Gangrey
Vol. I · No. 1Prolonging the Slow Death of NewspapersEst. 2026

Truth or Dare

THE COMPLEX TALE OF A TAE KWON DO INSTRUCTOR

I almost stopped reading this, and then I kept going, and by the end it had worked its way deep enough into my mind to keep me thinking about it for the rest of the night, until I finally fell asleep.

It's Nathan Thrall, in GQ:

We instigated the dares most frequently when we went to the archery course, and we brought Tommy's video camera with us on nearly every outing. The rules of the game had been developed by Tommy, Eddie, and Hector over the years they'd spent together before Aaron and I joined the group: After shooting the first target, the best marksman would choose the punishment—the dare—to be performed at the end of the following round by the worst marksman.

Some of the dares were to be fulfilled at later dates, like mooning the cashier the next time Tommy treated us to drive-through Jack in the Box. Others included walking backward down steep trails with your pants around your ankles, pissing from a cliff in plain view of other hikers, or shooting the final target, which wasn't far from the parking lot, wearing nothing but your shoes.

***

I've got a few more things to say about this story, but I'll wait until you're done reading it.

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