I was ten when I remember my dad coming home in something resembling a man after a hard night's drinking. It was nine A.M and my brother and I were watching Saturday Morning Cartoons on CBS one summer morning at our house in suburban Jersey. The two dogs sat at our feet, uninterested in the animated mayhem on screen, but intensely interested in the bacon my brother and I found in the back of the fridge and cooked up with some eggs. We had looked for our dad to cook it for us, but he was nowhere in the house, so we took it upon our little old selves to fry it up and cook three eggs a piece in the remaining grease. There was a lot of grease. Cartoons were all we were capable of after that breakfast.

Dad came in through the front door still wearing his two hundred dollar tweed suit he had been wearing since he saw us off to school the previous day except that he tie was no where to be seen, his shirt was unbuttoned exposing his undershirt, which its self was stained with alcoholic beverages of many kinds. A few months before he had claimed to have given up smoking but the air in the room changed to that of a bar as he stumbled past us. His hair, normally well kept, hung at all sides from his head exposing a slight patch of used-to-be-hair, normally hidden from the world. He looked like he wanted to go to bed but that he knew he had no chance of making it. My brother and I watched intently.

He slid out of his sports coat and fell down on the couch beside me. My brother was in the ottoman a few feet away. With his hand, he pushed his hair up back onto his head and tried to steady it in some sort of balancing act. When he was either satisfied or frustrated enough to give up, it didn't matter since his hair never staid, my dad closed his eyes and leaned back against the firm couch we bought from Goodwill a year earlier. My brother grimaced. I understood why. With two dogs who had pretty much free reign in the house, dog hair was a constant losing battle. The floor had enough hair to clothe a poor family who wasn't particular and the couch had a fine enough layer that it discolored it from the matte beige my dad liked to a dark shiny brown.

"What do you say you kids turn down the television," he said gently. More gently, I later noticed than he would have were he home when we had turned it on. Admittedly, it was a little loud but we thought that we could get away with it while he wasn't around. I motioned for my brother to do as asked. He was a year younger and as such did my bidding for access to my G.I Joes and Legos when I wasn't using them. For a poor white collar family, I had a pretty good selection, paid for by the lawns I had started mowing the previous spring.

"Do you want some water, Dad," my brother asked, concerned. I had to admit, he had balls. Neither of us had seen the man like that and we were scared. He just shook his head carefully and my brother sat down. The smell of bacon was still in the air causing me to wonder when he would mention it. My dad kept bacon for two reasons, first, he liked it Sunday mornings with his newspaper, and secondly because it was a great dog training tool. Between the bacon and the spray bottle of vinegar he kept, we had the best fed and well mannered dogs in the neighborhood.

Dad breathed heavily and opened his eyes to look around, probably for the dogs, the closed them again. "Look, could you turn off the cartoons," he sighed. My brother jumped to the task. They were no longer interesting. We wanted to know what had happened. Where had he been? What events had occurred as we slept?

After an hour of prodding him carefully with questions and offering him cups of hot coffee the picture slowly came into focus. It was well known with in family circles that Dad and his direct superior didn't exactly have a fondness for each other. The fact was, my dad downright loathed the man and just wanted him gone so he could drop the "assistant" from his title. That night, after work, Dad and a few of his coworkers went out to the local dive where they spent the next few hours fortifying their already substantial dislike of the man over a few drinks. He apparently didn't have many friends who worked for him because, by the sound of it, most of the bank was there complaining to each other and crying in their beers.

When the time had come, and those who were left, decided to move on to greener pastures, the bar they happened to arrive at was the same that the branch manager's brother was as patronizing. He was well known around the office because he was also the local used car salesman who had taken more than a few of them for a ride over some turkeys of cars the manager had no problem financing and then collecting on. It sounded like a good little racket, even at ten years old. Because my dad's group had been out for a few hours, and more than a little crazy by then, it was inevitable that a fight would ensue, and ensue it did. At one point, Dad actually sitting up to explain what he thought was the best part of the story, the car salesman was actually being held by one of the tellers while my dad give him a few kidney punches.

I tried to imagine my father, the man who always seemed so emasculated after a ten hour shift at the bank, brawling in a strip mall bar, spilling drinks on other people's dates, taking punches when he couldn't dodge them, and giving them whenever the opportunity arose. Looking at him, even in the state he was in, he didn't look so much the worse for the wear. The party ended about a half hour after it started though.

First the bartender herded the group outside with a few of the waitresses all armed with baseball bats, swinging at those dumb enough to swing at them, then the police showed up. Dad always saw himself as being something of a man of honor, being raised by an Army officer after all, so while most of the others ran for the trees a hundred yards away, he stood his ground and waited for the police to arrest them. He was in the wrong after all, he explained in a desperate attempt to spin some morality into the tale for my brother and I.

"The rest of the story," he said. "Isn't nearly as interesting. They put me in the drunk tank and released me, I guess, about two hours ago. So I came home."

"Wow Dad," we exclaimed. It was so unbelievable. Our father. In a fight. "You're awesome!"

He just sort of smiled, knowing he had impressed his boys and stroked Misty, the dog the lay at his feet. He felt pretty damn good about himself, and we thought that he should. Slowly, however, we watched the smile leave his face as we saw him sniffing the air. "Did you cook my bacon?"

What bacon Dad?