A Sad Soul Can Kill You

by Catherine Flowers

  Little by little, Homer returned to his online obsession where neither his persona nor his existence required an explanation. But it didn’t stop there. As his wife’s dissatisfaction grew, Homer’s fixation with his neighbor and her daughter began to intensify.

  He surveyed the parking lot from behind the dark sunglasses he had on. The weeds sprouting up through the many cracks in the pavement were an indication of how long the restaurant in the center of the city had been closed.

  The building had housed several different establishments over a period of five decades; from a mom-and-pop diner when he was a child to countless fast-food burger joints that migrated into various soul food restaurants to its last reinvention which was now defunct. Now, the mortar and brick building stood abandoned, and had been for quite some time, its windows boarded up.

  Homer ran his fingers through the few strands of hair remaining on the top of his head. He looked up at the sign perched on top of the building’s roof. It was a faded remnant of what used to be.

  His attention was drawn to the city bus pulling up to its stop. Three teenage boys got off, and then the bus drove away. He looked at his watch and sighed. It was 2:20 p.m. Ten minutes passed before Homer saw the white top of the city bus approaching with its flashing LED letters. At the same time, his laptop lying on the passenger seat next to him beeped, indicating he had an e-mail message. He clicked on the mail link, and saw it was a delayed message from his fresh catch. Apparently, she’d uploaded a picture of herself after all.

  “Hi” she wrote, “Here’s my pic.”

  He clicked on the attachment and waited for the picture to download. He saw the light brown hair and recognized the cherry coloring on the tips of the bangs. Well, well, well. He chuckled. So that’s who the little fish is.

  His humor was short-lived when he looked up and noticed a brown Pontiac trailing two cars behind the city bus. His heartbeat increased as he looked at the front bumper held down with bungee cords. Surely there’s more than one brown Pontiac with a loose front bumper in this city . . .

  The computer stalled right at the bottom of her bangs, and his hands grew sweaty as he rolled his finger around the mouse pad, desperate to confirm her face. The screeching brakes of the bus startled him, and he looked up again. His heart was beating wildly as he searched for the Pontiac which had gotten caught by the red traffic light at the intersection.

  The bus came to a stop, and Homer saw Serenity get off. Only her brown bangs that were dyed red on the ends were visible underneath her Hello Kitty hat. He slouched down in his seat and watched as she looked up and down the street, and then suddenly removed her Hello Kitty hat.

  He continued watching her as she merged into the crowd of other people who had gotten off the bus, and quickly walked in the opposite direction of where his car was parked. Homer remained in his slouched position until Serenity—and the brown Pontiac—had disappeared.

  He slowly returned to an upright position, wondering if it was just a coincidence that Tony and Shari happened to be driving down that particular street at 2:30 in the afternoon. He pulled out his cell phone. He’d missed the little fish this time, but what one won’t do another one will, he thought.

  He pressed *67 before dialing Tia’s number.

  “Hello?” she answered with a hint of caution.

  Homer got straight to the point. “Why haven’t you returned my calls?” he asked.

  “Homer, this is not the time,” she said. “I’m on my way to work.”

  He ignored the irritation in her voice. “Are you so busy that you can’t take five minutes out of your day and pick up the phone?”

  “Yes,” she said as she sat in her car in the hospital’s parking structure.

  “Can I see you tonight?” he asked. “I can give you one of my massages to relax you.”

  Tia sighed heavily. “No, you can’t see me tonight, Homer. Or any other night. I’m going to need you to stop calling me.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said as his words spewed from his mouth with a moderate amount of speed. “Let me make it easy for you, then. I won’t call you anymore, and you don’t have to worry about calling me any—”

  “I haven’t,” she interrupted.

  “That’s right,” he said. “But you could have at least returned my calls. When were you going to anyway?”

  Tia switched the phone to her other ear. “Homer, I told you what happened was a mistake.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to need you to stop calling me, now. I mean it.”

  “That’s not what I asked you,” he said dryly.

  “But that’s what I’m telling you.” She began to feel uncomfortable. “I’m going to let you go, now.”

  Homer laughed sarcastically. “You already have, haven’t you?” He cleared his throat. “If you don’t want me, all you have to do is let me know.”

  Tia looked at her phone in astonishment. She didn’t have time for this. Hadn’t she made it clear that he would have to stop calling her? She knew what he wanted, the only thing he wanted, and her conscience would not allow her to cheat on her husband a second time. “I don’t want you,” she said firmly.

  “The problem is,” he said with a mixture of anger and urgency in his voice, “I still want you.”

  For just a few seconds Tia felt sorry for him. She knew what it felt like to want someone who didn’t want you. But she was a married woman, and she’d had no business dealing with him—a married man—in the first place. Why hadn’t she considered his wife and how she would have felt had she known her husband was cheating on her?

  “This should have never happened,” Tia said. “I have to go.” And she disconnected the call before he had a chance to reply.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Lorenzo sat on the couch floating in and out of consciousness. The tiny Ziploc bag lay empty on the floor at his feet.

