The men’s room at Porterhouse is an odd place to meet someone famous. We had decided to have dinner at the gastro-pub (in American, brew-pub) when a good friend suggested we meet there for drinks, insisting that pints were all quite excellent, which was true, and that the food was likewise inspired. She had clearly never been to the gentleman’s room.
First, the men’s room had one of those foul odors that clings to certain alleys in certain rough urban areas of downtown American cities. You know, one of those alleys that just in passing seems torture enough for olfactory faculties. But this was the whole bathroom and if you needed it, well, that was that.
The gent’s room also had an odd bit of art of the urinals. Poised above each men’s relieving station was a the photograph of a woman peering over an imaginary wall separating your smelly reality from their judgmental position somewhere with clean air and fragrant skies. The women were all looking down at the urinals, their eyes opened wide in judgement and, occasionally, excitement, at what they saw. Taking up a stance beneath a particularly skeptical-looking brunette, I proceeded to meet “Bernard” a former World Champion boxer.
He started up the conversation with something that I could not understand.
“Excuse me?” I replied.
He sensed the accent.
“Where you from man?” he asked back, positioned beneath an alluring red head.
“Boston.”
“Oh I love Boston” he responded.
I had a feeling he might. Irish people have thus far all been very perky and excited about hearing that I am from Boston. Many have been over and enjoyed it, with our mobile salesman even telling us he got free drinks in Cheers because he had an Irish accent. “What a grand place,” the salesman had mused, “I’d love to go back.”
The man in the bathroom told me that he had lived in Santa Monica for quite sometime. Didn’t really like it he told me. The people were weird, he confessed. I agreed: “California can have some plastic people.” “Plastic” he repeated, “exactly.”
He asked me if I followed boxing. Never, I responded. Never even seen a full fight. He looked disappointed but continued.
“I was the World Champion, in the featherweight division.”
I really had no idea how to respond. This was a random man in a very stinky bathroom I desperately wanted to leave. You don’t run into people like this randomly do you? I doubted his sincerity. I had admitted I was American, so I am sure that must have opened up myself as a target for such jokes. He shook my hand, told me he was Bernard (I told him I was Zack) and he wished me a good time in Ireland. I thanked him.
Back at the table, I interrupted the banter to explain my case.
“I just met a man who said he was the World Champion of boxing in the bathroom,” I said. “Is it common for Dubliners to toy with Americans like this?”
My Irish friends looked shocked.
“Do you meet Bernard then?” they asked, “We thought we saw him, he’s a local celebrity here!”
“Oh,” I responded.
They went off about his exploits.
Reflecting, I came to gather that my experience was no joke, but rather the candid sensation of meeting someone in a distressed bathroom in Dublin and doubting the authenticity of such an odd encounter. But I, for one, have learned from the experience.
