drug deal going down at the corner of center and contra costa in front of the 7-11

this morning as i was driving to work, i decided to take a short cut thru the 7-11/los panchos parking lot in order to avoid the light at the corner. tearing my way thru it i get to the exit and notice some boys rounding the corner in front of me to enter the pothole polka dotted landscape. one of them peers uncertainly into my front window and i notice he’s wearing a wildebeats sweatshirt.

“hmmm,” i say to myself, “could it be?”

it is! happily content with this early morning encounter i roll down my passenger side window and call outside,

“you want your money?”

“sure,” he replies.

so i reach into my wallet, pull out $200 cash, and hand it to him. some freakishly skinny fellow big b worker is with him and he loiters around outside while we converse briefly and jokingly about compounded interest on this deal.

on saturday my brother is getting a tattoo on his forearm of our dad’s name in mandarin chinese lettering. and i, for some misbegotten reasoning, volunteered to lend him the money to do it so he doesn’t have to ask our mom. i am really excited about this tattoo and am thinking maybe of getting one myself. honestly i think it’s a wonderful idea because being in hong kong meant so much to my dad and if ever a tattoo was going to be meaningful to me/my family personally this would probably be it. i’m so proud of my bro for thinking of it and possibly this is why i’ve lent him the money–because it makes me happy that he’s doing something memorializing like this.