#492 The Ant of the Self- ZZ Packer
Spurgeon has to bail out his father again from jail. Ray
Bivens Junior fancies himself a revolutionary, but he’s nothing more than a
dead-beat dad and a hustler. Spurgeon is a great student, never missed a day of
school, is the star of the debate team. His father, with no money and a revoked
driver’s license convinces him to skip school and the debate match to take his
mothers car and drive them to the Million Man March 700 miles away.
At the march he’s pissed-off and argumentative with the
older men trying to get him to see the power of the day. All he sees if that his
dad forced him to come, not to feel the power of the day, but to sell some rare
birds his father stole. All he wants to do is go home, but his dad gets drunk,
beats him up, and steals the car—and doesn’t even pay him the money he owes
after selling a bird.
This was the point of the day for Spurgeon. His dad can talk
about his revolutionary past all he wants, but if you can’t eve be a good
father, what’s the point.
“Atoning for one’s wrongs is different from apologizing…one
involves words, the other, actions.”
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