Pigs at the Fraternity Party
by Richard K. Lyon
Though he was looking around the room nervously, Joel Bedford was not concerned with the worn-out furniture or the empty beer cans and pizza boxes that littered the floor. Instead three things worried him.
The first was the scale in the corner, a scale normally used for weighing hogs. The second was the box of pig masks beside it while the third was the large picture window. Right now the window showed a tree-lined street in Alabama in twilight. Soon, however, night would fall, and the darkness outside would make the window into a mirror.
Darkness would also bring Sir John and, since Sir John had previously been invited into the fraternity house, there was no hope that lack of an invitation would now keep him out. The mirror-like window was a problem for Joel because he didn’t want his fraternity brothers to notice that Sir John had no reflection.
Just now three of his frat brothers were present, Sam, Harry and George, all of them seniors, and the largest guys on the football team. If he could get them to leave the frat house that would solve his problem but there was small chance of that. He’d argued strongly against tomorrow night’s party and they suspected him of wanting to sabotage the scales.
Night’s shadows were getting very long and Sir John did not require complete darkness. Unless Joel could...
Opening the front door of the frat house without the slightest sound, a tall, broad-shouldered man stepped inside. The hints of silver in his full black beard gave him the appearance of being in his early middle years.
Stepping forward rapidly Joel said, “Grandfather, please don’t make trouble! You’ve no idea how hard it was for me to get into this fraternity or the good it’ll do my career—”
“Don’t call me grandfather!” Sir John said. “I’m not. I’m your godfather. I took an oath at your baptism to teach you the path of righteousness, and now I find you swearing brotherhood with evil men and plotting with them to commit an act of monstrous cruelty!”
Moving with ponderous speed, Sam, Harry and George got up and began approaching Joel and Sir John. “What’s going on here?” Sam asked.
“Guys,” Joel began, “I want to introduce my grandfather. He’s—”
“My important relation to Joel is that I’m his Godfather,” Sir John declared. “I’m oath-bound to teach him the path of righteousness. Naturally when I learned of the party you’re planning, I came here to keep my oath.”
“Whatya mean?” asked Harry.
“I mean that you’ve invited several badly overweight girls to this ‘pig’ party. You mean to blindfold them, put them on a scale normally used to weigh hogs, and force them to wear pig faces. This is grossly evil, and I’m here to stop you.”
“Hey, man, come on!” George objected. “By inviting these girls we’re doing them a favor. They need a wake-up call. They’re so fat nobody wants to date them.”
“Aha,” Sir John said, “then by your own admission your intended victims are pathetic creatures. They’re desperately eager for male attention and thus easily deceived. You also admitted they’re coming into this house as invited guests. The humiliation you plan to inflict on them is a gross violation of your obligations as hosts.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, “but it’ll be fun and we don’t want no Holy Joe preacher spoiling our fun.”
Joel watched in horror as his fraternity brothers closed in on Sir John. A moment ago he couldn’t imagine anything worse than his fraternity brothers’ noticing Sir John’s lack of a reflection. Now the idiots were cheerfully ignoring that lack and were rushing to a disaster.
For centuries Sir John had been a battlefield surgeon, going from one British war to another, and eating England’s enemies. During the last two hundred years Sir John had limited himself to a diet of black pudding and blood sausages, but a dormant addiction was still an addiction. People who’d long given up alcohol or tobacco agreed that one drink or a single cigarette would be enough to renew their habit.
“Guys, please don’t! You don’t know what this man can do,” the would-be lawyer protested, stepping between the fraternity boys and his godfather. Since he was much the smallest person in the room, he felt like a Volkswagen caught between three trucks and a freight train.
Turning his head slightly to sneer at Joel, Sam said, “Yeah, what’s this bible-thumper going to do? Sue us?”
Seized by sudden inspiration, Joel whispered, “Yes! Please, step away from him a little and keep your voices down. He’s a lot older than he looks, and his hearing isn’t normal.” Since Sir John’s hearing was much better than normal, Joel didn’t think he was lying, and he was getting the result he wanted.
Sam, Harry and George looked nervously at him as they did what he’d asked. Knowing he had an opening, Joel forged ahead. “My grandfather is John the Shark, the dark knight of class actions! He came here planning to get you to rough him up a little. He’ll then place criminal charges. Everybody will be forced to testify about this fat-girls-are-pigs party. With all that in the court record—”
“No!” Sam growled. “Nobody will say anything! We all took an oath to keep the fraternity’s secrets.”
