PINTA PARADE

I do my route the next day. Father already having the papers counted and arrayed and rubberbanded on the front porch and stowed inside my paper bag carry on when I exit the house.

There is no group picture in the paper, only a headshot of Karen Christmas smiling.

She is ravishing in her picture. It is like the judges had to tell her to smile.

 The following Tuesday the County winner is announced.  His name is Jason and he is from Morton.  I wonder why the only shot in the picture is that of the winners. A week later on Sunday there is a full page spread. It looks like a centerfold without any cleavage. At the top of the page Jason and Karen Christmas are smiling like newlyweds. The title on the top of the paper reads THE JOURNAL STAR SALUTES THE BEST OF THE BEST. The finalists are pictures in a listless black and white quadrilateral is a picture of the fellow finalists.

It is the second year I have struck out swinging.

I am in eighth grade.

 

I wish I could curse a la en francais only I won’t take French until freshman year of high school.

“Maybe the trip will be canceled again this year.” I try not to think about it. I think about it. I try not to think about the last image I saw of Karen. Watching her in her dress, holding up the receiver into the side of her porcelain countenance

 

Father begins talking about his deity, his religion, his hobby like he is some sort of beneficent caretaker, like he is real. Father tells me that  God must not have had a reason for me to enter the contest for a second year in a row not win.

 

 

 

            "Yeah, to suffer once again." I say under my breath, forming translucent beet-shaped bubs on a cold January morning.