by W. R. Bolen
“It was great! I spent a month in Costa Rica studying abroad. I’ve missed you, though! Did you move in today?”
“I did, actually. Wanna go take shots in my room?”
“You know I do.”
We headed to my room and took shots of vodka while she told me about Costa Rica, and then she grabbed my high school photo album off my desk and we looked through it together sitting on my bed. When she leaned into me to point at a picture of me on my high school baseball team, the sexual tension grew and I tilted her chin with my index finger and pressed my lips into hers. I pulled away from her slowly, nonchalantly stood up, closed my door, and locked it.
“I was hoping you’d do that,” she said.
We made out for a few minutes, and when I started a battle with the button on her shorts she reached down and stopped me.
“You’re going to hate me,” she said. “It’s that time of the month.”
“Ohhh… well, I understand,” I said. “No reason to feel bad. I’m pretty sure I don’t hate you.”
“Well, let me make absolutely sure,” she said as she rolled me on my side and straddled me.
She ripped my belt from my shorts and pulled them down with her teeth. All I could do was sit back and enjoy the show.
It turned out Lacey gave the best damn blowjob I had ever gotten. She finished me off so fast that I felt like I had been robbed. Afterwards she washed her mouth out in the bathroom, kissed me on the cheek, and said goodbye. The “fish in a barrel” analogy didn’t even do the frat castle justice.
It was only 1:45 a.m., but I was so satisfied, full of food, and still hammered that I couldn’t even bring myself to rejoin the party. I figured there was no way I was going to improve upon that ending to my first night in the house anyway, so I made sure my bathroom and bedroom door were both locked so that Turbo wouldn’t come in later and fuck with me, and slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Most guys just go to the house to party, and don an entirely new attitude of arrogance while they’re there. But when you live in the house, that attitude becomes a lifestyle, and the drinking never stops. The parties are one thing, but it’s the ridiculous shit that goes on outside those parties that most people never get to experience. It’s something you have to live to truly understand, but these TFMs will help…
On Living at the Fraternity House
Telling fat chicks that the frat castle is at capacity. TFM.
Our neighbors listen to awesome music, whether they like it or not. TFM.
The chimney at the house is filled to the top with beer cans from roof drinking. TFM.
Walked past three bathrooms in the frat castle to piss off the balcony. TFM.
It’s not illegal if it happens in the frat house. TFM.
Getting an awkward stare from your neighbors because you brought home a screamer last night. TFM.
Our fraternity house has his/her bathrooms and co-ed showers. TFM.
The house is a combination of a country club, a brothel, and a Chevy dealership. TFM.
The phrase “hold my beer” leading to a trip to the ER. TFM.
“Wanna go take shots in my room?” TFM.
Stand-up doggie in the frat house stall. TFM.
The morning struggle between “too hungover to get up” and “if I don’t get a drink of water I’m going to die.” TFM.
Backup doors, because you’ll need them. TFM.
Safety is never first. TFM.
The self-loathing house manager. TFM.
The frat castle roof is the 19th tee. TFM.
Slip ’n slide at the house. TFM.
The Tailgate
WHEN DONE RIGHT, TAILGATING FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL offers a unique scenario in which a young scholar can display many outstanding qualities: godlike alcohol tolerance, insensitivity to the personal space of others, the ability to throw a tight-spiraled football and showcase superior genetics, and a wardrobe that would make JFK feel like a goth. During my sophomore year, preceding the biggest game of the season against our rival, I turned in my finest tailgating performance. The following is a chronology of events on that game day.
7 a.m. Somewhere in the house, someone cracks a Keystone. The sound echoes through the silent halls like a gunshot. That first beer is the starter pistol for the entire house of alcoholics to start binging.
7:01 a.m. Adrenaline for the biggest football day of the year is tingling in my balls, and I spring out of bed to join whoever has already begun the process of getting game-day drunk. Kickoff is at 2:30 p.m., but if you aren’t tailgating with a solid buzz by 9 a.m., you’re a fucking rookie.
