A ccording to an article in the New York Times Magazine, there is a seedy, middle-aged businessman type who prowls the streets of the East Village of an evening, offering large sums of money to young, ripe, indigent runaway boys. His arrival is eagerly awaited by these boys, since, instead of the usual unspeakable but lucrative perversions their desire for parental independence leads them to, this fellow's interest, as it were, is in having his leg rubbed. For this, he is known as Leg-Rub Steve, one of the more colorful monikers I have recently read in print, and for reasons that are buried deep in my subconscious, it was to him that my thoughts consistently returned as we conducted a distinct but predictable eastward passage on last Sunday's trail. Would we see him? Would we be able to prevent exploitation, or at least take a cut? Was he one of us?
Roy, that well-known denizen of the night, had promised me upfront that this Hash would skirt closer to the edge than usual. Not only was he proud of having found a bar of extreme sleaziness even by our standards (more news on his success on this front below), but he also chose, presumably in a gesture of defiance to our normal bourgeois conventions, to start the trail in the fringe neighborhood of Broadway south of Houston Street, a bleak area populated only by artists and other low-lifes. He added a third element to the mix by bringing along a short, blonde sidekick of indeterminate, but definitely exotic, Middle European descent, who said little but smoked and giggled much. Whether she was a spy, or merely one of Roy's legion of fans, was one of the key mysteries of the afternoon.
The desolate nature of the terrain was evident from the start. Only the presence of thousands upon thousands of anthropologists from New Jersey prevented the streets from being entirely deserted, and one was forced to maneuver around them, carrying as they were their clipboards and academic paraphernalia, to find the trail. Fortunately, the marks were laid down with impeccable professionalism, enabling even those like your scribe, who normally lose so much time in making sure that the weaker members of the pack are not left behind, to keep pace with others, three or four of them at least. I have no particular recollection of where we actually went, the frequency and inevitable marking of checks meaning that there was never time to draw breath at any of them, but we did cover some of the more picturesque parts of the West Village before arriving back on Broadway on our surmised eastward drift.
Only at the end did I come a little bit unstuck. Electing the Chicken trail, again to protect some of the stragglers, I arrived at an unmarked check at 14th and 3rd. In typically authoritarian style, I barked "You! South!, You! North! I'll go East!", not something I get to say very often, and headed toward Loisaida in pursuit of some dive around Tompkins Square and my aforementioned theory. Twenty minutes later, alone and depressed, I bumped into one of the young recent-ladies in the act of parking her car back near the check, and she kindly guided me along the block and a half to the On-In, on a half-block near Union Square accidentally missed by the tide of gentrification. At this anonymous (at least from the outside) emporium next door to a Polish Social Club (the plot thickens) I found my check-mates happily into their second or third pint, only vaguely curious about what might have befallen me.
The bar certainly made a reasonable attempt to live up to Roy's publicity, although it had a few of the elements that we have grown to know and love on the Hash, such as one of those deals with Con Edison whereby you pay for no electric light service but extra electric noise service. Even with her normally undeniable powers of persuasion, Hare Raiser Lisa had no success whatever in keeping the music at a level where making conversation did not strain the stomach muscles. I fear that the Eric Stoltz-like barman may simply have been suffering from a short attention span (Duh...the music's not loud enough, man...........duh..., the music's not loud enough, man.......duh..., the music etc. etc.), but I still find it amusing that. when there's fifty of us and three regulars paying the bills for the afternoon, places still have trouble bending to our wishes for a couple of hours. Unless they are extremely alcoholic regulars.
The On-In proceeded with the same efficiency and smoothness as the run, although some were heard wondering whether this week's pizza was going to be served next week. The presence of a couple of armchairs made a pleasant change, although they possibly gave a new meaning to the phrase "overstuffed". But none of this, of course, was any hindrance to the ritual business of the Down-Downs, and here there were some special awards: one young man was toasted for running in bare feet for the early part of the trail, and subsequently in a pair of flimsy red plimsolls, which apparently are the height of fashion. Which of these offenses provoked the Down-Down was not clear; perhaps it was neither, rather his defensiveness at being caught at all. Erin was given another humiliation, ostensibly for her recent Provisional Worst Run of the Year but in truth for her appalling writing talent, as evidenced by last week's write-up. Only by progressively destroying her brain cells through drink will the rest of us ever stand a chance. Finally, and most happily, Basil , wearing a permanent expression of somebody caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and Mary were deservedly feted for their recent engagement announcement. Truly, the nice people find each other.
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