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had a bad temper and sometimes drank too much and I was always afraid he’d yell at me or hit me with his belt. But that day I knew I had no choice. I guess I could’ve asked my mother when she came home from work—she was a receptionist at a doctor’s office in Manhattan—but I knew I’d feel like a baby, running to my mommy for help. There was something more manly about getting help from my father.
     
    I knocked on the door to the study. There was no answer, so I knocked again.
     
    “What?” my father said in his usual irritated voice.
     
    I opened the door slowly, ready to get yelled at.
     
    My father was at his desk, staring at a blank sheet of paper in his typewriter. He was very tall, over six feet, with broad shoulders. When he quit his advertising job, he’d started growing a beard, vowing not to shave until he finished his novel. The beard was already long and thick and it would grow even longer.
     
    “What is it?” my father asked without looking at me.
     
    “I just…I just need some help,” I said.
     
    “This isn’t a good time, Jonathan.”
     
    “I know dad, but it’s really important ’cause—”
     
    “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
     
    “I know but—”
     
    “And why did you come in here without knocking?”
     
    “I
did
knock.”
     
    “No, you didn’t. You just started opening the door. How many times have I told you that when the door is closed and you know I’m working that you shouldn’t, under any circumstances, interrupt me.”
     
    “But I
knocked
.”
     
    “I don’t care if you knocked or if you didn’t knock—you interrupted me. Now I lost my train of thought—you know what that means? It means I forgot what I was going to write.”
     
    “I’m sorry,” I said, looking at the floor.
     
    “That doesn’t help me, does it?” my father said. “Now the words are lost forever—I’ll never remember what they were. So go ahead. Tell me what’s so important that you had to come into my office without knocking. Come on—tell me.”
     
    “Nothing,” I said.
     
    “Nothing?
Nothing
? So you just came in here and interrupted me for no reason at all?”
     
    “No.”
     
    “No?…What do you mean, no?”
     
    “No, I didn’t interrupt you for no reason at all.”
     
    “Well, will you please tell me what you want so I can get back to work?”
     
    “It’s about school.”
     
    “School? You mean your homework? When your mother comes home she’ll help you with that. Is that what’s so important?”
     
    “It’s not homework,” I said.
     
    “Then what is it?”
     
    Looking at the floor, I started to cry again, then I said, “Something else.”
     
    My father breathed deeply. I was afraid he was going to start yelling at me again.
     
    “I’m sure whatever you’re crying about can’t be very important.”
     
    “It
is
important,” I said.
     
    “Well, if you don’t tell me what it is, I can’t help you, can I?”
     
    I cried for several more seconds, then I got a hold of myself and said, “It’s this kid.”
     
    “What kid?”
     
    “Billy Owens.”
     
    “Who’s Billy Owens?”
     
    “A kid in my class.”
     
    “What about him?”
     
    “He wants to beat me up.”
     
    “And?”
     
    “And I’m scared.”
     
    “Why are you scared?”
     
    “Because I don’t wanna get beat up.”
     
    “Why do you think you’re going to get beat up? You’re a big kid. You’re probably the biggest kid in your class. Why’re you scared?”
     
    “You don’t understand,” I said.
     
    “What don’t I understand?” my father said, looking at the typewriter again.
     
    “I don’t know how to fight,” I said, “and Billy Owens is the toughest kid in the whole school. He even beat up Rodney Foster and I’m afraid he’s gonna beat me up too.”
     
    My lips were quivering—I didn’t want to start to cry again, but I was afraid I was going to.
     
    “Trust me, there’s nothing to be worried about,” my father said.