Introduction
All legal names of the individuals in this piece are changed for their privacy.
Whenever I share anecdotal tales from my personal life, one question always ensues; “Where the hell do you find these people?”
The truth is, I don’t find them. They find me, and the only critical difference between me and the better portion of the rest of the world is that I lack the common sense to take one look at them and run for my life.
Rather, I am intrigued by the zany overlooked of society, but I wasn’t always this way. I used to be the shyest person I knew, a girl who suffered to make so much as one utterance in a public setting, but eventually this grew tiresome and I resolved that if I was going to be awkward, I might as well do so in an extraverted manner as opposed to an introverted one.
So, I started to look around for people who didn’t seem intimidating to talk to, people who stood apart from the crowd, or, better yet, were getting trampled by it.
As a Gen Z high schooler, this led me straight to the gaming community. Although I do not play video games myself, I quickly became inundated with gamer culture, from the anime enthusiasts to the Nintendo die-hards to the Dungeons and Dragons fanatics. The people I met in those communities were amazing, albeit somewhat introverted and hard to cajole into participating in social activities, and they boosted my confidence when it came to meeting new people significantly. Most importantly, however, it erased some of the prejudiced ideas I had about the gaming and anime community prior. I learned, for instance, that video games were not a ‘dumb’ hobby, but rather, that most gamers are actually quite smart. I also started getting really into anime.
This led me to question if I was wrong about other prejudices I had previously held, specifically about religions that I wasn’t apart of. So, during my sophomore year of high school, I took to interviewing a plethora of people from other faiths and worldviews than my own. I began my research of religions by going on r/mormons, which eventually led me to a website where you can actually schedule a free Zoom call with mormons to ask questions about their faith (linked here). I ended up scheduling a two-hour interview with Elder West, a Floridian Mormon missionary in his first year of service who had bright red hair and a huge passion for sharing his faith.
I met people of many other faiths, as well. There was the nomad who worked at The Wellington Mall and traveled the world collecting possessed relics, the coworker from my first part-time job who earnestly believed that he was God, and the other coworker from the selfsame establishment who believed that God did not exist whatsoever. The former coworker was eventually fired for stealing several hundred hot dogs, and the latter ran away from home. When I asked him why he ran away, he gave me a three hour lecture on the power of psychedelic drugs and insisted that he had broken the matrix.
Which, I admit, is what I secretly hoped that he and the rest of my unconventional company would eventually do for me (without, of course, the use of illicit substances).
Because the truth of the matter was, I was a painfully sheltered individual. I was homeschooled for the entirety of my childhood and Christian private-schooled for the entirety of my teen hood, and that made me a teensy tiny bit ashamed. I didn’t know about Black culture. I didn’t know geography. I couldn’t cook or change a tire or explain taxes or name half the celebrities that appeared on TV and so, despite my education, I was ignorant, and it was far from bliss. The worst part of all? I wasn’t doing jack squat about it. YouTube existed to solve all the above problems I just listed, but somehow, I didn’t take much initiative to learn about the world I lived in. Books existed, too, and while I did and do read them, the rate at which I consume a novel is simply insufficient for achieving enlightenment over a relatively short span of time.
Consequently, in an effort to learn more about the world and break the humdrum stasis of my life, I turned to the human library, and never looked back.
Until one fateful day, I took things a tad bit too far and became acquainted with Captain Firebeard.
Meeting Captain Firebeard
Allow me to set the scene: it was a hot summer evening in the heart of Lake Worth, Florida, and my friends and I were checking out a local Kava bar. I had only recently started frequenting the venue to watch their open mic karaoke nights, so I didn’t know much about the place or its regulars. All I knew was that it was a decent chill spot and alcohol-free, making it the perfect place to reconnect with some of my high school friends.
Upon meeting my friends there (who will be given pseudonymous names for their privacy), I was immediately teased for my ensemble. By which I mean, they thought my outfit was a tad bit … unsatisfactory.
You see, as someone who doesn’t typically frequent bars, I’d struggled to find the proper attire for the occasion. I wanted to look relaxed and interesting without coming across as trying too hard. So, after careful consideration and several outfit swaps, I landed on long black pants, black combat boots with yellow laces, and an oversized button down with “Stranger Things” printed all over it in flaming orange font. When I had purchased the shirt back in May, the price had been marked down three times so that it came to a grand total of no more than seven dollars.
“Thank you so much for buying this,” the cashier had said when he checked me out, “it’s been on the floor for weeks. A few more days and we would’ve thrown it out.”
“Really?” I responded in mock amazement, “I wonder why!”
Despite my sarcasm at the time, I truly do believe that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that night I was eager to prove my point by styling the thing to the nines.
“It’s a cool shirt!” I had said in defense to my friends’ jocularity. “I got it on sale — it was practically a steal!”
A cool shirt it must have been, because when I went up to the bartender to order snacks for the group, a strange man in his late-twenties quickly approached me.
‘Do you like Stranger Things?” he asked me. I turned to respond, and was immediately taken aback by the character who stood before me.
