A Saint Named Jerome: a short story
He’s seated at his desk when it happened. The last bell for school rings and everyone gets up to go home for the weekend, everyone besides him. He’s reading a note that he found in his locker earlier today, “573 Linden Road. 7pm. Sunday”. That’s it. No name, no familiar handwriting, nothing. Just an address and time. “Should I do it?” He thought to himself but snapped back into reality when the teacher approaches with a concerned look. “Unless you want to spend your weekend alone in these halls, you best get a move on honey.”
Walking down the alleyway to his home, he stops at the neighborhood corner store to get three things: Lays Barbecue chips, Butterfingers bar, and tall garbage bags. Opening the butterfingers as he exits the store, he sees someone camped outside the store. “They weren’t there when I got here” he says silently and proceeds on his way. “Hey kid, anything?” As the woman holds out a cup. The teenager fishes out the change he had left over and drops it in, 35cents.
By the time he reaches home, two younger girls are practicing a dance routine on the front lawn. One in all red and the other in all pink, ponytails with coordinating balls at the base and ends. They pause the music as he enters the gate, “what took you so long?” The girl in red asks. He throws the bag of barbecue chips at her and keeps walking into the house. The girls squeal as they open the chips and begin to chow down on their afterschool snack.
The smell of the house hit him as soon as he opened the door, smoked ham, turkey, greens, Mac and cheese and of course, yams. Usually he’d be surprised to find his mother is cooking on a Friday, but she makes special arrangements for birthdays. His is today. “My favorite birthday boy is home!” She says as she wraps her flour covered arms around him. When they pull away he pulls the garbage bags out of his backpack. “I remember you said we were running low”. She looks at her son endearingly as he heads up to his room.
As everyone from the neighborhood leaves the birthday party, there’s a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He can’t shake that note that he got earlier today. He asked his friends about it at the party but they denied having any association, “it might be from that girl during Homecoming, she might still be digging you”. He weeded her out since she stopped responding to his texts a week after that same homecoming. “You turn 18 and want to be Indiana Jones, take one of us with you at least” his friends insisted. “I probably wont go” he kept telling himself.
As Sunday rolls around, all he could think about was the note. His dad told him that he wanted to go somewhere after church so that made him a little anxious. Pressing hard for time, he faked a stomach ache in order to go back home. He waited for his parents to go on their evening walk before he slipped out the house, luckily his sister was preoccupied with her Barbie switch game to notice anything.
Approaching 573 Linden Road, he stops in his tracks when he spots a singular white ballon floating in the yard of an abandoned church. It’s a late spring evening, the street lights are his only source of light. Walking up to the entrance he hears whispers but it turns into complete silence when he opens the door. Thats when he sees it. A shrine with his picture, candles lit around it with a banner that reads “Welcome Home, Saint Jerome”.
prguitarman
germansingergirl
discoholicmusic
2087
jimmyeatworldofficial
