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.

Charleston would not exist if not for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. At least it would not be as much as it is. Located between Bremerton and Port Orchard Washington (two other places that have the same condition of existence) on Philo Bay. Charleston, like Rome, is a city of hills.

Torqwamni Hill stands higher, but “Holy Hill” is a close second. It is marked by an impressive pile of bricks that is the Catholic church and school complex, which can be seen from just about everywhere in town. But the pope doesn’t stand alone. The crest is topped by Anoka Avenue, which runs about six blocks north to south and is heavy with religion. The Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and a Synagogue were up there when Tess and I grew up–since, a Mosque and Sikh Temple have joined the fun–but the Buhddists, Iglesia Del Cristo and Mormons built on the other side of town. And there was the Presbyterian Church at which “Good News Club” was held on Wednesday afternoons.

Most communities had the decency to run Good News Club apace with the school year; but Charleston was an especially godless town so Good News ran year around. Turned out that all the Christian churches (except the despised Catholics, who had their own thing, and didn’t like the competition, either) were in on it and took turns hosting what’s best described as a booster shot of Sunday School–just in case the urge to since rebounded by mid-week. Not that Tess or I knew anything about Sunday Sunday School–we’d never set foot in a church of any kind before, but that was the gist of Good News.

And there we were on Wednesday. Tess was sparkling and pretty in one of the two school dresses that still fit her. While I was in my “uniform”–jeans and white tee shirt for summer, cords and sweater for school. The Charleston school system had announced that girls no longer needed to wear dresses to school, we just had to be clean. A new era had dawned. The high school even erected a “smoke shack” for the students–so they wouldn’t sneak off into the woods behind the school and set the bushes on fire. Those were forward thinking times.

It was we because Tess had lucked into an easy way to get me to come along. Her charm had nothing to do with my attendance; she had found a brand new Swiss army knife just lying there in a parking lot on Saturday–ten times the quality of any we had ever found in a vehicle and not the sort of thing stores made easy to take. The little witch seized the opportunity to trade it for me accompanying her to Good News–and not to ditch at any time unless it was her idea.

The meeting room was in the clean, well lit basement. About half the size of a regular classroom, the walls were that faux knotty pine paneling you could not get away from in the seventies. There were three rows of folding chairs facing a lectern that had a portable blackboard behind it.

“Bet they serve shortbread cookies,” Tess said.

“And lemonade that looks like pee.” I replied.

The defining theme of the room, surprise, was Jesus. Although the sober Presyterians had hung only one picture of the Lord on the wall, it was big and inescapable. Tess whispered that he looked like George Harrison with John Lennon colored hair; I thought he looked constipated. Seems to me there was a copy of the Ten Commandments hanging somewhere, as well as a poster containing the Lord’s Prayer, but I really don’t remember. I do recall that there were no plaster crosses, Madonnas or anything else that could be interpreted as a “graven image”–none of the stuff you see in a Catholic home.

The other kids ranged in age from seven to thirteen. They were the usual assortment of scrubbed goody-goodies and spazzes that I associated with obedience. Some had been hit with the Jesus stick so long that they radiated auras void of individuality.

Tess was a social chameleon who blended everywhere; I always appeared to be up to something and my reputation caused far more people to talk about me than to me.

Some people are addicted to the idea of belonging to something bigger than themselves. Maybe joining teams and clubs that require you to attend meetings when you’d rather be elsewhere are just in the blood. Could be we all are supposed to feel that way and I may be a freak for never wanting to belong to any structured environment by choice. Early on I spied a certain amount of butt kissing expected in every organization from the Brownies on up to Heaven. Something about hierarchical set ups smelled wrong–especially those that gathered children to exalt a higher power of some sort. And although nothing like it happened at our local Good News, history shows that an inordinate amount of sex perverts are attracted to mentoring opportunities.

But my aversion to such things ran deeper than my views on secret handshakes and participating in bake sales–and even deeper than the universal hate of pedophiles. For I’ve always known that giving myself to anyone or anything else other than Tess and her memory would diminish my devotion.

Mrs. Graydon and an old biddy (whose name I never learned) in support hose that concealed monumentally swollen ankles, ran the meeting, which was scheduled for two sharp. It was still a few minutes before the hour when Mrs. Graydon and the biddy entered, both carrying platters of shortbread cookies that the Thriftway bakery sold for a quarter per dozen–or free–if your hands were fast enough. One of the spazzes got excited over the cookies. Even Jesus can’t take some people anywhere.

