Inspired by the victories of Tyson Fury and his crafty social senses, my kind gruff host with the bear-like voice and the big sad eyes, was well into some whiskey and wine as he sent his boys to bed and toasted me with a mason jar full of white wine and I with a 24 ounce glass mug of Miller Lite and directed his youngest son, who wanted “to hang-out with” us for a while, to pick out some Jimmy Hendrix from his vinyl collection and play it on the way-back music machine next to the crockpot on the kitchen counter.

By 12:30 the boy was off to bed and I was hustling up more beer and wine from the yurt as the big man forked beef out of the crockpot and washed it down with wine and opined, “James LaFond, I am honored to have you as my guest. It is a true sign of our sorry times that The Great Writer that is you, the most prolific living writer, has for a patron, a dumb fucking truck-driver. I say that because it is true. I am alive largely by accident and have always been disturbed by the fact that I am the smartest person I know. I know high IQ professors who are as dumb as shit and can’t articulate anything and would die for lack of knowledge in almost any circumstance outside of their sheltered environment.

“I’m not as good a father as people think I am. I spend too much time fucking chicks, for instance…But it is the beast that I am and I would rather have them see me for what I am than to harbor false illusions.

…

“You’re very kind, James LaFond. You are by far the smartest person I’ve ever met and I think the best thing I have done as a father is to have you here with my sons. I’m so honored that you want us to have The Sunset Saga—it’s the best science-fiction I ever read, by far. But more importantly, I like to think about the future, when you’re dead and gone and my boys look into one of your books and read it and say, ‘Wow, this guy was a fucking genius and we got to play Dungeons and Dragons with the best living science-fiction writer and walk the streets of Portland with Baltimore’s Violence Guy.’

…

“James LaFond, I need to get better at boxing and it seems to be something I only want to do when I’m drunk.”

[True Irish ancestry shining through here]

We then did shadowboxing drills, hand hitting drills, parrying drills, stopping drills, goon-surfing drills and practiced the underhook, the overhook, the hip turn and the shift trip, rolling with punches, worked the wheel house… bounced off the refrigerator, slid along the kitchen counter, broke the fucking toaster—squashed like a marsupial stepped on by a dinosaur millions of years ago—stepped on the big hairy cat’s tail as it ran for the washroom and practiced slapping my shoulder while doing the knee dip…

About two hours into our drunken boxing, a David Allen Coe album found its way onto the record player and the big man looked down at me, reeling as he chugged a half-quart of wine and said, “James LaFond, thank you. I’m drunk, not gay. Give me a hug.”

We hugged, finished our drinks and he staggered to his front room, “I think I pissed off My Chick. Fuck that bitch. I’ll find another.”

In the morning after Mom picked up the boys, I checked on the Yeti, snoring in his living room den, on the mattress on the floor between the piano and the drums, and turned down the crockpot. The boys had trashed the house and we had trashed the kitchen, so I cleaned it up.

About noon his lovely lady came over and asked me if she could get in to get her key, because she was leaving town for a few days.

I said, “Sure. But it’s a nice visit right? You’re not going to stab him?”

She smiled, “No, just the key.”

I said, “It’s open, and thanks a lot for the nice meal.”

“No problem,” she said, as she strutted in and grabbed her key and walked right back out.

As I made coffee this afternoon, a few hours ago, I told Yeti Waters that His Chick had stopped by to get her key and he rumbled, “Must a pissed that bitch off, huh?”

“James LaFond, where is my phone? I think my fuckin’ kids were messing with my phone.”

I called his number a few times as his ringtone echoed through the boys’ room and we eventually found it, wrapped in dirty underwear and jammed between the slat and the mattress of the top bunk and he snorted, “Those sly little fuckers—that’s my boys, stickin’ it to The Man!”