Five Dollar Boom Boom...

My mom's from Vietnam. Yup, I'm first-generation-born-somewhere-other-than-that-place-guy. My older brother was born there too. Why don't we have the obligatory X-Men-Cyclops eyes? Don't know. Don't care. I always look tired anyways, so it doesn't make much of a difference in the long run. I had a bad mother. She's nice and all, but sucks in a lot of departments when it comes down to the final inventory. No big deal. No bad feelings. No skin off of the Irish-Vietnamese back. Tonight at the bar, I was engaging in some type of conversation that I thought was important, when I heard my name being called...There was a small, smiling lady selling something. With my bad vision, I thought that it was roses. But it wasn't. She was lugging around a wooden display case full of bracelets. That was probably why the lady was brought to my attention. I'm one of the only guys left with a girlfriend. So everybody was directing the lady towards me. Nobody wanted anything. The bracelets were okay. Nothing special. What was special was that I bought one. That she was smiling, even though that she had to try to sell cheap trinkets of homemade beauty to a bunch or worthless kids. What was special was that she always had a smile on her face. What was special was that I could hear people making racist comments behind her back, even though two of them were black. What was special was that she danced to the live band that was playing as she left the bar. The only money that she had was what I gave her. She danced away with a smile on her face as people made fun of her. These are the same people who probably made fun of my mother years ago when she came to this country. The only reason that she was here, and the only reason that I exist is because she met a handsome white guy. A guy that gave up the job that he loved to shack up and do the nasty with a beautiful girl. Nothing mattered. All that my father wanted was what was best for the both of them. They asked why I bought the cheap bracelet. I half-joked that I was watching out for my own. I told them that that was my mother who just left. They said, why, because she was Vietnamese?

I said no...because she was a person, you fucking idiots.