Leo Frankowski - CONRAD'S QUEST FOR RUBBER

I think that the Cure must do other wonderful things for a man besides wiping out his germs.

The next morning, my father came up to my table in the hotel's restaurant and said, "Son, I have given this matter much thought, and I forgive you."

I looked at him calmly and said, "Father, I, too, have given this matter much thought. For fifteen years you have done everything in your power to make my life as unpleasant as possible. When I was a young boy of fifteen, I loved you and I needed you. Your senseless rejection of me hurt me very badly, when I had done nothing to harm you or yours, except to try to live my own life. I still don't understand why you were so angry with me, but I do know this:

"Now I am a man, and I say that any man who would so hurt someone who loved him, and who continued hurting that person for so many years for no other reason than stupid pride, I say that such a man is an unspeakable asshole, and one with whom I will not associate.

"Father, I do not forgive you!"

And with that, I collected up my wives and daughters, we mounted our Big People, and we rode home.

I never spoke to my father again.

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ADel Rey® Book

Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

Copyright © 1998 by Leo A. Frankowski

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The BallantinePublishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York,and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-93199

ISBN 0-345-36850-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: December 1998

ebook by MOS1, accept no butchered substitutes.