The Day the Virgin Mary Appeared on My Cafeteria Wall was first published in the Blue Ridge Anthology:  Poetry and Prose of Central Virginia Writers, 2010.

THE DAY THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED ON MY CAFETERIA WALL

The Year of Our Lord 1964

            So, there were these two kids–twins–Donnie and Donna Donnatto.  Can you believe that?  Actually, he was called Little Donnie because his father was known as Big Donnie.  Somebody told me their mother was named LaDonna, but I don’t know that for sure.

            Anyway, one day me and Donna and Little Donnie are sitting in our assigned seats at a green Formica table in our junior high cafeteria.  The song “It’s A Small World After All…..” is playing over the P.A. system for the second time in twenty minutes.  Mostly, the teachers pick different kinds of music to torture us with, but every once in a while, some student sneaks into the office and slips his own record onto the player.  This, of course, is a federal offence, punishable by washing off lunch tables for a week.

            Donna, who is a pee-pure Catholic, says to me, “You wanna see a miracle?”

            The brother Donnie chimes in.  “Don’t show her for free.  Make her pay sumfin.  You hadda pay.”

            While Donna talks, I’m sitting there picking apart my warm bologna sandwich, trying to separate the wilted lettuce from the soggy bread.  I get meat in my lunch once a week, on Fridays.  Of course, Catholics aren’t supposed to eat meat on Fridays.  Sending bologna in on Fridays is Ma’s way of thumbing her nose at the Catholic Church.  She still moans about them nuns cracking rulers on her knuckles.  My mother, I’ll have to admit, she is not all sweetness and light, especially when it comes to the Church.  This week the bologna looks green and smells like wet boots.

            “I’ll trade you this here sandwich.”  I offer.  Better Donna should get ptomaine poisoning than me.

            Donna says “No way.  It ain’t a natural bologna color.  Besides, it’s Friday.  I’m not gonna risk hell for nasty sangwidge meat.”  

            But Donnie, who could eat three times his weight in a day and doesn’t care a bit about the torments of hell because he ain’t capable of thinking that far ahead, he says, “Yeah.  I’ll take it.  Show her the miracle.”

            Well, Donna pulls out her ratty old alligator purse, a hand-me-down from her ratty old grandmother in St. Petersburg, Florida.  She unsnaps the latch, the latch being a real baby alligator’s head with one glass green eye missing.  Dramatically, she pulls out a beige card with lots of blue splotches on it.

            “That is the miracle?  Gimme my sandwich back.”  I reach across the table to Donnie.

Of course, by this time Little Donnie has already eaten most of the sandwich using his revolting method which I have to look at every school day of my miserable life.

            Donnie, he folds his sandwich in two, squishes it hard, so’s it’s flattened.  Then, he chomps off one whole half and shoves it into his mouth with the pinkie of his sandwich-holding hand.  Next, he swallows, swallows hard.

            You can watch the blob go down his long hairy throat like a fat mouse sliding through the belly of a skinny snake.  Then, the creep finishes off the second half in one slow gulp.

            Donnie says to me, “You serious?  You want your sangwidge back?”  He opens his mouth and sticks his finger down as far as it will go.

            I tell Donna, “Okay. Okay. Show me your crummy miracle.  Make it quick.  We got five minutes before fourth period.”

            Too cool to be rushed, Donna tells me a big story about how she bought this card off a foreign priest for twenty-five cents.  She says, “He was from Guantannamero or some place down there where they cut off missionary heads and put ’em on sharp sticks. Sometimes, the heads don’t even stop talking for a couple minutes.”

            “Like chickens.  I seen chickens do that.”  Donnie pipes up.  “Not the talking part, though.”

            Finally, Donna hands me the card.  “This is what you gotta do.  Stare at the card for sixty seconds.  Think pure thoughts.  I’ll time you.  Then, look up.  Pouf!  The Virgin Mary appears on the wall holding the baby Jesus.”

            “So what?”

            “Stupid. Then ,you pray.  You should ask for a small nose and no pimples.”

            “If it works so good, why haven’t you asked for a working brain and a decent pair of boobs?”

            Donna acts hurt and puts her hand out to take the card back.  “You wanna try or not?”

            “Okay.”  I look at the card while Donna times me with her Peter Pan watch. 

            I try to think of a wish.  How about that Donnie would choke on his next sandwich?  Or maybe that Donna’s purse would come to life and bite off her chin?

            I am tempted to wish for more ten more wishes, but I know there must be some rule against that.  Catholics have a rule for everything.   

            Donna pokes her face in mine.  “Time’s almost up.  Got your wish ready?  It don’t work if you’re not thinking of something.”

            My mind goes blank.  I wind up asking for more excitement in my dull, crummy life.  I leave it up to the Great Wish-Giver in the Sky to figure out the details.

            A shrill screech comes across the loudspeaker.  Then, the opening lines of “Louie, Louie” blare into the lunchroom. Kids turn over chairs and start to dance.

            Donna yells “Sixty seconds.  Sixty seconds.  It’s over.”   I look up at our chipped puke-yellow cinder block wall.

     Sure enough, she shows up:  the Virgin Mary–in red.  I don’t get to gaze at it for very long because somebody yells “FOOD FIGHT!” and kids start throwing half-eaten apples, Ring Dings, and sandwich parts. 

            Donnie stuffs a banana peel down the back of Donna’s blouse.  She swats him in the head with her alligator purse.  

I smile, duck for cover under a table, and think to myself, “There is a God.”