It was Father’s Day, and two men were fighting in the Dollarama parking lot. One had a shirt that said, “World’s Greatest Dad.” I didn’t know if that’s what started the fight, but a shirt like that is a provocation, and that guy was getting the worst of it. He threw a few weak punches then went down. That should’ve been the end, but the other guy kept swinging, pounding the smaller man’s head into concrete.

The last thing I wanted was to get involved, but the big man didn’t look like he was going to stop.

“Hey!”

He looked up, ready to hit me too if that’s the kind of day it was going to be.

“Fight’s over. You won.”

The man snarled. He wanted more blood. I hadn’t fought since I’d gotten out, and I couldn’t be brawling with a stranger in public.

“Cops’ll be here soon,” I said. “Just go home.”

The man glanced around him, still hot and violent. If he came at me, I’d probably just run like a frightened child. Then he seemed to get it, and he walked off.

I was hoping the man on the ground would pop up just a little bruised and head for home. But he didn’t rise.

“You okay?”

He looked up vacantly and gurgled. Then he spat blood, but not all of it made it out of his mouth. I turned him on his side. The man groaned but didn’t resist. He wasn’t going to die. I could leave now.

In those days, I always said thank you when I bought my morning coffee and helped old ladies get things off high shelves. At work when customers yelled, I nodded and tried to fix the problem. All that was good and smart. What I was doing here was good and stupid.

“You need a doctor?” I asked.

The man moaned again then spoke.

“No doctor.”

“So you’re all right?”

His eyes were swimming.

“Oh, man. Oh, man. Man.”

He stayed flat on the ground.

“Where’s your car?”

“No car. I walked here.”

So he wasn’t far from home. I just couldn’t keep from asking another stupid question.

“You need a ride?”

“Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, you could do that?”

Not while he was still leaking blood. I took off my button-down and tore off the left arm to wrap around his head. It was my only good work shirt. The one I’d have to wear later looked like plastic—cheap and a little shiny.

“What’d that guy have against you?”

“He set my house on fire.”

“He set your house on fire?”

“On the wrong day. He was supposed to do it on a Sunday night. Instead, I come home Saturday night, the place is blazing. So, you know what I had to do?”

He took a moment to breathe, but there was a light in his eyes now—a wronged man with a story to tell.

“Had to run to the hardware store, buy a smoke detector to put up on the wall. Ran to the store, got it. Almost left without batteries. But I got them, shoved them in. Ran home.”

“You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I get home. The first firetruck pulled up. Yelling at me to stay back. But I run inside. Can’t put the detector up on the wall. So I throw it into the kitchen. It’s beeping. Smoke everywhere, fire in half the house.”

“Really man—”

“No, no. Just listen. You got kids?”

“Three.”

“That’s too many.”

Maybe, but I wasn’t allowed to see them. As a father, I thought I was pretty solid. I’d listened to problems, played in the sandbox, made grilled cheese, never did anything wrong to them. Not directly.

“I heard a kid yelling for help in a burning building. That changes you. You think I’m heroic? Do I look heroic?” The man grinned. “It’s okay—you can say it.”

“No, you do not look heroic.”

But he was gaining strength as he spoke.

“Kid is yelling. My girlfriend’s daughter. She’s supposed to be at the lake all weekend with her mom. I run upstairs, grab the kid, run out. Paramedics take her. Shove some mask over her face, pumping in oxygen. Turns out, my girlfriend did go to the lake with some other dude, but they left the girl in the house.”

“How old is the girl?”

“Four and a half then. But get this: the lady is mad at me.”

“You set her house on fire.”

“No, no. It was my house.” The guy sat up just a bit. “And she left the kid home by herself. How is she going to blame me for what happened? She almost got her kid killed.”

“Is the girl okay?”

“She goes to a lung specialist sometimes.”

He pulled himself up so that his back was level with the car behind him.

“Insurance didn’t pay because the bastard fucked the job up. Arson. I did eighteen months and lost a house.”

I wasn’t supposed to be hanging out with felons. That was one of the big rules. The guy seemed much better now—alert and self-sufficient. He could make his own way home.

“It’s just a five minute drive,” he said like he could read my mind.

In the car, he was careful to put on his seatbelt. When he gave me directions, I realized it would take at least fifteen minutes to get there.

“So why was that guy mad at you?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. He still wants me to pay him. For burning down my house on the wrong day. And doing the job wrong, too. I know how to torch. I did five jobs out in BC for this guy—connected guy. Four of the payouts went through without a hitch. You know why the one failed?”

“Why?”

“The guy’s policy said he had smoke detectors up. He didn’t. That wasn’t my fault. That’s insurance for you—those guys are rats.”

“Why didn’t you burn down your own house?”

“You can’t do your own house. You got to be out of town.”

I nodded and felt a little stupid. There was a Father’s Day special at the pancake place up ahead, and I slowed down to read: “Dad eats half price.” I wondered if you had to prove it. My kids were up in Sudbury. One time my ex sent me an email—photos and scans of artwork they’d done in school. I probably wrote back every day for a month, begging for more. Too much. She told me it had been a mistake and she wasn’t sending me anything else.

“Who gave you the shirt?” I asked.

He looked down. He seemed to be trying to read upside down for a moment before he remembered what it said. He mouthed the words: world’s greatest dad.

“I bought it myself. I ran upstairs in a burning house, carried my girl downstairs. You think that qualifies me as a good dad?”

“Maybe it does.”

Before I knew it, I was telling him about my own situation.

“You know what you need to do,” he said. “You need to go up there. Just drive up to Sudbury, tell them Daddy’s home. Bring them a teddy bear, Starburst. You know what I’m saying?”

I kept my eyes on the road and imagined the scene. It was perfect. It would work. This was a sensible, world-class father giving me sterling advice.

“Hey, can we stop somewhere?” he asked. “Get some candy?”

We’d reached the residential section. Our best bet for candy was turning around and going back to Dollarama. I wasn’t doing that.

“Just tell me which house it is.”

At the address he gave me, a dark-haired woman sat on a plastic chair in a small yard with a six-year-old on her lap.

“No, take him away. I don’t want to see him,” she said when the beaten man stepped out of my car.

“Daddy!” the little girl called.

“He’s not your father.”

The little girl struggled to get loose, but her mom held tight. The guy hobbled forward.

“Daddy, did you fall down?”

“Yeah. Pretty silly.”

The woman talked to me through the rolled-down window.

“I don’t want him here.” Then to the girl. “Stop squirming, Natalie.”

I didn’t start the car.

“You hear me?” she said. “Take him away. I’m calling police right now.”

She took out her phone and the girl broke free. Natalie didn’t care about what her mother wanted or the bloodstained tee shirt; she went right into the little guy’s arms.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

I turned the car around. It was going to be a long drive north.