Was she angry? Of course.

Was he sorry? Maybe somewhere deep inside of him, behind a room stuffed with baseball equipment and stacks of Playboys. But she doubted it.

"Oo-wee, lookit that boy go!" he shouted, his fat rippling beneath his too-small Cowboys t-shirt, beer nuts jostling over the edge of the bowl in his sweaty lap.

Bobby and Gilroy grunted, watching Sammy's team rip into the Packers.

"We'll kick 'em down in the end," Gilroy muttered, and Bobby nodded his agreement. "Packers never get kicked around by no Cowpokes."

Sammy drained his beer and, still laughing, tried to crush it on Bobby's head.

"Ow, man!" Bobby cried, slapping Sammy's hand away. "That hurt!"

Sammy roared with drunken laughter that died slowly when his eyes rested on his wife, who stood in the kitchen, staring solemnly at him through two bruised and swelling eyes.

Bobby noticed the stare and elbowed Gilroy. They both seemed very interested in their fingernails all of a sudden. Martha didn't say a word, but Sammy did. He chunked the dented Miller can into a corner and said, "Hey, babe, long as you're in there, toss me another beer, why don'tcha."

Martha closed her eyes and inhaled softly, trying to focus and not let her anger get the better of her. Not with comp'ny here.

What was she thinking? It was only Bobby and Gil, both of whom did the same kind of macho crap at home. She and Brenda and Tammy would sometimes tell their husbands they were going shopping while the boys watched a game, and then they would secretly go back to one of the other's houses and compare bruises and cuts and scars, and cry.

And she was tired of it.

"Woo hoo!" Sammy shouted as the announcer confirmed another Cowboys touchdown. "What'd I tell you, boys? Cowboys never lose!"

Bobby and Gilroy didn't say a word.

Martha stood at the end of the couch, and Sammy pulled his eyes away from the game long enough to meet hers. She held an opened case of beer in her left hand, dangling like a cinder block.

"Awright," Sammy said. "Boys, this is what you call a woman."

"No," Martha said, walking around Gil's and Bobby's feet - which shrank away from her as she crossed the living room - until she stood in front of her husband. "This is what you call a woman."

She pulled a can of Miller out of the box and handed it to Sammy. While he balanced the can on his leg with one hand and opened it with the other, Martha pulled out a second can and threw it. It bounced off of Sammy's forehead.

He stared up at her, dazed and perplexed. "Honey?" he started, and she hit him again, nailing him with can after can until the box was empty and Sammy was groaning, bleeding from every pore in his face.

Martha dropped the empty box.

Gilroy stared at Sammy, whose teeth were smeared in blood. The man's nose was broken.

"Bobby," Martha said, and he flinched away from her.

"Bobby," she repeated. "You go call an am'blance, and then both you boys go home and treat your wives good. They ain't far from something like this."

Bobby called 911 and left the phone off the hook, and the two men scooted out the door. As it shut, Martha glared at her bleeding, pleading husband, then picked up the phone, yanked the cord out of the wall, and lifted it over Sammy's purpling head.