Tommy chooses to visit the bar where the Gatlin boys are. Amid laughter upon Tommy's entrance, and after "one of them got up and met him halfway 'cross the floor," Tommy turns around, this time not to walk away like a coward, but to lock the door behind him ("you coulda heard a pin drop when Tommy stopped and locked the door") and trap the Gatlin boys inside with him. Fueled by "twenty years of crawlin'" that "was bottled up inside him," Tommy engages in a relentless barroom brawl that leaves all three Gatlin boys unconscious on the barroom floor.
Tommy then reflects on his dead father's plea, addressing him respectfully that while he did his best to avoid trouble, he hopes he understands that "sometimes you gotta fight when you're a man.