😮 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.

Güero, to the judge, to my badge, the same thing Tomás did to my mother. I didn’t have enough blood to tell the truth. I only had enough to choose which lie hurt me less.

Tomás walked away, slowly, hunched over, to give Güero some pills that were finally legal. I was left with the address of a rented room in one hand and my mother’s house in the other.continue reading …