  “Suicide is not the answer,” the elderly woman on the local Christian channel said. “God, through Jesus Christ, made a way for you to surrender your heavy load. All of your burdens. Not some of your burdens,” she emphasized as she stretched her arms out wide. “All of them to Jesus.”

  Lorenzo kept listening.

  “Jesus,” she continued, “said, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest . . . ’”

  Lorenzo’s thoughts were muddled, but his heart could still feel the heavy weight of his pain, the burden that had first come to visit him shortly after the incident happened when he was eleven years old.

  Although he’d been too young to give it a name, he knew it had left him with an unpleasant feeling, one that he could not clearly communicate to anyone. The pain had left him for a while but later returned, and then made regular visits throughout his teen years. When he became an adult, the pain took up permanent residency in his soul.

  “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God” the woman asked, “and that He died on the cross for your sins?” She pointed her finger at the camera, and through his blurred vision, Lorenzo thought she was pointing directly at him.

  “We’re all sinners in need of forgiveness and change,” she continued. “Can you admit that you’re a sinner? Are you in need of change?” Her voice got stronger. “Do you want to be forgiven?

  “Accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior.” She was almost yelling. “Surrender yourself to Him,” she said. “Ask Jesus to come into your life and take control of your heart. Ask Him,” she pleaded, and her voice became soft again. “He will if you ask Him to.”

  Soft music began playing in the background, and Lorenzo thought it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

  The woman lowered her voice. “Ask Jesus to come into your heart,” she whispered. “Let Him take over and give you the rest and the peace you can’t find anywhere else. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. It doesn’t matter what your pain is. He can heal you. Surrender to Him and be healed. Surrender to Jesus and be set free!”

  Lorenzo’s level of cons
ciousness was fading. “Help me, Jesus!” he cried out.

  “And remember,” the elderly lady added with optimism, “John 8:36 says, ‘So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.’ Amen!”

  “Amen,” Lorenzo mumbled.

  “This is God’s promise to you personally,” she said, “and God cannot lie. But,” she stared directly into the camera, “Satan can.”

  She encouraged everyone who had been watching or listening to the program to pick up the phone and dial the 1-800 phone number that she gave. She also pointed out that the number was visible on the bottom of the television screen.

  She said volunteers were waiting to talk and pray with people who were hurting, lost, and confused—people just like Lorenzo. In fact, Lorenzo thought he heard her say his name specifically, and he smiled.

  He opened his eyes to look at the television screen. He tried to read the phone number, but all he saw was one short, blurry line. He reached for his phone and accidentally knocked it to the floor.

  “Call now,” he heard her saying. “Jesus is waiting.” She read off the phone number again. Her voice sounded closer, louder, as it rose above the music playing in the background. He thought he heard a phone ringing. “Call now,” she said, “before it’s too late.”

  He bent down to pick up his phone.

  “Jesus is the answer,” she continued. “The only cure. He can do for you what that alcohol won’t do, that needle can’t do, and those pills you take will never do.”

  Lorenzo stood up quickly. How did she know he had taken all those pills? The room began spinning as he tried to focus on the numbers still showing on the television screen. He reached for the back of the couch in an effort to balance himself but fell sideways instead. His head bounced like an underinflated basketball as it made impact with the hardwood floor. Then he was still.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  It wasn’t until Serenity had made it around the corner that she slowed down. Disappointed that she hadn’t met Saucer, she wondered why Cookie’s next-door neighbor had been sitting in his car across the street from the empty parking lot.

  Now, she walked slowly home from the bus stop. She kept her head down as she carefully maneuvered her steps between the intermittent patches of ice on the sidewalk. Why was she such a failure? She couldn’t even walk down a simple path without tripping over her own feet.

  And no one seemed to care—not just about the failed audition but about her. She stepped over the cracks in the sidewalk. Her mother was too busy, and her father was too high. She thought Saucer had cared but even he hadn’t shown up.

  She reached in her pocket and pulled out her key as she walked up the pathway to her house. As soon as she opened the door, Catch came running up to her, but this time he didn’t wait for her to rub and pat his back. He paced around in a circle, then ran back and forth from the hallway to the living room.

  “Hey, Catch,” Serenity said taking off her Hello Kitty hat. “What’s wrong?” She followed him into the living room and immediately saw Lorenzo lying sideways on the floor.

  She bent down and gently shook his shoulder. “Daddy?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Daddy!” She pushed his shoulder harder, causing his entire body to shake.

  There was still no answer.

  Her eyes searched quickly for the house phone sitting on the corner table in the hallway. She picked it up and called the hospital where her mother worked. When the operator answered, she asked to be connected the fifth floor.

  “Victory Memorial, 5 West subacute unit. This is Stephanie. How can I help you?”

  “I need to speak to my mom,” Serenity blurted out.

  “And who is your mom?”

  “Tia Sparks!”

  Moments later Tia was on the phone.

  “Ma!” Serenity screamed. “There’s something wrong with Daddy. He’s lying on the floor, and I can’t wake him up!”

