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    St. Luis of Palmyra
    St. Luis of Palmyra
    St. Luis of Palmyra
    Ebook30 pages25 minutes

    St. Luis of Palmyra

    By Barb Johnson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The lives of four unlikely friends intersect on the backstreets of New Orleans. Living amid poverty and violence, these fragile heroes of the American underclass redefine our notions of family, redemption, and love.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 20, 2009
    ISBN9780061966491
    St. Luis of Palmyra
    Author

    Barb Johnson

    Barb Johnson has been a carpenter in New Orleans for more than twenty years. In 2008 she received her MFA from the University of New Orleans. While there, she won a grant from the Astraea Foundation, Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, and Washington Square's short story competition. She is the fifth recipient of AROHO's $50,000 Gift of Freedom. This is her first collection.

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      Book preview

      St. Luis of Palmyra - Barb Johnson

      St. Luis of Palmyra

      Short Story

      Barb Johnson

      For Virginia Sonnier

      And for Mid-City—

      heart of New Orleans,

      heart of my heart

      Contents

      Begin Reading

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Praise

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      St. Luis of Palmyra

      Luis eases down the hall to where his mama’s door is still closed. She’s been crashed in her room since he got home from school. The Krewe of Idiots—that’s what Luis calls Junior and his friends—are laid out all around the living room. Junior Palacios is his mama’s boyfriend, and he doesn’t go anywhere without the Idiots, a group of grown men whose only job in life is to follow Junior around and do whatever he says.

      In the hallway, Luis stretches up on tiptoe, watches the living room through a fist-sized hole in the hall door. The Idiots are running their mouths about what all they’re fixing to do. Big talk about whose car might be just about to disappear and who shouldn’t sit on his porch unless he’s looking to take the big nap. What they actually do is, the skinny ones fire up some meth and the fat ones smoke a joint. And then everybody’s like, Put it on America’s Most Wanted! And: Gimme the remote, boy! And: Boy? Boy? Go home and tell your mama you got beat up by a boy! All the yelling cracks Luis up. It seems like everyone would know by now that the remote has to sit on top of Junior’s big fat stomach. If you want to watch TV, you’re gonna watch what Junior wants to watch. Why argue? But the Idiots always do. That’s what makes them Idiots.

      Deysi, you can get your own ass up, Junior yells to Luis’s mama, or I can come in there and get it up for you. You been home all day and we got jack to eat!

      Luis could point out that Junior ain’t been about much today, either, but when he gets in the middle of that kind of stuff,

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