PINTA PARADE

Harmony calls me up. It is the second time she has called me voluntarily the entire trip. She is talking about how I put holier-than-thou racist-ass Nat in his place.
 

“His girlfriend was crying the whole time after you left the table. She didn’t know if she’d be able to perform the skit with us.”

I pause. I don’t say anything. I then respond by saying a yeah, well. Harmony says that even Jennifer Flood was impressed, adding that, in case I hadn’t picked up on it, she hasn’t been all too fond of me the entire trip.

I tell her really. I hadn’t noticed.

“After you left the table Loverboy Nat spent fifteen minutes trying to convince his girlfriend that he wasn’t racist. He even tried delivering the ‘I have a dream' speech which  you could tell he probably memorized it in fifth grade because he kept inserting lines from the Gettysburg address and the preamble to the constitution.”

 

Harmony laughs. I echo laughter back into the conch of the phone.

 

“It was rather comical to hear someone have a dream talking about we the people four score and seven years ago.” 

I laugh harder. I apologize.

"I’m just sick of him being a dick. If you want to know the truth I was hoping to have an older brother. Instead he has just completely ignored me from the moment I met him.”

I pause again. I want to say that his racism is between himself and his overtly white personalized variation of a male-deity, only I refrain.

“It hurts, you know.” I tell her.

 

She tells me that she understands. She tells me again that she enjoyed the Big Tens skit even though it was sloppy, stressing that she wouldn’t expect anything less from the infamous bevy of hoodlums, although loveable all the less.

 

“One in particular in very loveable,” She states.

 

I try to digress. I wish her good luck with the whole Lynn Minton interview-thingie tomorrow. I tell her that I will take lots of pictures of St. Paul's cathedral and mail them to her when we get back to the states.  I tell her it’s a good thing I’m chatting with her instead of Jennifer Flood because Jennifer Flood would say something like, 'Harmony’s all alone in her bed holding on to that Teddy Bear you gave her wearing only her panties.'

 

From the opposite side of the phone I can feel her nod.

“How do you know I’m not.” Harmony adds, in all seriousness. 
 

Down the hallway someone is yelling out Big Ten rules.