by Ron Carpol
“Why?”
“For two years, I took an SAT prep course every Saturday. I answered thousands of questions.”
“So?”
“So I know a college test when I see it. This is a high school entrance test.”
“Who cares? Just pass it.”
Finally question number 180 was on the monitor and as usual, he answered it in a split-second. He smiled broadly. “I think I scored 100%. Or at least 98% for sure.”
“Great. All I need is a 70.”
“My ten year-old sister could score more than 70.”
_____
Less than a week later I got the acceptance notice in the mail. I called this blackmailer to tell him that we’d be doing more business together since I had no intention of doing any school work.
“Great,” he answered. “That was the easiest money I ever made.” He paused for a few seconds before adding, “I think I’d better warn you about something.”
“About what?”
“Well, I met Lyman a few days ago to give him his money back since I knew I passed the test. Know what he said?”
“What?”
“That he can hardly wait to use all the shit he’s got against you.”
3
NOBODY TRUSTS ME
Monday, September 2
10:00 P.M.
BEFORE I COULD WRITE MY NAME in the fraternity sign-in book on the table on the front lawn, the guy with the STOVEPIPE nametag sitting across the table facing me clamped his huge hand around my right wrist, instantly stopping the circulation.
“What’re you doing?” he demanded, almost yelling over the sounds of Metallica blasting from speakers inside the house.
I yanked my hand out of his vise-like grip. “Signing the book. What the hell do you think?”
He stood up, standing about three inches taller than my 5-9 but weighed about the same 150. Ironically, we both had the same dark, gelled, semi-spiked haircut.
“What’re you doing here?” he challenged.
“Rushing. What the fuck you think?”
“Let’s see some ID.”
“What the hell’s going on?” I pulled out my wallet and showed him my drivers license. “Want to see my American Express Card too?”
Without answering, he checked a printed list of names on the paper that was clamped on his brown clipboard, running his right forefinger down the list. Finally his finger stopped. “OK. You’re on the list of incoming freshmen. Sorry. But you look a lot older than most freshmen. You can sign the book.”
“Great looking signs,” I said, pointing to the flashing purple neon sign of the Zig-Zag man on one side of the front door and the dark-green, neon, Rolling Rock bottle on the other side of the doorway.
“Last year’s pledge class stole them,” he said proudly.
Stovepipe printed my name on a stick-on nametag that I pressed on the left side of my shirt and hurriedly walked past him into the house that resembled a glorified two-story, triple-wide trailer.
A huge American flag covered almost the entire wall facing the door. On another wall was a big poster of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. On either side of it were NYFD and NYPD posters. Other patriotic 9/11 shit provided the rest of the room decorations. Some other guys were throwing darts in the corner, using a blown-up bin Laden wanted poster as the target.
About fifteen or twenty guys who looked like future Rotary Club members were milling around a couple of silver Bud beer kegs in the corner of the large, front room that smelled like a distillery. I grabbed a cup of beer, barely sipping its piss-like flavor. Slowly, I walked around introducing myself to everybody, obviously doing a lousy job of trying to fake being friendly. Everybody seemed to be talking and laughing to other guys but nobody seemed friendly to me. Mechanical hellos and stiff, forced handshakes were all I got from anybody. Something was definitely wrong. It was almost like I was wearing a police uniform.
I walked into the large dining room where a long emerald green cloth banner was tacked across an entire wall with two lines of white, block lettering that said:
SIGMA OMICRON LAMBDA
WE PROMOTE FELLOWSHIP
Some guy with short hair and a basketball-sized head shaped like a pumpkin approached me. “Our biggest asset,” he mumbled somberly like a mortician, pointing to the banner.
After a fast introduction and more stiff, robot-like gestures, he pointed to a few hundred photos on the two walls in front of me.
“Those are all the actives and alumni from the past five years,” he continued in his eulogy-like voice. “All good and true brothers.”
“Oh.”
I could tell that carrying on a conversation with this guy would be like conducting an interview but I tried anyway even though it was like trying to hear an AM station on an FM radio.
