Gallon Challenge (Chapter of a completed Novel)

Anxious. Overwhelmed. Thousands of undergraduates converged on the quad. The throng pressed in on me as I elbowed my way through. My height made me stand out, I just knew it (I’m 6’3”, by the way), but I tried to use it to appear confident. It didn’t work.

     I imagined Allison holding my hand again. I imagined other things as I moved up the stairs to the entrance of the SAC amid riotous co-eds. Like endless lines of seemingly indecipherable code, I managed to break the melee up into more user-friendly pieces of information, deciding what was relevant to cracking into the system. I just had to look beyond the sea of suntans and Solo cups and figure out what was really going on.

     I started in the center. In front of, and in the fountain, girls in long pearl necklaces and sparkling dresses danced together like a scene from The Great Gatsby.

     I thought for a second about getting in between with them, but I honestly didn’t want to get my clothes wet. Gamma Phi Beta.

     To the right of the fountain, next to the bust of Davy himself, girls with swim goggles around their necks and toothy smiles waved their arms in unison. Delta Delta Delta. Sisterhood of Synchronized Swimmers.

     To the left, beyond the plaque commemorating the graduates lost in wars past, the female representatives of the black community at Crockett practiced their step routines. Delta Xi Phi getting krunk.

     On the historical steps up to the admin building was a career cover band and belt-buckles and George Strait country boys dressed country strong. The southern twang was loud. Kappa Sigma boot-scootin’. Why? I mean, why? Eighteen years in the South and I still didn’t get the appeal. Anything but rap or country.

     Entire quad: cracked. Focus left.

     On the outer edge of the quad, straw sucking guys in flannel crowded the top of a flatbed, and bales of hay surrounded the truck while smoke rose from a grill in front. The cowgirls seemed to prefer this laid-back CCR scene to honkey-tonk. Kappa Alpha Order. A maybe.

     Pi Kappa Alpha had a trampoline set up with girls in two-piecers bouncing up and down. Up and down. Up. And. Down.

     To the right of the quad: a seven-foot black tower with a flame shooting from the top. Standing guard of the tower was a long-haired guy painted brown with a white hand print over his face. Next to him a wizard figure held his staff to the ground in front of him with both hands. Delta Upsilon.

     Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy Lord of the Rings as much as anyone else, but I saw immediately what my life would be like if I pledged with them. I would be more of a pariah than I was in high school.

     Closer to the SAC: Omega Psi Phi. MMA octagon. Blood-lust.

     Behind the octagon was an unmanned Glee Club station and the Leftists silently petitioning a mascot name-change from the Cherokees to something more culturally sensitive.

     Code cracked, I felt confident enough to move through the crowds again. I did linger at the trampoline for an extended minute.

     “Hey hottie – come up here with us,” the girls begged for me to join them, but there was no way in hell I could manage the logistics of jumping with them while hiding the inevitable erection.

     I felt myself blushing, so I waved them off and tried to regain my confidence and focus. At the flatbed, I scoped out the men of KAO and looked for potential people to start a conversation with. Three guys encircled the grill, passing around a large stack of folded money. A scraggly-looking guy was walking the other direction. I initially thought the worst – drugs, probably. But I shrugged the thought off and made my way to them.

     “How’s it going?” I said. It was best just to dive into conversation, of course.

     “You here to check out Kappa Alpha Order?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Great. I’m Jake.”

     “Eli.”

     “We’re a newer frat – we’ve only been at Crockett for three years. But we’ve been doing a lot of great things in the community, you know, philanthropic work. And of course, we’ve got killer parties nearly every weekend. The Pi Kappa’s are our sister sorority.”

     I looked back at the trampoline again where he pointed. “Nice.”

     “What’s your name again?”

     “Eli.”

     “This is Eli,” Jake said to the group. “He’s thinking about pledging. Eli, this is William, our president.”

     “Wassup,” I said with a firm handshake. Wassup? Really? I wanted to literally kick myself – I deserved the pain.

     “Listen,” William said, “I’m not doing this for everyone, Eli, but I’m offering – lookout!” we dodged a water balloon “––someone a chance to join our frat without pledging.”

