Parts & Labor by Mark Gimenez Read Free Book Online

bullies, you don't feel nervous around strangers, and you don't detour
around a bunch of tattooed bikers loitering on the low stone wall out front of
Doc's Motorworks Bar & Grill. Instead, you walk with your head high and
your chest out. You don't hurry. You take your own sweet time.
    I
took my own sweet time.
    I didn't run home that day. I strolled. I window-shopped. I
snacked on a Butterfinger candy bar. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon, and
I was feeling pretty darn good. I was walking up the sloping sidewalk on South Congress Avenue, a five-lane road that ran north-south right through Austin and
dead-ended at the State Capitol. If you stood in the middle of Congress and
faced north, you had a perfect view of the Capitol which sat on a low hill at
the northern boundary of downtown Austin. I liked the Capitol but not downtown.
Too many people, too many cars, too many big buildings, and too dark because
the buildings blocked out the sun. But mostly because it was kind of scary,
all the homeless people wandering around like zombies. Mom said drugs stole their
lives.
    I
didn't want to be a zombie, so I was never going to use drugs.
    South Congress Avenue cut straight through my neighborhood, so everyone called the area "SoCo"
for short. It was just south of downtown, but it wasn't anything like downtown.
Or any other part of Austin. It was different. Mom said it was the way Austin used to be back in the sixties because everyone in SoCo wished they were still living
in the sixties—well, as long as they could have their MacBooks and iPhones and
iPods. I liked our part of town—the people, the music, and especially the
stores. Lots of funky shops lined Congress in SoCo, like Blackmail (all things
black), Stella Blue Boutique & Salon (where my mom got her hair cut), Creatures
Boutique (alternate clothes for the entire family), The Turquoise Door
(authentic Native American silver-and-turquoise jewelry), South Congress Massage
& Bodyworks (don't even ask), Austin Motel with its Corporate Free Since
1938 sign (Mom said Julia Roberts stays there when she visits Austin, but I
don't know who she is), and Jo's Hot Coffee (Mom and Dad's favorite coffee
joint), a little walk-up place just off the sidewalk. Mom hated Starbucks
because she said they were a corporate conglom … congom … congrega … they were a really big company. I didn't really understand what corporations
were, but everyone in SoCo hated them, like Luke Skywalker hates Darth Vader
until he finds out that Darth is his father and then Darth suddenly turns into
a good guy and saves Luke's life, which didn't make a lot of sense to me why he
would do that. Sunny said it was in the script. Anyway, Mom liked Jo's because it was a local coffee joint. I liked it because they had great muffins.
    "Max,
my man!"
    Guillermo
Garza called out to me through the service window at Jo's. He had worked there
as long as I can remember. I waved and walked over to the tree-shaded patio
with tables where the locals were drinking coffee and staring at their laptops
like they were hypnotized. I loved checking out the crowd each day. That day's
crew featured green and orange and purple hair (on the same person), colorful tattoos
covering entire bodies, a girl wearing shorts and striped Pippi Longstocking leggings
and Army boots, others with rings in their ears, noses, lips, and places my mom
said I didn't want to know about, geeky guys riding fat-tired Schwinns, and
bikers riding big Harleys. Man, stopping at Jo's was like going to the circus.
    I
heard tires screeching.
    I
turned back and saw a long-haired guy on a trail bike swerve south off Nellie Street and onto Congress at a high speed and then play chicken with the traffic. He
skidded to a stop at Jo's and jumped off his bike. Andy Prescott was SoCo's
resident traffic-ticket lawyer and adrenaline junkie. He rode a Stumpjumper
trail bike, which was like tempting death with the traffic in Austin. He had
gotten a ticket