Connections Jan 2015 | Page 85

In the Spirit of Christmas
Copyright ©2014 Angie Blake

It was icy cold that Christmas Eve. Jerry frantically hurried home
from work to get dressed for the Christmas Eve bash they had at his
friend's house every year. He quickly got his shower, got dressed,
and finished gathering his Christmas presents together for his
adopted family. Dinner was ready at seven o'clock sharp and when
this family said seven o'clock sharp, they meant it.
Jerry drove across town doing ten miles per hour. He had to hurry
a little bit.
The winds were picking up a little outside and he knew it'd be
one heck of a drive home in the morning, but he wouldn't worry
about it now. He was going to see his family.
The roads started to look a little more familiar to him as he
squealed around the corner of his old high school and junior high.
He forgot, they referred to it as middle school now, but it'd always
be junior high to him.
He stopped the car for a minute and stared at the rusty old
structure they called school. It was a red, brick building with a bell
inside of it. Jerry remembered how the bell sounded each time it
rang before school started. Jerry would run to his class room and
try to be the first one seated and the last one to leave. It was easier
that way. He didn't get a lot of raf from the other kids.
Junior high and High school were such a hard time during Jerry's
life that he hated to even think about it. Everyone knows that when
you hit Junior high everyone had there own little cliques. There
were the preppies, jocks, stoners, nerds, loners and weirdos. Jerry
didn't have a clique at all. As a matter of fact, by the time he hit
Junior high he was labeled a loner.
It wasn't his fault, really. It was just the way things went down.
His mother and father did nothing but fight all the way through
Junior high and by the time he hit High school he didn't really care.
He rarely saw his father and his mother drank all the time. By the
time dinner time rolled around Jerry had the house cleaned and
Mom was passed out drunk on the couch, if she even made it that