an auger through the fog, leaving a temporary tunnel in the churning
mist behind me.
Orson had no interest in the spoor of squirrels. He was as eager as I
was to put distance between us and St. Bernadette’s.
We had gone several blocks before I began to realize that escape wasn’t
possible. The inevitable dawn restricted me to the boundaries of
Moonlight Bay, and the madness in St. Bernadette’s rectory was to be
found in every corner of the town.
More to the point, I was trying to run away from a threat that could
never be escaped even if I could fly to the most remote island or
mountaintop in the world. Wherever I went, I would carry with me the
thing that I feared: the need to know. I wasn’t frightened merely of
the answers that I might receive when I asked questions about my
mother.
More fundamentally I was afraid of the questions themselves, because
the very nature of them, whether they were eventually answered or not,
would change my life forever.
From a bench in the park at the corner of Palm Street and Grace Drive,
Orson and I studied a sculpture of a steel scimitar balanced on a pair
of tumbling dice carved from white marble, which were in turn balanced
on a highly polished representation of Earth hewn from blue marble,
which itself was perched upon a large mound of bronze cast to resemble
a pile of dog poop.
This work of art has stood at the center of the park, surrounded by a
gently bubbling fountain, for about three years.
We’ve sat here many nights, pondering the meaning of this creation,
intrigued and edified and challenged-but not particularly
enlightened-by it.
Initially we believed that the meaning was clear. The scimitar
represents war or death. The tumbling dice represent fate. The blue
marble sphere, which is Earth, is a symbol of our lives. Put it all
together, and You have a statement about the human condition: We live
or die according to the whims of fate, our lives on this world ruled by
cold chance. The bronze dog poop at the bottom is a minimalist
repetition of the same theme: Life is shit.
Many learned analyses have followed the first. The scimitar, for
example, might not be a scimitar at all; it might be a crescent moon.
The dice-like forms might be sugar cubes. The blue sphere might not be
our nurturing planet-merely a bowling ball. What the various forms
symbolize can be interpreted in a virtually infinite number of ways,
although it is impossible to conceive of the bronze casting as anything
but dog poop.
Seen as a moon, sugar cubes, and a bowling ball, this masterwork may be
warning that our highest aspirations (reaching for the moon) cannot be
achieved if we punish our bodies and agitate our minds by eating too
many sweets or if we sustain lower-back injury by trying too hard to
torque the ball when we’re desperate to pick up a seven-ten split. The
bronze dog poop, therefore, reveals to us the ultimate consequences of
a bad diet combined with obsessive bowling: Life is shit.
Four benches are placed around the broad walkway that encircles the
fountain in which the sculpture stands. We have viewed the piece from
every perspective.
The park lamps are on a timer, and they are all extinguished at
midnight to conserve city funds. The fountain stops bubbling as
well.
The gently splashing water is conducive to meditation, and we wish that
it spritzed all night; although even if I were not an XPer, we would
prefer no lamplight. Ambient light is not only sufficient but ideal
for the study of this sculpture, and a good thick fog can add
immeasurably to your appreciation of the artist’s vision.
Prior to the erection of this monument, a simple bronze statue of
Junipero Serra stood on the plinth at the center of the fountain for
over a hundred years. He was a Spanish missionary to the Indians of
California, two and a half centuries ago: the man who established the
network of missions that are now landmark buildings, public treasures,
and magnets for history-minded tourists.
Bobby’s parents and a group of like-minded citizens had formed a