"So you wouldn't mind if they pulled you over?" My dad's histograms had proven to be depressingly normal so far.
"I'd consider it my duty," he said. "I'd be proud. It would make me feel safer."
Easy for him to say.
#
Vanessa didn't like me talking about this stuff, but she was too smart about it for me to stay away from the subject for long. We'd get together all the time, and talk about the weather and school and stuff, and then, somehow, I'd be back on this subject. Vanessa was cool when it happened -- she didn't Hulk out on me again -- but I could see it upset her.
Still.
"So my dad says, 'I'd consider it my duty.' Can you freaking believe it? I mean, God! I almost told him then about going to jail, asking him if he thought that was our 'duty'!"
We were sitting in the grass in Dolores Park after school, watching the dogs chase frisbees.
Van had stopped at home and changed into an old t-shirt for one of her favorite Brazilian tecno-brega bands, Carioca Proibidão -- the forbidden guy from Rio. She'd gotten the shirt at a live show we'd all gone to two years before, sneaking out for a grand adventure down at the Cow Palace, and she'd sprouted an inch or two since, so it was tight and rode up her tummy, showing her flat little belly button.
She lay back in the weak sun with her eyes closed behind her shades, her toes wiggling in her flip-flops. I'd known Van since forever, and when I thought of her, I usually saw the little kid I'd known with hundreds of jangly bracelets made out of sliced-up soda cans, who played the piano and couldn't dance to save her life. Sitting out there in Dolores Park, I suddenly saw her as she was.