You want to get a beer?

Sometimes people come into our lives that you never expect to meet. These are the people who's intention was never to change, enrich or influence the way you look at anything but they just happened to anyway. Rach and I made such friends the other night. The owner of my restaurant actually has two restaurants and sometimes he switches around employees from one to the other. Alicia recently joined our Stella team from the other restaurant. We were always friendly and got along nicely at work but we never had really long conversations. Her boyfriend Keith comes in every night to pick her up and sits with us while we finish up. I shook hands with Keith the first night I'd met him (a few nights ago) while he was sitting down eating dinner. About half an hour later I turned a corner to find him trying to spin around 360 degrees on his leg. Well...on his peg. I tried not to look so surprised. How did I not realize this dude had one leg? I made a joke about him being able to maybe go twice around....he said once he had. His energy was so friendly and full of life and his smile was to put it simply, adorable. We all said good night and parted ways. The next night while the shift was ending and the staff sat around to our late dinner, Alicia and Megan were talking about Keith. They were discussing how crappy the location of the other Stellas was. During this past Christmas party there Keith was stabbed outside by some random nutcase and was in the hospital for a few months. I asked Alicia if she minded me asking what happened to Keith's leg. "He lost it in Iraq". Can you get more of an intense answer than that? At that moment Keith came in with his Pirate like swagger and brilliant smile. He sat down and started eating with us. We all talked about his stabbing and he showed me his scar. He almost died but he was stabbed in the liver which pretty much grows back like a lizard tail. He was telling us that if this guy is convicted, he could get 18 years in prison since Keith in technically an "at risk" person. Joking around he explained that it was like stabbing someone in a wheel chair. Rachel was sitting with us too and since we were the only ones who were really just getting to know Keith, we were kind of just staring at him in amazement. He was the coolest, happiest person at the table. Our comrades were obviously more used to it but Rach and I were blown away. As we got up Keith asked if anyone wanted to go next door to get a beer. Rach and I decided to join him and Alicia and thus started the epic evening of "the other night". Keith left a few minutes ahead of us while Rachel stayed with Alicia and I while we closed up the rest of the restaurant. When we finally arrived at the bar Keith was sitting on a stool with four half full pint glasses of Guinness in front of him with a very menacing smirk on his face. A half full pint of Guinness can only mean one thing. The bartender with an identical smirk, was working on filling four shot glasses with a combination of Jameson and Baileys. Our "do you want to get a beer" night was about to start out with an Irish Car Bomb. This is the absolute opposite thing of "going out for a beer". We took seats next to Keith at the bar and took deep breaths before dropping our shot glasses into the beer. We were all able to drink the whole glass before the Baileys curdled. When I tilted my beer away from my mouth the shot glass dropped to the bottom and splashed excess curds of carbomb in my face. Nice. We ordered a few normal beers and headed to the Game Section of the bar. Keith and Alicia introduced Rach and I to the joys of hunting electronical deer with plastic guns. After a few rounds of digital death, Rachel and I suggested we switch to pool. As is the common case with whoever we play pool, Rachel and I lost the first game. Keith set off to use the restroom and before he got back, the bartender came over to the pool table and set down four shots of something orange and fruity smelling. Keith returned. "What are these?" we asked. Keith said he didn't know. All he had told the bartender to do was give us four shots of something yummy. We took the shots down and were pleasantly surprised that they tasted like Hi-C. I'm not sure how it happened, but this was the first of many orange, fruity, Hi-C shots throughout the night. We planted ourselves at the bar and talked about any and everything. You'd think we were a group of friends that have known each other for years. It was an instant match. At one point this guy who is a regular at the bar, Jacob, came over and started talking to me. I had got caught up in a drunk (he was drunk) conversation with him the other night. He's going through a hard time and I feel bad for him. Although it's hard to have a conversation with him, he's our age and we tried to throw him into the banter. After a few minutes with Jacob this big, Mexican guy enters our side of the bar from across the room, points at us and says "your an f*#$in' faggot", then turns and leaves. We stood there for half a second and stared across the room in amazement. Then, as if we were all wired together, at the same moment (keep in mind all our shots), we started across the bar. "What the hell did you just say?! What's your problem!?" We were in full attack mode. We were PISSED. We turned the corner expecting a further hateful remark. Instead we saw this huge guy with his head down heading out of the bar. "I didn't mean it" "I'm sorry" Keith told him he should go home. The guy told us he was leaving. Although still mad we realized that he was actually talking to Jacob. They were friends and unfortunately, its a phrase guys toss around. He wasn't talking to us. We went back around the bar to where we were sitting and ordered more drinks. Five minutes later the big dude came over to us almost in tears. "Guys please, thats not me. I'm so so sorry. That's not me, that's not me". His eyes started filling up with tears. Whoa...we had made this guy feel even more worse than he'd made us. We told him it was ok and we believed that he didn't mean it at us but that you couldn't blame us for our reaction. Rach asked what nationality he was. He said Mexican and Rach asked him how he would react if someone had shouted "Beanie" across the bar. The guys eyes filled up again. He was at the bar for about ten more minutes and he looked like he was going to cry the whole time. He felt absolutely awful. He totally didn't expect there to actually be two gay people in the group of five of us sitting at the corner of the bar. We shook his hand and promised him that there were no hard feelings. We also explained how offensive we took the term and asked him to maybe think twice about keeping it in his vocabulary. Soon, it was last call and the four of us were definitely not done baptizing our new friendships. We came to our apt and kept the party going. Rachel was the first to drop and headed to bed. Keith was next. Keith and Alicia slept over because there's a rumor going around that drinking and driving can be dangerous. We gave Keith and Alicia our bed and Rach and I slept on the couch in the living room. Alicia and I stayed outside and talked until about 6:30. She told me that Keith joined the army when he was 17. He enlisted two days after 9/11. After being in Iraq for two months a missile hit his vehicle and they had to amputate what was left of his leg. Keith's general had him promoted twice while he was in the hospital so that Keith now has the retirement of a 20 year vet. We talked about our families, our relationships, religion, almost everything. We only stopped because Rachel popped her head out to warn us that Betty would probably wake up soon so we should head to bed. It was a really, really great night with two seriously amazing people. We complained the whole time that we were just now becoming friends when Rach and I were leaving so soon. These are two people I'm definitely going to put in effort to stay in touch with. -lj