Goose Island John was the head brewer at Goose Island Clybourn. He trained under the guy who went and started Moody Tongue. I met Goose Island John through my friend’s then-love interest, who went to college with Goose Island John. I was under the assumption Goose Island John and I would become the best of friends in all the land.

I went to a party at Goose Island John’s house. He had purple waxed 750 milliliter bottles of Knife Fight, a bourbon barrel aged Russian imperial stout, aged on raspberries. He brewed it on Goose Island’s system and he won a medal at Fobab for it. This was not a commercially available beer. I drank the Knife Fight and I drank some other marvelous, unlabeled concoctions that this fella made on his own time and bottled by himself.

I transformed from regular Ryan to inebriated Ryan.

I fumbled about. I passed a lot of complete strangers and a cheese tray to reach the restroom. As I approached, I heard one complete stranger ask another complete stranger if she thought someone was in the restroom. I took it upon my drunk self to answer that question with a resounding, “no”, even though the door was clearly shut. For reasons that defy reason, I assumed no one was in the restroom.

Most people, when approaching a closed bathroom door in someone’s home, rationally assume that likely the odds are good that someone is inside that room. On top of that, normal people, even if they have an inkling that the room is empty, although the door is shut, will in deed, still knock. This is because the sheer potential embarrassment of flinging a bathroom door open to reveal a woman urinating motivates responsible people to at least knock.

I turned the knob and it was unlocked. This solidified my previously, completely unfounded confirmation that, in deed, no one was in the rest room.

With a flick of my wrist I flung the door wide open, holding my hand aloft like a sleek magician, swiftly sending a dove of pure white to the pale blue sky. Out of my periphery I sensed a woman on the toilet. I then heard a very loud, resounding, echoing, terrified, “What the fuck!? ASSHOLE!”

I swiftly walked out of the front door into Pilsen. I ordered an Uber and didn’t look back on the smoldering, disastrous heap that was my forgone best-kinship with Goose Island John.

I burned a bridge that night, dear reader. I shudder to think of what was spoken about me.

I went to California Clipper alone.