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Bash and Boot

Its 10:45pm , I’m halfway to a ‘perfect low’ and Hank is bashing the table with a Louisville Slugger. He pulled it out from the umbrella stand a moment earlier without breaking his verbal tirade about some point or another and punctuated his assertion with a symbolic yet forceful bump to the felt. The noise seemed to please him and his attention shifted from the modest combustion of verbal combat to the pure distilled chaos of bats and heavy furniture. He struck the table repeatedly with more force and glee each time. Chip stacks fell and scattered and slid off the felt. Drinks were hastily lifted and clutched securely as players distanced themselves from the staccato rhythms of Hank’s frothing brutality. “Better let him work through this,” we all thought as he struck blow after crushing blow.

Perhaps we’ll never know what dark force brought out this display but if I had to guess, it had something to do with the glistening globs of honey-coated graham crackers that intermittently fell from Dano’s mouth at the other end of the table. Seems like our favorite Jewish mechanic, who was experiencing a rough idle all night, had a blockage in the food intake manifold and just couldn’t keep those darn crackers within the confines of his copious pie hole. The more Dano spewed, the harder Hank bashed.

This dynamic between the two players brings up an interesting observation about our game and perhaps the entire competitive male intra-gender social framework. Several players compulsively disrupt the game, but each does it in his own way. There are those who disrupt by imposing upon themselves, i.e.: puking partially digested cookies on the table, lighting their farts on fire, or sundry other humiliating acts. I asked noted psychiatrist and student of the bizarre, Doc G. “These players are saying with their actions “Stop the game! It’s all too real and scary for me. I think I’ll start playing with my food and retreat to my safe little fantasy land where I’m in control and the bad people cannot hurt me”, he stated. “In a way it’s an attempt to escape what they find too horrible to endure in real life” he added.

Then of course, there are also those who disrupt the game by destroying inanimate objects, poking people, and yelling in your ears. “Those people are just plain nuts” Doc G said. “Those are the people that the other guys are retreating from.” When asked about treatment, Doc G confided, “It’s sad, but calling the authorities is really the only option.”

Hank has been missing for 4 weeks. Dano, with one notable exception, hasn’t spit up since he’s been gone.