'twas The Fight Before Christmas

He squinted up at me. "I see Warren Davis broke your nose for you," he added. "He did mine too. Welcome to the club."

[ IV ]

DOWNWARD-FACING DOG WAS MORE than a yoga position. It was my old man's job title. It surprised me as I stared down at him--the itch I felt in my right hand to introduce him to savasana: corpse pose. � Oh, yeah. I'd taken a few yoga classes myself, so I knew precisely why the perv had taken it up. For the tights. For the tail. For the 22-year-olds in sleeping eagle pose. My only question was ... how the hell, at $15 a pop, could Pop afford it?

He held the position, kiester pointing roofward, potato head dangling between his hamhock arms, bug eyes staring between his fire-hydrant legs. Like he was trying to get to heaven ass-first. I turned my back on him. Every time he'd materialized in my life, he'd shown up doing or saying something half-cocked designed to put me on my heels. He didn't pay visits. He paid ambushes.

"Don't feel bad," he grunted.

"About what?"

"Taking the fight."

"Oh, I don't."

"Or about putting a beating on me. It's my last fight. I'm done, kid. I just need you to stick the fork in me."

So that was why he'd come--to suck all the bliss out of the beating I'd planned for him, all the joy out of the first-round uppercut to his right kidney, the shot that I knew--having shared a toilet or two with him--would have him pissing scarlet for a month.