“You know how much this is going to cost us?”

“No, and if you want the truth, I don’t really give a shit, Mike.”

I’m certain my father’s been waiting a while for this opportunity. He’s never liked Mike and is tired of the opinions voiced behind our backs that somehow still reach us. I’m certain he has a cache of acrimonious quips he knows will only tempt the larger man, who’s taller by three inches, some forty pounds heavier. My father shows no fear.

“Go wait by the pool table,” Mike says, his eyes never leaving my father’s. Donny lumbers away, his head still drooped.

“You think you’re tough shit, don’t you?” Mike asks.

My father grins. “You bet yer ass I do.”

“Fuck you, Mark Brown. Fuck you and yer whole goddamn family.”

My father smirks but stays silent. He’s wound like a rattlesnake, just waiting. For what, I’m not exactly sure. Maybe that right combination of words that’ll push him over the edge.

“Yeah, go ahead and smirk, you cocksucker,” Mike says. He shakes his head and turns to leave, but before he’s able to take a single step, my father hurls his beer bottle at him and it hits Mike squarely in the back. He springs from his stool and, as Mike lifts his arms in defense, my father hits him in the jaw with a left jab that’s followed by an overhand right. It lands flush on the chin and knocks Mike to the floor. The crowd swarms to break it up. Mike stands and rubs his jaw with his right hand.

“You motherfucker,” he yells and charges into the group. Just as his son had done earlier in the day, he doesn’t throw a punch and instead tries grabbing my father by the shirt but there are too many people between them, my mother included. She tries calming Mike down and puts her hands on his chest to push him away from the crowd and toward the front door.

“Get yer damn hands off me, you whore,” he says to her.

Her mouth drops open. Mine does, too. Without hesitation, she reaches back and slugs him in the face with her right hand, around the fingers of which she’s wearing several rings. One of them splits the skin below his left eye. She then grabs a fistful of his hair while the crowd rushes to now separate them. She won’t let go, and they’re pushed apart so forcefully that when they finally do separate, a large patch of hair is clutched in my mother’s hand. Mike staggers backward, one hand to his head while he grabs his son by the arm with the other. Together they stumble awkwardly from the bar.