It was a twelvth-hour Hell Ride. A lot of upperclassmen were really annoyed with the Frosh for waiting until finals week to hold it; many had already given up hope that the event was even going to happen this year. It was undoubtedly hard for them, though, being on grades this term, to find the time and energy for the Hell Ride. But as finals week approached we knew something was being planned. During two dinners they made chain announcements proclaiming "Hell Ride is tonight!" in the same way that the Seniors fake us out for Ditch Day. (One person says a a few cryptic words about it, then hands off to another member of his class, saying, "...but maybe [blank] knows more..." Since there are many more Frosh who come to dinner than seniors, the Hell Ride chain announcements were long.) Inside sources had informed us that those organizing the event had set their absolute deadline as Sunday night; at all costs they wanted to avoid holding it during finals week. So by Sunday night we were quite ready for the event.

It promised to be good: we knew they had a 1500 pound steel wall and a frosh who could arc weld. They had spent several days fortifying the Hell hyperspace (the world above the ceilings), which was already strong from what we'd failed to dismantle from last year's Hell Ride. They spent all of Friday night getting the 1500 lb steel wall up the Hell stairs, a task which required the concerted energy of virtually all the frosh. They had apparently found a great source of scrap metal; a 24-hour hardware store had told them they could help themselves to whatever junk they had lying around. They took advantage of this, and transported hundreds and hundreds of pounds of steel pipes and other metal scraps to Hell. For whatever reason they seemed to want to hide their materials from our upperclassmen sight, so they stockpiled it all in one of the Hell rooms... which was only possible because its tenant, Ryan Chornock, never slept there --he spends every single night on a couch in the house lounge! They also had access to all the cinder blocks that we'd used to wall off the Blacker courtyard for Interhouse. This made for one very full room. Apparently the materials were piled nearly to the roof, and the door could barely open!

I dropped by to check on them Saturday evening and they were taking a break from the tiring work of moving the steel plate into place, wherever that was going to be. Jeremy, the one who, along with Ryan, directed most of the work, told me that they'd had a "minor setback", and invited me to check out the Hell bathroom. I walked down the hallway to the spot where they'd been trying to lift the plate up the last few stairs into Hell and immediately saw what the trouble was: the winch they were using to move the plate (there was no chance moving the thing with mere mortals) had been anchored to some metal pipes which, in turn, were anchored to the Hell bathroom door frame. Evidently the door frame wasn't too structurally sound, and it, along with some of the surrounding wall, had pulled forward several inches. (The pipes were bent, too.) The damage had begun!

In Blacker we have an office, `Damage Control', specifically designed for Hell Ride-type damage done to the house. Since it's in everyone's best interest that the Housing Office not find out about these `mishaps', the BHDC (Blacker Hovse Damage Control) will usually use house funds to fix any damage that occurs immediately after it happens. There was some question over damage done during this year's Hell Ride, however. The frosh class (along with several others, including me) had had a bad experience with our current BHDC earlier this year, concerning Interhouse. The guy, Jason Heiss, had started to tear apart the boat they'd built only a few days after the party. The frosh had hoped to save the boat for a while... so they could display it for Pre-Frosh Weekend, among other things. The issue became quite a mess; many people got very emotional, and the boat's fate was decided only after a house vote, in which our dear BHDC lost. We ended up fixing the damage he'd done. Whether motivated by the lingering bad blood over this incident or something else, Jason felt compelled to send this warning to the frosh:

> Just for your information--
> 
> Any damage that occurs as the result of the Ride being played in Hell late
> at night with barricades in place will be your responsibility.  I.e. if I
> take out a window, you pay for it.
> 
> Just thought you'd like to know.
> 
> Jason
> BHDC

You can imagine how happy the Frosh were to hear this. For my part, I sent the frosh a supportive note letting them know that if the BHDC wasn't going to do his job, then I'd be happy to help do it for him.

Luckily, however, (perhaps regretting his mean-guy reputation) Jason hammered back the doorframe promptly. The wall will still require a bit of speckle, but overall things were looking alright...

