Sinners as Saints

"We met at a concert, you were wearin' converse, I'm not good at playin' it cool," Odie sang. She leaned over the high chair Sully sat in. Iration's 'Falling' played over the noise of midday traffic. It was February. In a few months time, Odie would have to face waking him up and taking him to Head Start.

Mesmerized, pale blue eyes followed his mother. When she smiled, he smiled. A mischievous grin played on his pink lips. "You said I was funny, I spent all my money, then your friend got thrown in the pool," she continued. Odie took Sully's hands and swayed with the breeze or the beat. "Sing it with me, Sully!"

"When we said goodbye, know that I can't lie, I never thought I'd see you uhh-gain!" He shouted. Sully's head lulled in time with hers, akin to that of a cobra's trance.

"That was our mistake an', now my heart is taken, it's to hard to comprehend...," she continued. Odie kissed Sully's cheek and lifted him out of his chair. He let out a wild howl of laughter, her fingers tickling his belly. "That I'm fallin!"

They spun around in front of Bleeding Heart Tattoo in Huntington Beach, California. Odie had put away everything she could, but she needed some nature of certification. She didn't want to be a stripper forever. It didn't bring her shame - she did the best she could with what she had.

There was no night too long, no day too strenuous, no setback too large. Not anymore. There was something magical and disastrous about having kids young - the possibilities were endless.

Hopin' that you feel this way, too... Odie knew she wouldn't be here forever. She was an inch from ending her apprenticeship as a piercer to be professional. She'd managed to get a good enough job to pay for it. That was the only thing her money went to anymore, apart from everything she could get Sully. It wasn't a lot. But it would do.

He sighed, his arms around her neck. Sully was almost getting too big to lift; a few years yet, he'd be growing more and more, until he towered over her. His father was 6' 7", so he was going to be a sentient lamp post regardless of the fact that she stood at a measly 5' 2".

Today was special. A year into the apprenticeship, sniffing salty sea water air, standing in the sun. Odie was going to get to do a battery of partially unsupervised piercings. That was, of course, if anyone wanted to get any done. Synthetic skin flaps had lost their magic as of late.

Bleeding Heart stood between several stores. Many akin to music, art, crafts. Stores such as Hobby Lobby, Michael's, Johanna's. Pop up art galleries smashed in there, too.

"Why don't you just stay little forever, Sull? Let's just stay here in the sun and sing. Sound good?"

Sully nestled into the crook of her neck, fingers pulling at the holes in the back of her white shirt. His little nails made her take a sharp breath. "Okay, ma, I can live with that."

Odie giggled. "You're such a character, 'I can live with that.'"

"Badamna," Sully said.

"Badamna, right, bub," Odie said, putting him in his chair. It was on the other side of the front door. A glass table and a plastic chair was across from it. "What do you say?"

"Please, buuuuhdamna, ma!" Sully replied.

Her lips pulled a V shape as she reached into the purse on the table. She pulled out the fruit and peeled the brown off it, pulling it apart. She gave him the pieces.

Sully picked up a piece and inspected it before putting it to his mouth. He nibbled here and there. Kept the piece between his lips while he tapped the tray and watched people.

Odie took her long bottle blonde hair out of the Leia buns on either side of her head. She smoothed down her bangs and wriggled the knots out of her hair. It fell past her shoulders; she slipped a beanie on and lit a cigarette.

She pulled a pair of scissors out of her purse and halved the filter. She took a drag, and switched the song: 'In Your Eyes,' by the Tribal Seeds.

"In your smile, makes me stay a while," she sang under her breath, exhaling grey. "In your eyes, has me hyp - no - tized..."

Across the way was a coffee shop. She had only a few minutes left to let Sully eat, to finish her smoke.

While Odie considered coffee, Barb Sullivan made her way down the sidewalk.

Barb developed a habit of counting the days. Her son would've been thirty-eight this month. Jimmy had said once or twice that he wouldn't make it to thirty. But it didn't mean anything.

No parents would dare accept that their son had known of his demise before he'd even begun.

Nine years, one month, five days. She didn't fetter the minutes, or the seconds. At the rate it already was, it's been worlds since she last saw him. Her cells had long since lived and died. Barb Sullivan was a completely different person even down to the cellular level.

She took a breath, some feet away from a little boy in a high chair. A young woman smoked her cigarette. There was determination, thoughtless, as the young woman watched a coffee shop.

What was I here for? Barb's thoughts were a little foggy. That's the way it was when she had a moment of bitter longing. Of course, she took that breath. She reminded herself that she still had Katie, Kelly, and Joe.

And yet, there were 3,323 days between the last time she spoke to Jimmy and now. So many to go. Only God knew. But she had to believe. One day, she'd see him again. Wherever that was.

Her faith faltered, but never her faith in her son.

Left, right, left, right, she took those steps forward. She couldn't meet eyes with the boy as she passed. But just as she did, the boy let out one howl of a word.



Barb jumped, hit by lightning. She turned.

Odie jumped up, dropping her cigarette on the ground. "James!" She exclaimed. Her chest rose and fell quickly. "You know you're not supposed to do that, scarin' people and junk!"

Sully's arms stretched, his hands grabbing at the air. Odie strode toward him and plucked him from the chair, bouncing him as she went.

"W-what's his name?" Barb stuttered. Her eyes were wide with grief and terror, diluted only by the natural affection mothers had toward young children.

