Before we go eat dinner at the Sage and Sirloin, my father wants to have a beer at Murray's, a cowboy bar he practically lived at before the leukemia. I remember Murray's when it was the Eight Ball, and, before that, the Sassy Lassy. When it was the Sassy Lassy, there were two bar maids, named Amber and Amber. They were mother and daughter, both redheads. Both liked my father, who sometimes worked as a bouncer for them during bad weather, when he couldn't work construction. On the weekends he had custody of me, I would sit in the corner of the bar, with my elbows padded by the cushiony black vinyl running around it, and watch the electric blue water of the Hamm's sign run down its eternal waterfall. The Ambers competed in quietly leaning over the bar and slipping things from the snack display racks into my hands without my father noticing. Hershey bars slipped the best, with a dry papery slither. Polish sausages were much harder to be subtle about. If one of them fished a pickled egg out of the large jar of glowing green brine, I would slide down off the stool and hide in the ladies' room for a while.

I don't know where the Ambers are now. Dad says they sold the place for what he calls "beaucoup bucks." And now it's called Murray's.

My father spent the last year in the hospital and at home recovering from chemotherapy. They kept promising me he would die. He didn't, and now he is badgering me as I gingerly drive his beloved Datsun 280Z down the road to Murray's, where I don't want to go. His arm is in a cast, so I get to drive. I have only driven enough in the past to get a driver's license, and have never driven a stick shift, so he has plenty of occasion to make remarks.

"Goddamn it, honey, if you don't go faster than this, we’ll get pulled over," he says, tightly clutching a can of Budweiser as we lurch along.

His cast glows white in the dimness of the car.

"What's with the beer, Dad?" I ask in my best being-patient voice.

"It's o.k., I'm not the one driving."

"Yeah, so you're not the one to go to jail."

I put my hand on the gearshift, trying to figure out what gear I'm in.

"Aw, honey, you think I'd let them put you in jail?"

"Of course not, Dad," I say, wondering how he could prevent it. Maybe they'd let him trade with me. He leans forward and points with his beer. "Turn here for Murray's."

"Dad, I told you I didn't want to go to Murray’s."

He's not supposed to be drinking, and if we go to Murray's he'll get blind drunk, just out of habit. Besides, I don't feel like dealing with a bunch of shitkickers.

"Well, we have to, damn it, so I can cash a check and I want a beer."

I tentatively begin pushing the clutch pedal in.

"You already have one, and I brought money to take you out."

"I don't want you to take me out. I am your father, you are my daughter, and I am going to cash a check and we are going to have a drink at Murray's and then we will go to the Sage and Sirloin, and have our dinner. I want a steak. Or maybe pork chops."

"Eew."

There is a faint metal crunch as he tries crushing his empty can one-handed. "Eeeew," he says in a high voice, then, threateningly: "You better eat meat, or you'll get sick. It was meat that got me over the cancer."

"I thought it was beer," I say, letting the clutch back out too suddenly.

"That too."

The little car rockets into the dirt lot behind Murray's, every bump an excuse to leap into the air. We slide to a stop in a cloud of dust. "You know, some people slow down before they stop," my father informs me. Instinctively, my arm had flung itself between him and the windshield.

"And some people have seat belts in their cars," I inform him.

We walk into Murray's through the back door. It's a pretty basic place, narrow hallway with a pay phone between the men's and ladies' rooms, a square bar, jukebox, and the front door. A lot of men my father's age, all wearing baseball caps, all with beer bottles sitting on the bar in front of them, one saggy-faced woman with orange hair, wearing a white satin baseball jacket. My father pulls a stool out for me. I pull one out for him. He looks at me funny. I sit down. He sits down. He does a double take, begins glowering. He's looking at the barmaid.

"I don't know her," he says. "I've always known everyone who works here."

She's got a poodle perm, a low-cut t-shirt and a pair of Lady Wranglers on, a pot belly, spike heels.

"She looks like she belongs here to me, Dad."

She comes over, heels balanced on the rings of the rubber mat behind the bar.

