The Lords of Discipline

by Pat Conroy

  Then with extraordinary swiftness and efficiency, they were pushing and kicking and shoving us out the door toward the quadrangle. No lights were on in the barracks. The intense heat of the night air was deliciously cool after the steaming alcove room. The other three companies in the battalion had already completed their preliminary ceremonies, and their freshmen were already lined up in braced squads on the quadrangle. Our cadre divided us into squads often and put us into the plebe brace for the first time since we had arrived, with our chins rammed painfully against our necks and our spines rigid. The brace was the symbol that the plebe system had officially begun.

  After aligning us, the cadre slipped quietly out of sight. The barracks was completely dark. There was not a single sound in fourth battalion. The silence roared in our ears. Screaming had become a natural part of our environment. Without it, something was not right. There was something wicked in the air. Nothing had alarmed me quite so much since I had come to the Institute as the volatile dissonance of that exquisite soundlessness. There was not a single upper-classman on the quadrangle. My neck was already sore from the effort of pulling my chin hard against the upper vertebrae. The mosquitoes found us and began stinging the back of my legs, bringing back memories of the marsh. Somewhere in the barracks, the cadre watched and bided their time. I seized the opportunity to gather my wits with the acrid smell of the burning Bible still in my nostrils.

  At the front sally port, the Officer of the Guard, with deliberate clumsiness, performed an elaborate ceremony locking the front gate. We heard it clang shut, the heavy key twist, and the lock slam into place. Now, the outside world could not enter fourth battalion to witness the second phase of Hell Night. Nor could any of us leave.

  The loudspeaker switched on and an unseen musician played “Home, Sweet Home” on a harmonica. The harmonica whined and quavered. Normally I would have thought this touch very amusing, but I had noticed a serious diminishment of my sense of humor in the past two days.

  When the music stopped there was a brief pause. Someone tapped on the microphone three times. Then he cleared his throat. A voice, pure and dutiful, spoke with resolution.

  “Gentlemen,” the voice said, as I tensed, “this is your regimental commander.”

  “It’s coming,” I thought, “it’s coming now.”

  I looked to the right and left without moving my head. I wanted to prepare myself. I wanted to make sure the cadre was not stealing up on us from the side. I saw nothing. I did not know what was going to happen but I could feel the amazing tension in the barracks. I could sense the invisible readiness of the cadre.

  Then the voice continued: “The plebe system for the class of 1967 is now in effect.”

  And they were on us.

  The cadres of the four companies exploded out from their hiding places beneath the stairwells. They came in one violent full-throated roar of havoc. The lights were thrown on simultaneously. The light, so sudden, entered our retinas like acid. They fell on us in a crazed venomous pack. They seemed to be everywhere at once. Light and sound, light and fear, they boiled out onto the quadrangle in rabid, delirious bands. First the dark, then the light, then the screams, then their hot breath against our necks and ears, then the cry of them, the terrible roar of them abusing us, loathing us, hitting us, violating us, breaking us down to creatures less than human, less than they were. Disorder reigned in the bitter heat. I lost all control, and in that first moment, something began to die in me while something new and extraordinary began to live.

  I jumped when I heard that first collective scream, the terrorism of their ruthless charge among the plebes. I braced hard and waited for them, I prepared myself for the ordeal. I planned on my survival in the assault of light and voices. I called out for the athlete within me to take over, for pure instinct to take control, and guide me safely through this night.

  One of them almost knocked me over in his first sortie against me. I felt his mouth on my ear. His saliva flecked against my earlobe. He didn’t say anything. He simply screamed into my ear. I reeled sideways but fell into the cunning, waiting shout of another, and he screamed me back to the other one. It was the pain that caused me to jerk violently back and forth; the eardrum could not endure the trauma of the sustained scream.

  Then the voice on my right commanded, “Rack your fucking chin into your goddam fucking neck, scumbag. Rack it in, knob. I want to see the blood vessels break inside that ugly fucking skull of yours. Get it in, dumbhead. Rack it in. Put out for me, asswipe.”

