Hell Year
by
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A breeze stirred up and rustled the tree leaves, sending the temperature southward. Despite the sixty-degree evening air, the next gust of wind chilled me. It’s roving talons slithered beneath my suit and clawed me with fear, just as the oil-free swing had moments ago. I slowly peered around at my fellow pledges and studied their terror-stricken visages. Eyes were wide open, mouths were taut and ears awaited the next sound. Feet shuffled on the distant porch. I heard a few nervous coughs. Suddenly dozens of voices started screaming at us. "Hey, you scumbags, I hope you’re ready for two weeks of hell."
"The party’s over, assholes!" Rowdy bellowed. Others joined in the abuse. "This ain’t no cakewalk." "Hey pledges, you’ve got two weeks of this sh-- so you better get used to it." "Yeah, but they won’t make it that long. No way. They won’t make it at all." A piercing scream paralyzed me for a second. "Someone’s coming," said Ralph. "You pledges are in trouble now." I looked down the sidewalk as a large, faceless brother sauntered toward us. He had just crossed the street and was walking up the sidewalk twenty yards away ... ten. "Line up, pledges!" the approaching figure yelled, as he pulled within a few yards. There was a moment of confusion as we all jostled for our positions. We were supposed to line up alphabetically. "You call that a straight line?" shouted Moose. "Either I’m cockeyed or you pledges don’t know a line from your asshole. Now, form a straight line and do it ... NOW!" We straightened our line the best we could and spread out. Moose’s real name was Jack Musio. I had interviewed him last month although he lived off campus. Moose was now a senior and had acquired his nickname as a sophomore defensive tackle for Camden’s football team. He no longer played on the gridiron due to a bum knee – injured the year before. Moose was usually a prankster and thrived on playing jokes. But tonight he was anything but jovial. His beetling eyebrows and penetrating stare scanned all eighteen of us as an outlaw would his foe. I felt like a bandit in a Clint Eastwood movie as Moose’s eyes transformed into that of the "Outlaw Josie Wales." Any moment we’d all be bullet-ridden corpses left to desiccate in the campus desert. Soon Clint’s face grew a black Afro and glasses as Moose reappeared and stared us down, treating us like a rookie platoon ready to start boot camp. After several minutes of deafening silence, Moose spoke. "Pledges, for the next two weeks I will be your hellmaster. If you want to survive this fortnight, you’ll do exactly what I tell you. Now get your stuff and line up single-file facing the house. The brothers are waiting." Two weeks? There go my grades.
We all retrieved our belongings – a brief medley in disarray. Jostling each other and gathering our bags took a moment or so, but we finally reached our positions in line. I stared at the house from near the back of the line, before we began our march toward it. The usual boisterous and festive tenement by day had been stripped of its welcome mat. Gripped by the chilly hand of nightfall, its darkened windows stared blindly at us like empty eye sockets. We started moving seconds later. The closer we got to the house, the drier my mouth became. By the time we reached the curb, it was so parched my tongue stuck to its roof. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. Moose halted traffic as we crossed the street. When we reached the sidewalk in front of the Delta Beta house, Moose waited for everyone to catch up. He then counted heads, in case one of us had decided to bolt, then pointed toward the double white doors of the frat house. "All right, pledges, let’s go in." The line moved again and the first few pledges turned left on the front walkway. Gradually, the pledges in front climbed the steps to the porch. Everyone else followed. As the pledge in front of the line, Jeff Alderman, reached the door, he paused then carefully turned the doorknob, handling it as if it burned at a thousand degrees. The door finally unlatched and he slowly pushed it open. Silence amplified its squeak. One by one, my pledge brothers disappeared into a veil of darkness as they entered the house. When I finally reached the front door, I could barely discern the back of the pledge ahead of me. The yellow porch light was now off. As I groped my way forward, I struggled with the two bags, barely squeezing in the doorway. Once through, invisible hands clutched my shoulders and directed me to a place in line. I quietly placed my bags at my feet. As soon as three others had entered behind me, the door gently closed. That was the last sound I heard for nearly five minutes, other than the heavy panting from the pledges.
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About the Book
It's 1977. The fall semester for Dave Watson and his roommates has just begun at Camden University, a mid-sized college in Plainfield, Ohio known for its excellent business school and rambunctious fraternity parties. Dave lives in one south, the rowdiest corridor in Benton Hall. Long before he and his roommates start rushing fraternities, Dave trudges through a dizzying stream of roommate conflicts and dating woes. And from the very first day, he's in love with a beautiful girl he has practically no chance of dating. His troubles have just begun when he meets Dick Hines, an obese, beer-guzzling goof-off with the lowest G.P.A. around, whose nightly visits and antics lead Dave and his roommates into more trouble than they can handle. All year, Dave struggles with his G.P.A. and a resident manager who makes life miserable with his constant cleaning and KP duties. Can Dave ultimately survive his freshman year and win the girl of his dreams? Find out in this hilarious and entertaining saga that will take you through an entire year of fun and frustration, including some memorable scenes of hell week as it was in the spring of 1978. The brothers of Delta Beta Phi await you.
About the Author
In his first novel, Rick Suttle writes about the trials and tribulations of freshman year, the toughest of all to get through. "Freshman year is like the boot camp for the rest of your college career," says Rick. "Surviving it without too many nicks and scrapes is half the battle in graduating." Rick wrote the majority of Hell Year in 1994 in Cincinnati, his hometown. It was a project he started in 1986 while living in Dallas, Texas. The author has spent most of his career as a market researcher. He's a graduate of Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) and also has an MBA. He currently lives in the Atlanta area with his wife, Dawn, and two year-old son, Cameron.