124 Luis

"Next rounds on me, boys!"

Every body immediately cheered, any bad feeling wiped away.

I got up to go pay for said drinks. Walking through the crowd of people in the bar, I was dodging around a very drunk biker when I bumped into someone, spilling his drink on his shirt. I winced. "Oh damn dude, I'm sorry."

"Ah, it's cool, man," the short Hispanic man I'd bumped into said cheerily. He looked up at me. For some reason he seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place him. "Oh damn!"

I realized that while I was trying to recognize him, he'd already recognized me. "Oh man, you're Dial, dude!"

"Uh, yeah! And you're…" I asked hesitantly, waiting for him to say a name I knew from Marvel comics. Why did he seem so familiar?

"Oh, I'm Luis man!"

"..." I had no idea who the hell he was. Was there a guy named Luis in the comics? Must have been my imagination.

"Well, let me get you another drink, man."

"Oh damn, thanks man!" He said cheerily. As I passed some cash to the bartender, he continued to talk fast. Like, really fast.

"Man, what are the chances I would meet you, a superhero, in the middle of a bar! Oh wait, are you casing the joint? Are there bad guys here?" I shook my head for a nano-second before he kept talking. "Well, besides me, cause I used to steal stuff," wha- "Don't worry though, I already spent some time in prison, paid off my debt to society! Oh, but my girl left me. And my mom died. And my dad got deported," wha- "But he left me his van, which is pretty tight!"

Dude, let me get a word in-

"Oh man, but it's so crazy meeting you! I remember when I first saw you on the news, and your were fighting next to the Avengers, and I was with my cousin Ignacio! Ignacio was like: "Yoh man, this is crazy, this dude can turn into anything, you know what I'm saying!" And you were on TV like: "Man, I'm an Avenger now and shit, and I'm taking down HYDRA!" Oh, thanks man!"

He stopped long enough for me to pass him a drink. "So uh, you sound pretty familiar with superheroes."

"Oh, well I dabble, cause when the Avengers came on there was this superdope documentary on superhumans in legend, and I wanted to compare it to some works I read about Howard Carter and his own theories on the gods of Egypt, though I find he's a bit of a hack."

Wait, when did we get to Howard Carter?

"Oh, that's not the point though!"

His eyes lit up. I leaned back. And just like that, he was off.

"But man, I love the history behind it! So, like, Captain America wanted to join World War 2, but all the guys recruiting were like: "Boy, you are way too skinny to help, get back to Brooklyn." So then your boy Steve was like: "Oh man, but I really want to fight alongside my boy Bucky and beat up those Nazi dickheads, how they gonna let that skinny dude Audie Murphy join when I have like two pounds on him but not me!?", and Doctor Erskine was like: "Bruh, come join me, I don't care how skinny you are, you seem like a chill dude, come with me and I'm gonna make you awesome!"

I was fairly sure none of them had said that exactly. I sat down on a stool in awe and continued to listen.

"And then he did, but then that punk HYDRA dude snuck in and was like: "I'm a racist asshole and I'm gonna kill him!" but when he did, Steve was already all sexy buff and he was like: "Oh, you messed up, I'm gonna take out all of the Nazi's!"

"So then Tony was like: "Oh, you want me to make weapons, then I'm about to make a bad, super-fly kinda weapon!" So he made a sweet ass suit and he blew them all away, then did it again when his super-evil former mentor tried cramp his style! And then he stood in front of a crowd and was like: "I'm Iron Man, bitches, you gotta deal with it!"

Note to self, never let Tony meet Luis.

"And then the Avengers are in New York, and a big ass snake comes down to attack them, and the Hulk goes: "Welcome to Earth!" like my boy Will Smithy, and punches them! And they all take out the aliens!"

Sammy, Dan, and I all took a sip of our drinks, watching in fascination.

"So then the Avengers are flying around, and Hawkeye keeps shooting them saying: "Yoh, you may have alien weapons, but I got bitchen arrows, and he blows up Loki, who goes: "Ah man! You ruined my pimpin helmet!" And the Hulk finds him and takes him with: BAM BAM BAM," he smacked the table with each hit. "You got nothing on me homie, I don't care if you're a god!"

"Thor was like: "Elf-man, you came to the wrong neighborhood!" and his fine-ass honey was teleporting his people around while they were flying, and that hammer, Mjolnir the legendary weapon formed by Brokkr and Sindri according to some accounts in Skáldskaparmál," he said as though that last word was easy to say. "Was like: "You ain't gonna mess with homie Thor, we're like family!" and Thor blasted that Elf dude in the face with a giant lightning storm like a boss while his crazy stupid fine girl was kicking ass with science!"

Note to self, never let Thor meet Luis.

"You're coming down out of the sky and you went: "Hey man, if you guys want to mess with Captain America, you gotta mess with me!" and you dropped a whole bling mountain on top of them!"

"How long has he been going that we managed to get to this part?" Sammy whispered to me.

"About ten minutes," I whispered back. When he gave me a startled look, I shrugged. "Dude, he covered a lot, very quickly."

"And then you mixed with a spaceship and were like: "Hey HYDRA, you move an inch, I'll put a spaceship up your butt, homie!""

Sammy and Dan looked at me in surprise. Before I could be indignant, Luis continued.

"Oh damn, and then there was Rio, and you and your homies were like-"

"So you were like: "Damn Fantasma, you a stupid crazy fine badass in that suit, and you should be an Avenger!" and she was like: "You know, I'm a Russian, but you a straight badass, so I'm gonna be an Avenger now too!" And now you're here!" Luis said at last, giving me a pleased smile. Then he started sipping at his drink, ignoring the crowd of people surrounding us, including the stunned bartender.

"...Yep. Here I am," I said hesitantly, blown away by the most incredible summary of both the Avengers and my own life I'd ever heard. A bit rambling, but daaaaayum.

"Yeah!" he grinned. The crowd around us slowly drifted off when they realized the story was over. "Man, I'm glad I came to New York City!"

"You're from out of town?" Sammy asked, grabbing my now empty non-alcoholic beer and replacing it with another one in my hand.

"Oh ya man, I'm from San Francisco!" Luis said cheerily. Then again, he said everything cheerily. "Yeah, I came out here to visit some family."

Michael Peña! Luis looked like that actor, one of the ones who had been in The Martian as an astronaut! Man, that had been bothering me the whole time!

"Hey man, thanks for the drink by the way!" he lifted his glass. "Good looking out!"

"Uh, no problem man," I chuckled. I found myself genuinely liking (uhh what?) the guy. He could tell a hell of a story. "How long are you in town for?"

"Couple of weeks, then I gotta get back," he grinned. "Oh hey man, if you ever come to the Bay Area, we should meet! I could give you the hookup, show you around!"

"I'm down for that," I said, not having the heart to tell him I was born in Oakland. "Here, let me give you my number."

As I did, I had to wonder how Luis would describe our meeting down the road.