“Fraternity membership is invaluable,” this idiot spouted off like he was reading from a teleprompter. “Lifetime friendships, self-confidence, a feeling of belonging, mutual trust. True Christian values.”
I was dying to tell him my goal for being here but naturally I didn’t.
Just as I was about to say something else, the sounds of laughter and the sudden whiff of pot floated in through an open window from the back yard. It drew me like a magnet, knowing it’d lead me to the sharper guys.
From inside the back porch, I switched on the outside porch light. As soon as I started walking down the back stairs into the chilled night air, two of the three guys standing out there flicked their joints into some bushes a few feet away. The third guy, with the dark Bart Simpson haircut, just froze where he was standing, with the lighted joint burning in his right hand that clung to the side of his knee.
“I guess I’m busted,” he said, dropping the roach and squishing in out on the grass. In the dim light his cheeks looked pitted like a pineapple.
Before I could figure out what he was talking about, a big, bleached-blond, surfer-looking guy with a pony tail snapped, “I didn’t have nothing.” Three tiny silver loops were spaced evenly around the edges of his left ear.
“Me either,” snorted a goofy-looking guy about 6-8 with a shaved head wearing red Air Jordans almost the size of tennis rackets.
“What the fuck you guys talking about?” I asked.
“Aren’t you a narc?” the Bart Simpson guy asked.
“Fuck no.”
“Prove it,” the tall guy with the shaved head challenged.
“OK.”
I opened my wallet and removed four joints. I handed one to each of the three surprised guys before I lit mine and theirs.
None of them seemed too convinced about me but slowly hit on the joints anyway. Funny, how laughter died everywhere as soon as I showed up.
“What’re you doing here?” the surfer-looking guy asked, sounding a little friendlier but not much.
“Rushing. What about you?”
“Same.”
“Aren’t you a little old? You look about twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-six. And I fucked around too long. Now it’s time to get serious about my future. Anyway, I heard college is more fun if you’re in a fraternity.”
A husky guy with a goatee at the end of a pointed chin walked unsteadily down the stairs and approached us. “Anybody know where I can score blow?” he whispered. A yellow sun circled by orange and blue flames was tattooed on the side of his neck.
“Heard the boardwalk has more sellers than buyers,” I answered.
“Thanks, man.”
“What’s this Rule of Eleven shit that I heard some actives telling other rushees about?” the giraffe-sized guy asked. “Anybody know?”
“Yeah,” the coke guy answered, lighting up a joint. “No matter how many pledges there are, no more than eleven can be sworn in as actives.”
Just then it started to drizzle so we all went inside.
Then fucking-A! Who do I see standing in the front hallway? My asshole cousin Lyman!
My heart thumped loudly even though I
tried to hide my shock at seeing him as I approached him. The bright floor lamp behind him made his silky, jet-black hair look dark purple, and his soft, pink skin almost lavender.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“I’m rushing,” he answered with that George W smirk on his face.
“You got into Stanford and Berkeley. What’re you really here for?”
“What do you think? To fuck you over and get the money. And I’ve already started.”
4
EVEN THE JEWS HATE ME
Sunday, September 8
9:30 P.M.
THIS WAS THE LAST NIGHT OF RUSHING, the night the actives voted in the new pledges. It was like the seventh game of the World Series; there was no tomorrow. It was now or never. My five million was down the fucking toilet if I didn’t get selected as a pledge tonight. I was older and smarter than anybody here. I knew I could con these hicks into accepting me. Big wide smiles, extra-firm handshakes, laughing the loudest, backslapping. I’d do it all. It’s the same formula for getting elected President of the United States.
The guys I smoked dope with the first night were back most of the other nights too. All four of them—the Bart Simpson guy, the big surfer, the tall Air Jordan guy, and the guy with the goatee—all seemed to be friends with each other.
