TKOG Who takes a shot at you (literally)

On Secret Society of List Addicts, I want to know who you’d invite to your fantasy dinner party.

NTKOG #198: The kind of callous thrill-seeker who pays good money to live out a Rambo fantasy.

I am: a surprisingly good marksman for someone of my temperament and noted clumsiness. Just, like, heads up.

I am not: into the idea of using that skill to slaughter anything other than paper targets at the gun range. I can’t even use the ones shaped like outlines of the human body, for goodness’ sakes.

The Scene: An impromptu trip to the mythical Coney Island last weekend, with Justice and Muscles. As we drove to Brighton Beach for a little Russian picnic, passed freeway signs for Coney Island. ”Coney Island!” I’d exclaimed, my West-Coast brain awash with Woody Allen, “That’s like seeing a sign for friggin’ Atlantis!”

Almost instantly, we detoured, enthusiastic. Our enthusiasm wavered as we crawled along the boardwalk-adjacent residential streets, desperate for parking. To say that — once we set foot on the boardwalk proper — our enthusiasm met a watery grave wouldn’t be wholly accurate. There was kelp and cigarette butts in there too.

The whole boardwalk gives off a sad urban zoo vibe: sad-eyed beach bums shambling around aimlessly, scratching themselves, picking sand out of their disarrayed chest hair. Then in an abandoned space between two corrugated iron snack shacks, the crowning exhibit:

Shoot The Freak! Like a grisly, well-lit set piece for Rent, but strewn with considerably more crushed beer bottles.

SHOOT THE FREAK! Per the coney running it, a “classic” Coney Island tradition (read: nine years) in which you can pay money for rounds of paintballs to shoot at the eponymous freak while he lazily ducks and weaves around your ammo.

The three of us watched, dumbfounded, as a twenty-something in a wifebeater paid $10 to blast 35 shots at the bored freak, cigarette dangling out of his mouth the entire time.

On our walk back, the booth called me back with its haunting siren song. Which, if you’re not familiar with it, consists of a fat, extremely hairy man bellowing: “C’mon, shoot the freak! Hey freaky freaky freak, these people wanna shoot you! Somebody step up and shoot the freaking freak!” Ah, it haunts me still.

Paid three bucks for five shots, but, while he loaded, saw a small snag in the plan: the freak had flown the coop. “Wait,” I told the coney, “I don’t see a freak!” Wrong choice of words.

“You’re a freak! You’re a freak! You’re a freak! They’re all freaks!” he shouted, turning to the crowd. “It’s not called Peek at the Freak — one of you other freaks come down and help her out!” Cue five minutes of smoke-ringed stand-up on the freak motif. Coney was lucky the gun was bolted down, or else I would have turned it on the real freak.

Except by the time he’d finished, so people people were gathered to stare at me that I began to suspect I’d have to turn the gun on myself.

Eventually, the freak came out, I took aim and — nothing happened. One more total miss. Then Muscles leaned forward and shouted for me to aim lower, I squeezed a hot pink paint cartridge right to the front of the freak’s protective helmet, and immediately fired two more in the center of his Freak Shield, where his chest would be.

And, guys, for just one moment, as the freak slipped around in the mud, avoiding my shots, god help me, I felt a surge of pride. Forget Coney Island and the cigarette butts and the freaks — for a split second, it was me and my gun, hunting the most dangerous game.

The Verdict: Well, they don’t call it the thrill of the hunt because it’s boring. I’ll admit, this made me want to haul some friends over to a paintball game as soon as humanly possible. Other morals: 1) even though I complain about my job, turns out it could be worse; 2) if, god forbid, I ever had to fight in a war, I’d totally want Muscles in my bunker, ’cause dude is an excellent battle coach; 3) but, uh, scratch that if said war is the uprising of Humans v. Freaks, because I have no clue which side I’d be on.

Tagged as: carneys, coney island, dudes no offense but coney island is a shithole, in all fairness actually coney island seems like an okay place to take your kids before they know what real amusement parks are, muscles and justice are hands-down the best thing about new york, new york city, once Physicist took me to a shooting range and was seriously displeased when i turned out to be an excellent shot (fair enough considering Physicist is a Dudely Dude and i just spent $15 on hot pink n, only thing more fun than a picnic with your besties is a picnic preceded by an ersatz murderous rampage, shoot the freak, summer fun