The Groupie's Game ×Rafael Alcántara×

×3× The Meaning of All Things Trivial

"Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers."

2 John 3:2

....................
In which I learn the meaning of the word "trivial"

adjective
"(of a person) concerned only with trifling or unimportant things."

....................

       Waiting around for Priscilla is like waiting for the food to start cooking at a black barbacue. You constantly check your clock, make small talk with people you ain't never seen in your life, couple that with the fact that you could be at yer job to save you and your brothers from eviction--wait. That one I ain't too sure people know the feeling of at a barbacue.

I was sitting outiside a mom and pop store that connected to other stores in the city's Golden Gate plaza. Roundtable was the little diner to my left. I wadn't about shop at a time like this, with the bolded letters of that eviction notice dancin' on my brain.

It felt heavy like a platter with five dishes stacked on one another. It made me hotter than Houston, Texas on a July day. I tried over and over again, calling my papi and mama. Neither of them answered, uncaring parents they could be.

I fanned myself with a lightly used book I picked up from the "Gentle Reads", two stores over. I frequented it as a kid before my parents started bein' so absent. I wiped sweat off of my forehead as the sun beat down on the pavement. Lost in thought. That's the thing about the south, you have no idea when the rain comes, when it goes neither. My legs were starting to stick to the painted bench I sat many a time on before. I eyed the book in my right hand.

"Waiting for Love," I read aloud, "if anybody catches me readin' this." I whsitled. In high school, nobody ever pegged me for readin' no romance novels.

I was the kind that read thrillers and horror novels. Unfortunately, I was in a section of the plaza where people shopped at the Rylee's discount clothing shop. Uncannily, I knew just about everybody who shopped there. Most college kids came back to stay a while in their hometown Gretna. Though they'll never admit to their college friends from Dunnellon and Leesburg. Places of the like.

As I look all 'round for Priscilla's 2002 Honda Civic, my phone began to ring. I didn't want to take a gander at the who was calling. It might've been GranGran all fed up with Orion's endless talking, or Victór badgering me to pick his lazy ass up. I looked out the corner of my brown eyes.

"Papi is calling."

I gaped. This man never returned no calls within an hour.

"Allo." I spoke firmly. "You need to tell me somethin' and be completely honest with me." I cut right to the chase to let him know I meant business. I ain't never intentionally showed this man disrespect, but my emotions was getting the best of me.

'Cept there was silence.

"Papi." I repeated myself one more time, holdin' in my anger. "Papi!" I rose my voice into a holler.

I couldn't care less about nobody starin' at me feelin' all types of anger. They only ever cared if it was a fist fight.

"Yes Gaitan?" He sounded real busy, I could hear voice in the back. "What is it?" He asked me in French.