"What can I get you two?" It's pretty obvious she thinks it's cute, and old man out honky-tonkin' with his daughter. He's only forty-three, but leukemia really does something to you, even if it lets you live.

"I'd like a Budweiser," he says, looking at me, "and what would you like, daughter?"

I think for a minute. "A screwdriver," I say, preparing to be carded.

"And I'd like to cash a check, if you please," Dad says, pulling his checkbook from his back pocket.

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey. We don't cash checks."

"Oh, yes you do! I've been cashing checks here all my life!"

The woman looks at him closely."I'm sorry, honey, but I don't know you." She sounds genuinely sorry.

"I'm Harry Stevens," my father says, "John Berry and Milt Andrews are sitting right over there, go ask them who I am."

She goes over to the other side of the bar, leans over and talks to two men sitting together. They peer uncertainly across the bar and say something to her. She comes back over to us.

"They say Harry Stevens's dead."

My father shoots off his stool while tearing off his cap and before I can take another breath is with the two men, who are making what appear to be deeply shocked and apologetic gestures. I can hear him over the jukebox: "You sonofabitch. I'll show you who's dead!"

Presently, the barmaid comes over to me with Dad's beer and my drink. "These are on the house," she says.

A wizened-looking man in an oversized white cowboy hat smiles and waves at me from the far corner of the bar. I assume he's a friend of my father's, so I smile and wave back, then take a slug of my drink. My father comes back, reseats himself, still muttering.

"The lady gave us our drinks for free, Dad."

"She oughta."

The barmaid trots up to us. "I'll cash that check for you now," she says. He carefully writes one out and she takes it away.

A hand reaches up to touch my father's shoulder.

"Well, hello, there, Harry!"

It's the old guy from the far corner of the bar, he of the smile and wave. He looks like a cross between a midget and a raisin.

"And who is this lovely young lady?"

"This is my daughter, Annie. She's visiting me from San Francisco."

"The Green Bay? What do you do up there, Annie?"

The man is looking up at me lecherously.

"I go to school and I work."

"That's very good, young lady, very good. I'm glad you came down to see us. You know, your Daddy is an old friend of mine -- would you do me a favor?"

"Sure," I say, hoping it won't be much.

"Here's a quarter, will you go pick out a couple songs for me?"

"I'm not really qualified," I begin.

"Honey, will you do this man that favor, please?" my father says.

"I'm sure I'll like whatever you put on," the man says, oversized white cowboy hat nodding for emphasis. I start across the room, nightmarishly knowing what will come next. Sure as shit, I no sooner finished punching buttons at random than there he is, grabbing my wrist.

"That's a good song for dancing," he says, and promptly begins doing so, putting an arm around my waist. His face fits between my breasts, but his hat falls off. He tosses it to the bar with one hand, the other continuing to clutch my hip. I look over at my father, who smiles and waves encouragingly.

"I don't really know how to dance," I tell the man.

"I'll teach you!" he replies, voice a little muffled.

I feel something poking my hip. I hope it's his belt. A couple of men are laughing. I begin praying that I’m not about to be gang-danced to Merle Haggard. Finally, it's over. I am offered another quarter, but I tell him that I really should be visiting with my father. He makes me promise that I'll have my Dad bring me out to see his place the next day.

"There are things you should know," he tells me.

Back at my seat, I gulp the rest of my drink down and my father signals for another round.

"That man you danced with, he rode Seattle Slew, honey. You just danced with history."

"I think history likes my boobs, Dad." He looks at me sharply.

"What did you just say?"

Shit. Now my dad will feel compelled to go hit him.

"Nothing, never mind. Can we go eat now?"

"Let me cash another check."

"No. Let’s just go. I'll pay for dinner, you bought the drinks."

He looks at me from under his cap, tiny-headed from having lost all his hair. "Sweetheart, I know you don't make any money."

I look back at him, see the lines eroding his face drawn together in a worried expression.

"It's o.k., Daddy. I've been saving for this."

He slides down off his stool and takes his cluster of keys off the bar. "If you don't mind, I'll drive."

He walks down the narrow hallway toward the door. I walk behind, trying not to crowd him.