The Usual Pledges
12 years ago

(*Pledge 1 walks into the common room, sees Alum is passed out drunk and laying awkwardly on a couch. His shorts are damp. Pledge 2 walks in*)

Pledge 1: Hey, uh…

Pledge 2: Do you really not remember my name?

Pledge 1: Sorry, you’re a pledge too, right? There’s just so many of us I still can’t figure it all out.

Pledge 2: Yeah, I’m in your pledge class.

Pledge 1: Sorry, you just looked a little older. What was your name again?

Pledge 2: Roger, but at this point all the actives just call me by my pledge name, Oral Mint, because the actives told me that if I let some huge fat chick blow me they’d buy me a mint chocolate chip Klondike Bar. Worth it.

Pledge 1: (*Points to the Alum*) Who’s that?

Pledge 2: He’s probably an alum. Looks like he’s like thirty or something.

Pledge 1: What’s his name?

Pledge 2: (*takes a closer look at the Alum’s face*) Oh my God. I know him.

Pledge 1: You do?

Pledge 2: Well, I’ve heard of him.

Pledge 1: Oh sweet Jesus, no. Who is he?

Pledge 2: An old pledge trainer. Worst one the house ever had, according to legend.

Pledge 1: Shit! Let’s get the fuck out of here.

Pledge 2: …they used to call him… (*nervously gulps*) Hazer Soze.

Pledge 1: Please, let’s just leave. Now! Before he wakes up.

Pledge 2: We can’t. We have to clean the house. Someone upstairs was chugging Franzia out of the bag and puked while the spigot was still in his mouth. It ruptured the bag. It’s a freakin’ horror show up there.

Pledge 1: Well let’s find an active to deal with this guy then.

Pledge 2: They’re all out at the bars. They went straight downtown after the tailgate.

Pledge 1: Well call someone! I can’t deal with this man! Our pledge trainer’s bad enough. (*starts hyperventilating*) This guy’s drunk and doesn’t give a fuck. He’s gonna take out his workweek stress on us! I’m gonna text the president. (*texts the president*)

Pledge 2: I’ve heard a lot of stories about him. One story the guys told me, the story I believe, was from his days as an undergrad. There was a group of actives that wanted to haze the pledges one day. They wanted some of the pledges to drop. They realized to make the bad pledges drop you didn’t need bows and toes, or wall sits, or even elephant walks, you just needed the will to make the pledges drop. After a while they come after Soze and his pledge class. He was small time then, just a pledge they say. They come to the house, in the afternoon, looking for his pledge class. They find the rest of his pledge class in the house and decide to wait for Soze.

He comes back to the fraternity house to find his roommate hazed and the rest of his pledge class screaming. The actives knew Soze was tough, so they let him know they mean business. They blackballed one of his pledge brothers right there. They tell him they don’t like him, and they tell him to drop. Soze looks over the faces of his pledge class, then he showed these actives of “will” what will really was. He hazes his roommate and his weakest pledge brothers until they drop. Then he tells the actives he’d rather see his whole pledge class be geeds than pledge another day after this.

The actives go, and he waits until he’s eventually initiated and then he goes after the rest of the actives. He hazes their pledge sons, he fucks their girlfriends, he hazes their parents on parents weekend. He takes shits in the rooms they live in, and the lecture halls they have classes in, he hazes pledges from other fraternities. And like that, he graduates. Nobody’s ever seen him since.

Pledge 1: My God… (*looks at phone*) The president texted me back. He says “HA! You’re fucked. Now stop texting and start cleaning, bitch.” Shit. What else have you heard about this guy?

Pledge 2: Terrible, horrible things. Apparently a pledge once accidentally cock blocked Soze. The pledge apologized profusely, but Soze wasn’t having it. Turns out the pledge’s parents were divorced, and the mom was lonely. So Soze hires a filthy gigolo to seduce the pledge’s mom just before the fraternity moms’ weekend. Apparently the mom got crabs from the dirty man whore, but didn’t have time to get any treatment before she came to visit. The older guys say she was clawing at that bush like a drunk, Mexican landscaper with a pair of dull gardening sheers. That night Soze seduced the pledge’s mom, and fucked the shit out of her right there in the pledge’s room.

Pledge 1: But he knew she had crabs.

Pledge 2: Exactly. Soze got crabs from the pledge’s mom on purpose. After he was done he gave the mom a fraternity t-shirt and told her to fuck off. Then Soze climbed into the pledge’s bed and shaved his pubes, dry. The pledge had his mom’s crabs in his hair, his pubes, even his fucking eyebrows.

Pledge 1: That sick fuck…

Pledge 2: They found the pledge in the shower, crying and shampooing himself as he ripped his hair out. It’s best not to anger Hazer Soze.

Pledge 1: But, so…he only hazes when he’s angry? So if we don’t piss him off we’re cool?

Pledge 2: (*laughs*) No. He’ll haze you, one way or the other, he’ll haze you.

(*Alum starts to wake up*)

Pledge 1: He’s waking up! He’s gonna put stuff in our asses or make us slam our wieners in the mailbox or something! Let’s get outta here!

Alum: (*groggily, shitfaced*) Where the fuck am I?

Pledge 2: (*to Pledge 1*) Wait! Running only makes it worse. (*to Alum*) You’re at the house sir.

Alum: Who the fuck are you shit piles?

Pledge 2: Pledges sir.

(*Pledge 1 can’t take it anymore*)

Pledge 1: (*in a high pitched scream*) PLEASE!!! I’M SORRY! DON’T HAZE ME I’LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!

Alum: (*taken aback*) Christ! I’m too hungover to listen to you squeal like a sodomized dolphin. Drop now, bows and tows, both of you.

Pledge 1: Y-y-y-y-yes sir.

Pledge 2: Yes sir.

(*Pledges drop to the ground*)

Alum: (*to himself*) Damn. I pissed myself. The couch too. (*to the Pledges, pointing at the piss stained couch*) Anyone asks, a terrorist did this.

Pledge 1: I-I-I don’t think anyone’s going to believe that…

Alum: THEN SAY YOU DID IT YOU WEEPING AXE WOUND!

Pledge 2: Yes sir, we pissed the couch sir.

Alum: Goddamn right, sick bastards. WERE YOU RAISED IN A BARN?

Pledge 1: I…I don’t know how to answer that.

Alum: SHUT THE FUCK UP IS HOW YOU ANSWER THAT! Now, I’m gonna go upstairs, steal a dry pair of pants, and head downtown. Next time you two decide to stand around like a couple of retards playing swords with their dicks, remember that someone like me is gonna set you straight. The name’s Dean Keaton. Now fuck off.

(*Alum leaves, the Pledges get up*)

Pledge 1: Dean Keaton? So that wasn’t Hazer Soze?

(*Just then Pledge 3 staggers in, his face is covered in Sharpie dicks, he’s wearing a thick “sweater” made entirely of duct tape, and his breath REEKS of whiskey*)

Pledge 1: McManus? What happened to you?

Pledge 3: The strangest thing…

(*Pledge 3 falls over, a marker is still attached to the back of his neck, Pledge 1 turns to Pledge 2, who is smiling maniacally*)

Pledge 1: You’re not a pledge… (*Pledge 1 goes white*) Hazer Soze?

(*Pledge 2 laughs*)

Pledge 2: (*nods*) Don’t worry. After I haze you into a PTSD coma my guess is you’ll probably never hear from me again. Well that’s not true, I’ll be back for the all the other home games too. Welcome to pledgeship.

(*Pledge 1 lets out a whimper as Pledge 2 pulls out a gold lighter and lights a cigarette*)

***