Rule #1

Rule #1: I will not break any of the rules, if I do break any of the rules I will not get caught.

I don’t remember much if I’m being completely honest. I never do when I mix coke and alcohol. I’m not trying to say that I’m a speed-freak, a druggie, or tell you that I do drugs and I’m cool because of that. Drugs don’t make you cool, except Xanax (allegedly) because that shit will calm you down and mellow you out. Barred out is what we call it. Anyways I really only do it, blow I mean, on special occasions, you know? Birthdays and big fraternity events like big-little, crossing, and bid nights. We’ll whip out one of the old fraternity composites and pick one of the ugliest motherfuckers we can find and do a few lines off his cheesy face. In this case it was bid night, my first bid night as a brother. I copped a half a gram, roughly $40.00 worth for myself and my friend who got a bid that night but who was on the fence about going through with the process. Nothing that a little snow can’t fix I thought. I grabbed a ceramic plate, threw it under my arm and snatched my indecisive friend who was chatting with some of the other brothers.

“Luke,” I said. “Come here let’s go.”

I led him into the bathroom and locked the door. From the look he made when I locked it, he probably thought I was trying to fuck him or something like that. I laughed. I perched the plate on the sink counter, pulled out a little Ziplock baggie and dumped the contents onto the plate. His eyes lit up. This was his sweet tooth and we both knew that. I pulled out my student ID and split the contents into two pathetically meager lines of big boy baby powder for each of us. He did his with a rolled up one-dollar bill. I searched my pockets to see if I had a five or even a twenty. I didn’t want to feel poor doing it. Neither of us did. But all we could scrape together was a one-dollar bill, and so looking at the disappointed face of old G.W. I did my share. Like I said I’m no druggie, but I just did it to be social and not make it seem like I was just giving him the ole razzle dazzle.

Afterwards we went upstairs, sucked down a few Black & Milds, drank some juice, and I gave him my pitch on why he should go through with the pledge process. He called me a used car salesman because of it. And I was, I had the smile and the hair, and most importantly I knew exactly what to say to ease his concerns. All bullshit aside, I was basically telling him that if he did everybody’s dishes, cleaned up after every party, and got yelled at while being blindfolded in a cold party space for a period of six-to-twelve weeks he would be part of a mediocre drinking club that partied with mediocre sororities and drank cheap vodka mixed with Hawaiian punch. Of course, I did not say this. I couldn’t. I would be out of line to say something like that.

Instead, I talked about brotherhood and the fact he would have a group of diverse guys he could rely and depend on, guys who, if-and-when he completed the process, he would be able to call brothers. This was true, more or less.

The rest of the night, as you might imagine, was a pretty much a blur. I remember sitting on the couch talking to some girl. Then I was at the bar with her, then I was back at her place and now it was ten in the morning and I was lying in bed with her.

“Okay alrighty now let’s see,” I say to myself as I lie there naked with a splitting headache and begin digest the current situation at hand.

The mornings after my usual drunken tirades are always interesting.

“Was I embarrassing?” I ask myself. “Was I able to get it up last night? Oh fuck, oh fuck what the hell is her name. Crap. Okay hold on. Hold on. Raquel! Yes, that’s right. Okay and I was sitting on the couch last night talking to… Raquel, yes, her name is Raquel, and she wanted to go to the bar. So, we went to the bar, but she didn’t have her ID… but Dan was working ID’s, so he was able to get her in and then Andy was working money, so he got us in for free. And at the bar, okay at the bar, I was rambling about my new puppy, my parents’ divorce and Van Gogh? Why the hell was I talking about Vincent Van Gogh? He was a freak! Granted a freak who knew how to paint, but still freak! He cut off his ear and he tried to marry his cousin. Come on dude, you really need to get your shit together. Anyways, we left and went back to her place, obviously. Fuck why did I do coke last night. Damn I really do need to get my shit together.”

It all starts to come back to me.

“Fuck,” I say to myself. “And I wasn’t able to get it up! Shit! But anyways… her name was Raquel. Wait what do you mean was? Her name is Raquel, and she wants to be an English teacher and she likes Cher. Cher sings I Got You Babe, right? With Sonny, but who the hell is Sonny? For a song like that he’s got to be her husband or her lover. I can’t imagine him only being her friend. Do you think Sonny does Coke and isn’t able to get it up either? Well Sonny has Cher and now I have Raquel, and as far as I know everything is alright.”

Raquel rolled over. I’m not going to spend the time to give you a poetic spiel about what she looks like.

