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We arrived in about ten minutes.

G-Spot parked Janus' car in the garage and closed it shut so Janus' continual cries for help from the trunk would be useless. Then everybody got inside the house and turned on the lights like we were home expecting an important guest. The porch light and the two outdoor floodlights from the garage were also turned on, lighting up the surroundings like daylight.

We waited almost half an hour before the two-note chime on the doorbell rang.

Jackie D might have been a drunk, a drug addict, and a slut, but she was really into this role. We kept rehearsing her lines with her over and over until she had them down perfectly.

“Coming,” she called out sweetly from the brightly-lit hallway behind the front door. “Who is it?” she purred, right on cue.

“Reverend Harcourt,” came the booming oratorical voice from outside the door. “Here to see Mr. Janus.”

“Just a moment please.”

Jackie D, still dressed in that ghastly black dominatrix outfit, held the whip in one hand while she twisted the brass doorknob with the other. For the full effect, she opened the door slowly.

“I'm Mrs. Janus,” Jackie D said casually. “Please come in. My husband should be down here any minute.”

The good Reverend's mouth dropped and his face flushed. He started to speak but no words came out. It almost looked like he was having a stroke. His body stiffened and his feet seemed riveted to the brick porch step.

“Hurry!” Grossberg snapped at No-Wood. “Take the goddamn picture.”

Two quick flash shots went off, temporarily blinding this morals protector.

As soon as Harcourt regained his composure, still without saying one goddamn word, he turned around and ran to his black Lincoln Navigator in the driveway like he was scared Jackie D was the Devil. A second later, the hum of his engine revved up like a jet plane before Harcourt's tires screeched in reverse until he hit the street where he slammed the gearshift lever into drive and peeled rubber down the winding road.

This dope gave us the biggest laugh of the day.

“What're we going to do to Janus?” Dung asked.

“Something shitty,” Castle answered. “He deserves it.”

“I know,” Grossberg said smiling before he lit a Marlboro. “Let's take him back up the mountain.”

_____

“Let's dunk him like in the Pilgrim days,” Grossberg suggested to the approving mob as we gathered around an Andy Gump shithouse.

Everybody loved the idea.

Rawlings and Rainey dragged Janus out of the car trunk and held him next to the Andy Gump. Then in one continuous motion, they lifted Janus high up by his ankles until his head was directly over the toilet hole that reeked with the stench of shit.

“No!” Grossberg screamed. “He might drown! Drop him feet first!”

Reluctantly, both guys turned Janus right-side-up. Then they both let go at the same time, dropping Janus directly down into the toilet's holding tank with shit rising almost to his knees.

“Great Kodak Moment,” No-Wood said, quickly snapping two Polaroid flash photos.

Janus was still standing up in there, gagging and choking when I walked over and spit in his face.

“Stafford! You're out of the pledge class!” he thundered.

“Fuck you, asshole.”

“So many actives want you out that Bookie's not taking any
more bets against you. You're a dead man.”

I cleared my throat and spit at him again, this time landing a thick gob on his left jacket lapel.

“Stafford, no matter what I got to do, I guarantee you'll never be an active!”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, well every time I'm with the actives and your name comes up, everybody laughs about stringing you along to the end before dumping you while you think you're so fucking smart.”

“Let him up,” Grossberg ordered.

Janus slowly climbed out of the Andy Gump. He quickly took of his shoes and socks and threw them down the mountainside. Then he emptied his pants pockets before kicking off his pants and leaving them on the ground.

“Here,” Rawlings said, tossing Janus the car keys.

Half-dressed, Janus raced to the Olds, started the engine and tore-ass down the mountain road, forgetting to turn on the headlights.

We were standing around, shivering in the park when I noticed a bunch of the guys nodding to each other. Silently Rawlings slowly crept behind Castle. Rainey moved around a little so that he wound up directly behind Dung. Then they struck!

Rawlings grabbed Castle in a bear hug and Rainey had Dung in a headlock!

“What's this?” Castle screamed.

