Free Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison

him to stop being so dirty-mouthed around girls and to wear clean clothes but Melvin’s mother had taken off to Missouri to join this religious cult and their house was a mess. Melvin said, “No, it’s only because I’m ugly.” The upshot was that Melvin had heard that there was this woman that worked at a strip club in Escanaba that would screw a fellow for twenty-five dollars. Carl would drive because he was fairly sober because if he drank more than two beers he would puke due to stomach problems. Carl’s dad was a big deal at the college and we were driving a newer-model Chevy. The beer was kept in the trunk so we had to slow down and drive off on a log road when we wanted one.
    We got to Escanaba and of course Melvin didn’t know which of the three strip clubs was where this professional woman worked. None of the clubs would let us in anyway because we didn’t have identification and we weren’t oldenough. By the third club Melvin was pissed off and had become obnoxious pretending he was big and strong rather than small. This is what beer can do to man. Well, Carl became smart-mouthed and the bouncers shoved him away from the door and then little Melvin threw a punch about a foot wide of the mark and the bouncer backhanded him across the sidewalk into a car. I had to step in though I figured the bouncer to be about two-eighty to my two-thirty. He had a fair amount of fat around the waist, though, and I guessed he probably got winded pretty fast. Boxers know you have to build up your wind with roadwork or you can’t put meat in your punches. Well, I ran on the track team so wind wasn’t the problem. We boxed and I forced him to wrestle some to wear him out. I took a pretty good haymaker to an ear, which made my head ring like a church bell. By now a crowd had grouped around us and people were betting. The bouncer rushed me and got me half up on a car hood but I got my legs around his chest in a scissors and squeezed out what breath he had left. The bouncer was leaning up against the car when I started hammering him mostly to the body because that way you don’t hurt your hands and it takes the will to continue out of your opponent. I hesitated before I threw my last punch because the bouncer’s eyes looked like the German shepherd’s a few years before. I hit him once more anyway and that’s what I truly regret. I should never have thrown that last punch but I was angry about the filly and my dad getting fired by the Burketts for my behavior with Cynthia. Well, we heard a siren so Melvin, Carl, and me ran off down an alley and sat in a dark vacant lot for about an hour and then Carl snuck around and gotthe car. We didn’t get back to town until daylight. Dad was making breakfast and told me that Mr. Burkett had called him in the evening and hired him back. He made an ice compress for the side of my face which was swollen up. He said that my body had far outgrown my brain. I’ve regretted that last punch a thousand times. These days men don’t fight so much and it’s a good thing. Cynthia’s parents told her that she could never see me again but that afternoon we met up at Flower’s near Au Train. Cynthia only had a learner’s permit but she swiped her mother’s car and drove out to meet me anyway. She couldn’t have been an easy girl to raise. [I suppose I wasn’t. C.] I was pleased that Flower and Cynthia liked each other. When Cynthia said something bad about her parents Flower said, “White people try to keep their children young. You’re a grown-up. You can always move on.” She wasn’t preaching. She said it flatly, like “Try my homemade ketchup with your potatoes.” I was always proud that our son Herald never got in a fight except during his hockey games when it’s more or less expected. Herald never liked winter except for hockey. Once he got his B.A. at the University of Michigan with a