7:05 a.m. I enter my bathroom and discover Pledge Yates seated on my toilet. I laugh as I remember drunkenly ordering him to be on my toilet at 6:50 a.m. sharp to make sure the seat is warm for my morning dump. He is the Porcelain Pledge.
7:20 a.m. After aggressively relieving myself, I gear up in my finest school pride apparel to join the group of early-rising boozers on the front porch. Brooks Brothers tie, matching pants, blazer, and loafers. I’m fucking handsome. As I exit my room I can smell the house chef’s eggs and bacon.
7:25 a.m. I sip my first beer on the porch as someone’s slampiece wearing men’s basketball shorts, a large date party T-shirt, and high heels scurries out of the house past me on her way off the property. I reflexively rate her a 7 on a scale of 1–10. Turbo starts a “WALK OF SHAME!” chant and we keep it going until her car pulls out of the parking lot.
7:27 a.m. I crack open beer no. 2.
7:28 a.m. Another unfortunate girl exits the house, this time jogging and holding her heels. She is beat. I rate her a 4. She knows what’s coming and attempts to cover her ears as she runs by our group of hecklers, so our “WALK OF SHAME!” chant turns into a chorus of boos after a few rounds.
7:32 a.m. Eight of us circle up on the porch and I shotgun beer no. 3. The day has officially begun. Beer drips down my chin as I spike my empty can to the ground.
7:35 a.m. I notice a group of our pledges arriving in a fleet of trucks. They are returning from setting up the tent, satellite, televisions, beer pong tables, couches, and chairs at our reserved tailgate area outside the stadium. Now they will be serving our breakfast.
7:36 a.m. I crack open beer no. 4.
7:37 a.m. I throw empty beer no. 4 at a pledge as he walks past me into the house.
7:38 a.m. I crack open beer no. 5.
7:55 a.m. I pour my first mimosa in the dining room as a pledge waiter sets my breakfast in front of me. My plate is covered in eggs and seven strips of crispy bacon. I slosh champagne-spiked orange juice around in my mouth and the sound of our university fight song fills the room as brothers and coeds file in to feast and drink. In my book, they’re fucking late.
8:10 a.m. The room is packed with over seventy people clad in game-day attire. We are an eating, breathing, drinking mob of sports fan greatness, ready to join tens of thousands of others on the concrete tailgate battlefield.
8:30 a.m. Two mimosas later, the alcohol in my system from last night’s rager has combined with this morning’s intake to skyrocket my BAC above the legal driving limit. At this hour on a normal day that would make me one of the most pathetic degenerates in America, but today it makes me a fucking war machine of school pride.
8:40 a.m. I head outside to get in line for the bus.
8:45 a.m. I high-five our regular bus driver, Frank, on my way up the bus steps and immediately grab a fresh cold one from one of the five coolers on board. Frank gives my drinking habits a nod of respect.
8:50 a.m. Turbo and I are hanging out the bus windows yelling obnoxiously at every girl we pass. “Hey girl, you want your first baby to have a trust fund?” hollers Turbo. A girl in a floral dress takes particular offense and shoots him a nasty glare after he shouts, “Pull up that flower dress and show off those stems!”
9 a.m. The bus parks and we bust through the rear emergency exit doors instead of waiting in line to go out the front. The air is filled with the smell of
cigarettes, barbecue, fresh-cut grass, and American freedom.
9:05 a.m. I scan the horizon and head straight toward our fraternity flag, which is waving proudly just below Old Glory on the flagpole at our tent. The flag serves as the North Star when I’m sailing blackout drunk through the sea of tailgate tents.
9:07 a.m. The five-minute break between the bus and our tent gives my liver the only chance it will have all day to catch its breath. Unfortunately, my lungs are not so lucky. I drunkenly demand a cigarette from a stranger, and suck it down like the last drops of a milkshake.
9:10 a.m. I throw in a man-sized dip and take in the 75 degrees of sunshine. Perfect football weather. There is no fucking way we lose.
9:30 a.m. Tailgate is in full swing. I win my first game of beer pong and celebrate with a beer bong.
