It is raining, pouring, the wind beating against the
house. Pietro and Nunzio are fighting, Contento is
whining, and Leo flees to the attic. The rain pelts the
windows, seeping in around the edges, dripping in thin
streams down the wall. Leo pokes through the dusty
boxes, an explorer on the verge of an important discovery.
Leo unearths a box with his father's name, GIORGIO,
on it. Inside the box, near the top, he finds a small blue
leather-bound book with yellowing pages containing his
father's handwriting in small script, brown ink. On the
title page: The Autobiography of Giorgio, Age of Thirteen.
Leo flips to the middle, where he reads these words,
"When I am happy, I tap-dance."
Tap dance? His father? Leo tries to imagine his
father so full of happiness that he tap-danced. This is
not an easy thing to imagine, as Papa does not seem very
happy lately. Leo closes the book, slips it into his pocket,
rummages in the box, pushing aside yearbooks and pho-
tographs and letters. Near the bottom, wrapped in tissue
paper, he discovers a pair of tap shoes, scuffed, wrinkled,
and cracked on the sides.
On the bare wooden floor in the dusty attic, Leo
taps. Tappety, tap, scuffle, tappety, tap. He slides across
the floor, whirl, tappety, tap, kick.
***
Leo is on national television, tapping up a storm. The stu-
dio audience has risen to its feet, and they are applauding
wildly. The microphone picks up the host's voice: "Have
you ever seen anything like it? Have you ever seen so
much talent in such a young performer?"
Leo taps like mad, spins, leaps over a chair.
***
"What is going on up there? Stop that noise! Stop it, you
hear me?" Papa bolts up the stairs. "Sounds like stam-
peding buffalo!"
"It's just me," Leo says. "I was just___"
"What are you doing? Where did you get those
shoes?" Papa spies the opened box. "You've been in my
things?"
"I was just___"
"Don't you go through my things. Those are my
things, what little of my own that I have in this zoo-
house."
" But were these really yours?" Leo asks. "Did you
really tap-dance?"
Papa scowls at the floor. "Take them off. Put them
back."
The rain lashes against the window, and the wind rat-
tles the frame as Leo takes off the shoes, rewraps them
in the tissue paper, and returns them to the box. His
father kicks the box into a corner and stomps down-
stairs, pulling Leo behind him. Papa doesn't know that
Leo has his little blue book in his pocket, and Leo is not
about to tell him.
As he descends the steps, Leo hears the crowd noise
fading. "Bravo! Bravo, Leo!" He pauses on the steps to bow.
"Hey, sardine-o!" Pietro shouts. "Your turn to clean
the bathroom!"
이전글 | 과일ㅣ체리|2018-05-22 | |
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다음글 | nick070612|2018-05-22 |