"Father" by Armin Tolentino
I turned back and saw Paul sitting down again, sipping the forty through a straw concealed by the brown bag, and it reminded me of a kid drinking from a juice box. I felt myself falter as I spun my head back forward. A river of nausea began flooding upstream from my burning gut to my throat. My balls felt clammy and my skin tingled. I didn't know if it was the Cuervo or the excitement of what I was about to do, but I knew I had to move fast.
"Hey! Hey! Gimme the hat!" The Mexican didn't turn, didn't know I was talking to him. His bobber bounced up and down in the current like the head of a drowning man refusing to give up.
"No comprende? You, yeah you! Give me the hat!" I worked very hard to annunciate each of those words. He realized I was talking to him and cocked his head warily. I was ten feet away from him now and he placed the pole on the dock, bending his knees, never taking his eyes off me.
"Comprende? GIVE ME EL FUCKING SOMBRERO!"
"I don't want trouble," he finally spoke, soft but firm and with barely an accent. His hands were up in front of him, opened and calloused. I was at least a foot taller than him. I saw a wedding band on his left hand and a pink scar that ran across his chin. His face was brown and pock marked from adolescent outcroppings of acne.
This isn't an excuse for what I did, just an explanation. Understand that when I left home, I made a big mistake by hesitating. There was a plan to it that I had worked out, but I hesitated and thought too much. It was early when I left, five AM on a Wednesday, and I walked to a diner where the only other people in there were two cops with saggy jowls and a thick man wearing a plaid shirt rolled at the sleeves to expose his hairy forearms, thick as my thighs. I ordered a stack of chocolate chip pancakes, a Denver omelet, an extra side of bacon and hash, both extra crispy. I drank a cup of hot cocoa with a snow peak of whipped cream and instead of just thinking about the food, this perfect breakfast, my brain kept on running and I knew that was a mistake. I just couldn't turn the paranoia off. Static crackled from one of the cop's walkie-talkies and somehow I got it in my head that they were on to me. My mother must have woken up early, found the letter, four pages front and back that I'd been working on for a week. She must have called the police and they were on to me.
The waitress placed my food down and I jumped when she asked me if I wanted anything else. I took a bite of a bacon strip, salty and hot, and I felt sick. I left thirty dollars on the table and headed out, making sure to hide my face from anyone. But it was cold out that morning and now I realize I was negligible to anyone in that place.
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