“What was it about, though?” I said. “The fight.”
“Nothing. It wasn’t about nothing. I hit Frank Lutz because he happened to be there and because I wasn’t drunk and because I knew Frank would hit me back. And he did.”
“Did you hurt him?”
“Yes. And I went over to apologize to him the next day. I liked Frank. Had nothing against him.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Not much. Not enough.”
“Because you were tougher,” I said. “Because you beat him.”
“No,” he said. “And I told you I don’t want you thinking like that, Sanders. I said, not enough, because a month later I hit Frank again. For the same no reason. And he hit me again. That’s why I got this scar, to remind me to stop being such a damn fool—at least that form of a fool anyway. Now do you understand?”
“No.”
“You will.”
But I didn’t understand, not then, not for a few years more. I only really understood it when later I found out what he hadn’t told me about that period of his life—that he and Ellis Burns stopped going out drinking. I was also able to put another set of two and two together and then I understood that instead of drinking beer to keep himself from thinking, my dad married my mother. And I want to think that being married to Leona Turner Newcomb was at least somewhat better than being hit in the face by Frank Lutz. I want to believe that much about it if for no other reason than the fact that pretty soon I came along, I came out of that marriage, and that’s what I meant a while ago when I said I was forgetting myself, take it for a joke.