PINTA PARADE

Your father is turning 45. Grandma has everyone over and cooks up a roast. She makes her potatoes which she whipps (best potatoes you will ever have) doused with gravy so thick it could some unknown petrol-distillate. Father is 45 years old. You are fifteen. On his birthday your grandmother prays thanking the Lord for granting her first born another year of life. When your father turned 40 you were all of ten years of age.  Your mother planned a 40^th surprise party for him when Andy Moore came over to help him with the attic wiring in your (often falling apart) domestic abode and your mom had your sister Beth play her cello while, astonishingly, all of your father’s friends traipsed inside on tip-toes holding a birthday cake and festooning the living room with streamers all the while your mother clapped in rote ho-down fashion  to your sisters variation of Twinkle-twinkle littler Star and when your father came down everyone yelled surprised and he was florid-cheeked and blushing even though he has a beard and the next thing you know the three progenies were being whisked away to Grandmothers house to sleep over while your parents partied with non-alcoholic beard and played charades and had Christian fellowship and laughed.

Your girlfriend lives less than five minutes away by car. You are never able to spend the night at Grandma’s because of your paper route in the morning, the exception being Christmas eve, since the STAR is closed the next day, so after church the last three years you have christened the tradition of crashing at Grandma’s after the midnight service at Christ Lutheran.

The Gideon bible is lodged in your front pocket. You think about Christ Lutheran. Your penis brushes against it whenever you get aroused.

It is moss-colored maxipad that tames you, that reminds you the blood Christ shed for you, that perennially notes that entertaining thoughts of entering the naked upside-down pyramidal shape thighs of girlfriend you are currently seeing is nothing short of a sin. Of what happen last summer when your body lost control with Tina and your limbs locked and dry humped in your underwear in her pool as Celeste and the cool Blackman copulated behind you was a sin. That how you can’t stop looking at the hovering silhouettes of the college girls next door through the blinds as they seemingly float from room to room is nothing short of a sin.

You keep the Gideon bible in your front pocket of your size 28  jeans at all times.

You keep the picture of Renae Holiday in the other, with your wallet.

Sometimes you look at the picture of Renae and swear she is naked. Sometimes is looks like she is waiting just for you to come and take her someplace away.