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Show as 'an evil man.' "Of course he i s n ' t e v i l , " I had said, my voice shaking. "No more than your p a r e n t s , following Church leaders as blindly as anyone in my f a t h e r ' s group follows him. He i s n ' t evil and neither are they. 'By your f r u i t s ye shall know them' - remember? And t h e i r f r u i t is good. Mostly," I added, looking d i r e c t ly at her. But I began to wonder i f the picture of my father was actually worse than what I had seen. I wondered if I was somehow deluding myself into seeing only the best or neutral elements in him. Perhaps I was i d e a l i z i n g him, as my mother and Aunt Kathy had always done. Perhaps even yet I believed that his word was law and that he could do no wrong. I wondered i f he was r e a l l y driven by his lust for power, as Danny had implied. "Brian, waSfcit do you think?" I asked as we drove home from Danny's one evening. "Do you think my father is like they say?" "What do they say?" Brian responded, as though he had been absent a l l evening. But that was h i s way of evading the r e s p o n s i b i l i t y of a clear answer. 'Answer a question with a question and t h e y ' l l never pin you down,' he had said. I felt i r r i t a t e d and turned to the window. I was silent until we reached the house. "You heard what they said. And maybe t h e y ' r e r i g h t . Maybe i t ' s wrong to have power over people." |
