"McPledge" by Jack Whaler
- Roi Fainéant
- 8 hours ago
- 4 min read
Pledgemaster Brayden stood at the basement altar with his head hunched low to keep from hitting the pink insulation above. He was robed up in the chapter’s colors, red hood on and everything. We looked up at him from a circle of fold-out chairs. It was silent. This was a solemn occasion, after all. An emergency meeting.
“There is an issue with the pledges,” he said. We straightened in our seats. “A respect issue,” he said. We straightened ourselves even more.
Then Brayden yelled. “They’re too laid back about initiation!” His voice echoed. He shook his head. The shadow from the overhead lights made his goatee look like a full-on beard. “There was an incident the other day: some of them were seen playing frisbee between classes.” He paused again. “Frisbee! At the start of I-Week! We earned our brotherhood. We suffered. And now it looks like we’re taking it easy on the pledges, like they’re better than us!”
“Oh fuck no!” we yelled. We stomped.
“Do you remember what we went through?” continued Brayden. “They blindfolded my class and drove us into the woods. Someone went, ‘Campus is that way,’ and gestured toward some trees. Then they drove away. We had to walk for hours in the dark. I wasn’t sure we’d make it.”
We cheered. Brayden went on. “And now our pledges are having a good time! Kyle, tell us what Pledge Russell said after his woods walk.”
Brother Kyle scooched his chair back to stand. “Oh, uh, Russell thanked us for the workout. He said he'd skip cardio the next day. Dude gave me a high-five.”
“A high-fucking-five!” yelled Brayden. “They need to learn respect! And they’ll learn best through hunger.”
We roared. Brayden grinned. And it was decided: we would starve the pledges.
---
We confiscated their cafeteria cards and assigned brothers to mealtime supervisor shifts. The pledges were allowed half a chicken breast and a quarter cup of rice a day, no exceptions. The fat football pledge? Half a chicken breast. The hobbit pledge? Half a chicken breast.
A day passed. Two. Three. There were reports of pledges playing pickup soccer. Rumors circulated that Russell had gotten laid. During I-Week!
And so a second emergency meeting was called. Again, Brayden stooped beneath the pink insulation. “The fuckers must be sneaking snacks,” he said. “This is insult-to-injury territory now.”
“Fuck those guys!” we yelled.
“I have a new plan, though,” went Brayden. “Bring the pledges here tomorrow night.”
---
The next night, we herded the ten pledges into the basement. We practically pushed them down the stairs, then actually pushed them onto the cracked concrete in the middle of the chairs.
“Sit,” said Brayden. They sat on the floor. We stared down from our seats. They glanced at each other.
“You pledges think you’re so sneaky with your snacks,” said Brayden. “You couldn’t take a few days of being hungry.” His gaze settled on Russell in particular. Russell’s eyes were glazed over. Dude was wearing a striped bathrobe.
“Well, we’ve heard you,” Brayden said. “And we’ve rethought our ways. In fact, we’re sorry. To apologize, we got you dinner.”
Brayden raised a hand and snapped. The basement door opened and the smell of oil came in. Four brothers descended with a wooden board over their shoulders like pallbearers. There was a straight-up pyramid of McDonald’s Chicken McNugget boxes balanced on top.
“We got you fifty boxes,” said Brayden. “Twenty nuggets in each. One thousand nuggets. A hundred for each pledge. It would be disrespectful to not eat all the food we bought you.”
The pledges glanced at each other. Their eyes darted. “Are you guys for real?” asked Russell. The other pledges looked his way.
“Yes,” said Brayden, “You have one hour. And afterward, you’ll be cleaning your puke off the floor.” Then he laughed. We laughed. It echoed. The pallbearing brothers dropped the board in front of the pledges and the pyramid tumbled. Boxes scattered across the concrete. Nuggets spilled. The air was thick.
There was a pause. Then Russell went, “Dude, I love McDonald’s.”
“Yeah, dude, we got hella nugs,” said another pledge. They distributed boxes and ripped them open. They tore the cardboard. They forced nuggets into their mouths. Russell stuffed them in three-at-a-time.
“You’ll slow down,” went Brayden. “You’ll see.”
The pledges didn’t respond. There were a lot of chewing noises. We sat. Were we really gonna watch these guys eat a bunch of nuggets? Were we supposed to like, enjoy this? Some live-action mukbang shit? One brother glanced at his phone. Another shifted in his seat.
The pledges kept eating. At ten minutes, their pace was unchanged.
Brayden paced around the room. “You’ll see,” he said.
Brayden scanned the room. There was no puke. There were no gagging pledges. There was a growing pile of empty boxes. His eyes flicked. The pledges had oil all over their chins, but they were smiling. Brayden’s grin vanished. “Wait,” he said, “Stop.” They did not stop. Maybe the appetite of starving eighteen-year-olds who hadn’t really been sneaking snacks was just too much to contain once unleashed.
“Stop!” Brayden yelled. He squatted down to eye level with Russell. “If you don’t stop, you’ll be known as McPledge.”
“Fucking tight,” went Russell, mid-chew, “That name is sick.”
“You don’t want to be McPledge!” went Brayden.
“Nah, dude, I kinda do,” said Russell. He grinned. Chicken showed between his teeth.
The pledges snickered. One raised a nugget into the dim basement light. “McPledge!” he yelled.
“McPledge!” went another. “McPledge!” They sounded off with mouths full, and hardly in unison, “McPledge! McPledge! McPledge!”
Brayden clenched his fists. He stepped toward them.
But then a voice came from the perimeter, “McPledge!” Brayden whirled and glared, but we had already started. It came from all sides now. “McPledge! McPledge! McPledge!” Brayden spun and spun, his eyes first piercing, then pleading, then down at the floor, and all of a sudden, we were laughing.
I was laughing.