This is a story about college and fraternity life. Some chapters contain explicit sexual activity between males. If such is offensive to you or if you are not of an age where reading such material is legal, please move on. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the story.
Your comments and criticisms are always appreciated. All emails will be answered. macoutman@yahoo.com.
Please also keep these stories available to all without charge. Contribute what you can to nifty.org.
DELTA IOTA KAPPA
by Macout Mann
Chapter 6
Paxton's Frustrations
After practice Paxton set about trying to read "Henry V." Somehow it made sense when Professor Samuels was talking about it or the class was reading it aloud. The unfamiliar language and archaic cadences were a lot harder to understand, however, when it was just Max and the book. He struggled to finish Act I, and then resolved to see if George Blaylock would help him. He had no idea that Blaylock had pledged the hated Delta Iota Kappa.
College Algebra and Public Speaking were easier to study for, although he dreaded having to make his first talk, which was scheduled the next day. The subject: "Tell us about yourself."
James and George had both finished studying early and were enjoying a game of eight-ball. Since George had received his father's letter, he was a new person. Much more outgoing, much more at ease. James had even laughingly suggested that if other pledges came to him for sexual orientation, he might refer them to George.
James had run the solids. George still had three stripes on the table and had missed the eleven into a corner pocket. The cue was a half-yard away from the twelve, which was directly in front of the eight ball. James had succeeded in a bank shot maybe once before. Now to win, he would have to bank the cue with enough "English" to keep the cue from following the eight into the opposite cushion and across the table into the side pocket.
James, who two weeks before didn't even know what "English" was, confidently said, "Eight to the left side."
Bam! The cue spun to a stop at the exact spot the eight had occupied. The eight ball bounced from the cushion across the table and into the side pocket. "My game!" James exulted.
"Goddamn," one of the actives who was watching said, "this boy's not only Sanderson's gift to freshmen women, he's getting to be a fucking pool shark too!"
George's roommate/mentor, a junior named Blake Ransom, had come into the game room, and interjected, "Oh, he's not good at everything. Winthrop can choose his partner. George and I will take them on in a rubber of Bridge. We can't expect these children to know how to play Sheepshead yet.
"Anybody game?" James asked. He had also become much more socially at ease since pledging DIKa.
"Why not?" Dick Partridge answered. "Ransom doesn't know an ace from an asshole anyway."
So the game began. The first five hands produced two games toward rubber, one to each side. There was a good bit of banter. Ransom suggested that whichever side won, the pledge on the other side should suck off the active on the winners' side. "My lord," James responded, "if the pledge is the declarer in the winning hand, shouldn't the active on the other side become the sucker?"
"Hell yeah!" George replied.
"We are still the lords!" Ransom trumpeted.
Bridge is thought of as a high-card game. All of the bidding systems are based on counting face cards. But in high-stakes hands, it is the distribution of the cards, more than their value that is determinative. The next hand that was dealt was one of those. The two actives had hands that were pretty common. Reasonable number of face cards and standard distribution. The two pledges had hands that each contained seven or eight cards of the same suit with "singletons" and "voids" in others.
Ransom, the dealer, opened with "One club."
Partridge to his right responded, "One spade."
"Three clubs," George stated, indicating unusual strength in his hand.
James realized what was going on. His partner had to have had at least four spades to bid, and James had eight spades in his hand. His partner must have the ace, king, queen, and one other card to have enough strength to open, since James held the jack. Since spades was the higher ranking suit, he lay low. "Three spades," he said.
Ransom held the high cards in clubs, and so he jumped to game on his next bid. "Five clubs," he said.
Partridge passed.
"Six clubs," George proudly announced. He was the only one who knew he held seven of them.
He was taken aback when James responded, "Six spades."
"Pass"
"Pass"
"Seven clubs."
"Seven spades."
Ransom held two aces. No way could he not make one of them good. "Double," he called.
"Pass."
"Pass."
"Redouble," James confidently responded.
James partner had to play the hand. And James couldn't have been sure that Ransom's lead would be to his void, but it was. James and Partridge made their grand slam. As it turned out, there were seven clubs to be made in one partnership and seven spades to be made in the other. One of the rarest occurrences in Bridge.
As to who sucked whom, if anyone, nobody said.
