Danny Johnson pulled into the parking lot of Ray's and killed the engine. His son, DJ, and that creep everyone called Jim Brown were working on the bar's exterior. The sheriff's department left the place in shambles after the shootout. There were bullet holes in the walls and crime scene tape still hung around the door. Danny knew the inside was still a mess of blood and forensics chemicals. With the help of SLED, they'd documented every grisly detail about the massacre that went on inside that bar. He heard the news about the place just this morning at the diner. He still couldn't believe it.

DJ and Jim Brown looked back as he got out his car and started over. Jim Brown mumbled something to DJ before going inside the bar. As Danny got closer he saw the sign on the bar was different. Instead of Raymond's Social Club there was simply DJ's Bar & Grill. DJ turned to look at his father. He kept his hands in his pockets like he always did when he knew he was going to hear a lecture from his father.

"So it's true, what I heard? You running this place now?"

"Yup," DJ nodded. "Ole Ray didn't leave behind any kind of family to speak of, so the bar's being sold for cheap. I got some cash I been saving up, so I decided to buy it."

"With Billy's approval right?" Danny asked. "Him being Ray's silent partner in the bar and all that, I assume he needs another clean name for the liquor license."

DJ sniffed and cleared his throat, his way of disregarding what Danny had previously said. "You want something, or you just wanted to come out here to fuck with me?"

Danny shrugged. He had something he wanted to say, something he'd prepared on the drive over. But the words weren't coming out. 

"I thought... maybe the events of the last week would make you wise up. So many people dead or hurt just because they were working for Billy. Even that cockroach Roland Spencer almost died because he's with Billy's crowd. Someone with some sense may have gotten out, but you end up getting in deeper."

DJ spat on the ground near Danny's feet and looked at him with hard eyes, a look Danny had seen on many young men... but never his own son.

"You might have forgotten what year it is, but I ain't gotta explain shit to you. I'm grown, and I'll do what the fuck I want."

"So you just gonna be Billy's nigger?" 

DJ grinned. "Shit. Better than being the fucking sheriff's nigger."

"Boy, I--"

"--You know it's true. You the only black man working for the sheriff's department. Have been for the last twenty years. It's like the racist motherfucker who keeps one nigger around to say he ain't racist."

Danny knew he should leave. Just go and don't give the boy the satisfaction of seeing him sweat. But he was hardly ever thinking clearly whenever he and DJ go to arguing.

"Goddammit, you're breaking the law--"

"The law ain't shit," DJ said coldly. "Your boy, Scott? He was Billy's man inside the sheriff's department. But you knew that already, fuck everybody already knew that. Sheriff included. He didn't do a goddamn thing about it because he didn't care. He was getting elected so who gives a fuck? That's what the fucking law and rules mean to me. It's something the people who really matter don't have to worry about. I wanna be one of those people. I'm a twenty-two-year-old black man from Norman who thought he could get outta this town but never did. I'm here for the rest of my life, and it's probably gonna be a short one. So I'm gonna stick with the side that gets me paid."

Danny was about to shout something, but stopped when he saw Jim Brown's magnified eyes watching him from inside the bar's doorway.

"Everything alright, DJ?"

"Sure is," DJ said as he looked Danny up and down. "Sergeant Johnson was just leaving."

Danny held his fists tightly in a ball, so tight he could feel his fingernails cutting into his palms. Without another word, he turned his back on his son and walked back to his car. He waited until he was a mile down the highway before his eyes fell on the picture over the sun visor. DJ in full football gear, his picture from when he was eight years old and playing recreational ball. The boy had a wide smile on his face. Danny remembered that day clearly. The photographer kept trying to get DJ to give him his best mean face for the camera but he couldn't. His wife said the boy didn't have a mean bone in his body.

He pulled over to the side of the road and put his head against the steering wheel as he broke down into sobbing.