Toby

“We can stand, that’s all right,” I told Mom, and folded my hands to show her you can be just as religious on your feet. She agreed. I don’t think she really wanted to kneel. So we stood there in the living room side by side in front of the picture of Mary on a cloud with a slice of moon beneath her feet. I was hoping we could just run off a couple of quick Hail Mary’s and let it go at that, but Mom wanted to talk to Mary, personally, and I was supposed to repeat-after.

“Dear sweet blessed holy Mother of God,” she started.

And I said, “Dear sweet blessed holy Mother of God.”

“Please?” she said. “Don’t let us die? Don’t let them kill us?”

“Ma, don’t beg.”

“Repeat, Toby. No comments please.”

“Go ahead.”

“Where was I?”

“Begging for your life.”

“I was praying. There’s a difference.”

“Be that as it may.”

“Forgive my son, Mary. He knows not what he says.”

“Can we get on with this?”

She got on: “Blessed Mother, help us in this time of need? In this terrible crisis?”

She waited.

“Terrible crisis,” I said.

“Help our president. He is a good man, Mary—a Catholic.”

“As you know.”

“Help him to defeat the Russians? They’re trying to destroy us, dear Mother.”

“Trying to wipe us out.”

“They hate us, dear Lady, so much.”

“You can just feel it.”

“They hate us because we are good.”

“Let’s face it.”

“Because we are free.”

“They’re jealous, that’s what it is.”

“Help us to stop them, dear Mother.”

“To crush them, Mary. To flatten ‘em out.”

“All right, dear.”

“Like roadkill.”

“That’s enough.”

“Annihilate ‘em.”

“That’s enough.”

“Wipe ‘em off the face of—”

“Will you stop?”

I couldn’t. “I hate them, Mary! I hate them!”

“Toby...”

“Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em!”

“Sweetheart...”

“Kill ‘em all!”

She grabbed me in her big fat arms and held me tight, my face in her giant bosom. “Do you see, Mary?” she sobbed out. “What they’re doing to us? Do you see?”