Pie-eating contest rules

The Pie-eating contest rules are the formal structure that governs the annual Great Gretna Pie-Eat, a central event in Gordon Lachance's story "The Revenge of Lard Ass Hogan." These rules—including a strict ten-minute time limit, hands tied behind the back, consumption of only the top crust, and a weigh-in ceremony—create the framework for Lard Ass Hogan's grotesque act of revenge, which triggers a chain reaction of vomiting that spreads through the entire audience and transforms the contest into a carnivalesque spectacle of bodily excess.

Rules and Regulations

The contest is held on the last night of Pioneer Days, just before the fireworks, on a platform set up in the closed-off Main Street of Gretna. Contestants come up one by one, their hands bound behind them and their shirtfronts open, and Mayor Charbonneau ties a large white bib around each neck. The pies are blueberry that year, and the contestants must eat only the top crust, not the bottom. A strict time limit of ten minutes is observed, and Sylvia Dodge, President of the Gretna Ladies' Auxiliary, oversees the baking of each year's pies, subjecting each to rigorous quality control that includes a weigh-in ceremony on Mr. Bancichek's butcher's scales at the Freedom Market to ensure each pie weighs within an ounce of the others. She holds a stopwatch and a silver police whistle, which she blows at the end of the ten minutes. Mayor Charbonneau then steps forward and holds up the hand of the winner.

Wagering and Stakes

The Pie-Eat is a hot wagering event in Gretna. Contestants are observed and discussed by bettors as ardently as thoroughbreds are studied by racing touts. Bettors pry out details concerning contestants' eating habits, discussing whether the official pie is "heavy" (apple) or "light" (apricot), and how a contestant handles blueberry dishes. Other questions include whether a contestant is a fast eater who slows down or a slow eater who speeds up, how many hotdogs he can put away, how much beer he drinks, and whether he is a belcher—it is believed that a good belcher is tougher to beat over the long haul. The defending champion, Bill Travis, bets on himself every year, and that year he has to put two hundred and fifty dollars at risk to win fifty at one-for-five odds. How much money actually changes hands during the week following pie-night is estimated at close to a thousand dollars, a lot of money for a small town fifteen years ago.

The Contest and Its Subversion

The five contestants are Bill Travis, David "Lard Ass" Hogan, Bob Cormier, principal John Wiggins, and Calvin Spier. Lard Ass, a seven-to-one underdog, eats like a boy possessed, gobbling a regulation-size pie in just forty-two seconds, a contest record. He finishes his second pie before Bill Travis has even consumed the crust on his new one. But Lard Ass has no hope or intention of winning; he has emptied a bottle of castor oil before the contest. As he works through his third pie, he deliberately tortures himself with grisly fantasies, imagining he is eating cowflops, greasy grimy gopher-guts, and diced-up woodchuck intestines with rancid blueberry sauce. He finishes his fourth pie and calls for his fifth, the Ultimate Pie. When his stomach, loaded beyond endurance, revolts, he raises his head, grins at Bill Travis with blue teeth, and puke rumbles up his throat like a six-ton Peterbilt shooting through a tunnel, covering Bill Travis. This triggers a chain reaction of vomiting that spreads through the entire audience, including Calvin Spier, Mayor Charbonneau, Sylvia Dodge, and many others, turning the contest into a grotesque spectacle.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

The rules of the Pie-Eat are essential to the story's structure and meaning. They establish the contest as a legitimate, community-sanctioned event with clear procedures and stakes, which makes Lard Ass's subversion all the more shocking and effective. The rules also create a framework for the ritualistic, almost ceremonial nature of the contest, which is described as a "rite of passage" and a "magic corridor" where the change happens. Lard Ass's revenge is not just about winning or losing; it is about using the rules themselves to create a spectacle that exposes the absurdity and grotesqueness of the entire enterprise. The story ends with Lard Ass declaring the contest a draw, walking off the platform, and going home, leaving the audience in chaos. The rules, in their precise and formal nature, become the instrument of their own undoing, as Lard Ass's calculated violation of the spirit of the contest—by consuming castor oil—turns the orderly competition into a carnivalesque nightmare of bodily excess.