Paxton was to be second up in Speech class. It was small, eighteen students evenly divided between male and female. Paxton had made notes on a three-by-five card and came into class fairly confident that he would do well. The first speaker, however, addressed the class as if he had been talking to groups all his life.
"Good morning," he began. "I'm really pleased to be able to tell you something about myself. I'm from near Lexington, Kentucky. Grew up on a horse farm. My family has raised thoroughbreds for three generations, and I'm proud to say that horses from our stable have won all three of the triple-crown races, although—I'm sorry to say—not in the same year.
"It's really wonderful to grow up around these beautiful animals," he continued, and in the three minutes he was allotted, he painted a vivid word picture of what his privileged life had been like before he arrived at Sanderson.
In those same three minutes Paxton became a nervous wreck. He had been prepared to talk about being a high school football star from a poor family in Oklahoma whose athletic abilities had allowed him to come to this top notch school, but somehow all that seemed unimportant now.
The professor analyzed the speech, commented on how well organized it was, how it was touched with humor, and how naturally it had been presented. Given a chance to comment, members of the class were equally complementary. The palms of Paxton's hands were so moist with sweat that his index card was sticking to his palm.
"Next we have Mr. Paxton," the professor announced.
Paxton shuffled to the front of the room. "Well...uh...I...I guess you'd say I'm a country boy." He looked down at his notes, which seemed irrelevant now. "I...I played football in high school."
The three minutes were an eternity. What little he was able to say about himself between the "uhs" lacked any cohesion. He sat down feeling totally disgraced.
The professor, who had faced similar situations countless times before, was kind. "First," he said, "it's apparent that Mr. Paxton has not had to face an audience before; and it's understandable that he would be nervous." He did go on to analyze the presentation, however, trying to make suggestions without further deflating Paxton's ego; but the boy's depression was only worsened by the professor's considerate treatment.
Pledges at Acacia didn't have mentors like DIKa pledges did, so Paxton didn't have anyone to turn to, not that he would have unburdened himself, if he could have. For the first time he felt out of his league. To make matters worse, during scrimmage at that afternoon's practice he was given his first real chance to play, and he was pounded almost as bad as his first time out.
After practice Sammy Burns put his arm around Paxton's shoulder and said, "Tough afternoon, man? Don't worry about it."
"I'm o.k.," Paxton answered. "Had a bad day in class today." The older players arm around him was comforting, however, and when Burns patted his ass before walking away, Paxton didn't think anything about it.
Next day in English class Mr. Samuels chose to have the class stage the scene before the English sail for France in which Henry declares "no king of England if not king of France." "And to read Henry, let's see...Mr. Paxton?"
"Oh, no," Paxton declared, not out of shame or fear, but purely because he had admired George's reading so much. "I thought Mr. Blaylock read the part so well last time. Let him do it again."
"Well," Samuels laughed, it seems you have a fan club, Mr. Blaylock. You shall again be his majesty."
After class Paxton summoned up his courage. "Can I ask you a question?" he said to Blaylock.
"Sure you can."
"Well, you seem to handle Shakespeare real easy," Paxton continued. "I don't have a problem when you all read it in class, but when I try to read it myself, it just doesn't make sense. Could I study some with you?"
George thought, "Could this be the asshole that was putting James down and knocking DIKa?" Funny. But George had really appreciated the complement Paxton had given him in class, and he'd never been somebody who'd turn down a request for help. "Sure, I'd be glad to have the company," he answered.
Paxton got "that feeling" again. It was like he wanted to be really close friends with this guy. He hated to admit it, but it was because he though George was so good looking. But there were all sorts of good looking guys around. He was totally confused.
"When would you like to get together? George asked.
"Well, the team leaves for Little Rock tomorrow. I guess it would have to be Sunday afternoon after we've looked at the films."
"That's o.k. You can come over to the DIKa House, and we can use my room."
"You're a D.I.K.?" Paxton sounded shocked.
"Yeah," George smiled, "anything wrong with that?"
"Oh no. I just wouldn't have thought you were. Why don't we meet at the library?"
"Fine. Say seven o'clock in the main reading room?"
"Thanks. See you there."
