I shrug. Donny Smith is bigger and stronger than I am. I’m not even sure I hit him once during the twenty-second brawl.

My father lifts my right hand, inspects my knuckles.

“Damn, son, you even throw a punch?”

“I tried to.”

“Darla, let me buy this man a drink,” he says, picking up two dollar bills and slapping them back down onto the bar. My mother smiles and pulls a root beer from the cooler, pours it into a frosty mug, and sets it in front of me.

“Cheers,” my father says.

We touch our glasses and drink. My mother doesn’t take the money. She rarely does. He gives me one of the dollars to feed the jukebox and the other he changes for quarters to shoot pool. He racks the balls, allows me to break. I hit the cue as hard as I can but only a few of the balls break away. He plays left-handed, which is the handicap we’ve established when playing together. My father is the best shooter in the bar. He rarely loses. I’ve seen him win games without the other person even taking a shot.

“So why’d ya fight today?” he asks.

“Donny Smith called Mom a whore.”

“He did, eh?”

I nod.

“You know why?”

“Because he’s a dick?”

He laughs. “Because his father’s a drunk and a loser. He’s in here every day starin’ at yer mom’s ass. It’s pathetic. Hell, he’d come in with his dick hanging out if he thought he’d get away with it,” he says, watching me earnestly. He then unzips himself, shoves his hand down his pants, and pokes his thumb out of his fly to demonstrate how it might look for a man to have his dick hanging out, albeit a grossly undersized one. Then, to further illustrate the point, he thrusts his hips back and forth and grunts with gusto.

“What the hell are ya doin’?” my mother inquires from the bar.

He grins sheepishly and waves her off with a flick of the wrist. She rolls her eyes.

“The point is,” he says to me, zipping himself back up and bending over the table, “if you ever want to sleep at night, then don’t marry a young, beautiful woman. I married both.” I can’t help but blink. Apparently he doesn’t consider this remark a non sequitur, but I do. And as I stand there confused at the relevance, he promptly sinks every one of his balls on the table.

“You remember how to throw a punch like I showed ya?”

I nod.

“Show me,” he says, holding out his hand for a target. I punch it awkwardly. My fist only grazes his palm.

“Damn, son,” he says, and cuffs me in the back of the head. “You’re everywhere. You can’t flail your elbow like that. Your whole body is slack.”