Walking out of This World

Five

The dining room is bustling with a rush of activity. Clattering dishes piled high with fluffy white mashed potato clouds happily receiving salty brown gravy, green beans and steaming meatloaf. There is the hiss of soda pushing into empty glasses and the shuffle of feet marching down the serving line.

Well polished, long wooden tables are scattered about the dinning room. They give testimony to the House's pedigree. Matching beige-padded chairs stand waiting for their eventual occupants to cozy up for a round of polite eating and intervening conversation.

I leave the line and look for a welcoming chair. I see a sign in the center of one of the tables.

Freshman Only

We are being segregated from our upper class roommates. I imagine, to predispose us for the drama that tonight's initiation will unveil.

I set my plate on the table and settle into a welcoming chair. The table accommodates all of the ten freshman who represent one third of the total population of the Road House.

"Hi. My name is John," I announce and shake hands all around.

A smiling face reaches out to me from across the table. "I'm curious about the mandated uniform for the night's itinerary." The words slip between smiling lips that are topped with a bushy afro.

"Well, Toby," another brother speaks up from a contrasting mop of blond hair and blue eyes. "I'd say shorts, flipflops and a Road House t-shirt on a cool September night signals a messy experience."

Other heads nod and scatter their replies around the table. "I hear you." We'd been instructed by our roommates to not put anything in our pockets, especially our cell phones. No pictures were allowed at these secret proceedings.

"Listen up!" The announcement effectively silences the cluttered conversation bouncing in the room. "In twenty minutes we'll start the initiation. We expect you freshmen to be lined up at the south door ready to march outside at the top of the hour."

We are marching out to the back yard, the grass tickles my feet. A line of bodies stands behind each of us and blindfolds are tied in place to cover our eyes. A bugle sounds the high notes of military taps.

"I'm going to recite the governing principles of our fraternity," a deep baritone voice discloses. "Now hold out your hands palms up, open and carefully receive the gifts."

A cold bottle arrives in each of my hands. My fingers grip their dewy sides and a whiff of hops signals my nose with a hint of their contents.

"I will repeat each set of words slowly and carefully. It is your job to repeat them them back to me in clearly enunciated English."

"Listen carefully to the first rule of our brotherhood."

"esouh eht ot wylayol."

I hear the soft steps of the voice's bearer approaching the first person in line, me! I feel a whiff of warm breath washing my face. "Repeat the sacred words, John."

A torrent of conflicting thoughts wash through my brain. "Well...Uh...Frankly I can't make any sense out of it," I reply, my nerves literally shaking the words out of my mouth.

"Well, then. Since you don't understand a proper language. Chug the bottle you have in your left hand!" He orders.

I lift the bottle to my lips and a rusty tasting liquid splashes into my mouth, followed by the overpowering odor of hops. I gulp the rest of the musty contents directly down my throat trying to save my taste buds from the unhappy experience.

The voice moves to my left and pauses in front of another fraternity brother. The same crooked syllables are rolled out and culminate with the predictable result.

Clinking glass clutters the night routinized in the collecting of empties and replacing outstretched hands with a new supply. The sacred voice keeps moving down the short line.

Now he's facing me again. It smells like he's been helping himself to a few chugs.

"The second principle," he announces. His voice resonating like he's playing a tuba.

"srehtorb eht evres."

"Please explain the meaning of this sacred principle!" He commands.

"Take a chug to help loosen your tongue!"

I follow his command. I can't decipher the words. But, I'm learning a new skill, how to chug a bottle of beer in four gulps.

"Serve the borts," I reply, my mouth is slipping like tires on cold ice.

"Hey, that was close!" He says. "Chug another bottle to celebrate!"

The voice moves down the line again. No one comes close to my rendition. They are ordered to chug their bottles.

Soon enough his voice returns blaring into my ears. "Ok, smart boy! Let's hear you repeat the last sacred principle!"

"At your service!" I reply. My brain is happily swimming.

"Chug the bottle in your right hand to loosen your tongue!"

"Happy to oblige!" The words swerve out of my lips and the bottle's liquid contents sail down my throat.

"Pay close attention to what I say...ytrap no!" The words slip and dive out of his mouth.

I voluntarily take another deep chug from the bottle in my left hand.

"Sir! I believvvv... it's no pratry." My head is beginning to spin. I take a long draw from the fresh bottle that's been slapped into my right hand.

"Give this brother a hand!" He orders.

The dark gives up a shower of clapping hands and cheers from the older brothers who've been standing around and bathing in the spectacle.

I take another chug and the voice moves down the line for the last time.

Finally some wise ass at the end spits out the correct translation. "Party on!" He yells.

My fingers are wrapped around fresh bottles. The cry is shouted, a choir of voices yelling, "Party on!"

"And never stop!" The words squeak out from one lone voice lashing out behind the clinking of bottles and chugingggggg...

My stomach is churning. A familiar bobbing head twirls around and around...

Suddenly my stomach loses its composure. The eruption starts at the bottom and blasts upward, exiting my mouth in a single volcanic explosion. The acrid stench covers the front of my t-shirt and pours down my shorts mixing with a hurried release from my bladder. My reeling brain drops me to the grass. Someone quickly removes the blindfold from my face.

"Oh my gosh!" Someone yells. "Get him to the showers!" Another voice yells out.

Arms lift me to my feet, but my rubbery legs collaps like a cheap folding chair.

Warm water is showering down onto my head, washing, washing away the night's bad memory.

I'm not sure what exact methods were employed. I only have a hazy recollection of how I arrived in my assigned bed, dry and snuggly under crisp cool sheets, topped with the soft comforter I remember from a few hours past.

The deep claims my mind. I dive into its beckoning expanse, opening to a dreamer's eye.

What's this?