But same as before, nobody took much interest in me even though I was at the house more than any other rushee. I forced smiles, shook more hands than a politician, and laughed at unfunny jokes. But nothing seemed to change the grim atmosphere. Guys would smile awkwardly and say hello disinterestedly and some would even have trite, bullshit conversations with me. But other than meaningless small talk, I felt like I was only a piece of furniture around there. Nothing I said or did seemed to make any difference or interest anybody.
The words on the banner that said WE PROMOTE FELLOWSHIP obviously didn’t have me in mind.
Jack Christianson, the fraternity president, led one smiling rushee after another down the hall and into a room where they closed the door. A few minutes later they came out, with each rushee beaming as he proudly wore a dime-size, emerald green pledge pin with the white Greek letter Σ in the center.
Meanwhile, time passed and I kept walking around getting more and more jittery, pretending to sip the tasteless beer from the plastic cup while trying to act friendly with a bunch loser guys I’d have never spoken to except under these uncomfortable circumstances. My stomach was in knots. My temples throbbed as I wondered when Christianson was coming for me. But it was getting later and later. I checked the Rolex; it was nearly midnight.
I was nervous as hell. I didn’t want to join the goddamn Marines. Talk of war was everywhere. The odds were about ten-million-to-one that I’d survive the first day of boot camp. But what else could I do? Getting a job was out of the question. Here I am, you bastards! I wanted to scream out.
It seemed like about two dozen eighteen year-olds with big smiles and green pledge pins were being congratulated by the older-looking guys, obviously the actives. Everybody seemed to be laughing and joking and shaking hands with each other, already beginning the so-called fraternity goal of promoting fellowship. Most of the rushees who weren’t selected yet gave up and left. The way I counted it, there were only three hopeful rushees that were still wandering around like lost souls: me, Lyman and some tall, pencil-necked guy with a large, silver stud protruding from under his bottom lip. Each of us stared at the other two like predators. I felt like I was playing musical chairs with hanging as the penalty for the loser.
Christianson and a jockey-sized active with a red bandana twisted over his head walked over to the guy with the lip stud. A few seconds later they took him to the room where the other new pledges got their pins.
My stomach started bouncing like a non-stop pogo stick. Suddenly, a wave of nausea swept over me. I ran out of the house and into the back yard. I barely got to the bottom step before I puked my guts over a bed of dying pink roses. Thank God I was alone there. My mouth tasted sour and rancid, my face felt flush and my head was ringing from ear to ear. The heavily-falling mist was turning into light rain as I tried to pull myself together. I checked my watch again. It was almost 12:15. My rightful inheritance was evaporating! A crisp breeze started, chilling me. I thought about leaving right then and telling everybody to fuck off, but I decided to wait until the end so I walked back inside and desperately tried to mingle a little more.
It took me a few minutes before I realized that Lyman wasn’t there. Maybe a miracle happened and he gave up.
Shit! Then I saw him walk from the hallway to the living room with Christianson. Lyman winked at me and pointed his chin downward toward his heart. I followed the pathway and gasped. The fucker got into the pledge class! He was wearing the green pledge pin and I was nothing but a twenty-six year-old reject.
But I wasn’t going to get fucked-over without making sure they’d remember me forever. There were so many stupid regulations in the College Handbook that were meant for adolescents in a rural Kentucky bible school that I’d find some reason to close this fraternity down. Besides drinking in the house or smoking pot in the yard, my memory would also include seeing guys scoring coke from each other here. I’d gladly be a witness against these bastards while wearing my Marine dress uniform.
My asshole was so tight that a jackhammer couldn’t penetrate it. I tried to act unconcerned, standing there alone in front of the big-screen TV pretending to look interested in some ESPN stock car race. If there was a mirror there I’d check it to make sure I wasn’t wearing a T-shirt that said I had communicable TB. And if isolation wasn’t bad enough, I started stinking up the area with potentially-lethal farts which would have cleansed the room of the AIDS virus. I started moving around a little, like the white trash drivers of the stock cars racing on TV, so nobody would connect me to the stench.
