By: Maya Barillas Mohan, Staff Writer, Staff Writer
To think that every decision I made in my life somehow resulted in going to a frat party is no small burden. I was the classic “fifth year” SFU student, grey around the eyes from all my time spent in windowless classes, just like everyone else in my cohort.
Usually a homebody, it had to be serious business to get me out. But the grapevine exchanged hushed, secretive whispers the SFU frat had to take such intense precautions to get around the bad reputation surrounding frats, the brothers were “basically nocturnal.” That means primarily active at night. This kind of checked out, because no one so much as mentioned the frat in class, let alone confirmed actually belonging to it. I needed to see this firsthand: was DKE (Delta Kappa Epsilon) hazing new recruits in a whole new way that defied language (or species). For full investigative potential, I went undercover.
At the door, I was asked to present “the Eventbrite thingy” by someone who wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Nice sunglasses,” I said.
The dim lighting of the Robert C. Brown hall tutorial rooms had prepared me for the damp, boozy lustre of this frat house. My eyes hardly needed any time to adjust to this stifled space illuminated by a single electric disco ball suspended from the ceiling. Within moments of my arrival, I was instructed to keep my shoes on. This hooded figure would be my guide for the night. “Drinks are over there,” an acrylic-nailed hand with hairy palms jutted out from the darkness and pointed me towards a small folding table littered with bottles and sweating cans. I missed the altar to American novelist/party animal Charles Bukowski, because at most parties I’ve been to, the solo cups aren’t half overturned . . . and the snacks look a lot less like litter. It was possible the snacks had been foraged by raccoons. SFU, amiright?
A warm can of IPA in hand, I roamed the frat house with a distinct squelch in my step. I think it came from the stickiness coating the laminate flooring. Their decor didn’t help; the house reminded me of the inside of donation bins (more like trash bins) adjacent to the dorms on move-out day. Classy! “Don’t go upstairs,” the figure in the hoodie had cautioned me earlier. So, I went downstairs to the basement.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. A beer pong table stretched nearly the whole width of the room. Groups of four wobbly players (almost as if balancing on something) flanked each side of this gargantuan table, and onlookers with beady eyes swayed as though a concert was in session. A player with silvery blonde, almost gray hair, spun in place, shot, and miserably missed the cup. There was no hollow echo of the ball as it bounced, likely totally stuck in place on the gummy flooring. The crowd erupted into a chant, each syllable garbled as voices joined in: RE-DEMP-TION SHOT RE-DEM-SHIN SHAWT RID-EMP-SHIN SHOT RE-DE-MSHIN SHAW.
The pong players quickly rearranged themselves into a triangular formation. A player with a silverish buzzcut scrambled to the centre, pupils black in anticipation. He was launched into the air. Literally standing atop a platform of pongmates, he yelled, “TRICKSHOT!” before flinging the ball towards the cups. It sank perfectly.
In my hurry to get out of the basement before anyone realized I was there, I tripped over an extension cord. The red glow of the strip lights pasted around the perimeter of the room flickered, and then glared white before cutting out completely. A hiss of surprise reverberated through the room and everyone dispersed to the corners. Before the shadows swallowed up the partygoers, I realized the flash of striped tail was not a mistake, or an IPA-addled hallucination (I had let the whole thing evaporate).
The brothers in this fraternity were racoons.
