The Brotherhood by John Alfred Taylor

I've seen John Taylor's work sporadically over the years in the occasional magazine and most often in the various volumes of Karl Wagner's Year's Best anthologies. His work is marked by a sense of literary decadence that is both charming and disquieting, and always informed by an intellect of great scope. John teaches at Washington Jefferson College in Pennsylvania and is not afraid to let his scholarship elevate his fiction. He has sent me many fine stories for the Borderlands series that didn't cut it for various reasons, but I always knew it was just a matter of time before he hit me between the eyes. And then "The Brotherhood" came rollicking into my post office box...

"On your bellies, jarheads!"

Don Broca dropped with the other pledges, barely taking the shock on his knees before he straightened out flat on the indoor-outdoor carpet. The carpet smelled of dust and old vomit.

He'd heard a grunt of pain to his right, and now Sam seemed to be snoring with every breath.

"On your feet!"

As he leaped up Don glanced sideways, saw Sam with head bent, bleeding from his nose, the front of his t-shirt already crimson.

"What are you looking at, faggot?" screamed Walker, the brother in charge. "Look straight ahead—"

Don realized Walker was addressing him. "Look at me, dipshit! Or we serve your balls for prairie oysters."

Walker went on chewing Don out till his face turned purple, finally moderating his invective enough to explain: "Don't any of you worry about each other, just worry about yourself, because you're gonna need to—

"So down on your bellies this instant!"

Crash. "Now up, up, up, jarheads."

When Don jerked up he saw Sam still on the floor, but stared straight ahead. Walker noticed the empty space, glanced down, nodded silently, and a brother came up from behind and bent over Sam. "OK you dorks—Jumping jacks. One-two, one-two, one-two—"

A second brother came up on the other side of Sam and helped the first half-drag, half-carry him away.

▼

When they were finally set free Don and another pledge walked Sam back to Gardner Hall. Sam was a little dizzy, and still had one nostril plugged with a wad of toilet paper, but tried to see the brighter side, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going, right?"

Though Don had the bottom bunk, he wasn't going to make Sam climb, even if he bled on the sheets. Sam started to snore like a bucksaw the moment he hit Don's rack: it was going to be a great night, a real great night.

Don went into the bathroom to piss.

Afterwards he looked in the mirror, and wondered why he was pledging Alpha Pi Omega. How had Sam talked him into it? Or had he talked Sam into it? Don was too tired to remember—the rings under his eyes had rings under them.

They'd agreed Alpha was the boss fraternity on campus, dominating the Greek Council. Off campus too, because the alumni always came back, always stuck together, always got the younger brothers jobs. And Sigma Gamma ("Smegma Gummy") was full of weenies, the jocks in Beta Delta Phi were second-stringers.

But was Alpha worth this?

In spite of the anti-hazing rule, the other frats gave their pledges rough times: the Sigma Gamma pledges counted cadence as they jogged, the jocks in Bubba Felta Thigh couldn't bathe and wore burlap undervests.

Alpha was tougher. Don knew the "jarhead" business and the pledge haircuts and brutal physical training came from the Second Founder, real name Jack Martin, because in the tradition talks he'd heard much more about the Second Founder than about the First Founders of the last century. Martin had been an ex-Marine, flying for the CIA in Guatemala in 1954 and, after the success of the coup, had hung around long enough to bring a great secret out of the jungle. Afterwards he'd decided to get an education, coming to Frobisher on the Korean GI Bill to share his secret with his fraternity brothers. The secret was what made Alpha special.

It had to be worth the agony. Because even though the brothers never talked about it, you could always sense something unspoken, something that gave them an edge.

Don went back and climbed up into his roommate's bunk, but couldn't get to sleep for a long time, turning over repeatedly to find a more comfortable position for his aching shoulders and thighs while Sam snored thickly below.

"Relax jarhead," Parisi said. "We're just going to have a little talk after you look at a few educational pictures."

Don looked around, unreassured. The two of them were in another room in the basement of the chapter house, much smaller than the big one with the indoor-outdoor carpet, only large enough to hold a card table and two folding chairs. The plasterboard walls and ceiling closed in on them, painted with stripes and dapplings of sulfur yellow touched with black and gray; even the inside of the door was part of the swirling, oppressive pattern.

Parisi picked up the stack of posterboard rectangles on the table like a giant's deck of cards, lifted the one on top to show the picture pasted to its underside. It was a color picture of a steer hung upside down in a slaughter-house, blood still coming from its throat, eye frozen in dumb terror. A bit disgusting, but what was the point?

Then Parisi showed the next card, and Don's stomach turned over. A bleak hardcore photo of a woman making it with a German Shepherd.

Just what had he gotten himself into?

Next came an accident victim embedded in what was left of his windshield. Don was used to this from high school safety programs, except this was a Polaroid original.

A homosexual (or at least a masochist) who smiled and posed with rings through his pierced nipples.

Don recognized the next image because it was famous: a screaming Vietnamese girl running toward the camera, clothed only in flames.

Charles Manson grinning.

A faded photo of a face half-skull and half-char that was staked down with split bamboo at the collar bones (Don's best guess was a Japanese soldier captured in World War II and gone over with a blowtorch.).

A crazy dark painting of a huge goat who sat up like a man in a circle of hags.

A newsphoto of a suicide just clearing the rail of a bridge. A collage where the Virgin was a flasher—one of Khoumeni and the Pope embracing—a color glossy of a female mantis eating the male in the act of love—an engraving of a mixed-sex daisy chain from some antique porn novel with every organ meticulously and naively delineated—

Then Parisi put the last card of the devil's deck face-down. "So what do you think of our pretty pictures?"

