NYCH3 Run 851

Wednesday, September 27, 2000

Hares: Debbie Ulis and Laura Johnson

On-In: Dewey’s Flatiron

Scribe: Heather Malloy

Open on a Manhattan street corner, on an early fall evening. About 30 runners are standing in a group, laughing and talking. POV: narrator. It seems like a perfectly innocuous night. Cool, beautiful early fall weather has brought out a big pack of eager runners, all looking forward to a nice, four mile or so trail with a few interesting and challenging checks thrown in. Though one hare, LAURA, is inexperienced, the pack has confidence in the abilities of DEBBIE, a committee member. As events would unfold, they would discover that they weren’t just wrong, they were entangled in the plot of a grade B horror movie disguised as hash. Debbie, playing the role of sweet, innocent prom-queen-cum-axe-murderer, would reveal herself as a maniac obsessed with destroying all known trail setting conventions, and putting the pack in mortal danger. Along the way, heroes would emerge from unexpected places, and protagonists would drop their facades of leadership, scampering off to save their own hides without leaving pack marks, perhaps hoping that the sacrifice of the slow would appease the unstoppable Debbie.

But they didn’t know all of this at the start, of course, or they would have preempted the trail and just run screaming into the night. Instead, they innocently accepted chalk, dumped their bags on the corner, and took off south to the first check at Union Square.

Act One, Scene One. The gamboling runners get their first hint that all is not well in the bucolic setting. Initially cheery nursery-room music becomes steadily more ominous. Checks at Union Square are difficult in the best of circumstances. (Cut to another hash: daylight, white chalk, one-pound globs of flour every ten feet, giant neon arrows….) In this instance, Debbie chose to dispense with all of the possibilities of making it remotely feasible for the runners to find trail. The check is in blue chalk. Under a statue, not a streetlight. The nearest mark isn’t to be found anywhere near the check, and it is a mere sprinkle of flour. Twenty solid minutes of checking and complaining later, after the group starts to blame KERRY just for being there, and a number of runners disappear without a trace, they are finally on their way east to….. Scene Two, a check at Stuyvesant Square. Once again, the action centers around an area with a labyrinth of potential exits. The pack approaches the corner, and lets out a collective groan of disbelief. Runners set out looking for signs of trail, or other hash life. One heading south sees MIKE B, FEINSOD, and HARDMAN, who chose to strike out on their own, leaving everyone else behind to fend for themselves. The astonished and demoralized pack tries to follow, with desperate yelps of on-on to anyone they, too, have left in the maze. They weave down and west to the Second Avenue Deli, and then over on 7^th to…Scene Three, a check at Cooper Square. An unmarked false is found within a few minutes, and more hashers vanish, not to be seen again. The remaining stragglers run back and forth, looking for anything at all, hope bleeding away with each step. Even pigeon shit would have been greeted with joy. Eventually, EWA finds a pack mark, and the runners follow it to Broadway on blind faith…. Scene Four, a check at Washington Square Park. The theme from“Jaws” plays, pan to runners sucked into a pit of darkness. Abruptly, the pack is whittled to eight, who eventually find a blue check. A mysterious visitor from Tokyo is waiting there, looking utterly dejected, and informs the runners that some other hasher had laid a few random pack marks somewhere, and then abandoned him. Every time a hasher runs off looking for trail, the visitor’s forlorn voice is heard calling, “I already checked there.” The camera follows a female hasher looking for trail, the pitch black park is full of whispering riffraff, all offering to let her rest her weary runner’s feet in the comfort of a strange lap. Terrified, she runs back to the relative safety of the huddle surrounding the check. [Ed: Extra bonus hash tip of the day: if you wouldn’t want your sister (or self if you’re a woman) to be alone someplace in the dark, DON’T SET A CHECK THERE.] Finally, after a whole lot of shivering together miserably, JUNIOR finds a pack mark at the northwest corner of the square, pointing to 6^th Avenue, where they find….. nothing. Camera cuts to a clock on a bank. It is already after 8:00, so they assume that they must be close at this point. The hashers decide to split up. Famously bad idea. Cue theme from Friday the 13^th. Kerry runs off to check Down the Hatch, and the SCRIBE to check Off the Wagon. The forces of evil at work on this trail take the opportunity to pick off a few more hashers while they scatter. The scribe bumps into Junior, and the first signs of true trail since Broadway. She bursts into tears. Heading down 6^th, LESLEY opines that they might not even have to run as far as Antarctica, perhaps they would go to Barrow St. Ale House. They run by through the quiet streets. At Hudson, they turn briefly south, prompting guesses as to how many blocks stand between them and Antarctica. When they turn north on Washington, a few actually stop and wait to see if Junior will turn to the West Side Highway, and thus back south to Antarctica, before they follow him to….Scene Five, a check on Washington Street. Horrified, they come to a screeching halt. They roundly curse the FRBs for not marking a single check all night. The scribe whips out a quarter and ducks into Automatic Slims to call the hotline. The pack wonders aloud whether she will ever be seen again. Her return is treated with cheers, which dissolve quickly on the heels of the news that the on-in is at 25^th and 5^th. There is a moment of profound silence as they all look at each other, jaws agape. Theme from “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (final scene) plays. Junior, VINCE, FLUFFY, Lesley and the scribe all run north; a long arm snatches Kerry into a dark doorway; and TOO LONG is lured to the river by a ghostly figure. Along the way up 6^th, these few remaining runners narrowly escape death by truck twice. In a last, cruel twist, they encounter the trail ten feet from the on-in.

