“It’s hard to be inconspicuous when you’re hanging upside down.” Johnny said and we all let out a hearty laugh. He took a swig of his beer, then continued. “It was the first time I ever got caught, man! Can you believe that shit?”

“Luck always runs out!” Tom said and laughed at himself. I opened another beer.

“Yeah, but like this? My pants catching on the gutter? I have jumped out of so many windows, onto roofs, and then roofs to yards, you’d think I was Bruce fucking Willis!” Johnny yelled.

“Why do you have to have wives, Johnny?” I asked. “Why can’t you just screw a dumb, drunk girl from a bar like normal sleezeballs?”

“It’s the thrill!” Johnny said, almost taken aback. “The thrill of it all! Have you even been listening to the story? Anyone can bang a moron, especially a drunk moron. There’s nothing fun or dangerous about that! It’s like fucking with a shot-clock! Buzzer-beating busting!”

They all let out another hearty-laugh. I was the only one who didn’t. I opened another beer and heard someone ask Die Hard Johnny if the husband beat his ass like a piñata as he hung from the gutter. He said no, because the guy was too afraid to get on his roof and couldn’t reach him from the ground. The husband called the cops who booked him for breaking-and-entering. They released him within hours when the wife confused to the affair. Confessed. Jesus, I thought, Johnny has the cock of Midas or all of these husbands marry women dumber than the bar girls. Either way, that’s scary for all of us.

I didn’t say much the rest of the night. The fire we were all sat around died out, and all the beer was drank. No one mentioned my quietness as they continued to jeer and applaud Johnny’s stories of house-wrecking. I thought he was funny before, viewed his fetish of married women as amusing for years. But, tonight it hit me in a different way. It hit me as disgust, a lot of disgust. Towards him. Towards the wives. Towards the plague of stupidity that seems the have infected the majority. Mostly, though, I felt disgust towards the secrets. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many of Johnny’s victims never told their husbands. How many didn’t and will never know.

As I drove home I kept thinking about if I ever wanted marriage. I came to the conclusion that I did. But, that night made me nervous, made me scared for all of us. I decided that I would marry, and to be safe, I would marry a dumb girl from a bar.