Just Your Average Joe

For awhile, things were normal at the bar yesterday.

I was there to watch the Patriots game (I hate watching Pats games in a sports bar-- you can't hear the announcers, it's loud, it's chaotic, and you have to stand the whole time-- but since I ditched DirecTV for cable, it's the only choice I have). Incidentally, I loved this game-- it was a statement to the rest of the NFL to remember who "the team to beat" in this league is. The rest of the AFC should be shivering-- unfortunately for them, the Pats are still the Pats. I'm tearing up right now.

Anyway it was sometime during the first quarter that the friend I was there with pointed out that Leonardo DiCaprio was standing next to us at the bar.

Who would have thought? I never would have pinned him as a big football fan, yet there he was. And he was into it. He was watching all the games carefully. He was wearing a Jets hat and talking about the Mets chances in the playoffs, and seemed to be a genuine fan (he mentioned that he had missed that day's game because he was at "work"-- funny, I thought, that he calls what he does "being at work"). Then he started talking to the guy next to him about how he started Terry Glenn that day-- he was talking about fantasy! Who the fuck would have thought?

As the games went on, I noticed that he had his phone out and was checking his fantasy stats religiously. He was talking to the people around him about his team and about the games, and so I finally said, "who is on your team?" He excitedly started telling me his whole team (Carson Palmer, Shaun Alexander, Frank Gore, Maroney, Hoosh, Terry Glenn, Tony G)-- he even had a pretty good team.

Everyone seemed to know him there, and people were coming up to him and saying hi. A little later I noticed he was flirting pretty heavily with a cute waitress, and the next time I looked over, he was kissing her. "Makes sense," I thought. "I guess if I were him I'd kiss the cute waitress too."

Things got weirder. As the afternoon wore on, we learned that the waitress was pregnant with Leo's baby. This was getting too fucking good. Apparently since she was from Boston, they compromised and the baby would be a Red Sox and Jets fan.

Later, one of Leo's friends, who we'd been talking to, invited us to his house for tonight's Monday Night Football game. He pointed to the waitress and said that she'd be there, and Francis would be there too. This was odd. When he said "Francis" he pointed to Leo.

I quickly took the hint. "Ah yes...Francis," I said. I was on the ins, that was for sure.

For some reason, it wasn't until after we left the bar, as we were talking about the whole afternoon, that it crossed our minds that maybe-- just maybe-- it was just a guy who looked and talked exactly like DiCaprio. At first we rejected that theory-- the face and voice were unmistakable, and the bar we were at was a Hollywood hotspot (Barney's Beanery). But then we started thinking critically about all the weird elements of the scene-- he was too into football and fantasy, he had been at "work", he was kissing the waitress, he knocked up the waitress and this seemed to be public info, his fucking name was Francis. Everyone was saying hi to him, but then again he was dating a waitress there and seemed to be a regular.

We looked at each other. I had just memorized the fantasy team of some random fucking guy named Francis.

I went home and googled "DiCaprio, tattoos", since he had prominent tattoos on his arm. Nothing.

Francis.