I’m only going to share one story of events that happened over the past few weekends. Did other things happen? Sure. A few things here and there. A few more people told me I was racist, against white people. We had a kid who was drinking a beer outside try haphazardly to get inside, with his Gucci/Playboy tee and Guess man satchel with a thousand dollars in small bills.

Was he funny to us? Yes. Does he deserve a full page story? No.

What does deserve a story? What can be so salacious to warrant this title and this feature image?

Something quick and painless.

Something a few of us misheard, and now can never un-hear.

Something that happened so early in the night, the last few weeks don’t even matter anymore.

Here we go.

One of our bartenders likes cats. Did you know cats can have a little salami? Well, she likes to have a Big Mac all the same. She has never made her way into this blog until now, so therefore her name is Big Mac moving forward.

Big Mac tells us there’s this guy at the bar. Semi-regular, a little off, but not threatening. Mid-to-late fifties, bespectacled. Affable.

A few people come to the door, her conversation becomes muddled in my ear. She says something about him being weird, scratching his chin at the bar. She’s shorter, I’m taller. The wind catches her voice and carries it away from me. I thought Big Mac said he was complaining about something falling into his beer.

Minutes tick off the clock. It’s freezing out, hardly anyone wants to flex their mouth open in the cold.

We get some people in, we lose some people. A party bus here, a bachelorette party there. Some onesies, some people who go out in public normally.

And then a man walks out.

“Oh!” he exclaims, “I know you,” pointing to me. “And I know you,” pointing to Peanut. He is elated.

There’s a real spring in his step. He finishes putting on his jacket and heads off into the night.

Big Mac, done with her cigarette, tells us that’s the guy.

“The dude with something in his beer?”

“No,” she says.

“No, what?”

I take off my hat and lower my face warmer. Lean down closer to her level. She wasn’t saying that he found something in his beer.

“No,” Big Mac said. “Not beer. That’s the guy!”

Me, Peanut, a few others misheard Big Mac the first time. We all heard beer. Something was wrong with his beer. We shot looks to one another, each asking the other what the hell going on.

What did she say?

“That’s the man."

“The man with the cum beard.”

CUM. BEARD.

We weren’t ready for it. No man or woman can be ready for it.

He was scratching his face.

Making a point that what he was doing was important.

To anyone who can hear him at the bar.

He wanted Big Mac to know how happy he was.

Proud even.

He had something still mixed in with his facial hair.

Scratching at it.

Combing through it.

And then outside.

Tufting it up.

“Yeah, he was so happy,” Big Mac said.

Shame-spiralling calamity. Stunned silence. More minutes go by, we just all kind of stood in place, outside in the 20-degree night Forced to live with this new information. In the morning I took a cold shower.