NYCH3 # 1055

NYCH3 #1055, June 9, 2004

HARE: Magoo

Start: 96^th & Columbus

On In: George Keeley’s, Amsterdam and 83rd

Scribe: Mean Jean

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups. The police who investigate crimes and the District Attorney who prosecutes the offenders.  These are their stories.

 

Scene I

Dusk. Deserted, wooded area in Central Park, off paths and trails. A teenage couple walking hand-in-hand, pushing branches out of their way. A stream babbles nearby.

 

Boy: It’s alright Cindy. No one comes back here. We’ll be totally alone.

 

Girl: Are you sure no one comes back here? And it doesn’t look very comfortable anyway. Oh, and my name is Sandy by the way.

 

Boy: Right. Sandy. Well, look I brought this blanket and besides it’ll only hurt for a minute. Sandy? Sandy?

 

Pan over to girl standing over dead body dressed in running clothes.

 

Girl: Are you sure no one ever comes here?

 

Cue Law & Order music.

 

Scene II

Same area but this time police are crawling all around; there is yellow crime scene tape around some trees. There’s a tarp over the body.

 

Lennie Briscoe: Well, she clearly must have been dragged to this spot. No one in their right mind would be jogging around here.

 

Greene: But there’s no sign that the body was moved. The only thing on her person was two quarters tucked inside her jog bra. But I did find little blobs of a white substance leading into the area. Of course, I didn’t see any blobs leading out of the area. Do you think it could be drug related?

 

Lennie (bending down and sniffing, then tasting white substance): Nah, this isn’t dope. It’s flour. I guess she won’t be baking any more cakes any time soon.

 

Greene: Lennie, I found something next to the body. It looks like she was trying to leave us a clue to the killer’s identity.

 

Lennie: Magoo? What could that mean?

 

*********

Well, that’s how my Law & Order scene played out in my head the second time I got back round to the stream in a foolhardy attempt to follow a trail set by Magoo. But I’m starting my story in the middle. Let’s go back to my ascension from the 96^th Street stop on the B train. It was a hot and muggy night in New York City. There’s Tom up ahead. I enthusiastically, optimistically ask him how the trailsetting went. He’d promised us in an earlier email that day the trail would befit the weather conditions (90+ degrees and 90+% humidity) and for some strange reason, we all believed him. He tells me it took him 2 hours to set. Ker-plunk! That’s an hour long trail by any stretch of the imagination. Okay. “There’s a chicken/eagle split”. Okay. I can give you a short cut. Okay.

 

We arrived at the start to find Mastercard already there and changing from her blades to her Nikes. On time and with the right gear: should have known by that point that the world was out of whack. A surprise appearance by Yellow Smello at the start; we thought she only came for the beer. We met Stacia and John, a virginal couple who had heard about the hash for awhile and decided to check it out finally. Jon “No H” arrived with Cockstar, looking dazzling in her sundress. The everpresent Patrick, I’m-not-from-LA-Bruce, Jesse, Jonathan the Taller, Rick Snyder, Ookie Cookie, HUA, Devo, Alice and last week’s birthday boy, Geoff, where among the soon-to-be-sad pack.  After a chalk talk that was only superceded in length by the trail itself, Magoo, a last-minute fill-in hare (let’s all give Kyle a round of applause now, shall we?), sent the pack north to 97^th. There was a quick turn west which I blew past having been armed with fore-knowledge of where trail was heading. I went into the park at 100^th street where we were greeted with the corporately-challenged stragglers making their up toward the Harlem Hills. We spent all of two minutes on actual paths in Central Park before following flour into no-woman’s land. Okay this was fun for awhile until I swallowed my second bug, stepped into wet marshes and scratched my leg on the felled tree before wading into the stream. Now I just wanted out. I met up with the pack at the first check by the waterfall and was happy to report to an incredulous Devo that I had eliminated five of the six possible directions the trail could take. Jonathan shouted on on under the footbridge and we were off. A bit more winding through the park, out on the east side at around 106^th or so, over to Madison where the eagles went their separate way and back into the park up at the northeastern most corner, around the Harlem Meer and back into Park wilderness. This is where I had my last glimpse of the pack but better for me to slowly but surely make my way on trail… So I won’t bore you with how I ran back over the trail at the stream, got back to the Harlem Meer, (spied Sideshow Bob off in the distance ahead me having arrived late for the start but he didn’t hear me scream for HELP!) tried again and got lost again before guessing East Side in my quest for a phone. Yep, o On In on the West Side. Okay, back around that damn Harlem Meer but I was able to entertain myself with fantasies of drawing and quartering Magoo and feeding the entrails to the… oh you get the picture.

 

Back in the bar, I came to my senses and satisfied myself with simply putting a handful of ice down Tom’s back, held nicely in place by his securely-tucked polo shirt.  We had a nice group of Corporately Challenged join us at the On In: New British Andrew, Crazy Bob, Smashmouth, and Doug (not corporately challenged, just geographically; couldn’t find the start).

 

The Down Downs: to Magoo for haring, to Magoo again for haring badly, to Magoo again for promising a short trail, then not setting one. The V & Vs were plentiful: Verbal Discharge from Finland, Virgins Karen, Jennifer, Stacia and John. Devo got called up for falling up a flight of stairs (45 degrees of Devo). Mike Bahamonde got a down down in someone else’s stead I think because he looked “greek”. Magoo got another down down for throwing his cup at Cockstar. Rick Bon Jovi Snyder blew past the on in whilst on the cellphone calling to find out where the on in was. Geoff Steamer Baldwin for failing to run the hash because he had a meeting; AA, we asked? AARP, more like it, said Cockstar. It was so bad, he even forgot his hanging glass neckgear and he was drinking out of, say-it-ain’t-so, a regular glass. Jon No H and Sideshow were called for going off and getting pizza since the food was so late to arrive. And AOTW went to, could-there-be-any-other-possibility?, MAGOO!

 

The hash cash ran out pretty damn quick…I think Magoo drank it all during the down downs…but that didn’t stop the die-hards from ponying up their own cash into the wee hours: Crazy Bob, Cockstar, Yellow Smello and Sideshow,  New British Andrew, Patrick, myself….etc.  Doesn’t make for a pleasant Thursday but hey, life’s too short and I want to get in as much fun as I can before my next Magoo trail and Law & Order appearance.

 

On out.