None of the Sanderson games were ever televised, and the closest radio market, Norfolk, couldn't interest any businesses in sponsoring Sanderson's games; so the community had to wait until the network recap shows to find out that Arkansas had routed Sanderson 48-3. The score would have been even more lopsided, if Lou Holtz hadn't used his fourth string all through the last quarter. Even so, with less than two minutes left to play Sanderson's key wide receiver was injured, and the coach put Paxton in the game. On his only play, he was thrown for a loss.
George hadn't attached any significance to his appointment with Paxton, and certainly wouldn't have mentioned it to James, but James happened to say that Jessica had wondered what he and Paxton were discussing so intently after English class.
"Oh, would you believe?" George replied, "Mr. Smartass is having trouble reading Henry. He asked me for some help."
"And Good Neighbor Sam is goanna, I'll bet," James grinned.
"Hell, why not? I'm goanna meet him at the library tomorrow night.
"I offered to have him come over here, but he acted like the DIKa House was profane territory. I even doubt if he'd have asked for my help, if he'd known I was DIKa."
"He thinks we're a bunch of queers," James laughed. "But he'll be safe with you. You're only half-queer."
Paxton wasn't a happy camper when he left the team meeting Sunday afternoon. Nobody was. The game films made the team look like a bunch of kindergartners. And of course, Paxton's misstep was the highlight of Sanderson's last possession. But he arrived at the library promptly at seven. George was waiting.
"Sorry about your loss," George greeted him. "But you didn't really expect to win, did you?"
"No, but we didn't expect to loose by so much." Again Paxton got that feeling. Losing didn't seem to matter so much when he was with George.
"Well, let's take a look at Henry," George suggested; and he began with the first Chorus speech, suggesting that they look first at the meter.
"If you read the lines first to get the stresses in the iambic pentameter, it makes it easier to understand the cadences of the lines. Then the meaning is a little easier to see, and sometimes the unfamiliar words make more sense.
"That's a trick one of the masters at my prep school taught us. We had to read a play by Shakespeare every year."
Paxton followed George's advice and found that it was easier to understand what he was reading. They read through what had already been covered in class fairly quickly. Then George suggested that they read the Chorus speech opening Act II and the scene before Harfleur. "Samuels is bound to call on you to read again, and I'll bet it'll be one or the other of those. You won't be able to beg off a second time."
They carefully rehearsed both speeches, and Paxton began to sound convincing, a little bit anyway. The warmth he felt had little to do with the rousing text of the play, however. It had everything to do with being close to George. "Can we meet again?" he asked.
"Sure," George said, "but not here. Come over to the DIKa House. We can be louder over there."
Paxton was almost happy to agree.
He remained behind, too hyped to turn in. He reread the passages they'd rehearsed, counted the stresses, and marked the words he felt should be emphasized. He didn't leave until the library closed.
Next morning, Mr. Samuels spent half the period discussing the death of Falstaff, and his importance in the plays he appeared in. He had part of the tavern scene read, Jessica reading the part of Hostess. Then he called on another student to read the Chorus speech. He read without much passion. Then as George had guessed, the professor called on Paxton to read the king's exhortation to his soldiers.
Paxton's Okie accent, half Elvis and half Will Rogers, didn't recommend itself to Shakespeare's stirring words, but standing before the class and seeing George's reassuring smile, he began confidently. "Once more into the breach, dear friends..."
As he followed the underlines he had put in his book, the cadences begun to come naturally and he warmed to his task. Watching George clench his fists to urge him on, his "God for Harry England and St. George ("Gaud far Hair-i, Aing-lund end Saynt Jawge!")" could be heard all the way down the corridor and provoked a spontaneous round of applause as robust as that given for Mr. Samuels rendering of the first Chorus speech the week before.
"Well, Mr. Paxton, it seems that you have a fan club too," the professor said. "Well done.
"Next time class, we'll go on to Scene 2, and discuss the role of comic relief in the plays."
As they leave class Paxton again thanked George for his help.
"No sweat," George answered. "You did a great job." He throws his arm around Paxton's shoulder. It was just a friendly gesture, but to Paxton it's like a jolt of electricity has passed through his body. He wanted to reciprocate in the worst way. He could even have hugged his companion, but...
Copyright 2012 by Macout Mann. All rights reserved.