This might sound like an April Fool’s Day joke or an Easter-on-delay gag. But I swear the story that I’m about to tell you is true.
Last week, I met a bunny.
He was 6 feet tall, pink, had a bit of a limp and was carrying a half-empty bottle of Coors Light. He also was wearing a University of Michigan jersey. (I guess bunnies like college basketball, too.)
It was 5:30 p.m. and the apparently inebriated bunny was getting ready to leave a bar on Mass Ave. I know it was a man because he was carrying his bunny head in his hands, but he put it back on before propelling himself down the street in a wheelchair with a rainbow flag taped on the back. (I guess bunnies support gay marriage, too.)
Being the investigative reporter that I am, I decided to ask around. Every city has characters. People and and things that give places their own quirky identities. We’ve got, for instance, Max the Skateboarding Bulldog, the Blue trio at Butler, and the Chicken Limo. I wanted to know if we had a giant bunny, too. And, more important, why.
A few hours later, I had my answer — or so I thought.
“He just goes out to bars and drinks dressed up like a bunny,” one Mass Ave. proprietor explained. “He’s on Facebook. He posts all the time.”
It made perfect sense. Where else would a bar-hopping bunny be but on Facebook? Soon I made contact with Avery DrunkBunny. (Get it? A Very Drunk Bunny.)
“Were you drinking on Mass Ave. earlier?” I asked.
“No,” came the response. “Was there another bunny?!?!”
The plot thickens.
Avery was understandably upset. That’s because she — yes, she — is the real deal. Forget the impostors.
A 30-year-old licensed insurance agent, Avery has been at the bunny bit for about three months now. She goes out to bars and clubs Downtown, on Mass Ave. and the Eastside, and in Fountain Square. She follows the music, preferring to dance to live bands.
“I model my dance moves after my stepmom. She’s this little skinny Italian woman who can’t dance very well.”
Through a little slit in her mask, she sips Miller High Life through a straw and goes out for smoke breaks, carrying her cigarettes and smartphone in a small purse. Oh, and she poses for lots and lots of photos with adoring fans.
“When people don’t like it they say you’re absolutely terrifying,” Avery said. “For most people, it’s almost magical.”
It’s true. I joined Avery on an excursion over the weekend and “magical” is really the only word to describe how most people reacted to her.
She was mobbed like a Colts player along the Cultural Trail. I watched as women in stilettos reverted into giddy 5-year-olds waiting in line to meet the Easter bunny for the first time. No one wanted the dried-up Peeps in the Easter basket she was carrying, but everyone wanted to take a picture with her — even me.
One of Avery’s cohorts, Cody Milestone, was happy to play photographer.
“I’ve got a supporting cast so it’s a little less creepy,” Avery said. “People are like, ‘What are you doing? It’s not even Easter yet?’ My friend is like, ‘She does this all the time. Check out the Facebook page.’ ”
Avery is the silly but silent type. She told me her real name, but swore me to secrecy. It would ruin the mystique, she insists — and I tend to agree. (I got the same line from a Santa Claus I once interviewed.)
But I did manage to make out a few details.
Avery moved to Indianapolis as a kid and graduated from Southport High School. She now lives on the Eastside. The bunny bar-hopping grew out of a job she had as a district manager for a portrait studio — the kind of place parents take their kids for photos with the Easter bunny.
The studio went out of business in 2004, leaving Avery with a bunch of company property and the company with her last check.
“We ended up in a standoff,” she said. “Now that company isn’t in existence anymore and I have their bunny.”
The bar-hopping idea came later — dreamt up one night on a whim, as most harebrained ideas are. Halloween came first, then New Year’s Eve. The reaction was so encouraging that Avery and her friends decided to make a Facebook page to promote their excursions. And now — based on my Mass Ave. encounter with the giant pink rabbit — Avery apparently has others following her down the bunny trail.
The next one is on April 12 at club Sabbatical in Broad Ripple. Avery will be dancing to a song made specifically for her.
“Bands always love me,” she said, “because I get people dancing.”
Down the rabbit hole we go, Indy.