I checked my watch again. It was almost a quarter to one. As I looked up, Christianson approached me with a grim expression on his face; gone was the big smile he had for the other rushees who got accepted into the pledge class.
“Stafford, please come with me.”
I clenched my ass cheeks together, desperately trying not to fart as I walked along like a guy with each leg in a cast.
I followed him like the others had, until we entered a nearly dark room that looked like a den. He closed the door and pointed to one of the two tan, leather chairs facing each other in front of an unlit gas fireplace. As I sat down, I noticed that we were alone. The only light was from a tiny, flickering candle that was on a table across the room.
“This is the Chapter Room,” he explained. “Ordinarily only for active members.”
I was silent except for the pounding of my heartbeat that he probably heard. God somehow must’ve inserted Crazy Glue in my ass, temporarily keeping it silent.
Christianson had a soft, almost preacher-like voice with a very slight southern accent. “This is unpleasant for me,” he said apologetically, looking down at my feet. “From your PLEDGE APPLICATION, I know you’re a legacy. That your grandfather was a Sig O at Columbia. Ordinarily we want to have all future generations as members.”
He looked up at me. I was rigid and stayed silent. From both ends.
“But you must know,” he continued in the same tone of voice, “that you’ve been a big question mark here all week.”
He was a little taller than me and about ten pounds heavier. Now he stared intently into my dark brown eyes, trying to check my reaction. He scratched his head which already had the beginning of thinning blond hair.
Whatever he was trying to tell me, I wasn’t going to make it easier by helping him pronounce my death sentence.
“Look,” he said hesitantly, “it takes three guys to blackball any prospective pledge. You had three.”
“Fuck!”
“We voted four times and each time you got the same three blackballs.”
He paused for effect. I almost threw up again but th
ere was nothing left of the Big Mac and the fries that fertilized the rose bushes. And I could feel the Crazy Glue in my ass losing its strength. I was too drained to speak as more uncomfortable seconds of silence passed.
“But,” he finally said, probably figuring that I looked so weak that I’d faint any second, “one of the three guys who blackballed you is a gambler. In fact, he books sports bets for most of the school. He decided to give you a chance. Here’s what he’s willing to do.”
Christianson stopped talking and walked over to the door and opened it. A tall, fat guy shaped like a bowling pin with light brown kinky hair and rimless glasses came in. He was wearing a green eyeshade that looked ridiculous, especially in this dark room.
“Stafford,” Christianson said, as both guys faced me. “This is Bookie.” We shook hands like robots and each nodded a little. “He’ll tell you the break he’s going to give you.”
Bookie rubbed his nose and longingly sniffed whatever was on the pussy-finger of his left hand. Then he reached into the front pocket of his royal blue and turquoise CAS windbreaker, the same school jacket that most of the actives wore, and removed a silver dollar. He held it out to me.
“Flip it. If it’s heads I vote to let you pledge. If it’s tails you’re blackballed out of here.”
Before I could say anything he tried to hand it to me. I backed away like the coin was radioactive. I wiped the sweat off my forehead then I felt the back of my neck. It was wet too.
“Flip it,” he ordered.
I couldn’t fucking believe it! They were making me flip a coin for five million dollars! I just stood there dumbfounded and as motionless as a statue.
“Flip it or I’ll say it’s tails and you’re out of here,” Bookie threatened.
What could I do? Nothing. So I took the coin, trying to act casual. But I’m sure I was shaking like a vibrator while trying to keep my ass cheeks together so I wouldn’t start farting again.
No question that these guys were serious. I had no choice. So I flipped the goddamn coin. It bounced up and down on the hardwood floor like a guy jumping on a trampoline. As the bounces became shorter and shorter, even in the dim candlelight, I saw it was going to land on tails. I was going to lose! Hurriedly, I stomped my right Puma down on the coin like a Mexican crushing a cockroach. I grabbed the coin before either guy could clearly see that tails was facing upward and tried to twist it upside down as inconspicuously as possible.