skinned chicken meat, and there’s dark bags under his eyes, and he’s incredibly sweaty and nervous-looking. I usually like watching home runs, but there is something about Roger Maris that makes even his homers boring. I don’t hate the Yankees like most people, so it’s not that. I just don’t care to watch Roger Maris. Everett feels the same way, only worse. Everett says he’s from Mars, which is why he’s named Maris, so maybe it’s a racial thing. Whatever it is, it worries me a little, because one of the things Jesus used to say was to love everybody the same whether they’re geeks, Yanks, Wops, Micks, Meredith Starrs or what have you, and when I look at Roger Maris I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to pull it off.
Peter says there was once this Italian saint called San Francisco (the same guy they eventually named the Giants after) who loved Jesus a tonand was a truly wonderful person, except for one small thing. He couldn’t stand lepers. And I guess they were coming out of the woodwork, there in Italy in his day. But one night in a dream, Pete says, who should come walking up to San Francisco but Jesus Himself, and what does Christ do but order poor San to go out and kiss the first leper he sees! Pete says San Francisco woke up quaking in his boots or sandals or whatever. And of course, no sooner does he step out the door than the skankiest-looking leper ever invented comes dribbling right toward him down the road! For a minute there, Pete says, poor San can’t figure out whether to shit or eat a doughnut. But he loves Jesus so much that he somehow staggers up to the leper, puckers his lips, shuts his eyes, and manages to get the job done. Except (here’s the great part, Pete says) right while they’re smooching San peeks and sees that this walking oozeball was actually Jesus all along! This was the big breakthrough the saint needed, apparently, since afterwards, Peter says, he went out and converted all the Italians and fish and wolves and sparrows to Catholicism, and eventually got himself crucified on a Miraculous Cross up in the mountains that wasn’t even there really. Anyhow, Peter says, the thing is, everybody on earth must eventually face up to their own personal leper. In other words, he says, someday Everett and me will have to get past our feelings about Roger Maris. We may even have to kiss him if we don’t watch it, he says. Of course Everett told Pete straight off that it’d be a snowy day in hell before he kissed Roger Maris. But Peter just laughed and said what if Jesus
forced
him to? What if He forced him to walk right up and lick Roger Maris’s crewcut? Everett about barfed.
I think I might do it, though. That is, I think I might do it if I knew that licking it would turn Roger Maris into Jesus. But then again, what if the Jesus I turned Roger Maris into just went on playing right field for the Yankees? They’d be even more unbeatable! Everett would
murder
me. And all the Catholics would be running around with a little ballplayer on a cross around their necks, and the ballparks’d fill with holy water and priests instead of ice-cream and peanut vendors. It’d be chaos, most likely. So I don’t know. Hopefully the chance to lick it will never arise.
P eter reads lots of religious books, like the one about San Francisco. That’s where he gets most of his weirder stories and ideas. He has this oddball teacher at school, Stefan Delaney, who thinks Pete’s a genius and started giving him stacks of special books to read. But not long ago Mama flipped her lid over one called the Bog of Vod Geeta, which she felt was filling Pete’s head full of heathen ideas and turning him away from God.How could it do that, Mr. Delaney wanted to know, since God was exactly Who the whole book was aimed at? And I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never read the thing. But I do remember the day Mama flipped her lid, and I didn’t blame her a bit. …
We were all in the car coming home from Spokane,
Peter says there was once this Italian saint called San Francisco (the same guy they eventually named the Giants after) who loved Jesus a tonand was a truly wonderful person, except for one small thing. He couldn’t stand lepers. And I guess they were coming out of the woodwork, there in Italy in his day. But one night in a dream, Pete says, who should come walking up to San Francisco but Jesus Himself, and what does Christ do but order poor San to go out and kiss the first leper he sees! Pete says San Francisco woke up quaking in his boots or sandals or whatever. And of course, no sooner does he step out the door than the skankiest-looking leper ever invented comes dribbling right toward him down the road! For a minute there, Pete says, poor San can’t figure out whether to shit or eat a doughnut. But he loves Jesus so much that he somehow staggers up to the leper, puckers his lips, shuts his eyes, and manages to get the job done. Except (here’s the great part, Pete says) right while they’re smooching San peeks and sees that this walking oozeball was actually Jesus all along! This was the big breakthrough the saint needed, apparently, since afterwards, Peter says, he went out and converted all the Italians and fish and wolves and sparrows to Catholicism, and eventually got himself crucified on a Miraculous Cross up in the mountains that wasn’t even there really. Anyhow, Peter says, the thing is, everybody on earth must eventually face up to their own personal leper. In other words, he says, someday Everett and me will have to get past our feelings about Roger Maris. We may even have to kiss him if we don’t watch it, he says. Of course Everett told Pete straight off that it’d be a snowy day in hell before he kissed Roger Maris. But Peter just laughed and said what if Jesus
forced
him to? What if He forced him to walk right up and lick Roger Maris’s crewcut? Everett about barfed.
I think I might do it, though. That is, I think I might do it if I knew that licking it would turn Roger Maris into Jesus. But then again, what if the Jesus I turned Roger Maris into just went on playing right field for the Yankees? They’d be even more unbeatable! Everett would
murder
me. And all the Catholics would be running around with a little ballplayer on a cross around their necks, and the ballparks’d fill with holy water and priests instead of ice-cream and peanut vendors. It’d be chaos, most likely. So I don’t know. Hopefully the chance to lick it will never arise.
P eter reads lots of religious books, like the one about San Francisco. That’s where he gets most of his weirder stories and ideas. He has this oddball teacher at school, Stefan Delaney, who thinks Pete’s a genius and started giving him stacks of special books to read. But not long ago Mama flipped her lid over one called the Bog of Vod Geeta, which she felt was filling Pete’s head full of heathen ideas and turning him away from God.How could it do that, Mr. Delaney wanted to know, since God was exactly Who the whole book was aimed at? And I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never read the thing. But I do remember the day Mama flipped her lid, and I didn’t blame her a bit. …
We were all in the car coming home from Spokane,
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