Patrick said, "If you saw him again, could you point out the guy who kicked you?"
"Sure," I said.
"Let's go down and take a look," my father said.
So all of us, including the dog, went down to The Dry Gulch and walked in.
"Sorry, pal," the bartender said to my father. "Can't bring that dog in here."
My father said to me, "See any of the people that gave you trouble?"
I nodded.
"Which ones?" my father said.
"You hear me?" the bartender said. "No dogs."
There were six guys drinking beer together at a big round table. I pointed out two of them. My father nodded and picked me up and sat me on the bar.
"Which one kicked you?" he said.
"The one in the red plaid shirt," I said.
My father looked at Patrick.
"You want him?" my father said.
"I do," Patrick said.
"Yours," my father said.
"Mister," the bartender said. "Maybe you don't hear me. Get that dog out of here . . . and get the damn kid off the bar."
Without even looking at him, my father said, "Shut up."
Pearl sat down in front of the bar near my feet. All the men at the round table were staring at us. My two uncles walked over and leaned against the wall, near the round table. Patrick was looking at the man in the red plaid shirt.
My father walked over to the round table.
"You," he said to one of the men. "Step out here."
"What's your problem?" the man said.
"I don't have a problem," my father said, "you do, and it's me."
"That kid been crybabying about me?" the man said.
"That kid is my son," my father said. "The gentlemen leaning on the wall are his uncles. We're here to kick your ass."
The man looked at his five friends and stood up.
"Yeah?" he said.
They all stood up. My father hit the man and the fight started. Pearl and I stayed quiet, watching. Behind me, I heard the bartender calling the police.
By the time the cops arrived, both the men who had teased me were out cold on the floor. The man in the red plaid shirt was lying outside on the sidewalk. I don't quite know how that happened, except that my uncle Patrick had something to do with it. The other three guys were sitting on the floor looking woozy.
The cop in charge, a sergeant named Travers, knew my father.
"Sam," he said. "You mind telling me what you boys're doing?"
"They harassed my kid on the street, Cecil," my father said. "Stole his milk."
Travers nodded and looked at the bartender.
"I believe I been telling you, Tate," he said, "to keep the drunks inside the saloon."
"They got no call to come in here and beat up my customers," the bartender said.
"Well," Travers said. "They got some call. Your kid gets bothered by a couple drunks, you got some call."
He looked around the room and then at my father.
"Maybe not this much call," he said. "Probably gonna get fined, Sam."
"Worth the money," my father said.
Travers smiled.
"Known it was you three," he said, "I'd have brought more backup."
"Ain't supposed to bring no dog in here either," the bartender said. "Board of Health rule."
"We'll go hard on them 'bout that," Travers said.
My father came over and took me off the bar.
"Probably have to appear in court to pay the fine," Travers said.
"Lemme know," my father said.
He walked toward the door. Pearl and I followed him. My uncles closed in behind us.
And we left.
Chapter 4
"How come he didn't arrest you?" I said to my father when we got home.
"Known Cecil most of my life," my father said.
"But wasn't it against the law?" I said. "What you did?"
"There's legal," my father said, "and there's right. Cecil knows the difference."
"And what you did was right," I said.
"Yep. Cecil would have done it too."
"How you supposed to know that what you're doing is right?" I said.
"Ain't all that hard," my uncle Patrick said. "Most people know what's right. Sometimes they can't do it."
"Or don't want to," Cash said.
"But how do you know?" I said.
My father sat back and thought a minute.
"You can't know," he said. "But you think about it before you do it, if you got time, and then you trust yourself."
"How 'bout if you don't have time to think and you done it and it was wrong?" I said.
"Did it," my father corrected me.
He was a bear for me saying things right. Even when he didn't always say it right himself. When he wasn't around, I talked like all the other kids talked, and I think my father knew that. As long as I knew how to talk right, then I could choose.
"Sometimes you make a mistake," he said. "Everybody does."
"It sounds too hard," I said. "How do I know I can trust myself?"
"It'll be pretty much instinct," my father said. "If you been raised right."
"How do I know I'm being raised right?" I said.
My father looked at my uncles. All three of them smiled.
"None of us knows that," my father said.
I nodded. It was a lot to think about.
"How 'bout, what's right is what feels good afterwards," my father said. "It's in a book, by a famous writer."
My father wasn't educated. Neither were my uncles. And they didn't know what they were supposed to read. So they read everything. Not long after I was born, my father bought a secondhand set of great books, bound in red leather, and he and Patrick and Cash used to take turns reading to me every night before bed. None of them had any idea what was considered appropriate for a little kid. They just took turns plowing on through the classics of Western literature in half-hour chunks every night. I didn't understand most of it, and I was bored with a lot of it. But I loved my father and my uncles, and I liked getting their full attention.
Chapter 5
"Were you scared?" Susan said. "After the fight in the barroom?"
"No," I said. "I was never scared with them."
"And you felt important to them," Susan said.
"Very."
The swan boats, escorted by ducks, moved slowly around the small lagoon, under the small bridge, around the other small lagoon, and back.
"Much of what you know," Susan said, "you learned at home."
I nodded.
"Where you felt safe."
"Sure."
"With people who loved you," Susan said.
"Absolutely."
"And they took turns," Susan said. "Reading to you and all."
"They took turns with everything," I said. "So none of them got ground down, so to speak, by being the only parent."
"And all of them trusted each other to look out for you," Susan said.
"Yes."
"Did you like the books they read to you?" Susan asked.
"I guess," I said. "Sometimes I remember something and understand it in retrospect."
"Probably better than you would if it had been taught to you in school."
"Remember the Paul Simon song?" I said.
Susan smiled and sang. Badly.
" âWhen I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.' "
"How come someone as perfect as you can't sing a lick?" I said.
"It's the flaw that highlights perfection," Susan said.
"Like a beauty mark," I said.
"Exactly," she said.
A squirrel darted toward us and stopped hopefully.
"Do you have anything to give him?" Susan said.