May 20, 2009
NYCH3 #1320
Hare: Matt and Dan (not Wix)
Start: Chambers and Church
On-in: Fontana’s Bar
Scribe: Jeremy with the gracious gift of Cliff Notes courtesy of Dan Wix to jolt his Grand Marnier-soaked brain into action
As an old drinking buddy of mine once said:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
Only in this NYCH3 edition of A Tale of Two Bridges, it was mostly just misery and suffering with very little of the good times to keep beleaguered hashers’ morale up. Indeed, were it not for the occasional respite provided by the one and only trustworthy compatriot (alcohol) this story would have been even more tragic than it already was.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
A fine-spirited crew met up on a sunny May afternoon, ready for action and unperturbed by the despondent wailing heard in the surrounding office buildings in Ye Olde Financial district. Yes, the start location should have tipped the group off that evil things were afoot but it was never said that hashers are a particularly bright bunch. Matt explained the arcane rules of running a trail in NYC to a crop of tender virgins and we were off, bounding away on feather-light heels into a lovely Manhattan evening.
At which point the first casualty took place: Heather Kovar took a single wrong turn and was never heard from again. She failed even to show up at the on-in though I’m pretty sure I saw her face on a Missing Persons ad on the side of the M102 bus the other day.
Nevertheless, the pack soldiered on. Optimism again broke out for absolutely no good reason as the trail turned to the first bridge of the day, the venerable Pont du Brooklyne. Fast American Dave played tourist slalom, often losing to people four and even five times his body mass. Dogface (I think) paused in his strolling long enough to accept a business card from a former and undoubtedly future colleague. Things seemed downright pleasant as the group rolled in to the first drink check, administered by Dan in the Brooklyn Bridge park in DUMBO.
After some doctored Gatorade, the group continued on. Somewhere around this juncture in the evening’s activities, to quote Dan Wix’s beautifully poetic phrasing:
Jenni totally bit it on trail.
Naturally, we shrugged that off and kept moving. At some point, we all came back to Manhattan via the (wait for it…) Manhattan Bridge. At the end of said bridge was the check that broke the pack’s spirit completely. To find the true path, you had to cross the street four times, close your eyes, accept Shiva as the one true god and then sacrifice your best friend who you had sent to look in the other direction. As most hashers are friendless, this thinned numbers down considerably.
Eventually, there was a drink check, this time served up by Matt himself. This was the last bit of happiness to be had for some time. Seven years, in fact, as this was how long it took to find the on-in.
Adding insult to tragedy, down downs were doled out for the following offenses:
- Jenni, Teri, Marc and ‘the guy with the busted knee’ (he knows who he is) for being virgins
- Teri and ‘the guy with the busted knee’ for calling each other on trail to find out where the on-in was located
- Fast American Dave and Dan Wix for being fake GM’s
- Myself for something undoubtedly undeserved that I cannot remember as I’m really an all around standup guy
- and the aforementioned Dogface (I think) for stopping to take business cards on trail
At this point the proletariat rose up with their torches, and hare Matt was punished many times over, for:
- having a birthday
- emulating the Gilette razor people, saying to himself "fuck it, let’s do TWO bridges"
- apparently having the hash name ‘BJ and the Bear Back’ (source: Dan Wix)
- all of which could add up to one and only one thing: AOTW
As his head rolled in the basket, the pack grimly settled in for the task of rebuilding society, not as a monarchy, no… Something new was needed, a fresh and more equitable start, where virgins and hashers alike might one day have the inalienable right to run a trail without it being too friggin’ long. Yes, society will be remade into a new, more just form of government. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
The Beerpublic.
On On!