5
" Let’s get to our site,” Anne said. “I’m gonna need a nap before the hunt…and lunch.” “Do you wish you would’ve gotten that rental car this morning?” Jill whispered as Anne and Ella settled into their seats. Shay nodded. “Uh-huh.” Jill had seen many campgrounds, but her jaw sagged, and her foot slipped off the gas pedal twice. Sally rolled on slowly as she stared at the cadre of camouflaged vehicles and tents. One man sat atop his RV in a lawn chair, his binoculars trained on the woods beyond. “They really do take this seriously,” Shay whispered in awe. “This is like a militaristic zone.” Jill backed into a slip covered with a quilt of netting and camouflage tarps strung from the trees high overhead. “What is the reason for all of this?” she asked. “The campground is designed to blend in with nature to be more welcoming to the Bigfoot,” Anne explained. “That’s what they told us when we checked in.” “Oh, is that it? Well, let me just craft a banner that says, ‘We come in peace or bite-sized pieces,”’ Jill said with a sardonic laugh. "
― Robin Alexander , The Trip
8
" The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three on them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in a hurry to get on to the next things: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. "
― Anna Quindlen , Loud and Clear
10
" My mom says, " Do you know what the AIDS memorial quilt is all about?" Jump to how much I hate my brother at this moment.I bought this fabric because I thought it would make a nice panel for Shane," Mom says. " We just ran into some problems with what to sew on it." Give me amnesia.Flash.Give me new parents.Flash.Your mother didn't want to step on any toes," Dad says. He twists a drumstick off and starts scraping the meat onto a plate. " With gay stuff you have to be so careful since everything means something in secret code. I mean, we didn't want to give people the wrong idea." My Mom leans over to scoop yams onto my plate, and says, " Your father wanted a black border, but black on a field of blue would mean Shane was excited by leather sex, you know, bondage and discipline, sado and masochism." She says, " Really, those panels are to help the people left behind." Strangers are going to see us and see Shane's name," my dad says. " We didn't want them thinking things." The dishes all start their slow clockwise march around the table. The stuffing. The olives. The cranberry sauce. " I wanted pink triangles but all the panels have pink triangles," my mom says. " It's the Nazi symbol for homosexuals." She says," Your father suggested black triangles, but that would mean Shane was a lesbian. It looks like female pubic hair. The black triangle does." My father says, " Then I wanted a green border, but it turns out that would mean Shane was a male prostitute." My mom says, " We almost chose a red border, but that would mean fisting. Brown would mean either scat or rimming, we couldn't figure which." Yellow," my father says, " means watersports." A lighter shade of blue," Mom says, " would mean just regular oral sex." Regular white," my father says, " would mean anal. White could also mean Shane was excited by men wearing underwear." He says, " I can't remember which." My mother passes me the quilted chicken with the rolls still warm inside.We're supposed to sit and eat with Shane dead all over the table in front of us.Finally we just gave up," my mom says, " and I made a nice tablecloth out of the material." Between the yams and the stuffing, Dad looks down at his plate and says, " Do you know about rimming?" I know it isn't table talk.And fisting?" my mom asks.I say, I know. I don't mention Manus and his vocational porno magazines.We sit there, all of us around a blue shroud with the turkey more like a big dead baked animal than ever, the stuffing chock full of organs you can still recognize, the heart and gizzard and liver, the gravy thick with cooked fat and blood. The flower centerpiece could be a casket spray.Would you pass the butter, please?" my mother says. To my father she says, " Do you know what felching is? "
18
" A plain, brown paper-wrapped package came in the mail recently. Upon opening it, I saw that it was a patchwork quilt about four feet by five feet. Many little scraps of cloth, carefully joined by loving hands. Two squares have suggestions of a black cassock and Roman white collar. The maker of the quilt states, “In its variety, I feel it denotes confusion and the world “mixed” up. There are dark spots for the dark times and bright squares, so, hopefully, some good and brightness will come in the future. The other pieces of cloth were of happy times, mothers and children, peaceful settings, happy things.” A note inside stated that she felt we were “scraps,”—the “scraps” that the abusive priests treated us like. They would use us as a scrap is used and then simply toss us aside. I was moved to tears. Holding it in my hands, I could almost feel others' pain and suffering, as I touched each panel. It is a magnificent work, worthy of a prize. I was deeply humbled by the receipt of the quilt. This woman got it; she really got it. This woman got it; she really got it. She has a deeper understanding of what we have gone through. It is rare. "
― , In the Shadow of the Cross