Well, here's the night that his actual, physical death happened, as near as I can remember. The fact of his death is incontrovertible, but the how of it will remain a mystery forever. I doubt my dad can even settle on a single version. 

I sure in hell can't. I've danced for so long with the extremely controvertible facts of how he died that those facts and I are sick of each other. I see them on the dance floor and think, "Oh, them again." They see me and roll their eyes, spit at the sawdust and peanut shells at their feet…. But it's always late, we're always drunk or maudlin or both, and there's nobody else at the party. So we dance.