The Courage to Surrender. John Hayes W.
but grades didn’t seem to matter.
Before pledging began, I was introduced to my “big brother,” Alan, who was assigned to help me get through the pledging process. I confessed to him that I was failing out of engineering and asked for advice.
“Go to each professor,” he suggested. “Be honest about your situation and ask the professors to help you formally drop courses and take incompletes. Study your ass off to get good grades for the courses you can salvage. When you have done that, I will introduce you to the department chairman of mathematics and sciences. I know him, so he will let you back in school and set you up with a Math major and a Science minor.”
~ ~ ~
The pledge period lasted one month, with four nights of Hell. Each Monday, my pledge book of merits and demerits was balanced and for each demerit that was not offset by a merit, I would receive a smack on my bare ass with a paddle, or a “shot” as it was called.
I was told to strip naked, after which a brother would blindfold me. He held my arm loosely, as he guided me down a flight of rickety stairs and through a musty basement where my bare feet shuffled along a dirt floor scattered with concrete chips.
Suddenly, he released my arm and I sensed him disappearing. But after a second, he whispered, “Don’t move or you will fall and get hurt.”
The silence in the “hole” was broken by the swish of a paddle in flight as the “shot” was delivered to the pledge in the room next to me. The noise of a board hitting flesh made me cringe. Each time, my blindfold was removed just long enough for a pledge to pass in front of me after he had taken all his “shots.” He was usually bent over, sometimes whimpering, and always breathing heavily.
As intended, I also took a mental picture of the small candlelit room where the punishment was being dished out. Two brothers stood with paddles, wearing black hoods and black capes reminiscent of KKK outfits. They were called the “executioners” for obvious reasons.
Trips to the “hole” got progressively worse as did the sensitivity of my black and blue ass. Shots after the first Hell night sent enough pain through my body that my reflexes forced me to stand up. “Bend over and grab ’em,” They said, each time I stood.
Anyone on campus could identify us as pledges because we stood in the back of classrooms. It was too painful to sit.
On the night I became a brother, all was forgotten and I began a two-day party that included guys from other frats, sororities and girls from campus. Instantly, I was popular and people wanted to know me. I had fought through the fear and pain to belong to the frat. I was accepted for who I was, and assumed an identity that gave me respect on campus.
After the final exams, I lacked enough credit hours to be a full-time student. So, following Alan’s suggestions, I made an appointment with the chairman of the Math and Science Department. I pleaded my case for a second chance to begin as a full-time student.
“This is your first trimester course load,” he said. Later, I thanked Alan for his help.
Living in the frat house with nightly parties did not offer a quiet environment conducive to studying. If I tried to study in the house, my body would tense up after an hour or so. I needed my cocktail of beer and excitement.
Some nights I would walk a couple of miles to the campus library where I could do my homework without distraction. I had to get good grades this time, as I knew wouldn’t get a third chance.
~ ~ ~
I was never arrested for driving under the influence because that wasn’t a problem where I grew up. The worst-case scenario was being pulled over by a local cop for the customary verbal warning and ordered to get my ass home.
I drove drunk nearly every weekend for several years. I drank while driving, and occasionally raced against friends in their old man’s car from the Inn back to town.
Minor accidents happened, like one night in 1966 when I lost control of Mom’s car, missed the turn onto my street, and rammed into a 10-foot plowed snow bank. I freed the car to finish the trip home, only to miss the driveway as the car slid onto the lawn in a few inches of soft snow. The tires spun and, as I tried to extricate the car, the front door to the house flew open.
“Leave the goddamn car where it is and get in the house!” Dad yelled at me as he shivered in his pajamas.
“No blood, no foul,” was my attitude about accidents.
Still pissed the next morning, Dad and I awkwardly struggled to free the car. It was a time in our relationship when we could have worked together, but we were not close, and we never talked. The more I screwed up the more he disliked me.
Late one night in the spring of 1966, I was pulling out of the Inn to head home. As a car was pulling in, our front fenders collided. We were both drunk, so we examined the damage and went back into the bar to discuss the crash.
At some point I drove home, put the car in the garage and went to bed. The next thing I remember was Dad shaking me violently in my bed yelling, “What the hell did you do to the car?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said.
“The front left fender and hood are smashed,” he shouted from a couple feet away.
My denial began. “Someone must have hit it in the parking lot. I didn’t notice any damage when I drove home.”
My head was pounding and my mouth tasted like an ash tray, but I ignored the hangover as I followed Dad jogging through the house to the driveway.
He said, “Sit behind the steering wheel,” at which point I saw the fender twisted into the hood. It was hard to see the driveway in front of the car, and it scared me to think I drove about ten miles in the dark, over two-lane roads.
The truth was, I didn’t remember much about the drive home. I must have been in a blackout. I didn’t have many blackouts early in my drinking maybe because my body functions could dissolve and metabolize the alcohol quicker than I could drink. That’s just my convoluted theory.
My truth was mixed with lies, and my mind labored to distinguish fact from fiction. I deceived people to save face, avoid issues, and to blame others for my problems. I was losing self-respect as I continued my attempt to make things appear differently so that everyone would like me and not discover the truth.
I lost all common sense, as there was nothing common about how I lived. At times, my life didn’t make any sense at all. My alcoholic episodes exposed me as a self-centered alcoholic who could not be trusted.
I was embarrassing myself and my family with increased frequency, but was helpless to stop the repeated incidents. My judgments were immature, and I resolved life’s issues with short-sighted solutions.
I disliked myself for my actions, and demonstrated an unhealthy dose of “poor me” in order to escape the bad person I had become.
~ ~ ~
Early in 1966, I met Sally who was a girl from White Mountain College, located just over the state line in Vermont. I first noticed her long, blonde hair flowing through the crowd on the dance floor before I saw her well-developed bronze body.
We drank Miller High Life for 50 cents a bottle, as it was the beer of choice by most college kids. At the pace we drank, Sally and I were usually short of cash, but we would borrow from friends and get free beers from other friends who were bartenders.
Occasionally, all money sources were tapped and we worried about the next beer. One of our first bankruptcy nights, she told me to stay where I was and wait for her.
“I can get some money. I’ll be right back,” she said disappearing into the crowd. She returned with enough cash to continue drinking for the night, so I didn’t question where she got it and she didn’t offer to tell me.
After a couple more times of pulling money out of the air my curiosity got to me. “Where the hell are you getting all this money?” I asked.