Mike took off his sunglasses. “Old buddy, with all due respect, I can handle my wife.”

“Great,” I said. “That’s great.”

“Dad, we need more balls!” Patrick shouted.

“Let’s go get a prize, Pat,” Mike said.

“We didn’t get enough tickets,” Patrick said, but he followed him to the counter. I got Amanda and stood with her outside under the awning, watching the rain. Mike would probably apologize when he was sober, but I wasn’t sure what good it would do. Time had run out on this thing we’d had, probably. I heard him yelling inside.

“Look, man, he wants the Ninja Turtle. The thing’s been on your shelf since 1989. I’ll give you twenty bucks. Tell your manager I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Because I fucking won’t.”

“Stay here,” I said to Amanda. I went back into the arcade and saw that Mike was behind the counter, with the wispy-bearded employee blocking him from escaping with the toy.

“I don’t want there to be an incident,” the kid said.

“That’s on you, bud,” Mike said. “I’m trying to fucking pay for it.”

“That’s a ten-thousand-ticket prize,” the kid said. “It takes a shit-ton more than twenty bucks to win that many tickets.”

I felt a surge of solidarity with Mike—even twenty bucks was an absurd price for this junk—but also, he was being an idiot.

“Let’s go, Mike,” I said. “He’s got to follow the rules. We’ll pick up some stuff for the kids in town.”

Mike met my eyes and I saw a flicker of humanity—King Kong deciding not to throw Fay Wray off the Empire State Building. He reached below the counter, snatched a plastic basket of bouncy balls, and chucked a fistful of them into the arcade, where they careened off of the machines and rolled crazily across the floor.

“Good customer service here,” Mike said. “Call me if you ever need a job.” He dropped the Ninja Turtle on the floor and hoisted himself clumsily over the counter.

“Don’t you ever come back in here,” the kid said to Mike’s back.

“Hey, I’m sorry about all this,” I said to the kid, taking out my wallet.

“You too,” he said. “You should know better than to let people like that into a place full of kids.”

I mean, he was right.