9:45 a.m. I win my second game of beer pong and celebrate with a beer bong.
9:46 a.m. I take my talents to the washer boards to dominate the old balls seniors with Turbo. Some neighboring tailgaters who are obviously prominent alumni are staring at us with concern as we stomp along to “Wagon Wheel,” yelling every word at the top of our lungs.
9:50 a.m. I glare around the crowd looking for anyone wearing colors that could resemble the visiting team’s. I spot a lone enemy in our opponent’s gear weaving through the crowd under the tent next to ours.
9:51 a.m. I jump up on a couch, point at the enemy with authority, and yell, “You’re going down, sheep-fucker!”
9:52 a.m. An empty beer can flies out of our tailgate and clanks off the enemy’s right shoulder. He shakes his head and flees, defeated.
9:53 a.m. Police officers warn us that they will shut down our tailgate if we attack visiting fans.
9:54 a.m. Our fight song is turned on, and our tent erupts into a chorus of cheers, high fives, and fist bumps. I take out my dip and throw it at a passing pledge. It sticks to his chest.
9:55 a.m. I rummage through the ice in our biggest Yeti cooler, searching for another beer, but pull out a handle of McCormick vodka. I hold it and debate whether or not to take a pull. I consider the fact that some total hottie who gets super wet when guys chug vodka could be watching, and she’d be turned off if I just put it down. I unscrew the cap, take a huge swig, and vomit into the cooler as I drop the handle back in and slam the lid closed.
9:56 a.m. I wipe my chin with a paper towel. It seems no one has noticed my contribution to the cooler. I stumble to another cooler and grab an American Bud to wash the taste of vomit from my mouth.
10:10 a.m. I lean against the hot dog table to support myself, totally shitfaced and loving every second of it. Monte strolls up to the tailgate, now hours late by my standards. He is as sober as a priest, yapping away in my face, but I can’t understand a fucking word he’s saying because I’m too busy trying to process the fact that the game is still four hours away.
10:20 a.m. “Turbo, give me some fucking Adderall. I know you have some. I need it.”
10:21 a.m. I fold the Adderall up in a napkin and crush it up by hitting it repeatedly with the back of my iPhone. Then I unfold the napkin, lean down, and snort it. My nostrils burn as Turbo repeatedly tugs an imaginary train horn and chugs his beer in excitement. He knows the animal inside me is about to be unleashed, and he’s ready to embrace it.
11 a.m. The Porcelain Pledge regretfully fulfills his obligation to obey me as an active and prepares yet another beer bong for me. He can judge me, but there’s nothing he can do to stop me. I am Hurricane Townes.
11:45 a.m. A freshman Zeta is pulled away from me by her big sister, who tells me I need to calm down and sober up. I yell, “I got here at nine o’clock, damn it!” as they walk away, but they don’t seem to understand. All the Adderall has done is increase the rate at which I slur.
12:30 p.m. A police officer orders me to relax after I flip a couch following a beer pong win.
12:35 p.m. Alcohol has eaten through the eggs, bacon, and hot dogs I’ve consumed, and I am now a walking zombie of debauchery.
12:45 p.m. I am tongue deep with the solid 4 who left the house to a chorus of boos this morning. I know it’s her, and I don’t care.
12:50 p.m. I throw in another man-sized dip.
1 p.m. I spot another visiting fan two tents over. I grab the football from Monte, who was playing catch with a pledge, and hurl it as hard as I can at the outsider douchebag’s head. It sails through the air in a perfect spiral, and then hits the kid standing next to my target. He spills his beer all over the guy I was aiming at. I duck behind a couch.
1:20 p.m. I take another shotgun to the face as people chant, “TOWNES! TOWNES! TOWNES!” around me. I spike the can as they cheer, realize I just swallowed my dip, stumble out from under the tent, climb into the back of a pledge’s truck, and throw up in the bed.
