The thing is this: You got to have fun while you're fightin' for

Host: The sun was falling behind the Austin skyline, its last light caught in the glass of office towers and the glimmer of the Colorado River. The air was thick with the scent of beer, barbecue, and summer dust — a Southern evening that hummed with music, mosquitoes, and the low buzz of conversation.

Inside a small bar off Congress Avenue, the walls were covered with posters from old protests — peace marches, union strikes, and civil rights rallies fading into the wood like old memories.

At a corner table sat Jack and Jeeny, their faces half-lit by the neon glow of a lone Budweiser sign. Between them, a pair of half-empty glasses and a copy of an old Molly Ivins article, folded, weathered, and coffee-stained.

Jeeny: “She said, ‘You got to have fun while you’re fightin’ for freedom, ’cause you don’t always win.’”

Jack: “Yeah. Sounds like something you’d say — idealism with a laugh track.”

Host: Jeeny smiled faintly, that slow, knowing kind of smile that hides both faith and weariness. Her fingers drummed the table softly to the rhythm of the blues playing in the background.

Jeeny: “You mock it, but that line’s the purest truth I’ve ever heard. She understood something most people don’t — that hope dies if it forgets how to laugh.”

Jack: “Hope dies when it gets crushed by reality. That’s what happens. You can dress it up with jokes all you want, but losing still feels like losing.”

Jeeny: “That’s not what she meant, Jack. Molly Ivins knew freedom was a long game — a lifetime of losing more than you win. The laughter’s not denial; it’s resistance.”

Jack: “Resistance? You think cracking jokes at injustice makes it disappear?”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t make it disappear — it keeps you human while you fight it.”

Host: Outside, a train horn groaned low and distant, cutting through the night like a note from an old, tired trumpet. The barlight flickered, throwing shadows across the table — the kind that shift with every truth spoken.

Jack: “That’s easy for her to say. She had a platform, a pen, a voice. The rest of us? We fight, we lose, and no one prints our jokes.”

Jeeny: “Oh, come on, Jack. You think she didn’t bleed? She got fired, censored, ridiculed — but she kept writing. Kept laughing. That’s courage.”

Jack: “No. That’s delusion disguised as optimism.”

Jeeny: “No, that’s survival. You’ve been so busy counting losses you forgot what the fight’s for.”

Jack: “I know what the fight’s for. I just don’t pretend it’s fun.”

Jeeny: “Then you’ll never last.”

Host: Her voice hit the air like a spark — small, but bright. The bar went quiet for a heartbeat. Somewhere, a glass broke, and the jukebox skipped to silence.

Jack leaned back, his jaw tightening, his eyes storm-dark.

Jack: “You think fighting for freedom should be a picnic?”

Jeeny: “No. I think if it isn’t rooted in joy, it becomes another kind of prison.”

Jack: “Joy? You can’t find joy in a protest line, Jeeny. I’ve seen tear gas, cuffs, lies — all in the name of democracy.”

Jeeny: “And yet people still march. Still sing. Remember Selma? They sang ‘We Shall Overcome’ while bleeding on the pavement. That wasn’t joy because they were happy — it was joy because they still believed.”

Jack: “Belief doesn’t stop a baton.”

Jeeny: “No, but it stops you from becoming the person who swings it.”

Host: The rain started suddenly, tapping the windows with a kind of urgency, washing the city in soft, gold reflections. The air inside grew heavy with the smell of wet pavement and old wood.

Jack: “You always turn pain into poetry. You think laughter is some kind of shield.”

Jeeny: “It is. You laugh not because you’re free, but because you refuse to give your sadness to the people who want to own it.”

Jack: “That’s not a shield, Jeeny. That’s a mask.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. A mask hides you. Laughter reveals you — the part of you that refuses to break.”

Host: She took a sip of her drink — whiskey and ginger — and the ice clinked softly like a metronome keeping time to her words.

Jack looked away, through the rain-slick window, where a group of young activists hurried by under umbrellas, clutching posters damp with slogans.

Jack: “You really think they’re having fun out there?”

Jeeny: “Not fun like a party. Fun like a heartbeat. Like knowing that even if you lose, you didn’t waste your breath whispering. You screamed.”

Jack: “And then what? The system stays the same. The powerful keep power. The hopeful get tired.”

Jeeny: “Then you rest. And when you wake up, you fight again. And maybe — just maybe — you bring a joke this time.”

Host: The bar’s door creaked open. A gust of rain slipped in, cool and clean. A couple of locals stumbled through, laughing, dripping water across the floor. The bartender shook his head but smiled anyway.

There it was — life in miniature. Resistance in laughter, defiance in the mundane.

Jack: “You think laughter can change anything?”

Jeeny: “It already has. Think of Nelson Mandela — 27 years in prison, and he came out laughing. That’s how you beat the machine: you stay human in spite of it.”

Jack: “Or you fool yourself into thinking you’ve won.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You just stop letting the loss define you.”

Host: Her words softened, not from defeat but from grace. Jack’s expression shifted, the hardness cracking just slightly, like ice surrendering to heat.

Jack: “You sound like you’ve already made peace with losing.”

Jeeny: “No. I’ve just made peace with the fact that freedom isn’t a finish line. It’s a dance. You stumble, you rise, and if you’re lucky — you get to laugh before you fall again.”

Jack: “And if you don’t laugh?”

Jeeny: “Then the fight owns you instead of you owning it.”

Host: The music picked up again — a slow Texas blues riff that carried both melancholy and mischief. Jack let out a quiet breath, almost a chuckle, and shook his head.

Jack: “You know what, Jeeny? You’re impossible. You turn every bruise into a sermon.”

Jeeny: “And you turn every sermon into a bruise.”

Jack: “Maybe we balance each other, then.”

Jeeny: “That’s the trick, isn’t it? Balance. Between grief and laughter, between the fire and the joy of tending it.”

Host: The rain eased into a drizzle. Neon lights flickered across the wet glass like watercolor. Jeeny raised her glass; Jack followed suit.

Jeeny: “To Molly Ivins.”

Jack: “To losing with style.”

Jeeny: “To laughing anyway.”

Jack: “And to fighting even when we know we might not win.”

Host: They drank. The clink of glass against glass sounded like a quiet rebellion.

Outside, the street gleamed, alive again with the hum of traffic and the murmur of people refusing to give up on tomorrow.

Inside, two voices — one hard as reason, one soft as faith — sat in the dim light of a small Texas bar, proving something Molly Ivins always knew:

that freedom is a long, stubborn song, and sometimes the only way to sing it is to laugh between the verses.

And so they did — not because they’d won, but because they were still there to fight.