NYCH3 # 1056 – Magoo & Bottom’s Birthday/HUA Pre-Nuptial R*n

NYCH3 #1056, June 16, 2004

HARES: Magoo & Bottom

Start: 50th and Broadway

On In: Reif’s

Guest Scribe: Young Jo(h)n

 

Magoo & Bottom’s Birthday/HUA Pre-Nuptial R*n

The pack surrounded Magoo at the southwest corner of 50th and Broadway.  His distinctive accent slightly above the murmuring crowd, he conversed with first one r*nner, then another.  A female virgin tracked down Tom and asked how it all worked.  Tom held a chalk talk away from the growing mass of T-shirts, shorts, and ripe sneakers.  We blocked theater district pedestrians, sour expressions on their faces, from their paths up and down Broadway.

 

Upon Cree’s late arrival, Tom ordered the usual bag drop.  “And the first mahk is,” said Tom, swirling his arm in a circle, “that way!”  He pointed east, and the crowd piled up along the curb, its scrawny, sculpted legs dangling over the edge.  First, it waited for breaks in traffic, scurrying across the asphalt in twos and threes.  Then the whole mass moved.  A few disgruntled horns shouted, and a lurching cab stopped short, but we owned the street.

 

After sucking down bus exhaust and weaving among the busy sidewalks for a winding nine blocks, r*nners reached Merchant’s Gate and dove into Central Park.  Up ahead, foolishly following Shoeless American Dave #6, a pack crossed Park Drive and climbed a hill.  The actual trail stayed on flat ground before rising to Sheep’s Meadow.  Doug commented that, knowing Cree and Magoo, we were in for a long trail despite the festive atmosphere of birthdays and a nuptial.  Dr. Steve gave a signal and a yell, then he hopped over a locked gate into the Meadow.  We followed in spurts–up, over, then across the grass sea dotted with reclining non-hashers on the heavy June evening.

 

After we mounted the fence on the northern border of the meadow, DonnerKebob found the trail heading west, out of the park under R*nners’ Grove, and hashers clipped on the heels of his short shorts, stopping traffic again at Central Park West.  We slid onto 67th Street yelling, “On on,” at the next mark.  Then the next.  Then the next…

 

But the next never came.  The pack arrived at Columbus Avenue like lost alcoholic children, unable to decide which way was the shortest route to beer.  We sent out feelers–one block north, one block west, one block south–and questioned, “R U?” so many times that those feelers stopped answering.  The pack dispersed in every direction.

 

As failures mounted, The Body, Legs, and several others backtracked.  A sporadic consensus decided someone erased the BackCheck promised by Magoo.  Returning to Park Drive, a pack mark pointed north.  The cry went up, and we maneuvered against tide of counterclockwise bikers and rollerbladers out for their evening rides.  Who set the pack mark?  Who found the trail?  Several hashers touted Alice as savior, but others discredited Alice, saying she’d been privy to insider information and stayed on the east side of the park.  We would have investigated the mystery, but Pabst Blue Ribbon distracted us.

 

After weaving through an actual running group stretching for its evening jaunt, the trail ditched Park Drive and up onto the shore of the Lake.  Head Up Ass, aided by Mean Jean, dispensed PBR into plastic cups.  Jason gave a brief history of Ladies Pavilion, talking about it’s origins as a trolley stop at Columbus Circle while hashers gazed into the Lake’s green algae murk.

 

From there, the trail went North and East.  Farther East.  Uphill, then down, then up again, leaving the park at East 84th Street.  It did the usual East Side zigzag before ending at Reif’s Tavern on East 92nd, a bar complete with sketchy locals, pool table, arcade games, and outdoor patio.

 

While runners slaked themselves inside, Michele stood outside stretching.  Summer-evening sunlight percolated into slats between buildings and cast Manhattan’s eight-o’clock shadow.  Here and there, halogen lights flickered awake to push away the dark that had accumulated beneath eaves and in protected doorways.  Wyeth regaled with tales of his youth.  In between shucking corn in the eighties, Cree had found time to purchase the Poison hit single, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” for young Wyeth.  However, Wyeth’s mother wouldn’t allow him to listen to such corruptive rock ‘n’ roll, and he’s been scarred ever since.

 

Back inside, Peter, Alison, Lisa, Andrea, and Geoff all showed up, clean and dressed to shame sweaty hashers.  Their presence caused such a run on the beer that we killed a keg or two, which then had to be changed.  Soon afterwards, the CO2 ran out, causing further delay in the libations.  Yet we had enough for Down-Downs.  We reveled rosy-cheeked and loose-tongued in the thick air.  Our runners’ highs waning, our suds warming, we sang familiar ditties with profane lyrics and sophomoric rhymes:

 

  • Kyle for being worst Hareraiser since Ewa
  • Visitors and Virgins: Denise, Karen Ashe, Antti (again), Loretta, Beth, Splat Ahoy (?), and possibly another one or two in the throng
  • Dave Long for getting overexcited with the plunger while singing, smacking MJ’s head
  • Magoo for, as Got Wood? put it, “The second in a row where it’s impossible to get a beer.”
  • Bottom, who in combination with Magoo, inaugurated the first run in a new “Cree-Hoffman” combination.  Oh, and for their birthdays…
  • Peter for his suit
  • Ewa for leaving the bathroom in a noxious cloud after changing out of her neon shorts.  Taking a page from the SAD#6/Tripod/Ralph handbook, Jason and Heather gave Ewa a second name: Stinky Pinky
  • Fireman Bob for his newly shorn pate.  And when one bald guy drinks…
  • Wyeth for run-ins with the cops, older women, and spewing after the most recent GGFM on the subway ride home was given the Indian name “Jailbait Who Vomits A Lot,” though by the end of the evening hashers had agreed abbreviation was likely
  • Rich for starting this latest round of marriages
  • Jason and Eleanor for getting married.  Just Say No, Just Say No…

 

As beer flowed again, food was thrown on the grill.  Dr. Steve and Bruce talked shop.  Bruce and SAD#6 talked women.  Peter mentioned Wet Willy’s blowing by a pack mark.  Lisa admitted she had come from a wine tasting and was rather tipsy.  Perturbed by the slow service, Rick complained vociferously to Tom.  They exchanged words, then heightened, then yelled, Rick saying beer never flows slowly on his runs, Tom saying Rick should get out of his face.  The moment was anti-hash—it did not jive with the usual benevolent atmosphere and casual good times—and witnesses were glad it passed.

 

The crowd thinned after the food ran out.  At 11:00, Tom stood at the back door, announcing that hash cash wasn’t out, but the crowd had to move inside to let the neighbors sleep.  We filled edges of the back room and spilled over to the bar.  Several males quickly surrounded Kerry, a newcomer brought by John who is either a second-timer or escaped virgin radar.  When she left she cleared the place of half its drinkers.  “I’m actually leaving now, too,” said six virile, able-bodied, whiskey-dicked lushes.

 

With beer still abundant, John, Tom, Patrick, and a few others stood post near the pitchers.  Finishing another, I thought of the evening’s honorary hashers—Tom, Cree, and Jason.  “They’re all right,” started playing in my ears.  I found my bag and searched for my wallet.  Finding a weathered single, I wobbled toward the jukebox, eager to get the song out of my head.  On out.

 

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