“Whisper, please!” Joel urged. “You’re right, but think it through. Once a crime happens, our secrecy oaths become a criminal conspiracy. Conspirators who didn’t actually do anything can still be sent to jail, because their silence is a crime all by itself. That’s all of us plus all the other members of every other Kappa Sig chapter!
“A secrecy conspiracy keeps the statute of limitations from triggering, so every past member is vulnerable. All of them to the year one and the pig girls party is just the opening wedge. There’s illegal discrimination against Blacks and Jews, sexual harassment, statutory rape, conspiracy to commit perjury, subornation of perjury, drugs, every illegal act any of us ever did!”
Though he looked a little shaken by all this, Sam stubbornly shook his head and said, “We’re the sons of powerful men. They’re not going to put us in jail.”
“No, not most of us anyway,” Joel instantly agreed, “but that’s not what’s important. This man is a lawyer. He’s going to use the criminal cases to gather evidence for a massive civil lawsuit. It’ll be a class action suit against all the wealthiest families in the state. He means to suck all the money out of your families!”
Looking nervously at Sam, George asked, “He can’t really do that, can he?”
“Good question,” Joel said. “Why don’t you answer it, Sam? Tell George what will happen when John the Shark tells a jury of fat women about our girls-as-pigs party and asks them to set punitive damages.”
Speaking hesitantly, Harry said, “Joel, when we were facing expulsion for honor system violations, you argued our cases before the honor council and got us off. We trust you, but are you sure about all this stuff you’re telling us?”
“No. I could have a lot of the details wrong,” Joel said, “but they don’t matter. What counts is what you guys saw for yourselves. You came into this room and my godfather here looked at you like you were three super-sized hamburgers. That’s the bottom line! Either you guys pick up that hog scale and take it back or that’s what you’ll be.”
The departure of Sam, George and Harry left Joel alone with Sir John. Knowing the advantage of a first strike, Joel said, “Sir, I do have the right to call you Grandfather, because you are. Mom did the genealogy and, John, Duke of Bedford, you really are my many times great-grandfather.”
“In that case, many times great-grandson,” Sir John said, “tell me why it was wise for you to join this fraternity.”
“Grandfather, please remember that I’m planning to go into criminal law. I expect to do a lot of pro bono work, but to make ends meet I’ll need rich clients, people like my fraternity brothers. When they get in trouble, they’ll think back to their old college buddy, who helped them out of a bad spot.
“Sam, George and Harry weren’t the only cases I’ve argued before the Honor Council. There’ve been a lot, and I’ve won them all! Add to that all the guys I’ve gotten out of assorted bad situations, and I’m going to have a solid client base once I start practicing law.”
“Now wait,” Sir John said. “If I hear you correctly, you’re admitting that you’ve made friends with the most sinful people you could find so that in later years they’ll be your clients when they face criminal charges.”
“Yes,” Joel said smiling. “Remember what Jesus said, when he was criticized for hanging out with people who weren’t all that respectable: ‘They that are well do not need a physician, but they that are sick’. That’s what I’m doing, making friends with people who are going to need a lawyer.”
“The girls-as-pigs party, before I came here: had you been trying to persuade your fraternity brothers to cancel it?”
“Yes,” Joel admitted. “I wasn’t having much luck there, but I’ve done a lot of good in other ways. Why, one of the guys I got off for Honor Code violations really hadn’t cheated.”
“I see,” Sir John said slowly. “It’s now clear to me that, Joel, you’ve been acting from worthy motives. Unfortunately that’s not the same as acting wisely. What nearly happened tonight should show you why you want to keep some distance between yourself and people like your fraternity brothers.”
“What do you mean?” Joel asked.
“One of the girls your brothers invited to their party was Miss Evelyn Channey, a former patient of mine. As you may remember, last year she was only pleasingly plump but, when she went to New Zealand this summer, she gained a great deal of weight.”
“Ahh, yes, I was puzzled about that. What happened to her?”
“She went to a fraternity party rather like the one your fraternity brothers were planning. They treated Evelyn very badly until the full moon rose. And of course the fools didn’t have any silver bullets. She turned and ate them all. That’s how she got so fat.”
Copyright © 2008 by Richard K. Lyon
