“Stand like this,” I say, and turn sideways to my stepson.

When his mother showed me the video, I wished I hadn’t asked.

The video, which one of my stepson’s friends shot on his iPhone, is of my stepson fighting in the high school cafeteria. And watching it, I’m back thirty years, watching two boys on my junior high’s football team fight in our cafeteria. Aaron Coleman bashes Mikey Whitlack’s face with a combination lock, cracking his orbital bone, splattering tiles with blood. I cheer, although I know neither of them; it’s exciting, fun.

But now, these two boys fighting on my wife’s phone—my stepson and some bigger kid—make my chest tighten. I feel breathless and panicky.

The principal showed this to my wife in a meeting I wasn’t invited to, because me and my stepson aren’t blood-related.

Now that I’ve seen it, two boys flailing wildly, King Kong haymakers, ineffective punches that slap off the shoulder; I think about my dad, and technique.

My dad took me to a boxing gym downtown once, but when we saw how much older (and rougher) the other boys were, we never went back. My dad learned how to throw a one-two combination in college gym class, and was proud he knew how. Taught me when I was in, maybe, fifth grade.

I’ve never been in a fight. Neither had he.

In the garage, where I hung a heavy bag I bought this afternoon on the way home from work, I stand with my stepson, who I had to drag away from the Xbox—the Xbox where, up until a year ago, we played Minecraft together for hours.

“Stand like this,” I say, again. He frowns, stays standing straight on, shoulders squared with mine. He’s taller. And handsomer. Like his real dad.

“Why?”

“So you’re a smaller target.”

“I know,” he says.

“Do you know how to box?” I say, getting frustrated.

“Yes,” he says, likewise annoyed.

I know that he doesn’t. I don’t want him to fight. It’s just the principle of the thing.

“Hit my hand,” I say.

Half-heartedly, he jabs my hand, then makes to walk inside.

“I bought this bag,” I say, “to show you a one-two combination.”

He says, “Mm-hm,” walking.

I follow.

“My dad,” I say, chest tightening at that word, “taught me how to throw a one-two. It’s easy.”

“I know how,” he says. He opens the door to the kitchen.

“Then why didn’t you do it yesterday?” I say, and, of course, wish I hadn’t. Low blow. One point deduction.

Two years ago, I taught him to draw Iron Man. He’d told me he was swapping drawings with his girlfriend. A girlfriend he hadn’t even told his mother about. Now we might go two weeks without talking, except grunts in the hallway for “Hello,” or, “Excuse me,” when squeezing past each other.

“I did,” he says, halting and looking back. “My dad taught me how to fight,” he says, and shuts the door in my face.