I waited outside the church for Tess, I knew she wouldn’t leave early since it was now up to her to protect Mom’s credit at Graydon’s. Everywhere we ever walked seemed to be a mile from home and though there were shortcuts they always came with an extra hill to climb. Too many weirdos afoot to let Tess walk home alone.

There was a little store across the street. “Don’s Market” was the only business on Anoka Avenue. It was run by a Korean couple who didn’t bother to change the name when they bought the store and adjoining house from old Don, who went to Arizona to die. We never lifted from little stores because they were the proprietors’ livelihoods. This was not altruism, for unless you had the bad luck of landing a real asshole, a supermarket clerk would only chase you only so far– until the fact that they’d get paid anyway kicked in. And no supermarket was rumored to have a loaded shotgun stashed below the cash register. Mom and Pop outfits tended to equate five finger discounts with felonious behavior. So, extremely aware that I was being watched, I bought two cans of coke with honest cash earned via school porn sales. I crammed the cokes into my front pockets, crossed the street back to the Presbyterian church and climbed a maple tree that stood in the far corner of the parking lot, which gave me a view of the church’s front door. It was quiet and hot, and I could hear the cracking of Scotch broom pods that only my ears were particularly attuned to.

Coke cans in one’s pants pockets interfere with skillful tree climbing. But I’d reached the nook where the trunk split in twain about ten, fifteen feet up or so without much difficulty. Good News Club was scheduled for an hour. I didn’t have a watch but I figured that there might be forty-five minutes of tree-sitting in my immediate future. I extracted the cokes and placed the one I bought for Tess in a small notch in one of the main branches, tapped the top of mine and pulled the tab, which I automatically placed in my pants pocket for Tess’s art projects. I’d once heard that tapping the top of a can prevents carbonated eruptions–which, of course, is bullshit–but like removing a cigarette from a freshly opened pack and putting it back in upside down for luck (as long as it’s smoked last) it’s something I still catch myself doing to this very day, here on the down side of life.

From my vantage point I saw Dumbo and his mother leave the nearby Catholic church. Dumbo’s Mom, Mrs Holman, was a patient widow of somewhere between fifty-five and sixty–Dumbo was around thirty, but as it goes with people afflicted with his condition, his face wasn’t marked by time. They passed on the walk and did not see me.

A lot of the kids in the neighborhood used to tease Dumbo. Called names. Threw rocks. They did it because they were scared of what he was. I never did, but I didn’t do anything to stop it, either. Tess would. She’d stand up to the others and tell them that Dumbo can’t help being the way he is. No one dared to flip Tess shit because I was her sister, so they laid off when she was around–which, in a sense, meant that I had helped to improve his situation.

I climbed higher in the tree, leaving my soda next to Tess’s. I gained another ten feet because I could; I was skinny yet as powerful as a boa constrictor. When I was alone I didn’t stay in one spot long because it gave the inexplicable sadness that had recently begun its lifelong chase a chance to find me.

There was a pack of Old Gold and a box of matches in the rolled cuff of my right sock. Concealed by my pants, I kept the pack on the inside of my ankle to prevent smashing it. I’d started smoking at nine but didn’t become completely addicted until I was in high school. Mom was a Winston chainer, but I didn’t boost hers unless I had no other choice. Our organic disdain for each other extended to the brand we smoked. The world took place in a nicotine haze. There was no such thing as smelling it on you.

One of the things about Mom I envied was her ability to bring a match off any surface. She could strike one anywhere like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western. Said she learned it at Catholic school. She also learned how to roll a cigarette with one hand, deal cards from the bottom of the deck, palm tips off tables and how to change raisins to wine. Not like she told us any of it besides the match part, but Mom sometimes got loose with her tongue while sipping loganberry flips and yakking on the horn with Nora. She was also under the odd impression if she lowered her voice in a confidential manner while on the phone that we wouldn’t make a special effort to listen. We got a lot of information that way.

I was getting good at bringing a match myself. Though hitting one off a dry tree bark was hardly a trick. I lit my smoke and took a long look at the Catholic church I had seen Mrs. Holman and Dumbo exit. It stood at the end of Anoka and had that impressive look you see in mental institutions and prisons.

Although there were a bunch of Christian churches atop Holy Hill on Anoka, It was easy to see who had the most money. The Presbyterian church was an old building, kept clean by volunteers and its white paint job was regularly maintained. But it had no grounds to speak of and there was a definite sag to the building that I also noted in the Baptist Church that most of the colored people attended. It too was extremely clean, but there were cracks in the concrete foundation and their bell tower was missing a few shingles. Not so with the Catholics. Closely followed by Mormons on the east side of town, the Catholics had the cushiest operation going.

They had two blocks all to themselves, and unlike the others did not rent the property. One block was shared by the rectory house, which looked like a mansion to us, and the school, whose students ran from kindergarten age to 8th grade, and yet every kid had to dress in the same uniform. And there were nuns and priests all about in flowing garments that gave the whole place a magical aura present at no place else in Charleston. They had actual grounds covered with green grass, hedges and rose bushes, all maintained by a paid staff of gardeners.

The immense brick church was across the street. I glanced at the cross atop the bell tower and immediately understood to the last atom of my being that there was nowhere near enough happiness on earth for everyone; nor a just afterworld that ends pain and evens the score–unless nothingness counts as fair. And no matter what gods we might suck up to, Tess and I were born to live lives just as third rate as Mom’s. Just more hole in the wall people living hole in the wall lives.