The two brothers, six and almost seven, watched in silence. Another man was at the bar door. He made any witnesses go back in. The boys had the dread in them then. Both in the front seat. Crisp wrappers strewn around their feet and the laughter of a minute ago all gone. They had stopped playing with the steering wheel, unable to look away as their father head-butted the man until his face was a bloody purple mush. They could hear the crack of bone on bone but were too scared to wind up their window to block the sound out. Their father stepped back and pulled out his cigarettes, lit one.

Both tiny boys hoped that would be it.

He was walking toward the car when the man said something.

They will never know what.

Their father strode back to the man on the floor and gouged his fingers into one of the pulped sockets.

Pressed down until an eyeball popped.

He then pulled on it slowly and deliberately so the man could watch what he was doing with his other frantic eye, and he kept doing it until the sinew snapped altogether. Making sure the man was still watching, he put it in his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. The guy is still alive now. Lives three streets away from them. He wears an eyepatch and occasionally helps out in the neighbourhood library. The brothers did not ask their father for a chippie after all that night. They went home in silence. It is not discussed. There is never a good time to comment. There has been no appropriate point for it to turn into one of many humorous myths in the Davey–Ali itinerary of fucked-up-things-to-laugh-about-later. Like their uncle’s wake. Someone had put a cigar in their embalmed uncle’s mouth and that had been a laugh until their grandmother had taken it out and smoked it whilst telling each grandchild what was utterly pathetic about them. Then there was a fight between Davey’s wife and Ali’s girlfriend. A barmaid was crying before they’d even ordered a third round. The entire family proceeded to get so wasted on uppers, downers, alcohol and the potent exhilaration and terror of grief, that their auntie forgot her husband was dead. She dry-humped the corpse in front of everyone until her sister pulled her off. She could not remember the wake at all the next day. Nobody said a thing to her. She looked pious at the funeral. It was better that way.

Just another family party that got out of hand.

Or then there are the fights at funerals.