Mrs. Graydon saw what I was wearing and it shitted on her attitude. She approached and whispered just loud enough for everyone to hear, “Susan, I thought I told your mother that we wear our Sunday best for the meeting.”

I don’t recall ever having respect for adults. The minute I was fast enough to outrun them and big enough hit back with meaning, whatever fear I had for them dried up–but I did have the sense to avoid the I Don’t Give a Fuck hardcases that inhabited our neighborhood; the guys who observed no standards when it came to victims. I used to think there was something wrong with me–for example, right then, her ugly moon face hovering near mine, I wanted to bury the main blade of the Swiss knife I had in my pocket deep into Mrs. Graydon’s neck just to see the look on her face. Fortunately for her, I had some measure of impulse control, and foresaw consequences not worth the experience.

“This is what I wear on Sunday.”

Tess just sat there and gazed at me with I told you so eyes. The other kids had that jackal shine in their faces–which comes when a grown up is on a kid’s case but you are not the kid in trouble; a perverted twist of the sympathetic heart, which knows all about the being on the spot feeling but enjoys watching the screws put to somebody else for a change.

This was where Mrs. Graydon could have ended it with a reminder to dress properly in the future. I’d hate to think what a stone bitch she might have been without the Lord’s guidance, because she didn’t let it drop. She pushed.

She sighed and shook her head. Mrs. Graydon savored the little moments of power that entered her life and seized every opportunity to play the Big Shot. Like the rest of us in our neighborhood, she couldn’t help being born poor anymore than she could help coming out stupid and ugly. But she could have helped the cheap little meannesses that flowed from her frustration, she could have pulled back and not do her best to embarrass people in order to feel better about herself.

“All right, Susan–we have charity dresses upstairs in the office–follow me–”

“My name is Sarah,” I said.

I had been saving that for the two years or so the cow had got it wrong. For a don’t fuck with it moment that had finally arrived. Mrs. Graydon didn’t have enough inside to take being wrong even about the smallest stuff without it fucking with her in some deep and reachable only by regression hypnosis sort of way. It has always pained me that so many of the people who practically beg for a beating can’t take a punch. The hurt little expressions in their secret faces, that show for just a second, make me feel as though I’m stomping an infant to death. And for a second it appeared that she was going to challenge me for knowing my own name.

Before Mrs. Graydon could bounce back, I stood and handed the Swiss knife to Tess.

“No deal.”

I left and that was the end of my relationship with organized religion.

We lived in a basement apartment in an immense old house on the Wyckoff side of the alley that should have razed after the War. It stood five floors with an attic just above Dumbo’s place. Built for a rich family at the turn of the century, it had fallen on hard times and was converted into apartments during the Depression. The place was always threatening to burn itself down but never got around to it; the overloaded fuses were constantly blowing and you often caught a whiff of a smoldering mattress wafting through the halls because everyone smoked in bed. Our unit had three rooms and a bath–the rent was something like fifty bucks a month. There was only one (often rain-swollen) door, which opened into the kitchen. Being mostly underground the place was a cave and the walls sweated no matter the weather; but it was fairly cool in the summer.

It got too hot to hang out in Fort Oxenfree so we went home and were surprised to see Mom seated at the kitchen table talking on the phone, most likely with her best friend Nora. She usually disappeared on the weekend, ostensibly leaving us under the guardianship of perpetually Percodan gacked Anna Lou, who lived a few blocks up the road; she’d call once in a while but seldom dropped by. If it was early in the month there’d be a five dollar bill under the toaster, sometimes food stamps we sold for half value–but mostly we were left to our own devices.

“Let me call you back, hon–double trouble just blew in.”

This was around the time when Mom had stopped speaking directly to me unless absolutely necessary, or was pissed off enough to do so. Tess had the charm of ten and served as our go between.

“Hiya Mom,” Tess said.

“Hi yourself,” Mom said, cradling the phone. “Goddam old bat Graydon came by a while ago. Said she looked out her window and saw you two lift a bunch of empties from behind the store this morning.”