Through Saturday night and all of Sunday the work intensity steadily increased. It was pretty clear to just about everyone that the Hell Ride was happening Sunday night. I stopped following the frosh's progress after they closed the doors and put up "Frosh Only" signs in an effort to keep nosy upperclassmen out (I was surprised how long they waited, actually). We knew daniell@cco--Daniel Leonard, the frosh who can weld--was hard at work. For hours and hours we would see the green light of his rented arc welder illuminate the South House walls around Hell. As Sunday night approached, throngs of upperclassmen gathered and discussed plans and observations while we waited. Our mouths were watering with anticipation. (Despite our stomachs' agitation over the finals and last-minute classwork we probably should have been doing...)

I think this was the first year that the upperclassmen actually prepared in some nontrivial way for the event. Word had leaked that several Juniors were building a `secret weapon'. There was much speculation over what this was; some thought it might be as elaborate and destructive as a plasma torch, but most guessed it was some sort of battering ram.

Jesse Rosenstock, a fellow Sophomore, and I had plans of our own. Jesse, while snooping around hyperspace, had discovered a hole in the Frosh's defense. The Hell hyperspace is pretty elaborate as they go. It runs between three different alleys and the South House kitchen. The sides facing two of these alleys is well-known and extremely well-protected. The area leading to the kitchen is a dark void few Moles have explored. Not much is known about this direction, except that it probably is unreachable from other areas of the South House complex. Last year, however, we discovered a very small connection between Hell hyperspace and one of the bordering Ricketts alleys. Betting that the upperclassmen did not know about this entrance, we put up only a very minimal blockade there. This year, we were among the upperclassmen (sadly!) and we hadn't forgotten about it. Jesse's reconaissance had revealed that the Frosh hadn't discovered the entrance; the few planks we'd wedged into place last year were all that was there. Jesse planned to lead a few other S'mores through this entrance. He predicted he'd be in in three or four minutes.

My plan was quite different. In my letter of encouragment to the freshmen, I had written the following:

"If I take out a window--say by swinging down Tarzan-style from the roof (hint, hint)--and our ever-popular BHDC tries to make you guys (or me) pay for it, I will be more than willing to fix it myself..."

Sunday night came and went. It was obvious that the Frosh were trying their hardest to make it happen that night; there just wasn't enough time. By five o'clock in the morning, most of the upperclassmen were dead-tired. Many were grumbling about how lame the frosh were for not starting sooner, and several had gone to bed in disgust. Twice we'd all been faked out by the Scurves; they had placed speakers above Hell, on the roof and had begun to play the Ride. The first time, the response was pretty spectacular. In a flash, power to Hell was killed and a group of upperclassmen were at the doors of Hell. The second time people weren't so gullible; nor were they so amused. Threats of cutting power to all of Ricketts and such were thrown in their direction. One Scurve heeded this warning and hurried away to type in "while (1) sync" on his Linux box.

Sunrise came and with it, a wave of disgust over holding Hell Ride in daylight. I tried to avoid thinking about all the work I had to do this week, andof how much time I'd spent mulling around waiting for an event which is traditionally spontaneous...

Then the South House fire alarms went off. This was almost funny; after all, every year for the last three the fire alarm has been a central part of the Hell Ride. One needn't have been a prophet to have predicted this! Predictably, Security arrived to check out the cause. Apparently one of Hell's smoke alarms had been knocked off the ceiling as the frosh were raising one of their barriers. To everyone's delight the officers' reaction was good; they promised to stall the much-feared Safety office from inspecting. (Remember last year!) Of course, at this point, if they had come and demanded the walls come down, we would have complied to this with an enthusiasm I'm sure they wouldn't have expected... (using tools I'm sure they wouldn't have approved of!)

The frosh went back to work, and we upperclassmen continued to wait. There was a fair amount of discussion over what would happen if they play the Ride at 7:00 am. After all, it was finals week, so airing of the Ride is permitted at 7am! Some said in disgust that they'd waited long enough, that they were going to start bashing the minute they heard the Ride being played from Hell, regardless of the time. Luckily this was not an issue; 7am came and went with only Scurve Radio disturbing the quiet morning air.