1:35 p.m. I exit the truck bed and see that people are finally making their way toward the stadium. I stumble in the mob’s direction, but out of the corner of my eye I see a group of guys clad in the other team’s colors throwing their empty beers and hot dog wrappers on the ground under our tent. One of them has both middle fingers pointed directly at me, and I hear him say, “Hope you’re ready to lose, you white trash fuck.” With a running start I barrel-roll over a couch, knock over a trash can, and clothesline the fucker with perfect Hulk Hogan form.
1:36 p.m. Two of his friends attempt to pull me off him as I give him a vicious noogie, and one of them lands a shot on the back of my head before several Alphas break it up. They restrain me and throw me into the back of the puke truck just before police arrive to investigate. Pledge Danna tells me to lie down, climbs into the driver’s seat, and hits the gas.
1:37 p.m. As Pledge Danna navigates intense game-day traffic, I drunkenly try to position myself so that none of the throw-up in the bed of his truck touches me.
1:40 p.m. I pass out in the fetal position at a red light with my cheek against the cold, yack-covered steel.
9:45 p.m. I come to in the bed of a random truck parked in the fraternity house lot. I immediately realize I’ve missed the game. It looks like people are drinking on the back porch.
9:50 p.m. I crack open beer no. 1.
College football provides an atmosphere unlike any other sport in the world. Tailgates are planned weeks before the season even starts, and wild amounts of money are invested in season tickets, tents, grills, attire, and alcohol. In big-time college towns the entire city embraces the tradition and shows up in full force along with students, alumni, and faculty. These TFMs represent this phenomenon in all its glory…
On College Football Tailgating
We dress like we’re going to church on game days, because this is God’s country. TFM.
Purebred black lab puppy at tailgate. It’s like fishing with dynamite. TFM.
Perfecting the one-handed-football-catch-without-spilling-my-beer move. TFM.
Good luck kicking me out of this tailgate. My granddad’s name is on the stadium. TFM.
If my life were a football game there would be a lot of excessive celebration penalties. TFM.
Blacked out at noon for the 5:30 game, came to singing the National Anthem in the stadium. TFM.
Slapping a flat brim off a GDI during the National Anthem. TFM.
Being at the game, but still having to watch the highlights to see what happened. TFM.
Yes, I do stand throughout the whole football game. Yes, I do wait for the band to play the alma mater after the game. Yes, I do sing the Star Spangled Banner. No, I do not remember any of it. TFM.
4½ year plan just for one more football season. TFM.
Blazers and shorts. TFM.
Asserting dominance during tailgate. TFM.
Watching the big screen at tailgate. TFM.
The post-tailgate hookup. TFM.
Popping bottles. TFM.
Sorostitute Stories
IN HIGH SCHOOL, GETTING LAID WAS LIKE LEARNING a foreign language. It took a lot of time, a lot of effort, and was difficult as fuck to master.
Convincing girls to participate in an act that parents, teachers, and doctors have painted in a negative light since they were old enough to understand is no easy task. As guys, the deck was completely stacked against us and opportunities were few and far between, but when those girls waved bye-bye to their parents, teachers, and doctors, the game changed.
With the freedom of college came an entirely different outlook. Everyone was fucking. Campus was basically a sex commune. Every night the BAC of the student body took a sharp turn upward and the odds of getting a girl in bed improved dramatically for even the most unsightly scholars. This was even truer for those of us fortunate enough to be members of upstanding Greek organizations with tilted moral compasses and a never-ending supply of alcohol.
Four specific experiences took me through the progressive stages of my own sexual awakening during school, each of which was important for different reasons. They made me who I am today, and without them I’d just be another clueless idiot thrusting away with a girl who deserves better and is just hoping it will end soon.
Stage 1: Busch League
As a freshman on a campus filled with morally loosened girls, I had no idea how to handle the clashing lifestyles of binge drinking and sexual promiscuity. That quickly became clear with Allison and the cannon incident during rush, and my failure to bang Amy on bid night, but I got better as I went and had my successes with girls like Lacey at the frat castle. There was plenty of opportunity to gain experience and become a drunken intercourse artist, because everyone in college parties for the same reason: to get ass. The alcohol was really just mental lubricant.