Don's gut had calmed down, but still roiled. Even if it drew flak, he had to say it: "You want my honest opinion? I think they're sick."

Parisi chuckled. "Don't lose your cool. We just want to toughen you up, make you a man of the world. And get you ready for the initiation. Let's go through the stack again."

Don looked away for a moment, but the senseless pattern on the wall was worse than the pictures.

They went through the stack two more times. The last time Parisi said, "And here's the joker in the deck, jarhead," and turned up a sheet with a mirror glued to it.

Don barely recognized himself in the tiny glass.

▼

Sam almost whispered. "It's not going to be so bad."

Don lowered his voice too. "What?"

"Ralph Bishop told me."

Don made a dubious noise. "He's only a pledge."

"Yeah, but this elder brother—he wouldn't tell me who—anyway the brother saw how scared Ralph was, told him what to expect."

"And?"

Sam giggled "It's going to be heavy. They'll talk as if they're going to rape us like in jail, screw us in the ass, you know."

"Afraid I do."

"Anyway, we'll be blindfolded. But they won't screw us—just let us worry awhile, then give us an enema."

"That'll really be fun."

"We've had enemas before."

"Never volunteered for 'em."

"Me neither. They were always my mom's idea, or maybe some nurse's. Still, would you rather try the alternate—um—should I call it consciousness-raising experience?"

Don nodded uncertainly "Guess it's good to know what we're in for tomorrow night. Otherwise they might scare us shitless."

Sam tried to grin "That could mess up their plans. Or at least jump the gun, if you know what I mean."

Don grinned back, even if unreassured. Maybe the brother had lied, maybe Ralph was in on the trick—like the trained goat slaughterhouses were supposed to use to sucker the sheep in. But he kept his doubts to himself: mentioning Judas goats to Sam would be just plain cruel.

▼

Next day Don watched what he ate at the Commons, in case the scenario Sam had relayed was true: macaroni and cheese at lunch, mashed potatoes at dinner and afterwards a disgusting custard dessert, lots of bulk without much fiber, whatever he could pass without strain.

Then Don tried to study at the library awhile. Because it was Friday he was alone, with the only noise in the basement stacks the sighing of the ventilation system. When the ducts started talking, Don gave up and went back to the room.

Sam was standing at the west window, silhouetted against the dusk, the shadows of the new leaves on the tall branches beyond moving in the wind. He looked around. "Hi."

"You OK?"

"Sure," Sam said. "Why not?"

"Another half-hour."

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. "Come in."

It was Ralph Bishop. "Only a little while now."

Don was glad to see Bishop because it gave him a chance to ask for himself. "Sam told me what you said about the initiation. Fake rape but really just an enema. Did an Alpha brother actually give you the word on that?"

"Swear to God."

"You think he was telling the truth?"

Ralph nodded earnestly. "I wouldn't be going through with it if I didn't. It'll be a bit gross is all."

"Yeah," said Sam, "but then we'll be brothers."

▼

Don hoped Ralph was right, because this was scary. Even with all the black candles burning, the big room was chilly when you were naked, which is why the brothers had bathrobes on. Don wondered whether his goosepimples came from fear or cold. Sam looked calm enough but on his other side Kearney was green with fright.

Don could understand why. The brothers had put on a great act—it had to be an act, though it was awfully convincing—of drawing lots for the pledges. They'd explained that was so they wouldn't fight over the best-looking boys, and afterwards Stein the quarterback had strutted over to Kearney to whisper. "Now that's what I call the luck of the draw—I just love blond guys with tight asses."

Now Stein was back with the other brothers, terrycloth robe open, pulling his foreskin back to stroke himself erect as he winked at Kearney. And Walker had his hand moving inside his blue and white robe.

Still Don suspected Ralph's story was true. Not just because he wanted it to be, but because he was standing on a vinyl tarp. Why would they have pledges standing on a tarp unless enemas were involved? Anal rape wouldn't be likely to get the indoor-outdoor carpeting dirty.

Walker leered, the plum-colored tip of his organ thrusting between the sides of his robe. "Down on all fours," he yelled, and Don and the rest threw themselves flat.

"Blindfold the pledges." A brother wrapped a black scarf over Don's eyes and pulled it tight, scaring him even more until he realized that it fit best with Ralph's story of a fake, because they wouldn't want you to see what was really happening.

"Get their knees wider." Hands touched the inside of his thighs, pressed outwards.

"K-Y Jelly time, jarheads," Walker gloated.

Don tried to keep from shuddering while a finger forced a glob of lubricant in, fearful Ralph had been a Judas goat after all.

People were moving around. He could hear a heavy pair of feet approaching and stopping behind him.

"Fun time, guys!"

Walker himself. Don's skin tingled, his whole self contracted. Then he felt the hard little nozzle easing its way in, and could breathe again.

Ralph was right. He was safe, it was just an enema.

Yes and no, Don realized as the terrible joy invaded him, climbing up his spine hot and electric, better than love or religion, more monstrous than rape, making him instantly powerful, frighteningly intelligent. Most of him gave in, collaborated ecstatically with the invader, loved the brightness taking him over, merging with him, but one trapped part of him resisted, walled off, screaming forever.

Don pulled off the blindfold, stood up with the others. While they were blindfolded, a serving cart with an aquarium tank on top had been wheeled in. In the tank seethed milky luminescence, the larger specialized cells big as grains of rice. A pupilless eye formed on its surface, rose on a translucent stalk to look at them.

This was what Jack Martin had brought out of the Guatemalan jungle hidden inside his body.

The Father Thing began to talk to them. Without words, because part of him was in each of his new sons. Telling them how special they were to have been chosen, how they would rule.

This was what brotherhood meant.