There’s no real reason the boy decided to attend the church service. Normally he would do everything in his power to avoid churches or anything that had to do with religion. Perhaps it had to deal with the fact that it reminded him of just who and what he was. Or that he would feel like he had to do something. Whatever the reason, he was a little surprised when he found himself standing outside the building.
It seemed like the inside of an oven inside. Like they were about to be cooked and served up. He was surprised that no one complained or do anything to leave the hot building. He could have. He had no reason to stay there. But he stayed. He kept himself in the back, near the door, just in case his mind finally came back. Make him leave.
The sermon was an interesting one. Though to be quite fair, he hadn’t heard that many. It was probably the first time he had set foot inside a church sense he was a kid and his aunt and uncle made him go once. It seemed like a thing that you tortured yourself through. Couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, had to stay and pretend to listen of words you’ve probably heard over and over again. And he had thought school was unbearable.
When they were finally given the go to leave he stayed seated, watching as everyone turned and walked out of the oven into the slightly cooler area outside. Slightly.
When they were gone he finally decided to get up, stuffing a hand in his pockets he watched the preacher a moment before heading towards him. He had an interesting way of telling a story. Or sermon. He didn’t really care what it was. He didn’t know what he was doing their or why he had stuck around. He had just been wandering around town. Usually he had his guitar on him but he didn’t even have that. Left it all at his hotel. So he was walking over to him with nothing, probably still looking like a sore thumb compared to anyone else that had just been inside.
“I don’t really know.” It was an honest answer. He should be at the nearest bar, trying to find a place to work for a few days before moving on. And he was inside a church, wasting time. “But that’s the kind of thing you do, right? Help people figure things out?”
Anything remotely interesting went out the window the moment his guest opened his mouth. A lost stranger, probably both physically and mentally, he wandered into the sermon on accident, and unfortunate mistake. He asks for guidance and Jesse probably can’t offer him any-nothing of substance in the very least.
Still-he sighs and pats the paper in his breast pocket, moving around the wooden stage to come down to the man’s level. It was even hotter in the pews, how that was is completely inconeviable to him. This Texan weather was going to kill the young reverend.
“That’s right, son,” he says, a little smile off kilter on his lips, “That’s what I do. But I’m only half the problem solver-the other half has to come from you.” He guides him towards the door to the courtyard. There’s a group of small children playing in the dirt already, soiling their church clothes, dismal, dusty.
“I’ll confess, I’ve not seen you in here before,” Jesse admits, “New to the church or new to town?”
The preacher knows the answer, but he’s not going to say it for him.