  “Wait,” Tia spoke firmly. “Serenity, calm down. What do you mean you can’t wake him up?”

  “He’s on the floor, and he won’t wake up!”

  “Is he breathing?”

  It was silent.

  “Serenity!”

  She was crying now. “I can’t tell!”

  “Call 9-1-1. No, wait. I’ll call them. You call Tony and Shari and tell them what happened!”

  “Okay.”

  Tia hung up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

  “9-1-1,” the operator answered. “What is your emergency?”

  “I’m calling from Victory Memorial Hospital. My daughter just called and told me my husband is unconscious on the floor at our home. The address is . . .”

  “What is your name, ma’am?”

  “Tia Sparks.”

  “And your husband’s name?”

  “Lorenzo.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “5325 Cooper Circle.”

  “I’m sending someone now, ma’am.”

  “Can you have them bring him to Victory Memorial?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” Tia’s hands were shaking as she hung up the phone.

  “What’s going on?” her colleague asked. She’d been standing close by and had heard Tia on the telephone.

  “My husband is hurt. They’re bringing him here. Can you cover for me? I’m gonna have to leave when he gets here.”

  “Sure.”

  Tia quickly went over her patients with the other nurse. She was thankful that everyone was stable and that there were no elaborate procedures needing to be done on any of them.

  “Thank you so much,” Tia said as she swiped her badge through the time clock and ran to the elevator.

  “No problem,” the nurse said. “You go and check on your husband.”

  Tia’s cell phone rang while she stood waiting for the metal elevator doors to open. It was Shari. “Hi, Shari. I’m on my way down to the ER now.”

  “The ER?” Shari repeated. “For what?”

  “Didn’t Serenity tell you?”

  Shari hesitated. “I haven’t talked to Serenity. We’re not at home. But I’ve been trying to call you for about twenty minutes. What happened?”

  “Lorenzo fell. Let me call you back,” Tia said and quickly disconnected the call.

  She dialed the number to her house. It rang five times before going to voice mail. “Serenity, where are you?” she yelled. “Pick up the phone!”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Serenity ran to Tony and Shari’s house almost falling several times on the patches of ice spread across the sidewalk. No one answered when she rang the doorbell so she made a beeline back to her house. The ambulance hadn’t gotten there yet, and she decided to turn around and run to the house next to Tony and Shari—Homer’s house. In a panic, she began pounding on his door.

  Homer opened the door slowly. “Hi, Serenity,” he said calmly. “Come in.”

  “No, Mr. Woodard,” she said breathing rapidly. Thick cylinders of smoke escaped from her mouth as she talked. “I was looking for the Wiles but they’re not home. My dad’s hurt and the ambulance is coming.”

  He looked down toward her house, and then scanned the cul-de-sac. “Come in and calm down,” he said feigning concern. “It’s freezing out here.” He touched her shoulder and stepped to the side. “I can take you to the hospital.”

  Serenity looked into his hazel eyes, then past the halfway open door. The foyer behind him was dark and uninviting, and something about the way he touched her shoulder made her feel uncomfortable.

  “I have to get back to the house,” she said backing down the steps.

  “Wait,” he reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her into the foyer just as the shrill sound of the ambulance neared the cul-de-sac.

  Serenity struggled to get away, but Homer’s grip was too tight. He pulled her farther into the foyer, and then slammed the front door closed.

  Tony saw the concerned look on Shari’s face as she ended her call with Tia.
“What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Lorenzo fell.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  Shari sighed. “Apparently so. Tia called the ambulance.”

  “How did she know he fell?”

  “I’m not sure. She must have talked to Serenity because she thought Serenity was with us.”

  Tony looked at her silently.

  Shari gave him a knowing look. After hearing about Lorenzo’s fall and the ambulance being called, Shari couldn’t bring herself to tell Tia about Serenity. She didn’t have the heart to tell her that the reason they weren’t at home was because they were out looking for her daughter who had made plans to meet a total stranger. Shari decided she would tell her once things settled down.

  Now, having been unsuccessful in their search for Serenity, Tony and Shari were just turning into the cul-de-sac when they saw the ambulance in front of Tia’s house. Tony pulled up next to the ambulance.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Looks like a fall,” one of the paramedics said as his partner helped him load Lorenzo into the back of the ambulance.

  “Is his daughter here?” Shari asked.

  “No one was home when we got here,” the paramedic said. He headed for the driver’s side of the vehicle. “The door was open when we arrived.”

  “Where is she?” Shari said looking at Tony.

  Tony rubbed his chin. “We’ll find her,” he said as the ambulance left the cul-de-sac with its siren blaring. “I’m sure she’s okay.” He tried to sound optimistic. He turned to look at Cookie in the backseat. “Where did they say they were going after they met?”

  Cookie’s eyes grew big as Tony looked at her. “I don’t know,” she said. Her posture remained rigid. “He just said something about a pizza restaurant that closed.”

  “And why didn’t you say something, Cookie?” Shari admonished her again. “You know better than that!”

  Cookie’s eyes became watery. “I don’t know.”