"Which one?" Odie laughed. She flushed. In love with him again. "He's got a few."

"You - he - you called him James," Barb said. She swallowed something like glass.

"Ah, yeah - James Owen. Jimmy O. Jim. But I call him Sully, y'know, 'cause he's got this onesie he's grown out of. He still likes to sleep in it, even though it's too short for him. Looks like the big blue monster guy from Monsters, Inc," Odie answered. Eyes glued to him, the boy's gaze geared toward the other woman. "Ma's little monster, huh?"

Sully nodded absently.

Barb's mouth curved into a wobbling smile. "My son's name was James," she breathed. "James Owen, too."

"Well, I'll be," Odie grinned. "Don't suppose he stayed half as little though, huh?" She rubbed Sully's back with one hand before finding Barb's eyes.

She smiled. Solid. "No," Barb answered. "They don't stay that way. But... I think even though you'll miss this stage of his life, you'll love what he becomes. Even if it's not what you imagined."

Sully waved a hand at the older woman. Come hither. Barb didn't know how close she wanted to get to him. The closer she got, the more she picked out the details of his face, the more her heart dropped.

"I think... I think he's wanting you to pick him up," Odie said. One couldn't always tell with Sully. But he nodded, head bobbing wild.

Tingling. Every shred of Barb's being tingled at the mere thought. "I don't mind," she answered. Soft. Warm. Far, far away. At that moment, she couldn't see Jimmy ever having been that small. He'd always been large in spirit.

Odie eased her son into Barb's arms. Her own arms crossed. Empty. There was no one hold, nothing to do but watch.

Of course others had held Sully before. Never before though, unless it was Odie, had he paid so much attention.

Sully played in Barb's hair, his fingers getting lost in the thick curls shading her face. Then, a hand curled against her chest. Once more, the hand not around her shoulder smoothed circles against her cheek. An uncharacteristic knowing in his eyes. A gentle grin. He leaned into her hair, nose tickled. "I told ya I'd be back!" he whispered. The words sewn up tight with a maniacal fit of laughter.

Barb tightened her arm around his back. She tightened as if ice had slipped down the back of her shirt. A sound erupted from her. Half a laugh, half a shrill cry. She rubbed his back, though she moved to hand him back to Odie. "It was a pleasure meeting you," Barb said. She forced herself to maintain some semblance of calm. "And... Sully."

Odie grabbed her son back, looking between them both. "Oh my," she said. "What did he say? Hey! Did he say something bad?"

Already headed back to her car, Barb shook her head and waved back at them both. Once back to her vehicle, her face was sweaty and red, her heart pumping like she'd just ran a marathon.

"Call One Joe on Cell," Barb commanded once she'd awoken the car from its slumber.

"Calling One Joe on Cell," the robot voice replied. Ringing.

Barb put the A/C on high and pulled out of her parking space. Ringing.

She passed Bleeding Heart. Ringing.

Blurred vision at the stop sign. "Good afternoon," Joe answered.

When she tried to speak, nothing but heaving breaths would come.

"Honey?"

Barb forced her eyes to dry with a sleeve. "Joe!" Sharp intake of air. "You remember that dream I had about Jimmy?"

A pause. "The one you had where he said he was coming back?"

"Yeah!"

"Whatta 'bout it?"

"I just met... I was, oh crap. I forgot art supplies. Anyway, I'm driving out of Coral Square and... There was a young lady with her son in front of the tattoo shop."

"Okay...?"

"It's Jimmy," Barb chuckled. Melancholic. "He - he's back, Joe. And he looks just like he did, maybe darker haired, but. I know. I know it's him, Joe."

"How so?"

"This little boy. He came right for me. He leaned up in my ear an' said, 'I told you I'd come back.' It's no coincidence!" Two things occurred to Barb as she took the ramp onto the highway. First, that she was instinctively driving to Good Shepherd Cemetery. Second, she hadn't even asked his mother's name. "Well - darnit. I didn't ask his mother for her name, card, or anything. So I'm gonna come back at some point and see if I can't get her information."

"I don't really know if that proves that it's him, honey," Joe said. "Why would God take him away just to give him back?"

Barb shrugged. "He and Jimmy have that in common. Working in mysterious ways."

Back at Bleeding Heart, Odie eyed her son seriously. "You didn't say anything to make that poor woman run off?"

Sully shook his head, looking off at the traffic in the distance. It ran perpendicular to the shops. "Memaw'll be back," he said.

"Memaw?"

Sully grinned. The fire in his eyes. "Not my mama this time."

Odie's lips formed a tight O as she joined him in watching the traffic. A whistle of air to the wind. "Alright, kid."

He shifted in her arms, pulling back. "You know why I picked you, ma?"

Odie's lips parted, a sound like cuh hit the breeze. "You couldn't'a chose me, punk. I wanted you so I kept you."

"But I did," Sully retorted. "I saw all the mamas I could've had and I chose the one that would understand." Abrupt, the way he sounded much older than he was. "I sat in front of a mirror to the world and I saw you."

She bounced him back up her hip and looked up to the great wide open blue. "All the mamas in the world and you chose me, huh," she said.

"Yeah!"

"I see how it is, Sull. But riddle me this," Odie said. Her voice soft. Eyes watching him from the corners. "Why me, and not someone who was already in Huntington?"

Sully shrugged. "I do what I want."

Odie smiled. "Uh huh, bub. You think that. Remember who done borned your wild ass," she said in her exaggerated hick accent.