ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: AUGUST 18, 2008, AT THE ROYALE, "THE RUSSIANS ARE CUNTS"

“Say it!,” the drunk man yelled at the bartender. Raising his husky frame off his seat to press his point for a moment, he continued “Say it ‘the Russians are cunts!’”

It was one in the morning. Clark, Dallas and I were in a bar in St. Louis, the Royale, the closest thing to home I’d found since the trip began, five days ago. The bar had been recommended to us by a local. We’d walked in and one of the women behind the bar came over to Clark and hugged him, asking him where he’d been and what he’d been up to. The two had gone to art-school together. She’d hooked us up with the owner, who let Clark do two pieces on his walls, one inside, one out.

I liked the place. Portraits of Jack and Bobby Kennedy hung above the bar, an American flag on one side, Irish on the other. The mick who ran the joint actually pulled off the pork pie hat he wore. And, being a part-time stringer for MTV, he carried a video camera on a stick, what photographers call a monopod actually, but he carried over his shoulder like a bat. Cards on his bar’s tables encouraged people to register to vote, which was able to be done right on the bar. The music was good too, spun by a local DJ, a mix of danceable rock that kept you moving some part of your body even if you were sitting down.

So when this loudmouthed fuck started yelling in his eastern European accent at Clark’s cute bartender friend I wanted to pick-up something heavy and smash it over his head.

But I didn’t. Instead, I went over to the bar and sat down, a stool between us. I thought my mere presence would shut him up. I was wrong. He continued, “You know they’re fucking cunts. Fucking cunts. You won’t say it ‘cause you know it’s true.”

A beer bottle sat on the bar in front of him, but he wasn’t slurring his words, so I didn’t think he was drunk.

“Dude relax. She’s not arguing with you.”

“She’s Polish and I’m Romanian and I just want her to say it, come on, say it with me,” breaking eye contact with me to lock onto her, “Say it with me, ‘the Russians are cunts.’”

The girl was having none of it, “I don’t have to say it.”

“She’s not hearing you man,” I told the guy. “You’re yelling at her. I know you talking politics and shit. Folks get emotional when they talk politics, but you don’t need to yell at …”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. They’re fucking bitches. And you’re a bitch too,” he said, looking at me. “A fucking bitch.”

Them there’s what they call fighting words. Shit, even the Supreme Court -- nine old men and women in an ivory tower surrounded by ex-Special Forces soldiers bearing sub-machine guns, just about as physically far removed from the real world as you can get -- recognizes that there are certain words you just can’t say to a man and not expect to be punched in the face. Words like nigger, spic, cracker, anything about a man's mother or wife, threats, spitting -- all just cause in the world of men for the application of fist to face.

I stood up. “Take it back,” I said.

“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch,” he said, as he stood up too.

“Your mother’s a bitch.”

“Maybe she is, but so are you. Bitch.”

A black St. Louis Cardinals cap sat on his head. I flicked it off. Things happened fast after that. A punch came. I weaved to my left, so most his fist missed my face, but it was close enough to send my glasses flying. Without taking my eyes off him, I bobbed back up and threw an overhand right. I felt it land square and hard, somewhere in the middle of his face.

He staggered backward, briefly lowering his hands for balance, before raising them again.

Lowering my hands, I spoke to him: “Are we good?”

He unfurled his clenched fist and reached out his hand. I grasped it. The fight was over.