  And simultaneously from the left I heard, “Shoulders back, abortion. Arms straight to your side. Get your fucking chin in. Rack it in. Rack it in, fuckstick. You better put out, scumbag. Maggot-sperm. Wad-waste.”

  A voice behind me began a softer, more menacing chant, strangely rhythmic, like a litany. “I’m going to kill you, douchebag. I’m going to be all over your fucking ass from now until the end of school. Rack that fucking chin in, waste-product. I said rack it in, screwbrain. Did you hear me, boy? Did you hear what I fucking said to you? I said grind that ugly fucking chin in or I’m going to rip your guts out with my hand and spread them all over this fucking quadrangle. Now rack it in, dumbhead.”

  Then the voices changed as they moved from freshman to freshman, as they weaved through the stunned, disoriented files of plebes, as their voices became strained and raspy in the first moments of the attack. It was impossible to distinguish one voice from another, one upperclassman from another. They advanced against us in a single collectively malevolent voice. One voice, one scream, in light, in fury, without end, coming at us from all sides, from all angles, compassion-less and out of control. Fists struck against my chest and spine. I did sixty pushups in the first ten minutes after the lights had come on. I ran in place. I answered them, screaming back my answers. I obeyed them. The chaos was fathomless. The barracks was inundated in an ocean of sound, a maelstrom of the human voice straining toward absolute limits, toward nullity, toward inconceivable thresholds of derangement. All was madness, screaming, light, cadre, obscenity. The plebe system burned the air of September. Voices rained down from all sides. Voices. Voices.

  “What’s your I.D. number, scumbag?”

  “Recite the guard orders, prick.”

  “What’s your name, maggot?”

  “Does your mother fuck, douchebag?”

  “Your mother should have stuck a coat hanger up her cunt to kill a maggot like you.”

  “What are you, boy?” a voice behind me asked. “Pop off.”

  “Pardon me, sir?” I asked, not recognizing my own voice.

  “Repeat after me, dumbhead. I’m going to tell you what you are,” the voice said. “You are an abortion.”

  “I’m an abortion, sir!” I screamed.

  “A maggot.”

  “I’m a maggot, sir!”

  “A douchebag.”

  “I am a douchebag, sir!”

  “A used Kotex.”

  “I am a used Kotex, sir!”

  “You are shit.”

  “I am shit, sir!”

  “The shit that comes from a woman when she’s on the rag.”

  “I am the shit that comes from a woman when she’s on the rag!”

  “A pubic hair on a nigger.”

  “I am a pubic hair on a nigger, sir!”

  “Do you love this place, fuckstick? Pop off,” a voice in front of me screamed. My vision was blurred with sweat and I could not make out his face.

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Louder, fuckstick.”

  “Yes, sir!” I yelled.

  “Louder. Say it like a man, shit maggot.”

  “Yes, sir!” I screamed.

  “Did you hear me, boy? I said to sound off like a man.”

  “Yes, sir!” I screamed until my voice broke.

  “You glad you came to this place, pussy? Pop off.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “I’m gonna make you sorry you were ever born, vagina-face.”

  “You’re g
onna die, McLean. You’re gonna die, asswipe,” said another voice.

  “We got you for nine months, diarrhea. Every night for nine months it’s going to be just like this. Every night the same. Nine months of this, McLean.”

  My brain swarmed with the images of hoarse sergeants navigating between the staggered lines of plebes. They seemed to increase in number as the night wore on. At times, they surrounded me and I could not calculate if there were two of them or ten of them. They screamed out their questions simultaneously. I did not know if I had been on the quadrangle for ten minutes or two hours. At some time during that night, my mind and body began a slow betrayal of me. The world transformed into a gauzy overcast fog empire, and my eyes could no longer focus on the overwrought faces that attacked me from all sides. My body took asylum in a mental and physical paralysis. My responses slowed; my answers became unintelligible and I could not control the responses of my tongue. I answered “yes” when a squad sergeant wanted to know if I was a woman, and “no” when asked if I’d ever been in the state of South Carolina. In the light and heat and noise, I was dizzy, shaken, and losing my slender hold on reality. I concentrated on not crying and not fainting.

