One of my earliest memories is of blood and teeth spattering on the hood of a brand new white Chevette. I was seven or eight years old, and my dad had just punched a guy's face in at 2am under the florescent glow of an Elm Road gas station. 

This was back in'84 or '85. At that time, the Warren Tribune Chronicle was a daytime newspaper during the week, but converted to early morning delivery on the weekends. So, after working all day on Friday driving hundreds of miles each to deliver close to a thousand copies of the day's news, Mom and Dad would catch a few hours of sleep, then load us three kids (sorry, Lizzy, not yet a glimmer), bedheaded and grumpy-eyed, into the hatchbacks of whatever rust-buckets we were currently holding together with duct tape and twine, and we'd head to the dock in Warren to pick up the night's bundles.

On the way, we'd usually stop at this all-night convenience store/gas station (I think it was called Valley View?) on Elm Road for gas and coffee. And if I was lucky, Dad would lurch pack into the car with a Snickers bar or a pair of Reese's Cups for me.

This night, I was half-asleep in the front passenger seat of the only new car we ever owned, a sparkling white Chevy Chevette. Why Mom and Dad decided to buy a brand new one instead of another of the $400 bungee-cord warriors that usually dotted our driveway, I cannot fathom. But this one was shiny and chrome, and I was curled up and dozing in the little bucket seat. At least until this weird bearded guy woke me up by slapping the bumper with both hands while spitting his ruined teeth and blood all over the hood and windshield.

I don't remember being scared, though I'm sure I was terrified. What I DO remember is my dad pounding through the glass doors of the Valley View gas station like the god damned Terminator, coming to finish whatever job he'd started inside the store. The guy, some creepy biker, had said something shitty to Mom, and Dad caved in his face in front of the coffee station.

But that's not the story.

See, when Dad T-800ed into the parking lot to end this now-toothless asshole who'd threatened his wife and was now gobbing useless porcelain on the new car where his three kids snoozed, he found himself surrounded. Mom rushed out on his heels to maybe talk some sense into him -because maybe killing a man with your gnarled-but-quick fists in a public place that probably had security cameras was a bad idea, especially when you'd recently been wrongfully sued for breaking a different guy's jaw while he was trying to bust into the place where you were working as a security guard- and they found themselves surrounded by five or six of Toothless's biker pals.

But that's not the story. This is the story.

So, my dad spins this bleeding deviant around by the shoulder, setting to Tyson his ass into hell and he finds himself side-by-side with Mom, their backs to the Chevette, a by-God actual motorcycle gang with revenge in their eyes now in front of them. By this time, I'm in the driver's seat, my face pressed up against the glass. My little brother and sister are stirring in the way back.

This was not going to go well, and Dad knew it. And even though the window was closed, I swear to this very second that I could hear him sigh as he pushed my mom behind him and raised his fists. He might go down -probably WOULD go down- hard, but he wouldn't be the only one.

It's what he did. It's what he always did. Protected who he had to protect, did what he had to do, no matter the inevitably shitty outcome.

Anyway, just as he was getting ready to go down swinging, a cop rolled into the parking lot. The bikers dispersed, and we went to deliver the Saturday morning news. No further violence that night ensued. But I remember looking at the congealed blood splatters on the hood of that Chevette the next morning for a very long time.

There's some sort of moral there, but I'm not unpacking it now.

He was a crazy person, my old man. Fierce and crazy. And I like to think that all four of us kids absorbed all the right parts of that crazy fierceness.