Mr. and Mrs. Graydon ran the little store in our neighborhood. He had one arm and she was a Jesus freak. Both were as plump as old Elmo and continuously sweaty no matter the season; Mr. Graydon must have had the cardiovascular systems of a tin of Crisco; he was perpetually in recovery from his latest heart attack.

We never boosted anything from inside the store, nor was Graydon’s a prime source for returnables. But those bottles, all with a nickel bounty on their heads, were just lying there in the shadows, screaming “Steal me!” Which we did, first thing that morning. (I later suspected funny business: no one ever told us to give the bottles back or inquire about them in any way. This made me wonder if Mrs. Graydon had set a trap; though planning such would have pushed her limited brain power to the max, she was the sort of person who’d do such a small, shitty thing.)

“Oh, Mom,” Tess laughed, “we didn’t know they belonged to the store.” Unlike Mom, Tess told convoluted, outrageous lies that not even a mental defective like Dumbo would buy. Yet her lies were like TV wrasslin’–you knew it was bullshit but you played along anyway. “We thought someone must’ve left them there by accident.”

I was nosing about in the fridge. I found a Nesbitt’s orange soda that I opened by holding the edge of the cap against that of the counter and giving a good whack with my palm. Unlike the nasty tiki punch, it was cold and I drank half in one swallow then gave the rest to Tess. “Miz Graydon’s soft in the head,” I said to the room in general. “She thinks my name is Susan.”

“Good thing they go by numbers where you’re headed,” said Mom, sufficiently pissed to speak to me.

For a second I almost told her about it. All of it. The Elmo’s business, the shoplifting and the breaking into cars. Tess was a blue-eyed strawberry blonde who resembled the man in the photo album we were told was our father. Although I already had six inches on Mom, we had the same dark hair and eyes, startlingly identical faces and similar personalities. And neither of us liked that–it intruded on our individuality. For decades, she and I successfully explored each other for the evil we knew was in our own hearts. And we were pretty close in age, for she was married and a mother while only a teen. If it was just me I’d have fucked with it, but there was Tess to consider.

Yet I had to say something.

“Maybe you can stay home and we’ll attend church as a family tomorrow.”

It was still another few months before we began swinging at each other. I’m pretty sure something would have happened then if Tess hadn’t been able to defuse the bomb.

Sensing danger, Tess wrapped her arms around Mom’s shoulders from behind, kissed her on the cheek, nuzzled her ear and offered her a drink of orange soda. “We’re sorry Mama,” Tess laughed, “puleeze don’ give us to the cath-lick orph-nage with the mean nuns.”

It was funny to watch Mom, who, next to lying, took pride in her ability to manipulate people (mostly men) get played herself, utterly ignorant that it was happening to her. She was as smart as she was shrewd and amoral, but it was as though her atrophied sensitivity and subdued credulity gathered only for Tess–who could innocently and, eventually, ruthlessly, play Mom like a fifth ace.

A sinister smile appeared on Mom’s face. She had something to play herself. She never smiled like that unless she held the advantage.

“No orphanage,” she said, “but I did agree to send you guys to some Christer thing the Graydon biddy runs called ‘Good News.’”

Before I could protest, Mom raised her voice, just a touch. What she said next was both the best and worst in Mom; it still rings fresh in my mind after more than fifty years.

“I woulda told any other Christer to fuck off. But since Graydon lets us have credit, and since you guys prefer eating to starving at the end of the month, you can go till the check comes.”

Religion was one subject on which I had respect for Mom’s point of view. She’d been born in Canada, was orphaned and became a ward of the Catholic Church. For reasons never made clear until the end of her life, Mom was “shipped” to the United States. She ran away from Saint James Academy in Seattle for good at seventeen (although much, much later, she confessed that her actual age was two years younger), got married soon after, had me at eighteen and was a widow with two kids at twenty–and learned late, like so many, that she wasn’t cut out to be a mother because she didn’t like children. Though Mom habitually embroidered the Dickensian details of her war with the nuns, the soul of the experience sounded true enough. One thing was for certain, the great hostility she had for all things Christer was unimpeachable.

Still, Mom wasn’t an idiot. She knew Tess would do as told, but my attendance hinged on Tess’s strange ability to get me to do things I would not normally do. I don’t think Mom cared much as long as one of us went; she figured it would be enough to shut Mrs. Graydon up, thus protecting our account. Besides, a potential fifty percent Spahr sister conversion was better than a reasonable Christer would hope for.