Voodoo

Notes: This story describes a hazing tradition that my class was among the last to participate in.  The administration killed it during my junior year of college.

The first hint that something is wrong is the time of the meeting.  Dorm meetings usually begin at 10:30, but we are told to be in the courtyard at 9 PM sharp.

The upperclasswomen spend the majority of the day drawing on the concrete courtyard with sidewalk chalk.  They refuse to answer any of our questions about what they are doing and why.  Eventually we stop asking and content ourselves with watching.

A large star takes up most of the courtyard.  Each point contains a name, three of which I recognize.  They belong to a sophomore, a junior, and a senior currently living in the dorm.  The fourth is a student who graduated the previous year.  No one seems to know anything about the fifth person, Suggs.  The space between the points of the star is filled with drawings: a rose, a keg of beer, meat, sports equipment, and a little black dog.  These are the symbols of our dorm, though I've never really been able to figure out the dog.  The pentagon in the center of the star is filled with a psychedelic swirl of color.

By the time we congregate in the courtyard, apprehensive and already tipsy, clutching cups of Ice House, the drawing has been completed.  The rest of the dorm members are already there, standing around the star.  This is strange, too.  Usually the upperclassmen remain in their rooms while the frosh announce the meeting, shouting ever louder until the entire campus must know that all of us will soon be drunk and rowdy.

We are directed to stand around the chalk drawing.  It goes without saying that we should not stand on it.  We group together, sipping beer, waiting, wondering what will come next.  A sophomore walks to the center of the circle, stands in the middle of the star.  This is the sophomore whose name is written in one point of the star.  He begins to tell a tale.

Years ago, there was a student named Suggs who lived in this dorm.  Now Suggs, he liked to party.  And on his birthday, he wanted nothing more than to drink and have a good time with his friends.  Unfortunately for him, his friends had all chosen to major in engineering and had too much homework to accomplish that night.  They turned down his invitations to drink and let loose, promising to make it up to him that weekend.

Dejected, and with no one willing to share a drink or a game of beer pong, Suggs retreated to his room.  Once there, he drank himself into a stupor and passed out.  Meanwhile, his friends slowly began to come around.  They realized that it was their good friend's birthday and that a celebration was called for.  They would have a much better time partying with him than struggling with a problem set that, if they were to be honest, they would probably never finish.  Minds made up, they grabbed a bottle of alcohol and trooped up to Suggs' room.

Of course, Suggs was already unconscious.  Try as they might, they couldn't wake him.  But by now they were committed to celebrating his birthday, whether he participated or not.  So the group found a large, wooden rack, tied Suggs to it, and proceeded to carry him from dorm to dorm, laughing and drinking and inviting the other students to shower Suggs with birthday presents.

When Suggs awoke the next morning, he was still strapped to the rack which had been left in a field on the eastern edge of campus.  Hungover and dirty, he eventually managed to free himself.  Back at the dorm he found his friends who were still laughing at their prank.  But Suggs didn't find it funny.  In retaliation, he placed a voodoo hex on them, and on all the residents of the dorm, all the people who ever would live in the dorm.  The only way to counter this hex, the sophomore concludes, is to sacrifice one freshman every year to relive Suggs' humiliation.  The names in the star belong to previous frosh chosen for this honor.

The story teller points to the frosh who has been chosen as this year's Sacrifice.  Hands immediately grab him and lift him up.  He is carried over to a rack of wood propped against the benches.  He is tied down.  Goggles are placed over his eyes.  The upperclassmen produce cans of whipped cream, bottles of chocolate and strawberry syrup, sprinkles and cherries.  We watch while the Sacrifice is transformed into a "birthday cake", though a sundae seems to be a more accurate description.  Should we try to free him?  Are we expected to join in?  With no direction, we simply hang back and drink our beers.

Finally, the upperclassmen exhaust their supply.  The other male frosh are directed to pick up the rack.  Quickly, they chug the remainder of their beers and step forward to lift the Sacrifice.  There are enough of them that this is an easy task.  They will have to carry the rack and the Sacrifice around to the other dorms.  Presents must be collected from each dorm if we are to escape from the hex for another year.

The females are excluded, warned to stay back.  "Be glad you're a girl," the seniors tell us as we follow the group of frosh guys, carrying the Sacrifice on their shoulders, to the dorm across the courtyard.

The residents of this dorm have prepared.  A tarp is laid out on the ground, near a balcony.  The guys walk over to it and begin to lower the rack but are immediately ordered not to.  They must stand and hold up the Sacrifice, while the residents of this dorm throw their presents down from the balcony.  The festivities begin with a tureen of soup.  It might be a day old, and it might be a week old.  I'm glad I'm outside the splash zone.  The soup is followed by more food, stolen from the dining hall over the past week.  Condiments from the sandwich bar help larger items stick.  Some things aren't meant to stick and instead bounce off one or more bodies before landing on the ground.

The supply of food seems endless.  Upperclassmen are hooting and hollering while our guys try to avoid the spray.  Finally they give in and stand still, resigned to their fate.  It's like the first few minutes after stepping outside into a rainstorm.  At first you try to avoid getting wet, but soon enough you are soaked to the bone a little more hardly seems to matter.  But this rain of rotting food is infinitely worse than mere water.

Eventually, this dorm runs out of things to throw and we move to the next dorm.  It's a strange parade, with the freshmen out in front.  The rest of us trail behind, trying to avoid stepping in whatever is dripping off Sacrifice and his bearers.  The sophomore who began the evening has a bottle of water, and as we walk he does his best to rinse the worst of the mess from the Sacrifice's face.

There are seven dorms to visit in all.  The "presents" seem to get more creative as the night goes on.  Bags of flour and coffee grounds are split and sprinkled over the guys.  Eggs are thrown.  Juice and milk are poured.  Between each dorm, the sophomore rinses the Sacrifice's face.  He is able to breathe, but he cannot move or avoid the "presents".

At the end of the circuit, we return home.  Another tarp has been hastily set up and the guys know what to do by this point.  They position themselves under the balcony.  This dorm, our dorm, is worst of all.  The men who live here have been through this themselves.  Every thought that began "I'm glad they didn't throw..." has morphed into "We should totally throw...!"

Someone drops a fish.  It doesn't stick, just makes a sloppy thwack as it hits one of the guys supporting the Sacrifice and slides off to the ground.  Someone saw the flour and coffee grounds and upgraded to kitty litter.  The soup here is weeks old, as is the chunky milk.  They have been preparing for a long time.

Finally, the guys are allowed to set the Sacrifice down.  They prop him up near the side of the dorm and loosen his bonds.  The upperclassmen have everyone pose for pictures.

"We should get out of here," one of my friends says as the first camera flashes.  We turn to her and realize what she means.  I look back at the guys, covered in putrid, pinkish-brown, vomit-inducing gunk.  They have their arms around each other and are laughing as the cameras capture the results of the evening.  One looks at me and I see a glint in his eye, the beginning of an evil smile.

"RUN!"

I'm the slowest member of the group and it's obvious that I'll be brought down first.  We're only halfway to the nearest dorm when I'm tackled, squealing, to the grass.  The other girls don't slow down or look back; they're trying to make it indoors before the other guys catch up to them.  But there are twelve guys and only four of us.  No one stands a chance.

Eventually we all make it back to the courtyard.  We're laughing and jostling each other, trying to ignore the unique stench rising from our skin, our clothes, the courtyard.  "Hurry up and shower," the dorm president commands us, "then meet in the lounge in fifteen minutes.  The night is only just beginning."