Act Two, Scene One. The hashers enter the apparent safety of the on-in, and drag themselves up the stairs to a tiny afterthought of a balcony, where the whole pack is squashed in, fighting over a single pizza and a tray of nachos. Debbie is standing atop a table, laughing demonically and waving a bloody running shoe. Her henchman Laura stands beside her, rebuffing all requests for water, and demanding hash cash. Seemingly, all remaining solidarity is wiped out by the struggle to get three nachos, and the half-hour hunt for a beer. Scene Two, the pack fights back. Feinsod and Hardman estimate the length of the trail at around seven miles. A whispering campaign to see the hares punished soundly for their misdeeds begins to circulate. However, it is discovered that no JMs are present, and so it appears as though the revolution will peter out. A scribe consults Dave Hardy, master of all hash protocol, who informs her that the on-sex and hash cash are supposed to conduct down-downs in the absence of a controlling hash authority, so she does the right thing and tells Mike B that it is his job. CHRISTINE, sensing more trouble afoot, somehow convinces Dave Long that it is a webmaster function. Dave is too addled to protest after replacing his lost fluids with Sam Adams, steps up onto a chair, and burns Debbie and Laura in effigy over a chafing dish.

Scene Three, the crucible. Score of “Night of the Living Dead” plays. Debbie and Laura are attacked by a large mob of hashers, who hog-tie and carry them to the front to chants of WROTY, and shouted demands that they drink for each check. The are forced to chug a beer each. Then, Dave senses the dangerous mood of the pack, and punishes them with a second Bud Light for setting checks in blue chalk. After tasting blood, the pack seeks out the aliens in its midst, and two virgins and the Tokyo visitor step forward. Unfortunately for the bearded virgin, he neglects to remove his hat, and must drink again. A set of rabbit ears is produced to be given to the fleet of foot. This time, however, Dave decides that it would be boring to give them to Feinsod and Hardman again, and gives them to Patrick instead. Slow to Blow is brought forward for the most barbarian behavior of the night, (Flashback to S2B entering bar, shoving aside innocent non-hash patrons and shoveling in their pizza with both hands.) ALEKS is made to drink for unspecified crimes, which may or may not have involved marriage. And finally, Dave recounts the story (voiceover, flash to Port Authority) of two female hashers from the prequel to this film in their tale of derring-do, wherein they managed to swipe a cab from beneath the bill of the Duck of Death. The scribe and JILL step forward to drink from the ritual plunger. The scribe spills the contents of the plunger all over herself.

Act Three, the aftermath. CROFT, wearing civilian clothes, enters the bacchanalia. Junior and Christa coincidentally decide to make it an early night at the exact same time. The bearded virgin’s girlfriend arrives, and just in time to perform an emergency tonsillectomy on him. There is continued wailing and gnashing of teeth over the pain endured on trail. Fade to black. On out.