The Most Important Thing: Stories about Sons, Fathers, and Grandfathers

Charlie is invited to a church dance for teens by a girl he likes named Alice. He tells his friend Arlo about it, but Arlo warns that those dances are known for gang activity and are dangerous. Charlie becomes nervous and goes to his father, who is a lawyer and former boxer, and who usually gives good advice. Charlie looks up to his father but also finds him intimidating. He will not admit to his father nor anyone else that he hates the idea of getting into a fight. His father tells him not to avoid things in life because of possible risks, and he explains that the way he stands up for himself is what matters. Charlie decides to take his father’s advice and goes to the dance.

Everything at the dance goes well, and Charlie leaves feeling giddy and overwhelmed. On the way home, he enters a dark, quiet street close to his own apartment. Suddenly, people start whistling all around him, and a dozen boys surround him. Charlie is filled with fear when they tell him he will have to fight one of them. He manages to block the first punch but not the second, and he falls to the ground.