Frat Life 101: Night Of The Dunking Pledges, Part 2

We chose Jay and Keith who lived in a house just off one of the busiest four lane streets in town with their girlfriends, Kim and Kim, to be our next victims. Again the plan was simple. Terry was to go inside and tell them that his motorcycle had broken down at the river and that he needed help loading it onto his truck. The rest of us took up positions on both sides of the house in bushes, behind trees and so forth. Once they came outside all we had to do was pounce on them and choose which one we would take to the river. It would be easy and nothing could go wrong right? Wrong, so very wrong. Both Kim and Kim told Jay and Keith that they shouldn't go because they had already heard that we had gotten Mark and it had to be a trap but they ignored this very wise advice. They just didn't believe that Terry would try anything like this with them. They should have listened.



As they came down the front steps Terry made sure he was behind them but someone must have moved too early because both of them took off immediately. They ran straight toward the street and then split into two different directions. Keith went straight across all four lanes and then onto a side street and quickly outpaced his pursuers. Jay on the other hand ran out into the middle of the street and then turned left. Several pledges followed him and I paced him horizontally on the sidewalk. Perhaps he thought that he could easily get past all one hundred and thirty pounds of me and make it back to the safety of his house but it didn't turn out that way.

As he reversed direction and ran onto the sidewalk I was able to grab the back of his shirt and hold on for dear life, slowing him down until my brothers could get there and take him down. Jay was a tough guy and he fought and scratched every inch of the way. Once his arms were handcuffed behind him and the truck was brought over we started loading him in when we suddenly got very scared. Pulling in behind the truck was a Tahlequah City police cruiser and they were known for not playing games with anyone. I think that we all must have had visions of a Tahlequah jail cell running through our brains when our trusty pledge trainer Mark (whom we had earlier thrown in the river) said he would take care of this. Mark approached the cruiser and merely uttered the words "fraternity prank" to which the officer looked over the scene in front of him and merely told him to "get him off of the streets." That's it, nothing more was required. A motley bunch of young punks were loading a struggling, handcuffed guy into a truck and all he does it say make it go away and we happily did.

Once we arrived at the river we discovered that our battle was only half over. Jay made it very clear that he was not going to go quietly into the night, or should I say the river. He choose to take nothing off and fight his way through this. Now it would have been easier if we could have left the handcuffs on but we couldn't. It wouldn't do very well to have a member drown just for some fun so they had to come off. As soon as one handcuff was undone the struggle was on and Jay put up a heck of a fight. The details are pretty murky to me now but I know he took one and possibly two pledges into the water with him. Once it was all over everything was fine and many laughs were shared by all. Only, we still didn't want the night to be over, we didn't want to quit. So we didn't.

To be continued.......................
Published by Don Leach