PINTA PARADE

He is getting pummeled and he is lonely. He is thinking about her. He is sweating what looks like prisms. He has no clue about the adversary rampaging through the city he has a sworn deference to protect. He has no clue about the origins of the Ignatius granite slugging him in battered windmill strokes.  He is hitting in slow motion. He is battering the massive stalactite bulk which appeared only hours ago. His face is gnashed, fraught with welts. There are visible contusions, lavender bruises pebbled under his left eye.

Again he swings. He is leaving everything inside of him.

 

the man monikered as Super has nowhere left to go.

                                                            ***

 

            “So you won’t be able to make it over New Years eve?”

            “I’d like to,” I say, thinking about being in the congregation of my friends. Thinking about being around Laura and Kristi and even her drooling friend Lonnie Schwindenhammer who is all too obviously obsessed with my girlfriend and has a picture of her in his locker. I think about how cool it might be to surrounded by my friends, to enter the strike of midnight escorted with Renae’s lips, the lips I have not kissed in almost a month since we could never find a time to make-out at  her father's Christmas party. 

I think about how disappointed my father would become if he found out there would be no adult supervision at the party. Think about what would happened if he realized that

Renae occasionally dipped into her fathers liquor cabinet and emptied out a bottle of Schnapp.

 

            “I’ll try to stop by.” I say.

            “You always say that and you never do.” She replies.



                                                                   ***

“Dave!!!!” She is screaming the syllables of my name. She is back from college on break. She is wearing a long shirt that she slept in creeping down three inches above the prominent caps of her knees.  I can only wildly surmise she is wearing panties underneath.

I love how Mary McQuellen always seems excited to see me.  Before I know it she is screaming my name again. She is giving me a hug.

“You’re so grown up, Dave!!!!”

 

I am coy. Part of my body is ready to explode. I am trying to avert my vision in the direction of the benevolent wing that is her smile. I have Mary’s scent flooded all over my body. The waft of her feminine grace is different from Renae’s. Somehow I can feel the semester at the college she has been attending out of state when she hugged me.We are making smalls talk. Somehow the Young Columbus contest comes up.

“LONDON!!!” Mary announces the capital of England as if I have already won the trip.

 

“Yeah, “ I say, I am shy.

 

 

Mrs. McCellan comes up to me.  She has a beige envelope in her hand.

“I’ve been waiting for you to stop by.”

 

 

 She gives me a hug as well. I can tell she is thinking about her son every time we hug.

 

"Here, here's that recommendation you needed for the contest. Good luck Dave. Go get 'em."

 

I look at her daughter. She is smiling.