DANNY TURNER HAD it all going for him when he was in high school. His stunning blue eyes and crop of blond, wavy hair gave him the sort of bad-boy look that the girls just seemed to love. He wasn’t a big guy at five foot nine, but he was one of the strongest and fastest players on the football team. He’d worked out diligently since that day when he was thirteen and was humiliated by the neighborhood thug, Al Rocco.

Al was an oversized Neanderthal who liked nothing better than grabbing some smaller kid so he could pin him down and taunt him. That day Al not only pushed Danny to the ground, but held him there, digging his knees into his shoulders and letting his filthy spittle drip slowly and repeatedly onto Danny’s face. The other kids gathered, cheering and chanting each time another glob landed on Al’s latest victim.

It was payback time pretty soon for Al when Danny’s brother, Tony, heard what had happened. Tony jumped into their dad’s pickup truck and bolted to the school yard faster than a speeding bullet, while Danny tried to explain why he’d let that Rocco kid get the better of him. Sometimes Danny thought Tony was a lot like Superman, because he could always be counted on to swoop in and save the day. Tony’s jet-black curly hair and blue eyes lent even more credibility to the image Danny had of his brother.

Over the years, this incident became a valued piece of Turner-brother family lore. Whenever the brothers recounted this story (which frequently happened while perched on barstools), they would invariably begin by mimicking the wide-eyed, guppy-swallowing expression and squeal that escaped “Fat Al” the second he turned around to see Tony barreling down on him.

Tony was taller than Al; while he didn’t weigh as much, at six foot two, 175 pounds, his athletic build was solid muscle. So it wasn’t hard for him to grab Al by the throat and pin him to the fence with one hand while punching him smack in the center of his stomach, sending him tumbling to the ground.

“Get up, you fat turd, and apologize to my brother.”

Al just sat there with a scowl and said, “I didn’t do nothin’, ain’t gonna apologize to nobody, ain’t no way, and you can’t make—”

Tony grabbed him by the hair, brought him to his knees, and slapped him full across the face. The wallop raised a big red mark on the kid’s cheek.

“Come on, get up and fight somebody your own size.”