A fine son, for you! Look, he's almost dead. Tell me if you
wouldn't think he was my father and I was his son? Instead of the other
way around? I ask you.'"
"And what does Pitzela's son say, Feodor?"
"Say? What can he say? He looks up and shakes his head some more. He can
hardly see. And when the banquet talking begins he falls asleep and
Pitzela has to hold him up from falling out of the chair. And when the
food is done and the dessert comes Pitzela leans over and says to his son:
'Listen. I got a treat for you. Here.' And he reaches into his pocket and
brings out a handful of hickory nuts. 'Crack them with your teeth,' he
says, 'like your father.' And when his son looks at him and strokes his
white beard and sighs, Pitzela jumps up and laughs so you can hear him all
over the banquet hall. But the point of the story is that two weeks ago
Pitzela went to his grandson's funeral. It was Pitzela's son's son and he
was a man almost 70 years old. And it was a scandal at the funeral. Why?
Because Pitzela laughed and coming back from the grave he said: 'Look at
me, my grandson dies and I go to his funeral and if he had a son I would
go to his, too, and I would dance jigs both times.'"
PANDORA'S BOX
A dark afternoon with summer thunder in the sky.
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