😮 I removed the handcuffs from a prisoner and recognized the tattoo of my dead father. He died in Vietnam three months before I was born; I never knew him. 💔 And this 67-year-old man, accused of stealing medicine from a pharmacy, had the same military badge on his arm that my mother has had framed in the living room for forty-eight years.

dirty. Because I had just done, in front of everyone, exactly what I’ve spent my whole life blaming Tomás for: I told a censored version of the truth so my dad could remain a bronze statue.

Outside the courthouse, on the sidewalk, Tomás took both my hands. I gave him my phone number, my address. I told him that Güero wouldn’t be alone anymore, that continue reading …