“Let me go!” Dung yelled.

We circled them.

“Both you guys, with that phony telegram,” Grossberg growled, “double-crossed the rest of the pledge class.”

“You weren't here to work or take the shit that we had to,” Holmes said bitterly.

“And you lowered the odds when I got the ace and had to eat Jackie D,” Lyman angrily piped up to my surprise.

“So now we're getting even with you two,” I said bravely.

“Castle, you're first,” Rawlings said, picking up that skinny
bastard and turning him so he was parallel to the ground.

I held the door open. Then in one graceful swoop, Rawlings lifted Castle straight up, head first, before letting go, dropping Castle about two feet down inside the shit-filled toilet bowl.

We started counting slowly: “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten.”

“Let him up,” Grossberg ordered.

Castle's squirming body crawled out of the toilet like some kind of sea monster. Blackish-brown crap, the color of Jagermeister, dripped down Castle's jeans a little below the knees onto his calves and finally into the dirt like melting chocolate.

No-Wood was there with the ever-present Polaroid to capture the prized moment.

“I'm freezing,” Jackie D said, pulling her coat around her scrawny body.

“Give her Dung's clothes,” I suggested.

“Great idea,” Rainey said, pulling Dung's short, squat body toward Jackie D while still holding him in a chokehold. “Undress him.”

In less than a minute Jackie D had Dung naked when she screamed out laughing, “Look at this?”

She held Dung's red plaid boxers that were big enough to use for a VW car cover and put them on over her black outfit.

“No!” Dung screamed as Rainey forced him forward toward the Andy Gump. “No!” he pleaded again before tears flooded down his fat cheeks. “Please, no!”

“Get the door, Stafford!” Rainey yelled.

I pushed the spring door open and Rainey somehow lifted Dung's toad-like body over the toilet and dumped him it, sinking him above the knees.

We counted again. “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten.”

“Enough,” Grossberg ordered. “Let him up.”

Dung, like Castle, was choking and gagging as he climbed out of the toilet. But he added puking and crying to the routine.

Again No-Wood snapped away at Dung's slimy, gnome-like
naked body with the flashbulbs bursting the darkness like lightning bolts.

“I'm freezing!” Dung cried out, walking toward Jackie D. “Give me my clothes, you fucking bitch!”

“Fuck you,” I said. “She's better for this fraternity than you.”

“Yeah Stafford? Everybody says you're out of here!” that bloated pig snarled. “I heard two actives today, Graham and Thierman, say they were going to blackball you. So you're out of here, asshole!”

“Mount up!” came Grossberg's battle cry.

I grabbed Jackie D's hand and ran with her to my truck. Except for Castle and Dung, the rest of the guys piled in their cars and vans, leaving Castle's always-detailed, black Vet alone next to the dusty road. Castle, dressed in his shit-stained clothes and with a face of gloom, stood next to the Vet, with Dung's fat, shit-dripping naked body pouting next to him.

“W
HERE YOU GUYS BEEN FOR THE LAST THREE HOURS
?”
Christianson yelled. “I told you when you were finished with Janus to get the photos developed and then get the hell back here.”

“We had car trouble,” Grossberg lied, hardly wanting to tell Christianson that Jackie D gave everybody, including me, a blowjob in G-Spot's van before we headed back down the mountain road.

“Get upstairs,” Christianson grumbled.

The place was deserted downstairs but there was a lot of noise coming from upstairs. As we started up the stairs, the loud, laughing voices of about two dozen actives came from the pledge dorm.

Castle and Dung were lying there naked, face-up on the linoleum floor, completely covered with the sugary, sweet stink of molasses. Stuck to the molasses on their bodies were hundreds of Corn Flakes, making them look like an ad for cannibals to buy Colonel Sanders' new down-home recipe.

Christianson stood in the doorway behind me. “Where's Buckskin's pictures?” he demanded. “And the negatives.”

I turned around and faced him. “Don't have them.”

“What do you mean? Where are they?”

