “Hot peppers, Lily! Watch!” I count thirty superfast twirls before she makes a mistake.
On the sidewalk behind her, Missy Crenshaw rides her new Schwinn bicycle, smiling and waving like a Rose Festival princess. It’s a warm August night and still light at 9:17 p.m. Across the street, a phone rings and young, blond Mrs. Savage throws down her garden hose and steps inside. Somewhere a baby cries; a dog barks; a golden-oldie radio station plays “Mr. Sandman.” Rusty and Sherman, each in coonskin caps, sit on the curb across the street, quietly loading their cap guns.
I watch Judy the longest. Slouched and sad, she sits in her front yard reading a magazine, but she never turns a page. “If things don’t get better,” she told me once, “I’m running away.” So I watch her intently, looking for anything that would say she’s finally ready to pack her bag and sneak off in the middle of the night. She’s saved her allowance for six months, her babysitting money too.
Where would I go if I was running away?
Mom’s books are big and heavy and full of beautiful glossy pictures.
In Leonardo’s Gifts, I stare at Leonardo da Vinci’s sculptures, focusing on their white empty eyes and marble sex organs; I always thought penises were bigger.
I trace one of Leonardo’s flying machines, paste it into my scrapbook, and glue strips of Mom’s “ratty old mink stole” to its wings. Then I turn to the centerfold of The Last Supper and trace that scene into my scrapbook too. I give the table a long tablecloth painted with stars and planets, and fill the windows behind it with comets. I’ve seen the picture at Gramma Frieda’s church and I know that Jesus’s hand is raised (Dad says He’s asking for the check), but when I look closer this time, I see powdered doughnuts on the table.
And powdered sugar on Jesus’s face.
I slam the book shut and look at my watch.
Mom says I’m good at entertaining myself. She says my imagination is a work of art. The Last Supper is a work of art. Maybe my imagination is on the next page; I saw something like that on The Twilight Zone once.
When I dare to look at Jesus again, He raises an eyebrow and shrugs.
“Stop it!” I yell. Mrs. Wiggins moans and briefly raises her head.
On TV, people who hallucinate famous dead people (like Jesus) are taken to the hospital where they put jumper cables on their heads. They wear diapers and pajamas all day, and cry all night because they want to go home.
* * *
“Crawford Quarry is perfect viewing,” Dad told us earlier. He knows all about the planets and stars, but he still calls Mom his “favorite heavenly body.” He checked out books from the Multnomah County Library and drew star charts that we’ll look at when we get to the pit. He bought us each a flashlight too.
Lauren and I’ve never been to Crawford Quarry, but when our parents told us about the huge pit where people dig rocks out of the ground with big Flintstone-style steam shovels, my little sister giggled. She loves The Flintstones.
At 23:00 (11:00 p.m. exactly), we meet in the kitchen. Lauren’s been sleeping and she’s hard to wake up, but I’ve been watching the clock—listening to the little ticks inside each tock and matching them to my heartbeats; visualizing every step between here and the entrance to Crawford Woods.
“Okay, kidlets,” Dad says, pulling on his windbreaker,“it’s time to go.” Mrs. Wiggins looks up from the floor in the family room and wags her tail. “People are sleeping, but their windows will be open, so no talking. And Lily? Leave your watch at home.”
“Why?”
“Because you look at it all the time, dummy,” Lauren says.
“And none of that, girls, or we’ll turn right around and come home. Got it?”
Lauren and I draw zippers across our mouths.
I grab Mrs. Wiggins’s leash. “Not this time, honey,” Dad says. The star charts crinkle when he pulls a rubber band over them. “Mrs. Wiggins is too sick to go with us. She can watch the house while we’re gone.”
“But what if we need her? Her breed is strong enough to pull people out of snowdrifts. Besides, she’s used to babysitting us. She wants to go.” Mrs. Wiggins wags her tail but doesn’t lift her head.
“You’re being selfish, Lily,” Dad says. His words pierce my heart. “She’s old and sick. You wouldn’t want to be dragged around if you were her.”
“I won’t drag her around.”
The cold water faucet whistles when Mom fills a glass for her evening “happy pill,” and we all turn around to watch. Mom gets unhappy faster than Speedy Gonzales and the pill “gives her balance,” Dad says. “We’re lucky to live in a pharmaceutical age.”
He puts his hands on his hips. “Okay, Asher family. Are we ready to roll?”
Mom smiles; Lauren claps.
“Home no later than three a.m.,” he says. He also says something about the bogeyman and carriages turning into pumpkins too, but Lauren and Mom are already out the door.
I tuck my wristwatch in Mrs. Wiggins’s bed, say a prayer, and draw a pie chart over her, blessing her the way a priest would. “I love you,” I say in Pig Latin.
Dad puts his hand on my shoulder, but I shrug it off.
* * *
It’s a twenty-minute walk from our home on Aiken Street, uphill past the fancy houses in Crawford Heights, to the entrance of Crawford Butte. As we pass the big houses, Mom points out her favorites. Against the dark blue sky, they look like outlines of giant ships. In daytime, they’re all the same: big and white with used brick trim, bay windows, and fake columns, some in the Greek Ionic tradition, some in the Doric. Other columns look like Lincoln Logs or upside-down umbrella stands.
I’d like to build a table-sized Acropolis, paint scenes on the inside, then spin it like a zoetrope. Aunt Jamie said she’d help.
It’s a beautiful night.
My family’s quiet, though inside people’s houses, dogs bark at us anyway. It’s late but televisions light up most living rooms. Jack Paar was Mom’s favorite late-night host but Johnny Carson’s on now. Tonight’s guests are Woody Allen and Ed Ames.
We finally arrive at the dark woodsy path leading to the quarry
