A tale for all you haters about the meaning of fraternity

As a member of a prominent fraternity at Salisbury, I would be disgracing the brotherhood if I did not put this story on your site. "We have a surprise for you," proclaimed my big brother Davis to the pledges and I with a mischievous smile on his face. Distrustful of his motive, we follow him and other brothers to Rolando's apartment.

When we get there, they hand us a page of directions and tell us to meet them at Rolando's parents' beach house at 7:00 p.m. in Rehoboth Beach.

Two pledges (Pedro and Marcelo) ride in my car up to the beach house. The ride there was 2 hours of fun, which lasted through loud music, beer guzzling (not me of course, I was driving), fast food stops, and yelling out the window flirting with women. Even though we were 15 minutes early, all the brothers were already there already.

They seem impressed and they were being unusually kind to us. Pedro and Marcelo were happy to see it. However, I was totally suspicious.

The other pledges arrive and immediately, we are put into the bed of Rolando's pick up truck and blindfolded. After a five minute drive, blindfolds are removed and voila!

We are at the liquor store. Kindly the brothers tell us all to buy as much liquor as we wanted. The pledges go crazy and begin buying big bottles of every type of liquor imaginable, Bacardi, tequila, rum, vodka, you name it.

I was once again suspicious, so I purchased only a 24 pack of Miller Lite.

When they take us back to the house, the brothers tell us that there was a catch to our liquor purchases. Whatever you chose to purchase, you had to drink it all by the end of the weekend (and it was already Saturday). Well, I can see I was smart to buy only a little bit of alcohol, but here is where the story takes a turn for the worse.

We immediately begin trying to get as much liquor drunk as we possibly could. After 12 beers, I was hammered (mind you I had just started drinking and my body wasn't yet used to drinking heavily).

But Frankie was worse off than the rest of us. He drank so much that he passed out face down in the sand by the water across from the beach house.

When we found him, he had hurled and peed all over himself. Not to mention, he was belligerent as hell. It took 3 pledges to hold him down and the other 4 of us to lift him. We lugged him back to the beach house.

"All right, he's your pledge brother. Take care of him!" ordered Davis, my big brother.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I inquire.

"He's too f***ed up to clean himself up. So, you all are going to have to clean him."

He couldn't be serious. After a concerted 20 minute effort to wake him up, the other pledges and I resigned ourselves to the unthinkable.

We get him out of his shirt and wash his face and put another shirt on him.

We then carefully pick him up and attempt to place him in bed.

"You're not finished," shouts Rolando, "He's still covered in his own piss"

"You gotta be f***ing kidding me if you think I'm touching somebody's piss!" I exclaim instinctively in my drunken rage.

"Fine, the other pledges please go into the den. Jared, since you have so much to say, you'll clean him up singlehandedly."

Immediately, the other pledges run to the den leaving me with F’d Up Frankie. Wanting to get this over as quickly as possible, I quickly change his draws and somehow get the superman strength to carry him to the couch.

I quickly join the other pledges in the den, where we learn that as drunk as we are, we have to scrub the kitchen floor. BUT WAIT! There is one more surprise, we have to use toothbrushes. Meanwhile, Frankie is passed out comfortably in the back room.

After an interminable hour and a half of scrubbing, we are finished and were dismissed to bed. Then another surprise, Frankie is up and he is acting crazy, he is knocking stuff over, swearing, and otherwise going on a drunken rampage.

I had had enough when he marched all across the floor we had just cleaned with toothbrushes.

I approached him from behind and tap him on the shoulder. He turns around and I punch him in the side of his head. (It was meant to stun him, but instead he falls unconscious.) Now, I start to freak out, to the extreme.

I scoop him up from the floor, and try to get him to stand. The whole time I am telling him I'm sorry and, “please, be all right.” When he still won't respond, I take him to the nearest hospital in my car (because being drunk and knocked out is not a good sign).

We get to the hospital and as soon as we pull him out of the car, he wakes up somewhat drunk and more than a little bewildered.

"You all right?" I ask him fear in my eyes hoping I haven't hurt someone who is gonna be a brother to me.

"I'm cool, where's the bathroom?" he replies.

We all push him out of the car forthwith toward a bush where he relieves himself.

We rush back to the beach house and the brothers are waiting. Wanting to know where we were. The other pledges look at me and immediately I blurt out the truth. How I had unintentionally knocked out Frankie and was so worried I rush him to the hospital. All the while, I am explaining this, I have my arms wrapped around my brother to be and I am extremely upset as I explain. Drunk and confused, he still has no idea what happened.

The next response from the brothers would shock me. Even today, I still cannot believe what they said to me.

"Well, we all make mistakes, but your concern and compassion surpasses that of any pledge we have ever seen. You are the epitome of a ____ ___!"

Why were they being so nice? Now, I felt even guiltier.

The next day, I drank the rest of Frankie's liquor for him and even offered to buy his food.

All week, when we got back to school I kept inviting him to hang out with me and my friends, and even paid for his alcohol and club admission prices.

"Dude, why are you being so nice? This is so out of character for you." He inquired one day.

"Well we're brothers," I replied.

Even today, he still doesn't know that he was knocked unconscious for his drunken display.

But, I coined the nickname Strong Arm when I was inducted into my frat on May 4, 2000!