A Christmas Book

[tigerstriped86.livejournal.com]

Title: A Christmas Book
Author: tigerstriped86
Fandom: Original (Not aware of any other place than my brain)
Rating: PG

Prompt 128: Paltry
December Holiday Challenge
Word count: 1,100 +
Summary: Jericho Chase has a life, even if it's not of the most cutting edge variety.

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Jericho walked silently through the chaos of Christmas traffic in New Ambrose city. Only minutes ago, he had been sitting in his comfortably wood paneled office, listening to his assistant Jason whistle obnoxiously. Jason was handy about the little touches, such as making sure the rhododendron was watered, and was proficiently organized. Jericho had no apologies about not wanting it any other way, except on the rare occasions that Jason tried to set Jericho Chase up on dates. Maybe ambush was the better word.

 

He whistled against the brisk wind and the speeding taxis. The cacophony of impatient horns drowned out his tune, but it was an absent-minded whistle as Jericho let his thoughts wander. His head was warmed by a cozy hat and his slender frame was hunched into his trendy black coat. Not that he cared about such things as trends. The “image” had been Jason’s idea, although Jericho did understand the use of image.

 

The ashes of capitalism had brought cities like New Ambrose rising from the debris of old markets like Baltimore. Still east coast, and stubbornly holding on by such ideas, and still vibrantly thriving after being called terms like “relic” and “dinosaur”. 

 

A few years back, the term “relic” had even been applied to holidays like Christmas. But even the sacred as well as profane were so submerged into the general conciousness that you could bleed something like religion from the commercialized aspect and people could still force themselves to believe in the goodness of a holiday. Jericho wasn’t completely unconvinced that the two weren’t intertwined.

 

Thrusting his hands into his coat pockets, Jericho turned himself toward the glow of a window before he passed by. He lost himself in his own nostalgia of times that never were. True, he had lit his fireplace last night, not for warmth save that in his own heart. He couldn’t be extremely sure, but Jericho suspected that his old uncle had something to do with the whole mess of nostalgia in his life. 

 

Old Uncle Roger was Jericho’s surrogate father. Even with parents, Jericho had felt so often like an orphan, although he had never felt exceedingly introspective about the whole affair. When they were killed at the hands of a drunk motorist, his impotent rage turned into a warmth at the hands of his favorite relative. Old Uncle Roger was one of the relics of New Ambrose, truth be told. He had been the first to remark that even with all the new technologies, society still hadn’t gotten drunkness beat. “Each new day of drunken misery,” he had remarked to the disturbingly intelligent eleven-year old Jericho, “means that there is yet no cure for depression. So stick that in your fancy PDA and smoke it.” Jericho had mostly ignored the kindly old man’s rantings and just reached beyond his book for another Oreo.

 

Jericho turned from the quaint scene and sniffed the wind. It was a fine day to be alive. The breeze was brisk and dancing, his mind was active and free of all those enabled devices, and his stomach was rumbling. Of course, the reasoning behind that last feeling wasn’t hard to find. After all, only the smell of sizzling corned beef from his favorite sandwich butcher near the window display would cause him to salivate. It was rare to happen other places in the city.

 

Stepping into the shop, past the dinky bell, the scents of home welcomed him. That and the hearty grins of the McGinnis family. Mother McGinnis, for she demanded delightedly for Jericho to refer to her as Mother, with her warm smile and her bread knife, always clean and sharp. The telling nicotine stain on Ricardo’s fingertip as he continued to slice deft, thin pieces of beef for his son to grill in the back. They were his family as well. Lots of “God rest their souls” and “I don’t mind to tell you this, but”… well, that was all part of the old world charm of the establishment. 

 

They were great friends, Roger and the McGinnis clan. It was one of those family lines that had cemented fates from the boatride into the new world and on. They lived their superstitious Catholic lives, but Jericho could ignore it. Especially when they were the best place for a reuben in the entire city, and the only place where he could snatch a sandwich for his uncle without complaint. Even thought it took ten minutes to extradite himself, and fending off another offer to date the adopted daughter Katrina, who was very fair but would no doubt require a more attentive suitor, Jericho was able to resume whistling as he moved down the block toward his uncle’s shop.

 

Business had been bad, but Uncle Roger held his ground firmly. He was a stubborn old goat, full of grumblings but about as tame as a housecat. He wore the same dark brown sweater vest regardless of the temperature, kept far lower in the shop because of his pride and joy leather bounds behind the counter, and a silk bow tie. His hair had been gone many years over, but he survived.

 

Jericho remarked as he entered the shop. “You know, Roger, you really should have decorated that little tree I got you.”

 

His uncle waved with the hand not consumed in treating the leather of the first edition spine. “Bah. Who would remember what that tree meant?”

 

Jericho sat down on the stool near the tree, his uncle’s face half-hidden. “You’d remember. Isn’t that enough?”

 

Roger sighed. “So young and wise, except you know so little. Have you gotten through the last book I leant you?”

 

“It’s sitting on the ottoman as we speak.”

 

“Unopened?” Roger ventured a guess.

 

Jericho shook his head as he teased his uncle. “Now who’s lost their faith?”

 

They ate in silence and made small talk about the holidays, the McGinnis clan, and missing candlelight services at the now extinct Sacred Institute. The whole scene might have seemed paltry to others with that slightly forlorn but free of any dust old editions and the two men who looked like father and son eating off of a worn, used butcher's counter next to a two foot unadorned Christmas tree and a register with a permanently stuck No Sale key, but it reminded Chase of heaven. They made plans for dinner and Roger headed toward the back to log the information in his date book. He complained about the number and quality of the new restaurants that sprung up on each block. Jericho mostly ignored him.  

 

A car backfired, causing a book to fall from the shelf behind the counter. Jericho reached for it, a small book slipping from between the pages of the large. He could hear Roger’s footsteps and, intrigued by the cover, returned the larger book to its place, slipping the smaller book, navy blue with gold trim, into his own pocket. Later, Jericho would swear that his uncle smiled secretly. But who could be sure in this day and age?