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Show •131 "You explain it. What does it have to do with me?" But he went on staring at our father's picture. "The old man was a worker all his life, wasn't he?" "At all the wrong things," I said. He looked surprised. "What difference does that make?" He put out a finger and touched Adam's pictured face. "Did you ever hear of St. Simon? The man who spent his life perched on a pillar bobbing up and down for the glory of God?" "What about him?" "They made him a saint." "Do you think Adam was a saint? They why don't you want him for a father?" "Want has nothing to do with it," Carlo said. There were other men in the picture with Adam but he stood out; those men were relaxed but my father gripped his shovel with gloomy determination, as if with only that simple tool he could save himself from whatever fate pursued him. "Wait," I said. "You mean in some kind of spiritual way he's not your father. You don't mean literally. I get it now." "You sure are stupid sometimes," Carlo said. "You didn't exactly make it clear," I said. "And don't act so superior. Maybe you are a genius but being smarter than everybody around you isn't all there is to life." "No? What else is there?" he said seriously. |
