Previous Episodes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 

As a freshman, I hung out with a bunch of guys in this one fraternity. They did a lot of stuff that I liked to do, mostly get drunk. And they got really drunk. I would go to their parties, get really drunk, play beer-die till I was covered in frat-basement-juice and blood, vomit in the back yard, and hit on drunk sorority chicks. Pretty typical, I think. They would get me tickets to football games, and provide the tailgate party before and after. I’d totally meat out when I was at the house. I would arm wrestle guys, and then make fun of ‘em when they lost. It was always a good time at that house.

So, I was pretty excited when a bunch of ‘em knocked on my dorm room door to offer me a bid to join their fraternity. I thought about it for about a day, then accepted the bid. They threw a party that weekend to celebrate the birth of our new pledge class. There was some consensual hazing, of course, and a ceremony where they revealed our new pledge names. Fittingly, my name was “Pledge Bitch”, because I talked so much crap. I certainly enjoyed the attention of being a new potential member of that fun group of guys.

That wore off pretty quick, though. It became apparent to me that most of the guys I liked to hang out with were seniors and would be leaving after that year. I only knew a few of the other brothers, mostly because I didn’t really care to. And then, one day, I found myself cleaning the house after a party for the third weekend in a row. As you might expect the place got pretty nasty, the basement especially. The house was pretty old and the foundation had settled slightly, breaking the drain line that ran out of the basement. If it had been a really big party, the floor would accumulate several inches of standing water/beer/vomit/urine/you name it. It was disgusting. I was hungover with broom in hand, pushing the mix of fluids out the back door, practically throwing up while doing so. All of a sudden I snapped. I threw the broom down on the floor and started to leave. A house-brother saw me walking out and said, “Yo, Bitch, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m not doing this anymore.”

“Yeah you are, too, if you wanna be a brother, you’ve got to clean the house.”

“No, I’m not pledging. I’m bithcin’ out.”

“Well, then don’t think about coming back.”

“Oh, I will. I’ll be back. I’ll still come to your parties, and drink your beer. I just won’t be a brother. Sorry dude. Later.”

I knew he knew I was right. I would still go to the parties and drink their beer. I would go with them to football games. I would still show up to play late night beer pong and talk crap to everyone I beat. I would still go to the house, but I wouldn’t have to yell, “PLEDGE BITCH HERE!” whenever I did. I wouldn’t have to pay any annual dues. I wouldn’t have to hang out with guys I didn’t care about. And best of all, I wouldn’t have to clean the damn house anymore.

And that’s the way it went.

Years later, one of my best friends was in that fraternity. You know him as Shafty. Shafty and I had been playing together for a few months at this point. He told me about a “stunt/talent night” that was being held at Burress Hall. For those unfamiliar, Burress Hall is the focal point of Virginia Tech. It over looks the drillfield and contains a 3000-person auditorium where I’ve seen Trey Anastasio and Bela Fleck. Some pretty big names have played that stage for sure. The event was a charity event in which every fraternity and sorority participated by having a few representatives to do some sort of performance. Being that no one else in Shafty’s fraternity had any sort of talent that they wanted to display, they asked him to do it. Not really wanting to do it, he asked me. Not totally being over my fear of playing by myself, I compromised saying that I’d do it, if he would do with me. He agreed.

Shafty had known about the event for at least 6 weeks, but had put off doing anything about it until the last minute, partly because he was hoping it would just go away, partly because he’s Shafty. I had been given about 8 hours notice. Shafty came over that afternoon to work on some songs. We would have to fill about 10 minutes, so we put together a few songs. We chose pretty easy ones that we thought people might recognize.

I don’t remember what time we were supposed to go on, but I do remember what happened before that. Shafty and I drove around campus in my jeep drinking Sam Adams and listening to the songs we were about to play. We finished a 12 pack in about an hour. Then we parked near the back of the building and took our gear in the rear entrance. As we walked inside, no one was there to greet us. A guy passed us wearing a backpack and we asked him, where the auditorium was. He had no idea anything was even happening in the auditorium. We finally found a paper sign that said “performers” with an arrow pointing through a set of doors. Figuring that sounded like the right place to be, we slowly opened the door and walked through. We found ourselves facing a tall black curtain on the back side of the stage. On the other side of the curtain, we could hear some sorority girls doing some lame cheer and figured we were in the right place.

As we walked around the side, a girl was standing on the side stage with a clip-board.

“Are you guys with [blank] fraternity?”

“Yeah, we are.”

“Good, you’re on next.”

“Well, I’m glad we’re here. Do I have time to go to the bathroom?” The Sams were starting to build pressure inside, and my nerves had just kicked in.

“Doubt it. They’re almost done. Better get ready.”

So, Shafty and I got our guitars out of the cases and got ready to go out on the stage.

As we walked out on to the stage, squinting into the blinding stage lights, I could see out into the crowd. This room was huge, and this room was packed. All 3000 seats were full, and people were standing in the aisles. This was by a long shot the largest crowd I’ve ever played in front of in my tiny, pointless music career, and I really had to pee.

So, we plugged ourselves in, and got through the first song, with no problems. The second song was a bluesy grateful dead cover that we started to jam out a little. Halfway through my solo, I started to hear some cheering. I squinted out towards the crowd to see what was going on, and couldn’t see anything. They must be really digging it. So, I took another full round of solo. There was more seemingly random clapping. Wow! I must be tearing it up. So, I went another round. This time, the clapping started sooner, and at a really strange time. So, I stopped. And Shafty stopped. I looked out into the crowd and said into the mic “are you clapping cause you want us to stop?”

Crickets. Then someone in the back stood up and yelled, “YES!”

I looked at Shafty and laughed. He shrugged and smiled at me with an expression that I understood. “OK, one, two, three, four…” and we picked up right where we left off and played the whole song over again. When we finished there was some applause and some booing. I took that opportunity to get the last amplified word before running off stage to the bathroom.

“Thanks a lot,… jerks.”

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