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upstanding Christian lady parked outside the girlfriend’s house, lying in wait for Dad to come outside. When Mom saw the screen door open and the familiar feet hit the porch, she leaped from the car and started firing.
    The first bullet grazed my father’s left bicep. The second bullet whizzed past his girlfriend’s head, lodging in the door frame. Dad went scampering off the porch and down the sidewalk.
    He did not go to the hospital. He waited a few minutes for my mother to clear out. Then he drove himself back home. He dressed the wound in the bathroom. I don’t know if he yelled at my mother or if she yelled at him. I never heard either one of them apologize. I doknow the cops didn’t come. No one was arrested. My mom had made her point her way.
    That didn’t end my father’s straying. I don’t think anything could have. Certainly not a little graze wound. Dad just found a middleman, spending more time with his good buddy Boo. While my mom was off at work, Dad would go to Boo’s house to play cards and drink. If the weather was nice, they’d pull an extra card table into the yard for the bottles, the mixers, and the ice.
    Sometimes, when I got bored, I’d ride to Boo’s on my bike and ask Dad if he could spare any money. Almost always, he’d smile and hand me a few bucks, before shooing me away.
    “Going to the movies?” he’d ask. “Have fun.”
    “Playing ball today? Good idea. See you tonight.”
    He did whatever it took to get me out of there.
    When I told my sister Betty how generous Dad always was at Boo’s house, she laughed and told me I was thinking way too small.
    “You can get a lot more than five dollars,” she said. “Ask him for twenty.”
    “Twenty?”
    “Just go try it,” she said.
    Sure enough, when I rode up and asked for a twenty, Dad handed me a twenty. Then, I got even bolder, returning half an hour later for another ten. He forked over the ten. He didn’t even ask why.
    Eventually, I got some extra insight about my dad’s generosity. One day, when he didn’t get me out of there swiftly enough, a carload of women in party dresses pulled up.
    “Boo’s friends,” my father explained hurriedly, before heading into the house with Boo, the ladies, and a couple of other guys.
    Clearly, my parents didn’t have a perfect marriage. When I was twelve, Mom and Dad announced they were splitting up. I raced up to my room and started crying. I loved my mother a lot. But I concludedI’d have to live with my father if I was going to get any better at baseball. Thankfully, I never had to make the choice because the bust-up never happened. Mom and Dad stayed together, and life just went on.
    I’m not blaming Mom and Dad’s troubles for my own later on. I stumbled into plenty completely on my own. But when it came to drinking and screwing around, I didn’t lack for strong role models, that’s for sure. And the whole idea of good, loving people sometimes doing reckless, self-destructive things—that was business as usual for the Goodens.
    On my mom’s side, feuding and fighting were damn near official sports. Mom had several nephews and cousins who put each other in the hospital after angry, drawn-out brawls. Then, no hard feelings on either side—they’d stop by during family-visiting hours and make sure everyone was doing okay. Dad’s three older sons were constantly finding trouble and messing up their lives. They were all heavy drinkers who wandered into harder stuff. None of them could seem to hold a job.
    I was eight or nine years old before I realized that James, Charles, and Danny were my half brothers. I never met their mom. Sometimes they would visit in the summer. They were all wild guys, staying out late and going to bars where fights broke out. James, the oldest, finally went into the army. When he came home on leave, he was as polite and clean-cut as you can imagine. It was quite a shock. For the first time I felt like I had a real big brother. He took me out to