Ya wanna know how I got these scars? Well, my daddy - lovely fellow, by the way, just, ah, not the strongest guy you ever met - he hung around with the wrong sort. Mean people. Crazy people. The kinda people who'd break yer arm if they didn't like you tap-tap-tappin' yer fingers. People like me! Aha. So one day, my daddy lost his job. No fault of his, the company was just, ah, downsizing, so they had to let him go. Now, my daddy, he tried to get another job, but, ah, there were no jobs to be had. So, he asked around his friends - the mean ones, remember - and came up with an, ah, "arrangement". They'd give him a little loan, and he'd do little things for them. Get them sandwiches. Be their, ah, footstool. Let them use him as an ashtray. All with a lovely smile, o'course. No good having a grumpy ashtray.
So one day, they were drinkin' in our living room, and my daddy was there, gettin' them things, letting them beat him around a bit, and I happened to, ah, pass by the door. Now, I was a little kid at the time, and I didn't really understand why beating my daddy around was so much fun. So one of his friends saw me lookin', and didn't appreciate it, he said, "hey kid. Why so serious? Your daddy's having fun, isn't he? Show him how much fun you're having." So my daddy just put on his best smile - the best smile he could have had with a, ah, split lip and black eye - and told me to go on to bed. Now, I wasn't the most obedient kid, so I stood there, and kept lookin'. My daddy's friend didn't like that one bit. So he came up to me, and got out this knife, and poked me with it, and told me to get going, or he would make sure I wouldn't be looking at him like that again. Now, this made my daddy scared. He started, ah, begging his friend to stop it, to let me go, that he'd do anything. The guy looked at him, then at me, and then had a really big smile. He said, "hey, now, I'm not going to hurt him. I just don't like seeing a kid so down. A grumpy kid is just the sort of thing that makes me want to kill some parasites that've been bothering me lately. Why don't you, ah, make the kid smile?" And he gave my daddy the knife. So my daddy, still grinning away, tears rolling down those cheeks, put the knife in my mouth. He didn't do anything for a while, though, so the man just slapped him on the back, with the biggest grin I ever saw, and said, "let's put a smile on that face!"
