I didn't know much.

  I never do really.  Usually having arrived "a day late and a dollar short", or, from the library, or, with the propensity to philosophize (squirm) and ethicate (this is why, we should or shouldn't) but everybody else saying shut up.  It's just the way of it. 

  I don't like fighting although I had to learn the hard way, a time or two, that standing to not cave on "taking a stand" and being caught in an avalanche is not all that smart either. 

  My mom managed the retelling of a Dad "joke" to my paled face and let go of it.  Only to her of course.  There were still many years of having to put on a face, buck up, and "walk the line" in a very public way to come.  The joke was planned to be not all that funny.  And it was about a decent old farmer who'd outlived his kin (probably because of eating right) and he would eat his tuna fish lunch everyday with a little picture of Jesus leaned up against the salt and pepper shaker.  "So what happened?" Mom kind of sighed a little, partly responsible for encouraging college, and mostly the same mom who was always there at the end of the day in her and Dad's home no matter what was happening in the world.  "Guy dies.  Goes to Heaven.  Is milling about up there when Jesus approaches him with tuna and bread and a big tomato." 

  "That's it?" 

  "Pretty much.  Dad added this whole part about Jesus and the guy acknowledging there are a lot more people down there in that mess than up here having lunch.  Here are your people!" 

  It seemed really feasible.  Very plausible.  Yet, so had Academia with it's critically thinking about the mess and it being kind of okay to not always have perfect answers. 

  "So what happened?" 

  Sigh.  "The whole stupid thing turned into a riot." 

  The silence of a reasonable and slightly older person putting youth on the scales of truth.  "We even brought a Bible!"  Mom's mouth squishing together quiet not judgment.  "It got ripped in half!" 

  "By satanic gang people?" 

  She waited. 

  "Oh.  Did I mention them?" 

  She sighed and stooped some. 

  "Actually, that was by these two guys who were just debating God and oil.  They were really getting deep about the Old Testament God being pretty harsh and clear and sometimes wars happening.  And how God, like one day or in his BIG plan, decided to send Jesus as ambassador of God's new plan for humanity." Mom fell into a more relaxed mode of listening to story.  "Well, the one guy really flat out denied that Jesus even came down here and went through all that torture to give lousy people a message from God.  So the other guy kind of hit him in the face with the Bible by way of saying, and he did say, It's all right in here.  You can read it for yourself.  If you can read." 

  Other kids in the family opened the door to the garage and closed it letting us talk.  "Guy starts to walk away." 

  "Which guy?" 

  "The guy who was in charge of the Hall where some old Army buddies were going to have a get-together with a bunch of us fresh faces.  But, see, there was a lot of different groups in the city for like all these festivals and concerts and stuff." 

  "So you girls went off campus?" 

  "Yeah.  We did." 

  My mother unloosened a portable phone from a bathrobe pocket full of tissues.  I didn't ask if she was sick.  I let the terrible weight of us disappointing and scaring them crush my spirit.  Whatever other reprimands would come could not be as devestating.  She stood and I realized she had her Church clothes on under the bathrobe.  She called a friend's mom.  "They're home." Her cold hand pressed a loose though hairsprayed curl springing from the top of my head back down.