      This could be it, I thought, my chance to get in with the least amount of effort. But...

     “What’s the catch?” I said.

     “It’s simple.You can skip the pledging process if you can complete one single task. Do it, you’re in. But if you fail you’re out. No chance to pledge.”

     “Okay,” I said.

     “Anywhere,” William said.

     “Okay.” The stakes were rising.

     “Eli, are you our guy? Will you represent Kappa Alpha Order?”

     Our Guy? But should I risk it? “What’s the task?”

     “The Gallon Challenge,” William said. “Drink a gallon of milk in half an hour without blowing chunks. It’s not hazing. I mean, it’s milk, not Natty Ice.”

     I had no idea what Natty Ice was, but I didn’t want to look stupid, so I didn’t ask.

     William was distracted and kept looking over my shoulder, waving at people he knew. “A few other people have already declined. I don’t even remember who they are, and probably won’t.”

     I thought of all the stories of those who survived pledge week. Harder than boot camp. Sleep deprivation. Physical exhaustion. Social humiliation. Emotional instability. For an entire week.

     I knew I loved a good challenge. But I couldn’t decide which one to choose – one that would last for thirty minutes, or one for seven days.

     “I just have one question,” I said. “Is it two percent, or whole?”

Thirty minutes. That was it. Time and a gallon of milk were my only obstacles. The only things in the way of a higher social status, wild parties and hot girls. Maybe if I started dating someone else, Al would get jealous. That’s what happened in movies, anyway.

I couldn’t help but look up from my gallon sitting on a wooden stool in front of me and into the crowd and wonder how I got there. The rush had been put on hold for the challenge. The bloody, shirtless MMA guys were hitting on the trampoline girls. Gandolf was using his staff and shouting LOTR lines to hold back the crowd from pressing in on me and the other guys in the challenge. Lord, I thought, please don’t let me end up on a lower social rung than Delta Upsilon.

Twenty-five minutes. The crowd was a blur. I had already drunk the first quarter of the gallon. I looked to the other hopefuls representing each frat to see where they were. They were all fairing the same.

Twenty minutes. Half a gallon down. Me. Towering over my milk and the crowd. I felt unstoppable. Half a gallon in ten minutes. I had a full twenty minutes to chug down the other half. I could take my time if I wanted. I thought about asking for some Oreos or Nutter Butters.

Fifteen minutes. My pace had slowed considerably. I began shivering. The cold milk was freezing me from the inside out. Heavy. Yeah, that’s a good word. Cold and heavy.

I still had about a third left. I knew I had to think about finishing. About not being black-listed from all the frats. About becoming a social outcast. All eyes. On me. The initial cheers from the crowd were turning into impatient screams to keep going.

Ten minutes. I walked in circles around my milk. I lied down in the grass. So cold.

The milk was destroying my stomach. Destroying my life. This was it. I wasn’t going to make it. A quarter gallon to go. I couldn’t imagine taking another sip. I could have eaten a bowl of cereal every day for the rest of my life. That was before. Bile made its way up my throat in small, intermittent bursts into my mouth. The guy next to me retched.

Five minutes. The crowd was alive again. Two people remained: me and some guy representing Omega Psi Phi. The Omega guy only had a few sips left, but he hadn’t drunk anything in the past seven minutes. I took another sip. I had a good five or six sips left. One sip a minute.

The final countdown began. One minute left. I still had about three sips left. Omega still hadn’t drunk anything, but looked like he was going to make a final stand. I had tears in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine shivering any harder if I were naked in Alaska. I let out involuntary grunts. I didn’t care about living anymore. Rest. Give me rest, I thought.

     But the crowd wouldn’t let me rest, and I wouldn’t let the crowd down. Sip. thirty seconds left. Sip. Twenty seconds. Ten. Nine. Eight. The anxiety paralyzed me. My legs were numb and I dropped to my hands and knees with the milk still in my hand. I looked at the grass and saliva built up in my mouth. I knew what was coming. So close, though. 

     One large sip left. One left. C’mon!

     Five. Four. Three . . .

     Omega man didn’t make it the last two seconds. Neither did I.