The big game was on the horizon, and, as was customary, the governor of the Eastern Seaboard state put up a crate of the local delicacy, a seafood, and his West Coast counterpart responded by staking a case of his state’s finest wine. The wager between the two governors was reported widely in the papers, and the men even scheduled a joint appearance on a morning television program to discuss it.
Then came the show. At the conclusion of a short interview filled with playful banter, in which each man insisted on the superiority of his state’s team, the governor of the Western state challenged the Eastern governor, right there on camera, to up the bet. If the Eastern team won the big game, the governor of the Western state said, he would consent to wear the Eastern team’s jersey to press conferences for one week. But, if the Western team won, the governor of the Eastern team would have to do the same, in reverse. The Eastern governor readily agreed. The show ended with the host smiling. “Fierce competitors,” she said.
The next morning, the Eastern governor, egged on by reporters, upped the ante again. He said that if his team won he was owed one night at the finest hotel in the largest city in the Western governor’s state. The Western governor said that, if his team won, he would demand the same stay at the finest hotel in the largest city in the Eastern governor’s state, but he added that it would be in the company of the Eastern governor’s wife.
The escalation continued. The Western governor, still heady with the idea of humiliating the Eastern governor, fired off a memo that amended his earlier demand: if the Western team won, he said, he would now demand two nights in the finest hotel in the Eastern governor’s state, and he would enjoy the company not of the Eastern governor’s wife but, rather, of his daughter. The Eastern governor was with television reporters when he received the memo, and he fired right back, saying that he would take a full week in a Western hotel with the Western governor’s mother, and that it would be a week she’d remember for the rest of her life.
When the Eastern governor arrived at work the next day, he was greeted by a rather harried-looking young man. The young man was a staffer working for the Western governor, and he had flown overnight to deliver the message that the Western governor now wished to settle the matter in person, with fists. The Eastern governor laughed dismissively, but, when the young man left and he had had time to think about it, he decided that this was the natural evolution of things, and that fists were the way to go.
Plans were drawn up. The Western governor took the lead, and his initial idea centered on a boxing ring to be erected in the state that included the precise midpoint between the Eastern- and Western-state capitals. The process of acquiring permits was byzantine, and it seemed unlikely that the ring would be constructed inside of three months. An alternative facility, a stadium used for college sports, was located nearby. This necessitated changing the terms of the challenge somewhat. The opponents would not meet in an elevated boxing ring but, instead, slug it out in the center of the field. There would be an audience composed of the residents of both states, and there would even be an entry fee, which would benefit the economy of the state hosting the fight. It would be three rounds, no gloves, at the conclusion of which a winner would be declared.
Young men, harried and otherwise, began to negotiate the terms of the fight. One young man working for the Eastern governor found an obscure provision in the laws of the host state stipulating that, in military or even martial matters, public officials were not permitted to travel alone but had to be accompanied by at least three lieutenants. This allowed the Eastern governor to redefine the wager somewhat. Rather than hand-to-hand combat between two individuals, it would now be a kind of gang exercise: a number of men selected by the Eastern governor would do battle with a number of men selected by the Western governor. They would fight until only one man was left standing, governor or otherwise.
A young man working for the Western administration, upon hearing the new terms, felt that the disorganized nature of a rumble would not work to the advantage of his governor, and he found an even more obscure provision, regarding the organized assembly of crowds, and used it to amend the terms once again. There would be not free-form fighting but, rather, controlled violence regulated by a set of rules. To minimize injury, the governors and their co-assailants would wear pads on their knees and shoulders and helmets on their heads. This arrangement, finally, seemed to please both governors. They made statements before the press to the effect that organized competition was a time-tried and even virtuous way to settle disagreements. They began to practice with their co-assailants, in teams. They commissioned a variety of merchandise commemorating the upcoming battle, which was scheduled for the day of the big game, so as not to lose sight of what had started things in the first place. ♦
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/02/07/110207sh_shouts_greenman
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