Roundhouse

I was about twelve the time my dad brought out his shredded jeans to try to impress me. It was his custody weekend, and we were in that apartment he rented in the gap between his first two marriages. My dad and I never knew what to make of each other. He was good with women, his hunting rifle, and his fists. I was his bookish only child, equally shy of girls and violence. 

His face all grin and stubble, Dad described how, the previous weekend, a man had said something rude to a woman at the Cactus Club. Dad had leapt in to defend her honor, and they took it outside to the parking lot. After Dad finished whipping him, the guy stumbled to his truck and let his German shepherd out of the cab. The dog raced out to tear off Dad’s cowboy boot, pulling him down onto the icy asphalt each time he tried to stand.  

I cannot forget Dad dangling those jeans in front of me, one leg in tatters from knee to hem. I remember his laugh, my contempt hardening, as he described fighting to keep his pants on. I thought, this is not something to brag about to your kid. I threw a roundhouse, for myself, for my mom: “I would have been rooting for the dog.” 

There was half a beat as he absorbed the punch of my voice. 

It would not be until I was an adult that I’d wonder why the man would have taken his dog to the bar and I would doubt the story, as I have so many of Dad’s others. And only now, twenty years past his death, am I mature enough to admit to the fleck of admiration I felt when he replied through that unwavering grin, “But it wasn’t a fair fight, Son. The dog was sober.”  

Raised in Arkansas, Bryan Bradford now lives in central New York with his wife and daughter. His enthusiasms include native plant gardening, scones, and whale watching. He holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and his love for the good people of Minneapolis is boundless.  

This essay is a Short Reads original.