The kid was quick, nobody could deny that. It helped that I was drunk off my ass. I remember closing one eye to merge the multiple bars into a single image earlier that night. Otherwise, I would have never made it back inside to provoke this fight.

Honestly, I know I threw some racial slurs out there. Cracks about his mother, for sure. I can’t remember what else. Something about his fat girlfriend right before she slapped me and I punched her. Kind of hilarious, in hindsight, seeing her spit a handful of teeth out with all of that makeup on.

Then the kid was on me. I was expecting a fistfight, stupidly, despite the fact that he was known to be quick with a weapon. He stabbed me four times in the chest before my mind even caught up to the first. The knife stuck there.

“Parallel,” I said to him, pointing at the blade lodged in my ribs, “not perpendicular.” I fired the pistol I had went outside for into his enraged face. “The blade will stick in the ribs if you do it that way, completely miss the vitals.”