PINTA PARADE

 

I walk down Sherman avenue, exactly one block, from where I live to the corner of Sherman and Western. I have a pocket full of  quarters, as if I am in a casino of have just betrayed my savior for a rattling cache of silver.  For some reason I feel the need to take my glasses off before I call.  I am at the corner of Western and Sherman, in front of Alwuan’s pharmacy across the street from Baskin Robbins when I fish into the side pocket of my Khaki shorts and begin planting quarters into the vertical slits of the stationary phone. It takes three quarters and I have  to (for some inexplicable reason) dial the 309 area code first.

I am too coy to call Anastasia from my own house for fear that my parents find out that I am calling a girl.

After a trinity of guttural purrs I hang up before a pre-recorded voice empties in to plastic couch informing me that I need to hit a one and then dial the area code before I, once again, punch in the numbers. I attack the numerical pad with my digits as subtle high-pitched tones chirp from the antipodal end.

The sound of oncoming traffic hushing up and down the arteries of Western avenue sound like a

Finally I get a dial tone again. Finally I get to hear Anastasia's voice outside of rehearsal.


The chrome gourd swallows my quarters as if they were communion wafers.  After what seems like the fifth electronic sneeze a voice picks up. I want to say something witty. I want to ask if my little angel is around.

Instead I ask simply for Anastasia.

I can only intuit it is her mom. She said that her daughter just left. I have already clinked through three dollars' worth of quarters.

When the maternal voice on the opposite end of the phone asks if she can take a message I tell her that okay.

I will call her back later.