This man from Indiana who resembles Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top rambles on about his hatred of the Hasidic, I think. “People mistake us for them, and them for us,” he seems to say, and I tell him I can totally relate: whenever I walk into my building complex carrying a plastic bag with a couple burritos in it, my neighbors look at me like I’m a delivery guy. But this guy, he talks so strange and just kind of mumbles for minutes that feel like hours. His lips and tongue barely move as he speaks. It’s just this very faint noise coming out of his mouth. He looks down and tells me I’m ugly and I kind of chuckle and slap him on the back. I say, You should talk buddy!

Turns out, he didn’t really call me “ugly” after all. He had actually said the word “stud fee,” I think, and I’m assuming he’s talking about horses or whatever, but it turns out he’s Amish, and he’s explaining to me that because of the rampant inbreeding in their community, they’ll occasionally send someone to trek out into the city in search of strong, virile men who are willing to introduce new DNA into their village in return for a stud fee of $15,000. I lean my ear closer to this guy’s beard so I can listen to him paint more details of this: the women, usually in their late teens, are completely covered with a wool blanket that offers a strategically-placed hole, and three of the village’s elders, including the woman’s father, must be present to witness the act. I ask this guy if Asians are considered “strong” and “virile” and he says yes, for spare change and my CTA bus pass, yes. I mean I think that’s what he’s telling me. I really can’t fucking hear most of what he’s saying. He’s so hard to understand you have no idea.

On a barely-related side note, I’ve got a buddy named Amish, but he’s Indian and his name is pronounced A-MEESH.

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