“Her eyes were like a thousand and one cascading New England forests on an autumn afternoon,” Ha! She had confidence and she had style and that’s what really mattered. We started chatting and all, pillow talk as the brothers call it, but instead of talking about Van Gogh or Axl (my puppy) she began asking me about getting hazed. Ugh. That’s all they ever want to know, once they have you hungover and naked in their bed, at you’re the most vulnerable. I’ve been outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outflanked. I was trapped.

“What’s the worst thing you had to do?” she asks.

I look down under the covers at my flaccid dick.

“The worst thing I ever had to do. Huh. Well, let’s see now, I know you’ve never been hazed so what’s the worst thing you’ve ever heard about?”

It was true, she had never been hazed. She was part of one of the new sororities on campus that didn’t haze their sisters. All they really had to do was attend weekly meetings that talked about what it meant to be a “Sister” in the whatever-whatever sorority. As you might imagine these types of girls (well most of them) were kind of infatuated by the whole idea of hazing. They had amassed a repertoire of stories from dudes in other fraternities. I, of course enjoyed listening to these stories and never spilled my own beans until hearing at least a few of them first.

“Well,” she began, “I heard that some sororities make their pledges sit on a washer machine naked. Then they turn the washer machine on and whatever parts of their bodies jiggle, the sisters circle.”

I’ve heard this one before, in fact I hear this story all the time. Almost every single girl who has never been hazed before that I talk to, whether they are in Greek Life or not, tells me this exact story. Word for word. Usually though, it’s from girls who are nervous about joining a sorority and say that they don’t want this to happen to them. I understand that. While guys haze physically, girls haze psychologically. Guys get put down physically, girls get put down emotionally. I once heard, I can’t tell you from whom because I don’t remember and probably was sauced when I heard it, that a sorority will line up their pledges in ascending order from the ugliest girl to the prettiest girl. That breaks my heart it really does, regardless of whether it’s true or not. Just the fact that some girl, probably while blasted or high as shit, took the time out of her perpetually hungover sorority-girl life, to forge off key, off color, politically incorrect, and diabolically brilliant (yet culturally distasteful) weapons that carelessly slice through the ego of an unsuspecting college girl makes me… without any exaggeration or embellishment… sad. I usually oscillate between feeling disappointed, infatuated, horny, tired (frequently), bored, horny, giddy, socially anxious, confused, weirdly motivated, drunkenly blissful, drunkenly regretful, indifferent, appalled, hungover, and off-my-ass. But rarely am I sad.

“Oh yea,” I say. “I’ve heard that one before, and to be honest I don’t think that’s true.”

Like I said I hear that story all the time, but I have yet to meet a girl who has confessed to having that done to her. Maybe she’s too embarrassed to talk about it with some naked dude she met the night before with a flaccid dick laying in her bed, and of course I understand that.

“Okay,” she says, “Now tell me what you had to do.”

I never try to spill my beans. Not because it’s something I’m not supposed to talk about, and it’s not, but because I like to have fun with it. You know? There’s no zest, no spice, and really no flare in being a loudmouth about things. It leaves no room for the imagination. Yet you still have these dudes, chivalrous knights who love to brag about their trite tales of trial and tribulation in their quest for fraternal brotherhood.

In those days of hurt, when sleep was curt, and keg beer flowed aplenty,

We passed our time, blindfolded in grime, and worked out penitently.

“So,” I say as I hold a drawn out pause and I looked around the room suspiciously as if somebody might be hiding and might catch wind of what I’m about to say. “I’m really not supposed to tell you about what goes on, you understand that right?”

She nods. I grow quite serious and start flailing my scrawny little arms. For dramatic effect. Obviously.

“No seriously, like I’ll actually get in really big trouble. I need you to promise me that whatever I tell you… you cannot tell a soul.”

“I swear to god,” she says. “I won’t tell anybody; I promise.”

I extend my pinky and we pinky promise while sacramentally kissing our thumbs for good measure.

“Okay, well you know how I’m not supposed to tell anybody about what goes on, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s because,” I pause for dramatic effect. “Every night… we had… Pizza Parties!” I gasp.

“No come on, seriously!” She irritably protests.

“No, no I’m serious. Imagine! God! Pizza every single night. That sounds great but after two weeks you really get sick of pizza. Every. Single. Night. Pizza and pizza and guess what? More pizza! And on Fridays, oh God on Fridays they put pineapple on the pizza! How can you possibly put a tropical fruit on pizza of all things and reasonable expect it to taste decent!”

“Come on come on actually though, I want to know!” She persists.

“Okay fine,” I say. “I lied. We actually have ice cream parties.”