  At the same time, I was aware of a terrible coming apart in the ranks of the plebes. I heard the bodies of freshmen as they collapsed against the cement. The two boys on either side of me went down hard. The one on my left fell into me, knocked me out of line and into the arms of a cadre member who threw me onto the prostrate body of the boy who fell. Then he jerked me up and began pounding my chest with his fist, shouting, “You touched me, scumbag. You touched me with your putrid, stinking body. I’m going to remember you, scumbag. You’re going to bleed for this. Give me fifty pushups, maggot-shit.”

  I hit the cement and began counting aloud to him, “One, sir, two, sir, three, sir.” It was not long before I knew that I would never reach fifty. My arms began to spasm and he leaned far over to shout contemptuously in my ear, “Pussy, pussy, pussy, pussy.” My arms began to spasm uncontrollably. I could no longer support my own weight and collapsed against the concrete.

  “Get up, dumbhead,” another voice spoke above me, a familiar one.

  I rose to my feet, braced again, and found myself staring into the face of the first sergeant, Maccabee. He looked dry and cold and undeniable through the sweat which poured down my face.

  “How are you feeling, Mr. McLean?” he asked seriously in a voice that contained no threat, no intimation of cruelty.

  I could not believe the stupidity of the question. I wanted to say something like, “Fabulous, you fucking asshole. Terrific. Wonderful. Top of the day to you too, sir.” But instead, I shouted, “Fine, sir.”

  “Bend your knees, Mr. McLean,” he said kindly, “or you’ll faint like some of your classmates. Your posture needs improvement. Get your shoulders back a little bit. That’s fine. Now relax your mouth. Arms straight down by your sides. Very good. And remember this, Mr. McLean. Two years ago I was standing where you’re standing tonight. Hell Night was the worst night I ever spent. I tried to quit the next day. If you stick this out, it will be worth all the pain. I promise you that. It’s the system. That’s all. Remember that. The system. None of this is personal. If you make it, then you and I will go out and drink some beer together in June.”

  The first sergeant drifted out of my angle of vision. Three others instantly replaced him, screaming, screaming, screaming. Their voices seemed to come from everywhere, from nowhere, disembodied, disengaged. Every voice screamed and every voice was the same. I could barely distinguish my screams from theirs.

  Suddenly, a tall figure appeared in front of me. He was smiling broadly and I judged him to be at least six feet eight inches tall.

  “Hi, Will. How’s college?” he said.

  Puzzled, I answered, “Fine, sir.”

  “Isn’t this fun? Isn’t this a nifty way to spend your second night in college?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m Lancey Hemphill, Will. Center on the basketball team. Our coach wanted me to check on you during Hell Night.”

  “Tell him thanks a lot, sir.”

  “You don’t call me ‘sir.’ We’re jocks, Will. We try to stay apart from this bullshit as much as possible.”

  “Why didn’t Coach Byrum tell me about this?” I asked in a whisper.

  “It’s very simple, Will. Because you and all the other numb-nuts would have signed scholarships with other schools. Believe me, Will, he screwed every one of us just like he screwed you. Just remember, this is all bullshit. Pure bullshit. It doesn’t mean a thing. Try to take it as a big joke. You pissed God off and he’s getting even by making you go to the Institute. If it gets too hot for you this year, you give me the names and weights of the heat-givers. I like to use dead corporals when I lift weights. Nighty-night,” he said.

  “Lancey,” I said.

  “Yeh, Will”

  “It’s too hot for me right now.”

