PINTA PARADE

I am seated on the oak desk with the pull up hinges that my dad salvaged from his school. The desk where I still keep all of my role-playing characters. The desk where I keep explicit lyric tapes by NWA and ICE CUBE. The desk where., when I was in fifth grade, I kept a homemade montage of Alyssa Milano culled from pages of Tiger and Teen Beat.

 I have finished my second cross-country meet where I still finished in the top ten although it would have been faster had I not been determined to take their lead from the outset. To be the rabbit as Beano deemed.

Coach didn’t seem disappointed. He seemed proud. He stated with the times I am clocking this early in the season there is only one logical direction to sprout.

After the race in Canton Dad takes me out to long John Silvers.  We shovel hush puppies and kernels of battered grease into our bodies. The mall is across the street.

“I was really proud of you,” Dad says, inquiring when my next meet is even th ough they are all circled on the Church calendar on the side of the fridge.

“We have Central Tues. Coach says we are evenly matched.”

Dad says he was good that I ran the FROSH/SOPH race but he was hoping from more of a performance from the varsity.

“…that kid Peacock is pretty fast but he ran  n early the same time you did. I thought Jose would be faster.”

I nod.  Jose has been coming to practice looking worn out. Coach has pulled him aside several times and reminded him that this is his senior season. Coach h as pulled him aside several times and reminded him that this is it.

“Coach pulled Jose after the race and told him that this was his last season and that he had to be a leader.”

Dad cuts into his battered fish plank. He states that he likes Joes He says that he’s a leader.

“Yeah, he’s also  really cool guy.”