“Still at the drugstore,” I lied. “They weren't ready. Their photo machine broke. Left them there. The guy said they'll be ready in the morning.”

“What drug store?”

“In the Valley, near Janus' house. I don't remember the name of it but I know where it is.”

He didn't seem too convinced of my story but he didn't make an issue out of it. Hell, less than twenty-four hours ago, without me, he'd be history.

“Get them first thing in the morning and bring them to me personally. You understand?”

“Sure,” I answered casually.

Adams pointed to Castle and Dung before looking around at us. “They betrayed the pledge class,” he said a little too melodramatically. “And now they're paying for it.”

None of us dared laugh for fear of joining them.

“Let's see the Polaroids,” Christianson said to No-Wood.

When Christianson got to the one with Jackie D and the Reverend, Christianson howled with laughter until I thought he was going to wet his pants.

“Where the hell did she come from?” he asked between choking fits of laughter.

“Stafford thought she'd add the Martha Stewart homemaker touch by greeting the Reverend as Janus' wife,” Grossberg answered, smiling.

Bones pointed to Castle and Dung. “You guys get dressed. Over the molasses and Corn Flakes. And get downstairs with the rest of the pledges in five minutes!”

_____

“The object of the game,” Bones announced with a sickening smile, “is to see what pledges don't finish their bottle of beer. They're the guys who get blackballed tonight.”

The actives were all gathered around one end of three, long gray, Formica tables set out end-to-end in the dining room. In front of them, on the table, I counted fifteen bottles of beer
standing upright like bowling pins. Seven were Corona and eight were Modelo dark. Me and the other pledges were gathered around the far end of the last table facing the actives and the beer.

An eerie, silent recognition flashed in the eyes of several of us, knowing what was going to happen but not knowing who it was going to happen to. My money was on Castle or Dung for their betrayal.

“Give 10-1 odds on the winner,” Bookie announced. “Only pledges can bet.”

“Dung for ten bucks,” I said, sneering at Dung.

“Fuck you,” the little twerp snapped back at me.

For whatever their reasons, none of the other pledges bet.

“Here goes,” Bones announced dramatically. “And nobody open the beer until I tell you.”

He grabbed hold of each capped bottle, one-at-a-time, and slid them to the pledge whose name he called, announcing which brand the pledge got. I was the fifth guy.

“Modelo to Stafford.”

I got nervous again since the actives laughed harder when my name was called than at the other names thus far. I gripped the cold bottle when it came sliding by.

“Corona to Hymen.”

About a minute later, each of us had a bottle in front of us.

Keerland produced a silver church key from somewhere and tossed it high in the air over the table so when it landed, it made a metallic, ringing sound as it bounced along, finally stopping in front of Batman.

“Open the beer bottles now but don't drink from it until you're told to. And pass the church key along,” Keerland ordered.

Seconds later, each bottle was opened, one in front of each guy.

Another gambling game I was forced to play. I was chancing five million dollars and only getting 8-1 odds.

“Drink up!” finally came Bones' inevitable order.

I gently lifted the bottle to my nose. At first it smelled OK. But I wasn't sure. Gingerly, I squished the end of my tongue in
the bottle. The beer still seemed OK.

Then I shot a look at Lyman. He was drinking the Corona, unfortunately without any problem.

Batman was on my left and Vysell was on my right. A quick glance at each of them got two fast OK nods.

The pledges were silent, with only the actives' laughter heard until Dung's piercing voice rang out, “It's piss!” He spit out a mouthful and started gagging and choking while everybody laughed at him.

Everybody but G-Spot. “I got the bottle of shit!”

Since he wasn't choking, he must've just smelled it.

The other pledges knew they had an all-clear sign and hurriedly finished each of their bottles since they knew I only fucked up two of them.

“In three minutes we're losing either one or two pledges tonight,” Christianson said evenly. He looked down at his watch. “Starting now.”

Dung was near my side of the table and G-Spot was across from me.

“Even money they both pussy out,” Bookie shouted.