He sighed, slight remorse crossing his face. “Ah hell, don’t listen to me none.”

I stayed silent and stared ahead, tears fueling my anger. My mother saw me and came charging down.

“What’s the matter, baby?” she asked me. I looked at her, tears still coming. “Goddamn it, Mark, what’d you say?”

“Nothin’ that wasn’t true.”

She shook her head. “Come on, Bubby,” she said. She reached over the bar and I stood and climbed toward her.

“Sit back down!” he yelled, pounding his fist onto the bar. “I’ll be goddamned if you two are gangin’ up on me again.”

He placed his hand on my shoulder and forced me down.

“Nobody’s gangin’ up on you. You had a shitty day and now you think you can be an asshole to everyone around you.”

“Oh fuck you,” he said.

She swung at him. My father threw up his hands and ducked so that her fist grazed the top of his head. She turned before he could retaliate, and while she rushed away to come around the bar to get me, he picked up his drink and threw the entire contents at her while keeping the glass in his hand. Beer covered most of her back.

“Quit fighting! Quit fighting! Quit fighting!” I yelled while banging my own glass onto the bar in rhythm with the words.

“Shit, Mark,” Danny said, standing. I jumped from the stool and ran away.

“Leave. Now!” my mother yelled.

“Yeah, I’ll leave. But I’m takin’ Stratton with me.”

“The hell you are.”

I stood behind her, my arms tight around her waist, and she stood behind Danny, who outweighed my father by a good hundred pounds, taller by five inches. Though I’d been scared, I felt perfectly safe behind my mother.

“You should probably just call it a day, Mark,” Danny said.

“Come on, Stratton, let’s go home.”

I buried my face into my mother’s shirt so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

“He’s stayin’,” she said.

My father clenched his hands into fists and nodded. “Okay. I’ll deal with you both at home. And you,” he said, pointing at Danny. “You’ll get yours another day.”

“I doubt it,” Danny said.

My father turned, grabbed his jacket from the stool, and left. “What’s up his ass?” Danny asked when the door shut behind him.

“Who the hell knows.”

“Are you alright?”

She laughed. “Same shit, different day.”

Danny handed me a crisp dollar. “Play us some tunes, buddy.”

I stood at the jukebox, punched in four songs, then sat beside Danny while he drank his third beer and talked to my mother.

“Will everything be okay at home?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.”