Too Late

Asa is at the casino when he sees his father at a blackjack table. He wasn’t even sure he was still alive, and he hasn’t seen him since he went to prison. Asa checks the records on his phone and finds that his father was paroled a year ago. He remembers him as taller and with more hair. Asa’s pride is hurt because this is the man who used to seem invincible.

He asks Asa for a cigarette, not recognizing him. A woman tells Asa’s father that she’s ready to go, and he brushes her off. Asa tells the man that he’s getting married. His father eventually realizes who he is. When Asa keeps taunting him, he says Asa is the angriest guy he’s ever met.

In the parking lot, Asa knocks him down and beats him badly. Asa cries as he punches him, which makes him feel simultaneously powerful and weak. One of his punches misses, and he hurts his hand on the concrete. In the car, he tells himself that he’s not like that pathetic man. He demands drugs, and Jon gives him a needle. Asa injects the drugs and tells himself that his father was wrong:

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