Hank rapped his glass, and the waiters returned carrying our plates, each of which had a steak, mashed potatoes, and peas. Then Thad rapped his glass and the waiters were back with another pea on a spoon, which was dropped in the pledges' wine glasses. After they retired we were allowed to start eating. This time I was able to catch Tony before he started eating, and got him to wait. The steak wasn't the greatest, but I've had worse, and we were all hungry. Likewise, the champagne was Andre's, about the cheapest carbonated swill available, but after you get enough in you, it started to taste pretty good. Every few minutes either Thad or Hank would tap his glass and we would sit upright and put our utensils down, and more champagne would be poured and another pea would be dropped in our glasses.
Dinner ended with another rap of the glass, and this time all the big brothers stood up, and then they motioned for us to stand. Hank walked out of the formal room and motioned for us to follow, so Bruno tagged behind him and the rest of us got in line, with Andy bringing up the rear. Behind us our big brothers also marched along. We went down the stairs to the basement. The basement was dark except for candles lighting a black draped table along one side of the room, with five seats behind it. We pledges were lined up along the left side, and our big brothers faced us from the right side. Around us in a circle stood all the other brothers. Thad moved to the center of the table.
"Pledges, I call on you now to swear allegiance to Kappa Gamma Sigma, and to the ideals we hold dear..." He was reading a small book by holding it to the side and trying to get the candlelight to shine on it. We were being inducted! Nobody had ever given us any warning. At this point it started getting even weirder. A low murmuring chant began from the brothers, and Thad began enumerating a list of oaths we were to take. Suffice it to say that the Mafia's code of omerta had nothing on us! I have to tell you, those clowns a hundred years ago at Amherst really had a lot of free time on their hands! According to what I ended up swearing, even thinking about revealing our dread secrets was enough to call down lightning! Then, in the same order we had marched in, we were called forward and had to sign our names into a ledger book with a quill pen. Tony spilled the ink on the table.
It was almost 11:00 when Thad finished, "The ordeal is finished. The induction is made. The vigil begins. I call on all new brethren to retire for the evening, to contemplate in silence that which they have sworn, and to thereby signify their allegiance and obedience." There were a few more flowery sentences, but the gist was that we were to remain silent until dawn, and then to return at the same time the next night, at 7:00. We were then marched to the back door and sent off into the night.
Before we had even made it to the sidewalk Defrancisco opened his fat mouth and asked, "So what do we do now?" There were a number of muttered curses in response, and everybody made 'zip it' motions across their lips to shut the idiot up. We marched back to the dorms. Back in 206 I found Frank also wearing a suit and looking serious, and he was silent, too. All of the frats must have this sort of ceremony tonight. We both went to bed and slept very late.
When I woke up Frank was already sitting up in bed. He looked over at me and asked, "Initiation?"
"Uh huh. You too?"
He nodded. "Can you talk now?"
I looked out the window at the sunlit parking lot. "It's after dawn. I can talk."
"What was it like?"
"If I tell you I have to kill you."
Frank grinned at that. "Same here! Back to Kegs tonight?"
"Yeah. Back to Teke?" He nodded. "I think it's party time.", I told him.
Frank grinned some more. "I think you're right!"
Actually I knew that was the plan; I had been through it all before. What the freshmen didn't know, however, was just how much Hell Week took out of the brotherhood. They only saw the endless abuse and chores, but they failed to understand that it took a lot out of the brothers to make it work out right. The Hell Master spent as much time awake as the pledges. There always had to be brothers around to supervise the work details and drive the pledges to their tasks and scavenger hunt. Considerable care was taken in choosing the Hell Master and his minions, and several other juniors and seniors were assigned the task of protecting the pledges in case somebody hazed them too much.
That's not to say the brothers didn't enjoy it immensely. They delighted in coming up with weird shit to spook us. On the walk back to Kegs that evening, the only topic of conversation was the ceremony. What was with the peas? Why was the knife upside down? What was with the chanting? Was there some deep and mystical meaning to it all? Or were the brothers just fucking with our heads? We would be kept in the dark until next year, at which point we would discover we were being fucked with, and now got to give it to the next bunch of dummies.
When we got to Kegs, the place was totally lit up, and a keg was sitting in the formal room and was already tapped. We were promptly stripped of our good clothes and handed red and yellow ('magenta and gold') tee shirts with some sort of individualized words on them. Mine read 'I'm an asshole!' because of my statement at the trial. Leo's read 'Leo the Neo'. Tony's was the best. It read 'Huh?' He really was a moron.
A few minutes later the girls started coming in. Even Marilyn showed up, having been given a ride by a few other girls. We all got really lit with a beer bash that night. I can't even remember how I got back to the dorm, since I wasn't even in shape to walk, and somebody must have given Marilyn a lift home, too. My head was pounding the next morning.
One aspect of the ceremonial nonsense was explained right away, and was the only part that was important at all. This was the order in which we were called forth and lined up and signed onto the rolls, and that was our ritual order. That was determined during the final house meeting before the induction, and was accomplished by pulling names out of a hat. This was the order in which brothers were inducted, and a lower number was better. We were about to join into the merriment known as Room Roulette.
Nobody had ever really asked how rooms were assigned at the frat house, but with the seniors graduating in a few weeks and fifteen new brothers moving in next year, the subject had to be brought up. A couple of weeks after joining, room roulette started, and would run for the next two weeks. It would end at midnight on the Saturday two weeks before graduation. This year it would be very, very important. The house was going to be crammed full next year.
Grogans' was a residential only house. It had 4 rooms on the first floor and 3 on the second, each of which could hold 2 brothers, so it could hold 14 brothers. Grogans' was relatively quiet, in that all the parties were held in the main house, along with all meetings and meals. The main house was where all the action was, and was quite a bit larger. The most prestigious location was on the second floor above the formal and living rooms, known as the Landing. There were 4 large rooms there which held 2 brothers each. The next best spot was the Third Floor location, above the Landing, with another 4 rooms for 2 brothers apiece. Finally, on the second floor, in the section over the kitchen, pantry, and dining room was the Mezzanine, with 4 smaller and odd shaped rooms, all designated as doubles. That gave us 19 rooms total designated as doubles, capable of holding 38 brothers.