  He laughed. “Oh, a funny guy, huh. Look, smackhead, it’s supposed to be too hot tonight. This here is official heat,” he said walking toward T Company area.

  The freshmen kept falling like grotesque fruit to the quadrangle. They lay where they fell until a cadreman reached them, revived them, then stood them up until they fell again. After the third fall, orderlies strapped them to Utters and rushed them to the infirmary, where the Institute had hired four extra nurses for the night. A boy in front of me toppled over as though both his legs had broken suddenly. They dragged him off the quadrangle by his arms.

  The screaming was beginning to let up, not because of any benevolence on the part of the cadre, but because some of the upperclassmen had already lost their voices. Those that now filled the air were cracked and strained. There was a quality of sameness to the noise in the barracks as though the novelty of perversion was wearing off. Hell Night was winding down when Fox and Newman materialized before me. Fox grabbed my bathrobe and jerked me forward until our noses touched.

  “Thought I’d forgotten about you, douchebag? Pop off.”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ve been saving you for dessert, you scum-sucking jock. I saw you talking to that waste, Hemphill. Do you think he can save you, dumbhead? Nothing can save you, douchebag. Nothing in the world. I wanted you to know that you’re going to be one of my special projects this year. I’m gonna rack your ass every day until you beg me to walk you out of these gates.”

  Newman pulled me away from Fox and I stood with my eyes an inch from his. Newman had the thin, cunning face of a mongrel with a complexion so white and sallow that his skin looked like the crust of a Camembert. His freckles were large and the color of blood samples viewed through a child’s microscope.

  “I hate jocks. I don’t want to see a single jock in R Company, McLean. We’re a military company, you see. So me and Mr. Fox have made a vow to run you out of here before graduation. Do you think we can do it, maggot-shit? Pop off.”

  “No, sir.”

  Trembling, I stood before them, drenched in sweat and ruin, spiritually plundered, fearing them and loathing myself for my stink, my helplessness, my total lack of power.

  Fox began to whisper, breathing wet obscenities in my ear. “Rack your fucking chin in, douchebag. Harder, douchebag. I said rack it in, asswipe. You’re not doing what I say, McLean. I want you to rack that chin into your beady, ugly neck, dumbfuck.”

  His face was so close to mine, I could smell his dinner. His nose was long, hooked, and elementary, like a Bronze Age cutting tool. As he whispered his lips curled back in a sneer, exposing the pink, shining sill of his upper gums.

  “You don’t belong here, maggot. You aren’t man enough to make it through this school. I’m gonna cut your dick off and shove it into your mouth if you stay here over a week, douchebag. I’m gonna fuck you slow and easy with my swagger stick, scumbag.”

  His lips touched against my ear in a malignant parody of a kiss. The pleasure of discipline to Fox, I realized as I felt his t
ongue close to my ear, was related to a ruthless sexuality. There was something nightmarishly erotic in his brutality as I listened to his ugly whispers burning into my ears. I thought of the taking of beleaguered cities, the fury of plunder, and the forcing open of feminine mouths to receive the conqueror’s semen. That’s what it is, I thought. That’s what it is, as I surveyed the images before me. This was the rape of boys. Hell Night had the feel and texture of a psychic rape. Throughout the barracks, a malignant virility was born in the hearts of plebes. A year from this night, many of us would be cadre abusing scared boys on this same quadrangle.

  One hour and fifteen minutes after the plebe system officially began, a bugle reverberated through the barracks. It carried in its melody the authority of our release. The bugle ended what the regimental commander’s voice had begun.

  The cadre screamed at us, “Get to your rooms, dumbheads. Run, run, you scumbags. Get to your rooms, people.”

  I took one step toward my room and fell to my knees. My legs would not function. I could not rise. There was not a freshman in the barracks standing. The legs of our entire class had failed us.

  Fox kicked me in the ass and screamed, “Crawl, maggot. Crawl, abortion. Crawl, Kotex.”