There was evil in the air on W4 St. last Sunday, and not just the fallout from a few hearty brunches; finally, the much-vaunted Troise/Hoffman Halloween hash was upon us. Hard to think of two more demonic hares for the occasion either: Chris, behind whose charming smile lurks evil, like Al Pacino 92s smiling devil character in "The Devil 92s Advocate" (never trust anyone who runs in a bandana); and Mike, who walks the earth masquerading as the second coming of Christ, which is of course just a front for the Beelzebub lurking beneath. An assortment of dubious looking characters greeted me outside The Slaughtered Lamb, which the horror movie buffs among you will remember was the lonely, spooky pub with the lonely, spooky clientele at the start of "An American Werewolf in London". There were vampires and vampiresses, vikings, witches, cavewomen, Santas, Scotsmen, "Jason", a Japanese beekeeper (!) and someone even came in a scarily realistic "Ghost of John Burke" costume. Dave Hardy came as himself. I was most disappointed that Marie had not turned up in her promised "Mini-Me" costume, but she couldn't go through with getting her head shaved. All in all, a pretty scary bunch.

Mike handed out goodies including cans of shaving cream and plastic toys before the start. I chose a plastic spider ring which cut a nice deep groove into my pinkie before the day was out. We set off west and almost immediately hit the first "circle check" of the trail at Sheridan Square. Halloween is probably the only day you can run around in weird costumes and get hardly any reaction from passers-by, a real contrast to the red-dress run; perhaps being in the west village and avoiding the Penn station "fag bashers" helps too! The check was solved going back east to 6^th Ave. and then north before heading back west to another of those annoying circle checks at Hudson and 8^th Ave. Yours truly headed west and north, expecting the trail to pass through the meat district and maybe end up in the old favourite, The Village Idiot. Of course, I was completely wrong as usual, and felt particularly peeved that I had endured the dreaded rotting flesh smell for no reason. Arriving back at the check, I watched a couple of people run around the circle check, which is actually kind of fun it it's not you doing it, before waving them on in the direction of a pack mark going south on Hudson. "Aha, Antarctica it is then", I thought to myself, but wrong again. The trail headed back east and I almost decapitated myself on the bowsprit (or whatever the pointy bit at the front of a sailing ship is called) of a parade float in a Spanish galleon design as it was "leaving port". I'm not sure what it represented unless it was having a dig at the speed of mass transit in the city.

The trail continued meandering through the far west village and finally back to 6^th Ave., shortly to be the scene of a demented, screaming, costumed throng (and that's just those watching on the sidewalk). If the halloween parade achieves one thing, it certainly makes you appreciate being able to cross a street wherever you choose to. Which we did, this being what the trail told us to, and pretty soon were on McDougal St. and the new (to me) on-in, Off The Wagon. At first sight I thought I had entered some sort of fraternity clubhouse, as the place was packed with twenty-something lads with the obligatory backwards baseball cap on, watching various games of "Grid Iron" football. Not exactly a welcoming sight when you're wearing a dress; I considered wearing my wig backwards in order to fit in, before realizing this might impair my drinking ability. Fortunately, I spotted a sign that said "Freaks This Way" pointing upstairs, and sure enough this was where I found the rest of the hashers already guzzling away. Hard Man was talking to the guy in the John Burke costume - wow, that thing was so realistic it gave me the creeps. Working my way through the crowd, I ran straight into an enormous pair of breasts, for once though they didn't belong to Lipstick Lesley or Debbie but to Dave The Viking. He had been hard at work the day before making, yes making, his viking costume. And very impressive it was too - big horned helmet (no sniggering at the back), breastplate complete with aforementioned mammary cutouts, and axe, which he owned up to having bought. Folks, this is the industrious spirit that made this country great! (so I've been told). Devo, if you were looking for someone to make that turtle costume for you, Dave was your man.

It was Devo in fact who took the best costume award for his Clarke Kent/Superman, and he certainly cut a handsome figure in his fedora. He obviously agreed, since he forgot to remove it while chugging (as did Lesley with her witch's hat) and was made to do it again. The real Superman would never have made a gaff like that. Dave got the best dressed breasts award but was not made to drink out of them. Your humble narrator, meanwhile, got the ugliest woman award once again, which seems a bit unfair since no one else was in drag. Where is Mike Murphy when you need him? The verdict on the run was "not bad for a Hoffman trail" which summed it up pretty well. The man himself was a blur for most of the afternoon as he passed around beer and shrunken hamburgers for which I'm sure somebody, somewhere holds a record for stuffing the most in their mouth at one time (step forward Seth?). Having had my ass checked out by a biker while taking a leak (I mistakenly used the gents), I decided to cut out with a few others and enjoy the hospitality of Joy at her pad overlooking the parade, the journey to which was another adventure in itself, and leave the remaining hashers to it. Spookily good job, Chris and Mike.

On out.