Jerusalem Syndrome - Marc Maron [3]
Esther told us about her father, the pioneer, the westward expansion, and the construction of the railroad. Listening to Esther was like listening to a crumbling mountain or an emphysemic tree talk about what it had seen. Every so often her husband, a tall, quiet American Indian who always seemed to be wearing a jumpsuit, would come in and empty her ashtray. One day, after the stories, Esther pulled a box off the shelf, opened it, and took out two Liberty dollars from the 1800s. She gave one to my brother and one to me and then sent us home with some stew, a personal account of America’s secret history, and the knowledge that God was in charge of death, destruction, and the weather.
My friend Chris, who had a cleft palate and no other friends, was my first partner in adventure. We set out after school on a Friday with our lunchpails and some paintings we had done in art class. We walked along the inlet over mounds of rubble that had been plowed there after the great earthquake of ’64. We found tiles, shattered doorframes, and a fork, the residual artifacts of God’s teachings. We lost track of the time and just kept walking until there was no more rubble, just a flat, barren dune that led up to a bridge that spanned the mouth of the inlet. There were a group of long-haired teenagers below the bridge cooking hot dogs on sticks over a campfire. How strange it must have been for them to see two seven-year-olds walk up out of nowhere with lunchboxes and artwork. They gave us each a stick and a wienie and told us to put the fire out when we were done. We watched them walk away and we ate the best hot dogs we had ever tasted. They were the hot dogs of freedom.
Chris and I were alone in the wilderness, and the sun was setting. We peed on the fire and walked up onto the bridge. It was a railroad bridge, and beyond it was nothing but water covered by a blanket of boulder-size chunks of ice for miles. We stood there looking for whales.
The sky was gray and the air was skin-stinging cold. I could feel the expanse of the land and water in my mind and the weight of being so close to the top of the world. The pressure of a magnetic pole and the axis of the planet pulled me open into that gray and it became a peaceful backdrop, an open-ended tone humming mystical and spiritual possibilities. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and then, through his nose, Chris said, “We are in so much trouble.”
We were in trouble, but to this day that Gray comes over me. It is an inner retreat that opens when the fragments of memory of every second of my life contract together in those flashes of eternity triggered by a smell or a sound or another person or just a moment when the doors of the train open into the air. It usually happens on crisp fall days at the onset of winter. There is a dull burst in my chest, a fleeting wholeness that fills me, and I am transported to the top of the world, where I stand alone and become the only connection between sky and Earth in a private audience with the idea of God.
The morning we were jolted awake by the house shaking, my father ran into our room and pulled my brother and me out of our bunk beds and into the cold morning air. Craig and I were in our pajamas. My dad was in his underwear and my mom was in her nightie. We all stood beneath the front doorframe. My father insisted that it was the safest place to be while the plates of the Earth shifted below us. Everything in my line of vision shook to the deep rumble. It was only a tremor, and no one was hurt. It was scary and awe-inspiring to feel completely out of control while God showed off.
I wasn’t convinced that doorframes were safe. You should be in or out.
We were far from New Jersey, and going back to visit was