The man in question was small in stature. I’m bad with numbers, but seeing as I’m roughly 5′ 6″ and was wearing platforms that night, I imagine that he was roughly my height, if not a bit shorter. He was wearing sneakers himself, as well as navy blue skinny jeans and a skin-tight Batman Symbol t-shirt that wrinkled around his beer belly. His hair was long and frazzled, and he had taken the liberties to gather up the patches that grew on his face and braid them together. He was also a ginger, although something about the Titanium steel ballsack necklace he was wearing told me that he was most likely not the Mormon type.
“A little bit,” I responded, trying to be friendly. My friends eyed our conversation from the corner of the room as my guy friend, Saafield, signaled discreetly to me to make sure I wasn’t being harassed. To dispel his fears, I smiled back at them briefly before continuing my conversation with my newfound friend. “I will admit, though, I never finished the last season.”
“I see,” the man replied. “Well, I’m a comedian. I actually have a set tonight — that’s why I’m here.”
“Oh, that’s super cool!” I answered. “Good luck!”
“My show name is Captain Firebeard,” he elaborated, pulling out three cards from his wallet and flashing them at me. I went to grab one, assuming they were business cards of some sort, but when he grabbed it back awkwardly, I realized with embarrassment that they were not business cards, but credit cards. In my defense, though, who introduces themself by flashing credit cards?
“I’ve been having trouble with the bank since changing my account name to Captain Firebeard,” the man explain. “Apparently they want your account name to match your legal name or something?”
“Oh. Yeah, that would … make sense, I guess. Maybe you could change your legal name to Captain Firebeard to match?” I joked.
“I tried that!” he replied in pure frustration. “But it’s too damn expensive! Three hundred dollars. I’m not doing it.”
“Oh, okay, then,” I said. ‘Well, good luck with your set. I’m looking forward to seeing you up there.” I started to move away from him and head back to the table that my friend group was holding down in the middle of the bar, but Captain Firebeard followed me.
“Do you want to hear some jokes?”
“Oh? Um,” I faltered, “I mean, you should probably save some for your set.”
“Oh, don’t worry! I never run out of jokes,” he insisted. “Okay, so you see how I have these metal balls hanging around my neck?”
“Oh, um, well, yeah, I guess they’re kind of hard to miss.”
“I got them at AA. They give you a choice after you’re three months clean, where you either get a token or balls, and I chose the balls. Basically, one day I’m at AA and they go, Captain Firebeard, show us your balls! And I start dropping my pants and then they’re all like, no, not those balls!”
“Oh, um…wow.”
“Also my girlfriend got hit by a bus the other day.”
“Wait … what?” I was confused how we got from AA to public transport, but the captain offered no explanation.
“She got hit by this big ass bus and I had to take her to the hospital. She gets mad when I tell the joke but I always tell her, baby, it really did happen! Also, I identify as a comedian, if you didn’t know. My pronouns are he/he/he.”
The rapid topic change was making my head spin, so I started to walk back to my friend group and sit down at the table. I had hoped that Captain Firebeard would get the message, but he continued with his ad libbing unperturbed.
“Did you know that women are soaking their tampons in Vodka to pregame?” he continued. “When I found out, I started thinking, hey, if those girls are actually on their periods, then that would make it a Bloody Mary!”
My friends and I cringed in second-hand embarrassment, hoping that the man would leave us soon. It was getting later in the evening, and if we had any luck, the karaoke soloists would start running through their sets and Captain Firebeard would have to relocate his act away from us to the main stage.
After an interminable period of awkwardness, Captain Firebeard finally left our table, leaving my friends and I to taste test novelty drinks and cut up a cinnamon roll into shareable portions. Soon enough, the karaoke sets started, and we were blown away by the incredible talent of the singers. From the rappers to the aspiring pop artists to the musical theatre nerds, all of the performers refused to disappoint. And then, in the midst of it all, there was Captain Firebeard.
As soon as he got onstage, I realized with dread that he was going to recite the exact same jokes with which he’d plagued me and my friends. They were just as, if not more awkward than during his practice run-through. After an awkward minute or two, the audience tuned out and continued their conversations. Firebeard was bombing the set, and badly.
Eventually, the manager of the establishment went on the loudspeakers to interrupt him.
“Alright, everybody,” he announced. “I think we’re done with this. Give it up for Captain Firebeard!”
“Oh, I’m not done with my set!” Firebeard yelled into the mic. “I have more jokes — like one time, I was at AA, and they gave me a ballsack necklace—”
In response, the manager cut the mic and started blasting loud music over him. The crowd cheered, and Firebeard grew enraged.
“I have a ballsack necklace!” he yelled. “And one time, there were these people who were all like, Captain Firebeard, show us your balls!”
One of the staff members came on stage and started to forcibly remove Firebeard from it.
“Alright, well thank you for your time,” Firebeard shouted as he was dragged off stage, “I identify as a comedian! And my pronouns are he/he/he!”
My friends and I breathed a sigh of relief as he was finally removed from the stage, but that relief was quickly transformed into consternation as he headed straight back to our table.
“They didn’t let me finish my set,” he whined, leaning against the edge of our table in despair.
“Oh, gosh, that’s too bad,” I said. “Better luck next time?”
