83
" You don’t understand,” my dad said. “They stop you.”
“Who? What are you talking about?” my mom asked.
“That’s why I was being cautious.”
“Who stops you?”
“The police. If you’re white, or maybe Oriental, they let you drive however you want. But if you’re not, they stop you.”
“Who told you that?”
“The guys at the diner. That’s what they say. If you’re black or if you’re brown, they automatically think you’ve done something wrong.”
“Rafa, that’s ridiculous. We’ve lived here for fifteen years. We’re citizens.”
“The police don’t know that by looking at us. They see a brown face through the windshield and boom! Sirens!”
My mom shook her head. “That’s what that was about?”
“I didn’t want to give them reason to stop me.”
“You were driving like a blind man, Rafa. That will give them reason to stop you.”
“Everybody else just has to obey the law. We have to obey it twice as well.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to go twice as slow as everybody else!”
The light turned green and my dad brought the car out of first. We cruised under the overpass, a shadow draping over the car like a blanket.
“Next time, just try to blend in with everyone else and you’ll be fine,” my mom offered.
“The way of the world,” my dad said.
“What?” my mom asked as we emerged back into the sunlight.
“Just trying to blend in. That’s the way of the world.”
“Well, that’s the way of America, at least,” my mom said. "
― , The Book of Unknown Americans
86
" Everyone always knows what they're doing," he says abruptly, still not looking up from his hands, the little plastic pot and the old tattoo and the new white dressing on his left wrist. " You know what you're doing, you got your work and your friends and everything and miserable headfucky little teenage girly boys think you're amazing and, I don't know, you might've saved my life, who knows? I might be dead if it weren't for you and Olly but people can't keep looking after me all the time cos that ain't healthy neither, that's just as bad as people not giving a fuck at all. And, like... I'm trying to sort my head out and be a proper grown-up and get my degree and go to work and look after them kids and make sure my dad ain't kicking my sister round the house like a football but it's just so hard all the time, and I know I ain't got no right to complain cos that's just life, ain't it? Everyone's the same, least I ain't got money worries or nothing. I just don't know what I'm doing, everything's too hard. I can try and try forever but I can't be good enough for no one so what the fuck's the point? "
95
" Mitt Romney's first interview with Zombie Reagan:
Mitt Romney came in with cheerful assurance, because he wasn’t capable of anything else. “Let me first welcome you back to this side of the veil, Mr. President.”
“Yeah, Mitt, it’s good to see you looking so well. Your father says hello, and he wanted me to add specially that whatever unfortunate negative things you might remember him saying to you when you were a kid, he always tried to tell you the truth and he hopes you’ve used it to improve, and he understands that even with the help of those comments, it might just not have been in you to improve. He wants you to remember he still loves you no matter what you’ve become, or even if you haven’t chosen to become any one thing in particular.”
“That’s very kind. I miss my dad even now.”
“Oh, so do I. I remember George as always that kind of guy, he had your back, whenever you’d think to watch your back, you’d find him somewhere around there, ready for action with that knife already drawn. "
― John Barnes , Raise the Gipper!