All You Get Is Me Read Online Free Page B

about the fact that I was getting away from this place where everyone knew at least part of my story.
    My dad stuck to the contract. He insulated the shed and put in an old sink. He bought some used kitchen cabinets for storage and Formica countertops at a salvage yard to set a used Beseler enlarger on. It’s pretty rustic but it’s my first darkroom so I can’t complain too much.
    My dad has been on the phone all morning with the police and his lawyer friend Ned. He’s hell-bent on making sure the woman who killed Sylvia (and walked away with a few scratches and a concussion) is charged. Miguel and Steve keep shaking their heads doubtfully. Steve told me that a rich white woman who hits an illegal Mexican immigrant with her car is likely never even going to hear about it again. If the roles were reversed, it would be a different story entirely. Sylvia would already be in prison. Well, my dad says that if the driver isn’t charged he’ll file a civil suit on behalf of her family, but Miguel isn’t even hopeful about that. He says that the family won’t want to stir up trouble and risk losing their jobs.
    The Mexican people have a whole different take on death. They seem to view it as the other half of life. Not something to be feared. My favorite holiday when we lived in Noe Valley was the Day of the Dead, which happens every year right after Halloween. My mom and dad and I would walk down the hill to the Mission and buy sugar skulls at the bakery on Twenty-fourth Street and then we’d watch the parade of dancing skeletons and musicians and all sorts of ghoulish creatures go by. The idea is that the dead are gone but not forgotten. People wear pictures of their departed on a string around their necks and they build altars in their living rooms filled with candles and flowers and their dead relatives’ favorite snack foods and drinks and cigarettes. It’s a huge party with death as the theme. It’s awfully cool. I’ve got a ton of pictures I’ve taken in a box somewhere.
    When the photos dry I pull them off the clothesline and put them in a stack. I click off the red light and pull open the wooden door. Bright sunlight streams in and I squint like a hamster. Steve is transplanting arugula seedlings that were started in the greenhouse into one of our “small gardens.” These are special raised gardens that are replanted all summer long so we always have fresh baby greens.
    “Hey,” I call out as I walk past him.
    He lifts the wide brim of his straw sun hat. “Hey, Roar. Whatcha got there?”
    “Photos of the accident for my dad.”
    “Lemme have a look.” He stands up.
    I walk over and hand him the stack. He takes them in his filthy hands and flips through them, shaking his head. He stops at the one of the overturned SUV.
    “Hey, I know that SUV. That woman is mucho uptight. She went off on me the other day when I double-parked in front of Millie’s for a nanosecond to deliver eggs.”
    “Yeah, we kind of got that impression too.”
    He hands the photos back to me. “Good CSI work, pal.”
    “Yeah, thanks. She probably won’t even get charged.” I squint up at him. Steve’s about six feet tall.
    “Nah, but what a load of bad karma.”
    “You believe in that stuff?” I ask.
    “Sure. There’s the criminal justice system, which isn’t worth a hill of beans in this country unless you’re white and rich, and then there’s karmic justice, which is part of the natural order of the universe.”
    I nod. It makes sense to me. “Yeah. I suppose I believe in it too.”
    My mom was a believer. She always told me that bad karma catches up with you when you’re least expecting it. She also told me that if you were cruel to animals you’d come back as one in your next life. I pointed out to her that Mittens, the cat who spent hours in her lap, could really be a bully who tied firecrackers to cats’ tails. She thought about this and then she never said anything about it again. I felt like a real killjoy