Adoration Page #2

She left that to Simon.

That's worth a lot of money.

Right.

You made some choices, Tom.

Taking over your sister's house in the city,

letting Simon grow up there,

I guess you must have thought

it was good to get away from your dad.

But that cost you.

F*** it.

That's good.

It's a good idea to start the act with that.

And be careful with the ladder.

No more accidents, okay?

- So, have you heard this story before?

- No.

It just occurred to you

to write it this way?

Well, you told us to translate

as it came most naturally.

And it came to you naturally

to imagine yourself as their son?

Well, it just... It seemed cool.

You know, that's why I needed

a few minutes more to rewrite it.

- From his point of view.

- Like he was my age.

Like he was me talking about his parents.

I want you to work on this.

I want you to present it next week

to the class.

I want everyone to believe it's true,

that you're this couple's child.

Why?

As an exercise.

An exercise in what?

- I'm not sure if my French is that good.

- Then do it in English.

- But you teach French.

- And Drama.

- I'm not in Drama.

- Well, you are now.

Your uncle's an angry man.

Some people think he's stupid,

but that's not true.

When someone carries that sort of anger

around all the time, they can seem stupid.

That's the thing about anger.

It sucks up a lot of intelligence.

- Hey! Hey! What are you doing?

- You can't park here, man.

So write me a ticket!

I don't write the tickets.

You already got a ticket.

- It's $55 to get me to stop.

- Otherwise?

Otherwise, I'm gonna tow

your f***ing car away.

- Lady, I promise, I'm very good at this.

- F***!

I'm going to pick it up,

we're gonna get out of here,

everything's gonna be good. It's easy...

Nothing, nothing,

nothing can happen to this car.

Lady, I promise.

Nothing's going to happen, okay?

Why don't you take a break? I promise.

Yeah?

I was driving it normally.

He said it was gonna be fine.

What do you want me to do?

It's not my fault. The car just died.

Well, I didn't do

anything. It's not my fault.

He's a f***ing tow truck driver.

I didn't ask for his credentials.

Hop in the truck. I'll be two seconds.

We good, man?

- May I open your bag?

- Sure.

It's heavy.

Please do not leave your bags unattended.

What they found at the bottom

of my mother's bag

were concealed plastic explosives

and a detonator.

And if the bomb had gone off in mid-air,

as my father intended,

all 400 people on board that flight

would have perished.

I wouldn't be here to tell you the story.

Simon is my best friend,

and I was really confused, too,

when he was standing in front of

the classroom and he was talking,

and I didn't know anything about it.

But then...

You have to wake up and stop living

in your ignorant little box. Seriously.

I am not living in an ignorant, little box.

If he didn't want to tell me about

something like this,

then there must have been a good reason.

And if he doesn't want

to talk to us about it,

then there's a good reason for that, too.

So I think we should all

just leave him alone because...

A lot of you are wondering

why I haven't told you about this before.

The reason is, well, I've...

I only found out a few months ago myself.

I was asking my grandpa

a whole lot of questions before he died,

and I kept this on my cell as a reminder.

You have to believe me, Simon.

Your father was a killer.

If the bomb had gone off in mid-air,

as my father intended,

it would have been the most devastating

terrorist attack of its time

and my father would have gone down

in history as a mass-murderer.

Except he wouldn't have gone down

as my father.

I would have disappeared

in my mother's womb,

along with all the other passengers

on board that flight.

I wouldn't be here to tell you the story.

How's that?

Have you told anyone else about this?

- That I'm making it up? No.

- Why not?

If my friends found out it wasn't true,

it wouldn't be the same.

What wouldn't be the same?

The feeling I get when I'm performing.

I mean, some parts of it

could almost be true,

- but in a different way.

- In what way?

Things about my family.

Stuff... Stuff I haven't thought about

for a while.

So, your father planted a bomb

on your mother?

No.

Well, sort of.

- You live with your uncle?

- Yeah.

Does he know about this project?

- Are you going to tell him?

- I don't think he'd get it.

He wasn't really raised to be tolerant

about this sort of thing,

and his dad, my grandfather, he was...

He was a bit of a hard-ass.

- That could change.

- He died last spring.

Your uncle.

He might be more open-minded

than you think.

I wouldn't bet on that.

Well, there is a way to find out.

I came to apologize for yesterday.

That was wrong of me,

to embarrass a father in front of his son.

Okay.

Is he here? Your boy?

He's in his bedroom doing his homework.

I wanted to explain

something I said yesterday.

It will only take a minute of your time.

All right. Why don't you come in?

So why did you come to

this part of the city?

I was just driving around

and I saw your decorations.

You were just driving around on your own?

I do that sometimes.

When I saw this public display

of your faith, it touched me.

Why?

I feel people staring at me all the time,

wondering why I would make

such a visible statement of my belief.

Where I come from, it's completely natural.

Here, it threatens.

And that surprises you?

Yes.

Like a woman in a bikini

wouldn't threaten you people?

Us people?

Maybe people really should

stick to their own kind.

- That's how you were raised?

- Yeah, I was.

- And you're okay with that?

- Yeah, I'm just fine with it.

- Who is this?

- It's my sister.

She's a musician?

Yeah, she was. She died a few years ago.

I'm sorry. How did she die?

Car accident.

Alone?

- Excuse me?

- Was she alone in the car?

No. The driver died, too.

Was he a friend?

Look, you said there was something

you wanted to explain about yesterday.

- It was about your son.

- Well, he's not my son. He's my nephew.

I raised him after my sister died.

I'm sorry I used the word "Jew"

yesterday. That's not what I meant.

The problem is not with the Jews and Christ.

It's with the Zionists.

Thank you. Thank you for making that clear.

Are you making fun of me?

Listen, your issues with Jews or Zionists

or whoever you happen to hate,

they have nothing to do with my life

or Simon's.

- That's how you were raised.

- Yes. That's exactly how I was raised.

What must have been going through

my mother's mind as she sat in that room?

And at that point, she couldn't have been

aware of the monstrosity of the betrayal,

or what has come to be perceived

as a monstrosity.

You know, when he first found out

what had happened,

that she was pregnant with me,

he didn't want anything to do with it.

He tried to convince her to abort me.

My mother must have been crushed by this.

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