Then, at a little past 7:30, the generator started up. I was amazed to see that they'd picked a single room for both the speakers and generator --and that the room was the one Jesse and I had randomly chosen for me to swing into! (I could have easily moved the ropes to come down into another room on that side of the alley, but if they'd put the generator --my best target-- in a room on the other side of the alley, I wouldn've been forced to enter a non-important room.) I stuck in my earplugs, tied my crowbar to my waist, and sure enough, in a few minutes the Ride bellowed from Hell. The Hell Ride had begun!

I took a gulp and lowered myself over the edge. The groud certainly looked a long way off! The first thing I noticed at the window was a metal grating with daniell@cco and Oliver behind it. The window had been left open so the Ride and the generator fumes could escape, but they'd closed the window's screen. I took some swings at the window, quickly breaking the screen and soon thereafter breaking whatever support they had on the grate. Since daniell@cco and Oliver were pushing the grate against the window, most of my collisions were actually being absorbed by them. Finally I managed to get my legs in the window, but now I was in the delightful position of being sandwiched between the window truss and the grate. I was in the room after 30 seconds; of course Oliver and daniell@cco were going to try to hold me back... My primary problem was that I couldn't free the ropes from my harness; being careful, Jesse and I had made a very thick harness which unfortunately made it difficult to open the caribeaners. So daniell@cco and Oliver held me back, while slowly we all began to tire from the carbon monoxide of the generator...

As this was going on there were of course many other assaults on Hell. The Junior's secret weapon was in fact a battering ram, which proved to be near-useless against the Frosh's metal barriers. Samson, a particularly small Junior, managed to squeeze above a barrier on Ryan's window (which was accessible since it overlooks the kitchen roof.) Jesse's entrance to hyperspace was hampered somewhat by a last-minute infusion of metal scraps that he wasn't expecting, but nonetheless he got in within a few minutes. Of course Jesse didn't know which room contained the stereo equipment. He ran through hyperspace (no easy task), frantically checking the rooms below him. After five minutes the front blockade, facing Purgatory, gave way and a few upperclassmen squeezed through. When these guys found the room where daniell@cco, Oliver, and I were, they were greeted with the 1500 pound steel wall which they began to pry out of the way. This wall was on the inside of the room, which meant that if it fell, it would kill Oliver and daniell@cco, and very likely me. Realizing this, daniell@cco and Oliver promptly left me to save themselves at the side of the room. daniell@cco had welded a support structure of sorts to the steel plate, but many of the weld joints had already broken; it was only a matter of time before the whole thing collapsed. Of course I didn't realize this at the time; I wondered why they'd left me, but I turned my concentration to getting free of my support ropes.

Then Jesse bombed into the room from hyperspace --right in front of the 1500 pound steel plate. He darted to the speakers and generator, pulled at a bunch of wires, and Hell suddenly went quiet. Time elapsed: 5 minutes, 43 seconds.

I was too exhausted to climb back out the way I came and no one wanted to touch the precarious half-ton piece of steel blocking to doorway, so we all --Jesse, daniell@cco, Oliver, and I-- ended up getting out via hyperspace. The room was quite a sight. Jesse had smashed the top of the closet he came through to pieces, there was metal from the window's support structure all over the room, the window's screen was bent and broken. In fact right now, a day after the event, I think the room is still that way! Hell itself looked pretty bashed up, too; I'd forgotten how much of a war zone Hell comes to look during the Hell Ride.

Just about everyone, frosh and upperclassmen alike, collapsed in exhaustion afterwards. The frosh, understandably, were as drained physically and mentally as they'd probably ever been. For at least an hour, though, we all sat around rehashing those six minutes and their days of preparation. I think the frosh --particularly Jeremy and Ryan who'd devoted days (and countless grade points) to the Hell Ride-- were disappointed that they'd only held out for six minutes. I understood. We were disappointed last year after we'd lasted "only" twenty minutes. They'd done a phenomenal job, though. It certainly was the most elaborate Hell Ride ever; they'd blockaded every Hell entrance (except one) as well as the room containing the generator and stereo equipment. Many of their walls were virtually impenetrable; those that weren't failed because of lack of time, not of poor design. If they'd had just another day to complete what they'd planned I'd never had been able to enter through the window, those in the hall couldn't have budged the steel plate, and Jesse couldn't have broken through the closet. I think the frosh were particularly unlucky this year because, well, they were up against some pretty determined adversaries...

-Mike Davies,
   6-11-96