Needless to say the pledges received an excellent example of brotherhood that night.

The pledge trip started with that customary first question:
"What fifth are we drinking?"
"Beam," I responded, knowing that the warming bourbon goodness would be the perfect compliment to the chilly fall air during our three hour car ride.



After the ABC Store, the caravan of cars pulled up to Mickey D's for super-sized Cokes for mixers. The driver, of course, chose Sprite because of the known dangers of combining caffeine and liquor while driving!

We hit the highway and left sleepy Winston-Salem for the undiscovered debauchery awaiting our bi-annual pledge trip to another chapter of our fraternity. The purpose of this activity, almost an after-thought, was brotherhood. All of the current pledges and most of the brothers would travel to another university, thus taking the important "unity" lesson to a new locale. The goal was to prove to the pledges that brotherhood has no boundaries.

After several pit stops [see photo], we finally arrived at Tech already three-sheets-to-the-wind. Some thirty strong in total, we burst into the chapter's house. After the obligatory secret handshakes and lame greeting, we chose to leave the brotherly chitchat for our real mission: to dominate the night, ACC-style. Hunter, Mr. Unpredictable, invaded a room full of strangers and began feeling their unsuspecting heads as if he were a phrenologist. After a couple seconds of pensive contemplation, he would exclaim: "Boy, you've got a REALLY nice head, Man!"

After sampling several of the finest noggins in the room, Hunter earned himself a heckler in the crowd, Betty. She was the girlfriend of one of the Tech brothers in the room. Hunter groped her head as if he was checking the ripeness of a melon.
"What the FUCK is your problem, party boy?" she snapped.
Without hesitation, Hunter turned to Betty's boyfriend with the apparently obvious observation, "Man, your girlfriend's a cunt!"
The lad was quickly on top of Hunter, attempting to hand out a beat-down. Hunter proceeded to bite the guy's ear (I swear this happened years before the Tyson-Holyfield incident). It was at this point when Hunter found it most appropriate to make his exit. He threw his assailant off and scampered out the back door.

At the same time, several posse members strolled into a neighboring fraternity's house. A white rap band, a bad mix of Ramstein and the Beastie Boys, performed sans shirts with their message of suburban angst. One of our extremely hairy Italian brothers jumped on the stage, tore off his shirt, stole the bass from MC Trevor, and performed a killer solo of which Les Claypool would have been envious. Much to Tony's surpirse, the band and crowd didn't appreciate his improv jam (or his hairy back), and they began hurling beer cans at him. He threw down the bass and quickly made his way to the house's back door.

Meanwhile, Mule roamed aimlessly through the house. Inspired either by the alcohol or by the hate music, which even behind the closed doors of the kitchen shook his internal organs, Mule decided that he had no use for their so-called "bathroom." In the kitchen of this fraternity house, the conscientious boys of Tech had stored several rolled-up carpets, various pieces of furniture, and a gleaming, Alumni-donated pinball machine. Mule took aim at a particular plush red carpet, and he let the dog out to relieve himself. After this release, the shiny pinball machine caught his eye, along with a lonely ball-peen hammer that was lying on top of it. Then...Mr. Hammer met Mr. Pinball Machine, repeatedly.

Minutes after completing his dirty work, Mule was cornered by nearly the entire fraternity and accused of his vandalism. The campus rent-a-cops quickly arrived on the scene to restore peace. I couldn't get closer than the four rows of pissed-off Southerners that stood between me and the accused. The voice I heard, however, still resonates clearly in my mind today:
"I pissed on the carpet but I did NOT break shit!"
With those words, we made like Secret Service Officers and broke through the crowd. We ushered Mule out of the house, placating the mob with our assurances that he would have some serious explaining to do when we got home.

Meanwhile, Hunter and company eluded the rugby-size scrum of Tech brothers that he managed to piss off moments before Mule's debacle next door. Waiting to sober up for the drive home, they haplessly swerved around the campus and decided to forsake the constructs of man to blaze a new frontier across the university's central lawn. In their trunk, the lukewarm keg of old Mildew knocked about with alarming thuds. The keg, which was brought along as a gift to the Tech chapter, was a reminder of our noble intentions. As they drove along, there was still no beacon to point their way, until the flashing lights of campus police suddenly illuminated the night. They stopped, and the fat cop lumbered out of his vehicle:
"Where in THEE HELL do y'all think yer goin?" he panted, pitifully out of breath.

They hesitated - all choked with their impending doom and ascending vomit - all except Hunter. who calmly stated:
"We're delivering tables, sir."
"Oh," the officer responded and he shuffled back to his car.

By 4 AM, we had gathered everyone together, piled back in our cars, and got the fuck out of Dodge.

Needless to say the pledges received an excellent example of brotherhood that night.