The Truth
“‘Your memories will change the world.’ That’s my fortune?”
“It’s the wisdom of the universe, James.”
James looks at me skeptically.
“Now you pick one for me,” I say, handing him the fortune-teller. “Here—put your fingers…”
My fortune, we learn, is to die violently inside a machine. “Maybe a fax machine,” I say, and mime getting sucked into the input slot. That breaks the ice. James, I learn, lives most of the time in San Geronimo with his mom. On the weekends, he stays with his dad up in Guerneville.
“They’re divorced?”
“Separated. It’s only been six months.”
Guerneville is the North Bay’s version of the Castro District or Greenwich Village. If your dad moves out to live in Guerneville, it can only mean one thing, at least to other middle school boys.
“What a pain,” I s
