{"id":9163,"date":"2026-02-22T13:55:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T20:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=9163"},"modified":"2026-02-22T13:55:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T20:55:52","slug":"the-pope-of-paris-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=9163","title":{"rendered":"The Pope of Paris, Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tracy Morin<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could always feel when I was about to die. Like a lit sparkler in my chest. It had happened to me before, twice, but they always revived me. Narcan is a hell of an invention, but I was too old for this foolishness anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, I woke up alone. Hopped the highway from my hotel room, looking for the pope of Paris. Stuff he sold me wasn\u2019t right. I heard the pope lived over by the junk store but not where exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a day you get out the air conditioning and break a sweat right off. A hundred in the shade. Pulled over some country road, house with a trampoline in the front yard, man outside trimming hedges. His lady on the porch swing by the front door, cutoff jeans, meaty thighs browned and sweaty like hot dogs. For a second, they looked like the legs of my old lady, LaRhonda, but she been gone thirteen months now. I couldn\u2019t save her that last time. I couldn\u2019t make out the woman\u2019s face, but no way she could be as pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man clicked off the trimmer, walked to me with eyes slit, suspicious like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talked fast before he could think bad about me. \u201cY\u2019all know where I can find the pope?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man looked up the road like he might see some sign there tell him what to say. He wiped his face, then his pants. \u201cWell,\u201d the man said. \u201cNow. If you turn around, get yourself back on the highway going to town, make a left at that next sign up there\u2014gonna say business district\u2014that\u2019ll get you into Paris proper. Reckon you should find him around there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s \u2019bout close as I can get you. He like to be somewhere down that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man turned back to his hedges, trimmers roared up again. His woman waved bye to me, or maybe it was hello. A wasp landed on the outside mirror and I quick rolled up the window. Moved straight ahead down the street, U-turned in a gravel driveway, crunched and skidded away, back where I come from. Couldn\u2019t see the driveway\u2019s house where I turned, it was so far back from the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I passed where the man had stood, he wasn\u2019t nowhere to be seen, and the way the sun\u2019s angle hit his yard, I coulda sworn his hedges were all blazing fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Drove damn near an hour south down the highway, thinking of LaRhonda\u2019s glittery eyelids the last time I saw them flutter closed. Turned at the sign like the man told me, and \u2019bout a half mile down got to looking like Paris proper. Wasn\u2019t much\u2014little catfish place down at the railroad crossing, junk store with a cracked front window, a dusty old ice cream sign\u2014but the most action I seen for miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little kid, couldn\u2019t been more than ten years old, swung his legs off a bench outside the fish fry. He looked familiar to me, but sitting in the shade under the overhang, hard to tell. The sun bounced off my Caddy, bouncing a blade of light across his face as I passed. He held a brown paper bag, stared straight ahead, didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shook my head. \u201cMm. Young boy like that, drinking alcohol,\u201d I said to the dashboard. \u201cDamn shame.\u201d I tried to follow his shape in the rearview, but he was gone. The street swung open behind me like a barroom door, empty now. Ahead, a gray cat curled under a magnolia in the church yard, past the tracks. Cruised through the stop sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Sunday but no cars in the lot. I forgot my watch somewhere. Maybe church got out already. Parked in the lot, a mix of dry dirt, pebbles, green-yellow grass patches. Little white building: peeling paint, a few bent steps to the entrance, cross nailed over the doorway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I touched the door soft and it creaked open. Pope gotta be somewhere \u2019round here<\/em>, I told myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Inside the church smelled like burning paper and candle wax. One old lady in the third pew, alone, had an open songbook in her lap. Dressed in a royal blue suit, big-brim feathered hat, red lipstick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She turned to me. \u201cYou looking for the pope?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How she know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe gone,\u201d she said before I could answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took off my hat and sat across the aisle from her, but one pew behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe gone to the motel down Highway 7. Bought some bad stuff, you know? They been selling it here. Don\u2019t know what you get no more on these streets.\u201d She shook her head back and forth. \u201cThey gonna bring him back here when he\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked at her, blinking. Sweat salted my eyes. \u201cAre you saying\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m telling<\/em> you.\u201d She turned away from me and faced the altar. \u201cDead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A crash came from the parking lot, a sound like metal elephants. The lady acted like she didn\u2019t hear, put her face down to the hymns. She started singing so quiet I couldn\u2019t make out the words. A feather from her hat drifted to the ground. I brought my hat to my chest and hustled to the church door, looked out past the creaking hinges. A hearse buried into my Caddy\u2019s side right there in the parking lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m never gonna get mine back on the pope now. And how I\u2019m gonna get home like this?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pope came out the back door of the hearse, walked to the bottom of the front steps. I just watched him, frozen like. He looked up at the sun. \u201cI had a feeling we\u2019d find each other over here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind me, the woman banged out the church door, and looking back I saw her for the first time.\u00a0LaRhonda<\/em>.\u00a0<\/em>Those glittery eyelids, like lit sparklers shining my way. I could almost feel my heart stop all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

TRACY MORIN<\/strong>\u00a0is a Mississippi-based writer and editor who has been a hand model, rock-and-roll drummer and boxing ringside reporter. Her work has previously appeared in\u00a0The Rumpus<\/em>,\u00a0Necessary Fiction<\/em>,\u00a0Bending Genres\u00a0<\/em>and elsewhere. Find her writing and photography at www.tracymorin.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tracy Morin I could always feel when I was about to die. Like a lit sparkler in my chest. It had happened to me before, twice, but they always revived me. Narcan is a hell of an invention, but I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9159,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9163","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2nN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9173,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9163\/revisions\/9173"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}