PINTA PARADE

What is that?” My sister Jenn inquires.

“It’s an identity bracelet. It’s from my girlfriend. It’s a Christmas present.”

I can’t believe she went through all the trouble to have my name engraved on the the front with her name indented in cursive on the back.

 I wear it al the time.

 Later that night I look down at the gift in the box she has given me. The box in which it arrived in is an inch larger in diameter than the size of an engagement ring box, Inside it looks like a usurped halo from a  Raphael cherub— a gilded reptilian skin. I simply opened it up the moment she gave it to me when we continued to kiss, wondering just where Patrick and Amy  dissipated off to after the flick. I take the chained halo out of the box hold it up to the light in my room trying to avert my gaze from the shadows crossing the lowered blinds of my neighbors window an encased five feet away. I can still feel the rain gently pelt against the shingles of our house. I can’t stop thinking about how hard our lips pressed into each other. How her tongue sifted inside my mouth
.

 

The phone rings once and Patrick picks up, immediately informing me that he needs to call me back in two minutes. Seconds later the phone reverberates on my end. Patrick says oh my god dave three times in a row. Perhaps he got dumped. Perhaps, after seeing him, Amy pretended not to know Patrick the entire evening and sat next to someone else in the theater during the movie. Patrick says oh my god. I ask Patrick how his date went.

He responds back with his colloquial dude.

            “Dude, dave. This girl is crazy. Crazy!!!!”

 

            His voice seems to be getting higher. I remember Renae telling me about the awkward look that flashed over Amy’s face when Mrs. McReynolds mini-van pulled up and Patrick and Renae saw each other for the first time. I feel like offering my pre-nuptial condolences until Patrick breaks out in can only be described as a verbal irish jig.

            “Dude man. Dave. Dude man. Oh my god.”

            Patrick interrupts me as I try saying his name saying the last thing I can possibly imagine him saying in this pocketed moment of space and time.

            “Did you get laid last night too?”

                                  \\

                                                                         ***     

The next night  I call Renae. Dad is informing me to stay positive. He is telling me that good things are happening. When Renae answers the phone she tells me that her leather coat practically got ruined in the rain but that it was worth it.

            I tell her that I am sorry.

            “No problem at all.” She says, reiterating that it was worth it, sounding like Anastasia Blake last summer the night she stayed out past curfew with Harold Hill, the night “he felt it” the night she would be grounded fore a month but still not care because it was somehow worth it.

            “I went home and I thought about you,” says Renae. “I put on my pajamas and watched a video and fell asleep on the couch thinking about you that night.”

         

“I thought about you last night,” I say, staring down at the ornament she gave me, still oblivious on how to get it on my wrist.

            “I slept for six hours, woke up, took my contacts out and then went back to bed again.”

            “It was a good night.”  I add, thanking her again for the early Christmas present, thanking her again for last night, still feeling every facet of her body on my lips, on the length of my arms, on every vector of my flesh.

            “You know what,” Renae asks, before telling me that she loves me. Waiting for me to say the same.

 
                                                                    ***

 Patrick man where did you go last night? My dad was pissed off. We didn't get home til 11.

"It was weird. Apparently Sandy called my mom and then when we came out of the movie first she got confused and took us home."

"Dude, we sat in the back and she had her hands down my past the entire ride home."

I tell Patrick that I sufficiently doubt that.


"The whole time in the theatre she just jerked me off. I swear. I creamed all over the fucking milk duds.

"Plus my mom whipped up a batch of her world famous Bailey’s brownies for Amy to take home and she has the pan so I know I’m gonna see her soon."

I say what. Pat says to get the pan back.

“She’s crazy man. I’m going nuts over her. She’s crazy man.”

I ask Patrick if he has talked with her today. Patrick said he called and her brother answered and said that she was out.

“No man, but she’s the one. She is totally the one.”

I want to tell Patrick that they looked totally anatomically incongruous next to each other. I want to tell my friend that I’m afraid his cloud  nine is going to evaporate and he is going to fall hard and
alone.

"Dude man she is totally the one.

Patrick asks me the rhetorical question again.


"So bro, did you get laid as well?"


                                                                               ***

                          ***

“Listen you just don’t need a girlfriend right now.  Focus on all the positive things you have happening in your life right now.

Dad iterated again that the Young Columbus is happening in six weeks. He tells me that ths is my year.

I feel like telling him that I don’t feel like I have it in me to fail once again.

Dad tells me just to focus on my speech for the young Columbus. Dad asks me why I want to get so involved anyway.

“Because she’s my girlfriend and I care for her,” I tell my father.

He makes a note telling me that I am fifteen.