“He’d go ballistic if you reminded him of that little fact,” my father says. “But Lucky was never big on the truth. We were in your uncle Vincent’s Oldsmobile, doing what, I shouldn’t exactly say. It was a … request. We were on the clock—let’s put it that way.” He falls silent for a moment and I glance over at him. He’s still hunched forward, squinting at the buttons on the TV. His mouth is open and his lips are peeled back, exposing his teeth, and with the hand that isn’t supporting his weight he reaches forward and pokes a finger into the tray of the VCR. “Goddamn it,” he says. “Didn’t I put a tape in here?”

“You asked me to buy more tapes. You said the ones you had were full.”

“Oh.” He looks over at me. His hair looks like he’s been rubbing his head with a balloon. “Well, did you buy any?”

“Not yet.”

“I thought I taped the State of the Union. Goddamn it, you didn’t buy any tapes at all?”

“I’ll get some this afternoon.”

“That bastard,” he says. “You know what the people of Arkansas said when he got elected? They said, ‘Wait and see.’ That’s all they said. ‘Wait and see.’ Why didn’t you buy any goddamn tapes?”

“I’ll get them this afternoon.”