“No, no, I’m going to finish it for you!”
“Oh, you really don’t have to—”
Captain Firebeard interrupted with an offensive joke about the transgender community.
“I … I don’t think I’m your audience for that,” I interrupted, my patience long gone. “I just don’t find offensive humor to be that funny.”
“It’s not offensive!” he argued with me. “It’s just a joke! Let me tell my jokes.”
I looked helplessly to my friend Saafield, one of the only men in my friend group. I hoped that he would say something to Captain Firebeard to make him go away. Saafield did not, however, pick up on my signals, and that’s when I realized that I hadn’t actually established a discreet signal to use in case things went south. So, abandoning all subtlety, I held my hands together and mouthed “help me” as dramatically as I could, over and over and over again, with increasing desperation.
“Are you signaling for help?” Captain Firebeard asked angrily, his beady eyes darkening as he noticed my silent plea. “You know, there’s sign language for that.” He then started to signal for help in ASL demonstratively, his eyes never breaking away from my mine, which were now beginning to fill with tears. “And this,” he said, taking two fingers to his face and then pulling them rapidly away from it, “is thank you.” He then glared at me, his hand signaling a silent staccato of ‘thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you‘ while his facial expression suggested something far more sinister.
I sat there in utter petrification, realizing with horror the situation that I’d just landed myself in.
I’d been in that position many times, most notably when I was working a late night shift at a fast food establishment in Jupiter, Florida. I was running the register that night when a tall, middle-aged man with yellow eyes came in to pick up a DoorDash order. He was making flirtatious comments to me, and being only sixteen years old at the time, I decided to hide in the back until he left the establishment. Only, instead of picking up his order and leaving, he had my other coworkers drag me back out to ask me a question. When I came back to the register, he began to taunt me, asking me why I had gone to hide in the back and demanding for me to admit that I was scared of him, forcing me to admit that I was powerless, utterly powerless to the domineering force that is an ill-intentioned stranger who identifies someone weaker than himself upon which to prey.
I quit my fast food job after several cases of sexual harassment, but that domineering force continued to follow me. At the mall, when I exchanged too many pleasantries with a salesman and was met with a marriage proposal, followed by angry negging when I declined. During Bible study, when a man in his late twenties chatted me up the whole night, lamenting his lost teen hood and telling me what a pleasure it was to relive it through me. On a road trip, when an angry trucker chased me and my brother down before smashing his driver’s side window with his fist. And on that fateful night at the kava bar, when Captain Firebeard decided that he did not want to leave me alone.
As I sat there shaking in terror, I regretted all that I had done. I should’ve never spoken to that man, I should’ve never bought that stupid shirt, I shouldn’t have even gone out to the bar that night. I should’ve stayed home, I should’ve silent, I should’ve stayed constantly cautious and always afraid.
But then Captain Firebeard’s girlfriend emerged from the women’s restroom and the comedian left us to make out furiously with her against a wall. My friends made a couple jokes about the situation, and in a few minutes, everything was back to normal again. We watched some more up-and-coming soloists perform at the open mic, and then we drove back to our respective homes. When I got to my house, I talked to my brother in the kitchen for a little bit, and then called my other brother who lives in California, and then I went to bed.
And then, despite everything that transpired, I am okay. I have good friends, a loving home, and an open heart, and although that heart was beating pretty fast a few hours prior, it now rests in the knowledge that for all the bad in the world, there is also so much good, if only we have the endurance to brave the bad and find it. Good in the fast food manager who encouraged me to quit my job for personal safety, good in the family at church who assured me that the Bible study mishap wasn’t my fault, good in the stranger who reported the road rage incident to the local police, and good in the world at large, which, though filled with many an adversary, is also full of future friends just waiting to be discovered.
Conclusion
While Captain Firebeard definitely raised my caution when it came to making new friends, he in no way diminished my motivation to do so. For, if I stop meeting people for fear of running into Captain Firebeards, then I dash all chances of meeting the people who were actually quite good. And when I do meet them, how else will I strike up an interesting conversation if there are no Captain Firebeards to talk about?
All of which to say, as sophomore year ascends upon my widening horizon, I will continue to seek out interactions with new people. Some of them will leave me scarred, to be certain, but some of them will prove to be healing ointment upon those scars. All of them, however, will shape me into a more interesting individual, and I will be forever indebted to them for it. After all, who is Alice without the Mad Hatter, or Odysseus without his Sirens?
So, I pray for sunshine and rain alike, as both are needed for the flower that is my life to grow, and I continue to strike up conversations with strangers on the daily. Of course, I am learning to use more discretion when it comes to the people that I deem safe to approach, and I encourage all readers to do the same, but that is a far cry from shutting out the world at large.
And perhaps one day, someone will write a memoir about their encounter with me.
I only hope, should such a day arrive, that I am adorned with a slightly more dignifying piece of jewelry than our dear friend CF’s necklace.
Resources
While I encourage readers to be open to meeting new people, it is still important for them to keep basic safety in mind when doing so, in case of emergency. Linked below are some resources that will better enable them to do so.
National Sexual Assault Hotline
Safety Tips for Your College Night Out