An Ugly Man

I was weaving towards the bar, working my nearly depleted sense of balance into what I hoped looked simply like someone navigating a crowded room, neatly avoiding dumping anyone’s beer and without knocking too many people in the head with my elbows. I had an epiphany then about the good sense carpenters have for rounding the corners of the huge oak slab that separated me from the taps and was about to comment on that when I felt a tug at my elbow and turned to find Shaun standing there, to whom I extended my glass and said, “Hey man, where have you been?”.
“Playing pool.”, he said, “I’m gonna need your help. I’m gonna crush this guy’s skull back there and I need you to back me up.”
“What?”, I said. I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t understand him but I wanted him to know that I was way too drunk to fight.
“He’s got a couple of friends and I don’t want one of them jumping me when I’m not looking.”
“For Christ’s sake, Shaun, you’re not eighteen anymore. Let it alone and I’ll buy you a beer.” There was only one man I could trust to find a fight in a bar that was as unthreatening as this one and he was looking at me like I’d just called his mother a slut.

What I said was, sadly, true. We weren’t eighteen anymore and in fact both of us had twice that behind us. I’m not exactly sure what Gord Downie meant when he sang, “There’s nothing uglier than a man hitting his stride.”, but if I had to hazard a guess it was Shaun. The combination of self doubt and regret at turning forty gives a man a dangerous attitude and I’m speaking from experience. To make it to an age when I don’t have to listen to anyone else and still carry the rage of every disappointment I’ve ever faced means that I don’t feel embarrassment anymore when I speak my mind. Other people feel it for me and I’m pretty sure that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I do have enough common sense, however, not to fuck with a kid half my age when he’s surrounded by his buddies. I’ll teach them a lesson in an arena they’re years from reaching. I’ll make them feel stupid and do it in a way that will live with them until they’re my age and doing it to someone else. That is the lesson here.

“Where the fuck were you, man?” It was Shaun. He stood looking over the wall of my cubicle and couldn’t even try to hide the welt on the side of his head. I laughed for nearly twenty minutes and I’m sure he heard it all the way on the other side of the office, in his cubicle. I liked Shaun a lot. He was good for me in a way that the ugly one is in a group of women. I took him out for lunch that day and poked fun at him until I’d run out of jokes. I may not make a ton of money, or drive a cool car and I certainly don’t brag about my sexual exploits anymore but I do get some enjoyment out of life.