Party at Sammy's!

It was late April 1999, a few weeks before finals.  The town was quiet, as this was during the 2 weeks of the semester when everyone actually studied.  Z was graduating this semester; I would have if I didn’t take a semester off to do an internship.  It was a sad time for me, as I did not know what I was going to do next semester without my partner in crime; we had been inseparable since freshman year.

Z and I didn’t talk about the fact that he was leaving, as it was a very sore subject that neither of us wanted to bring up.  What we did talk about was making sure we had as much fun as possible together over the final weeks we were together.

I remember that final month being like we were freshman again.  We went out and partied almost every day; it didn’t matter if no one else was out.  We would go to happy hour every night, and then either stay at the bar, or come back and drink at the house until we passed out puking off the fire escape.  This was during the lean years of Klan.  The house didn’t have enough money to buy beer for us, much less for a party.  If we drank at the house, he and I would have to buy a case or a bottle if we remembered.  It sucked, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

One Friday night, Z and I were at GJ’s, one of the two bars in town.  We were reminiscing about all the good times we had.  The conversation switched to trying to think of the few things that we had not done while in Alfred.  This was a small list, as there is very little, whether it was: sexual escapades, road trips, drug/alcohol experimentation, bar fighting, concerts, random adventures, or anything else you can think of.  We did EVERYTHING at that school…and we did it all together.  We named a few trivial things that we never did, but none of them were very appealing.

Eventually, my partner in crime mentioned that we had never partied at EAM’s (Sammy’s).  Now Sammy’s was the dork/gay fraternity on campus.  We were the beer drinking, bar fighting, weight lifting, freshman sodomizing, drug kingpin, bad-ass fraternity full of every group of people you can think of, from rednecks to city boys to jocks to artists, and everything in between.  Needless to say, EAM and Klan didn’t run in the same circles.  Z’s suggestion, though, was an interesting idea.  I said I wasn’t sure when Sammy’s was having a party again.  Z said it didn’t matter, as we would have our own party there.  This got me all excited, as we had busted into many frat houses over my 4 years as a Klan brother, but that was always to beat some ass.  Never had we busted into another house simply because we wanted to hang out.  Z gave a Knute Rockne-esque speech about how we owed it to ourselves to party at the nerd house at least once before we graduated.  If I had any doubts about this potential adventure beforehand, Z’s legendary persuasive skills made these doubts disappear; most likely drowning in the beer, along with all my other ambitions.  It was set!  We were to party at Sammy’s. 

Well, to have a party, you need people.  To conquer that obstacle Z and I went around the bar and told all our friends that we were having an after party…at the EAM house.  They all laughed at first; they realized we were serious when we went on about it, saying we had never partied there before and wanted to drink there before we graduated.   Most of our friends were as drunk as we were, so it didn’t take much convincing.  Also, Z and I had a reputation as being probably the 2 most fun guys on campus.  We were always doing something crazy or stupid- sometimes to prove a point, but most of the time just to amuse ourselves.  We were always in our own little world.  Luckily for us, many people loved visiting our world on occasion, to see what crazy things we were up to.

By the time the bar closed, we had a small army of people ready to follow us to the EAM house to party.  Z and I pounded our beers, then rounded up our posse and headed out.   There we were, a group of like 20 people, with Z and I in the lead, stumbling down the road heading towards the EAM house.  I felt like Patton- leading my troops through unfamiliar terrain towards the enemy base.  If our battle plan is carried out correctly, we will break through any forward defenses they have (a dog, perhaps); bust in the front door; destroy everything in sight, and then end the night drinking beers and celebrating on our conquered turf.  We had no idea how many EAM brothers were around, which would have been useful information.  We didn’t care, though.  We were on a mission.  There could have been 300 of them in the house, it didn’t matter. 

After about 10 minutes, we had arrived at the enemy stronghold.  Luckily, there were no dogs or any other security system on the perimeter.  We marched right up the driveway, kicked in the front door and then busted inside.  Z and I headed towards the back, as we figured that would be where the beer was.  Our friends Danny and Dom, also seniors, made a B-line towards the kitchen.  Everyone else scattered all over, looking for something to break, steal, or play with.  It took only a few minutes before we found the mother load; a full-size freezer filled with Red Dog bottles.  We yelled out that we found the beer and, just like Pavlov’s dogs, our drunken army dropped whatever they were doing and ran over.  In a brief semblance of order during this extremely chaotic pillaging, they all formed a single-file line, waiting to be handed a beer.  Z would grab the beer out of the freezer and hand it to me, who would hand it to a thirsty co-ed.  It was like I was a member of a platoon handing out rifles, one at a time, to the other soldiers right before they attacked the enemy.  I looked over at Danny and saw that he had fired up the Barbecue Grill in back.  Dom was in the kitchen, raiding the freezer for burgers and hot dogs to grill up.  After they had a beer, the other party-goers would walk outside and place their food order with Danny and Dom.  It was almost like an assembly line.  We now had ourselves a party!

Something caught my attention in the doorway to the foyer so I looked up…and saw 3 Sammy brothers staring at me.  They were all in their jammy’s, looking all confused about why there was a party in their house and they weren’t even invited.  They no doubt had been woken up by the rager we were having downstairs.  I looked at them and smiled, then kept handing out beers.  A few minutes later more brothers came down.  They stood in the doorway with the other 3; they didn’t dare say anything to us.  After everyone had a beer, Z and I went outside to eat some food.  Danny and Dom had a barbecue fit for a king going on:  burgers, dogs, chicken, complete with all the condiments- even relish and kraut.  Those National Fraternities got it made.  At Klan, we went months at a time living off nothing but cigarettes, Old Milwaukee’s best, Ramon Noodles and Cinnamon Toast.  You bet your ass we took advantage of this rare treat. 

After twenty minutes or so, one of the Sammy brothers walked up and asked us why we were there.  We tell him we just wanted to party at their house before we graduated.  After taking a minute or so to comprehend that statement, he asks us how much longer we will be there.  We tell him “We’ll leave when we wanna leave.”  Now this is his house, and we got tough with him; he could have done any number of things in retaliation, including: getting all the other brothers in the house and attempt to use force to get us out, call the cops (they were right down the road), or just asking us nicely to leave, amongst other things.  All those options were viable.  Being a EAM brother, however, he did what all pussies do, and just nodded his head and went back to the doorway with the others.  By this time every brother in the house was downstairs, all crammed in that doorway, being careful not to invade our turf (which consisted of the rest of the downstairs).  The funny part was that not once did we invite them to join us; even funnier was the fact that not one of them came over to take their beer or food away from us, even to consume themselves.  They just stood there, hungry and dry-mouthed, watching as we cleaned out their refrigerator.  They didn’t even say anything when we knocked a painting off the wall, puncturing it; or when we broke anything else (we must have done at least a thousand dollars worth of damage that night).  They just stood there, like statues, hoping this nightmare would be over soon.

Finally, after 2 hours, the beer was gone, the food was gone; the house was a mess; but most importantly, we were all exhausted.  So, we finished our last few sips, gathered up the troops, and stumbled out the door.  Z and I said goodbye to all the Sammy brothers on the way out.  We were sure to compliment them on the great food they gave us.  They just nodded.  Once we were outside, I heard them rush over to the front door and lock it.  I can guarantee they watched out the front window as we all stumbled down the street, making sure we were going home.  This was truly a glorious night.  EAM’s was the only house on campus that had beer that we had not yet enjoyed an alcoholic beverage…until now.  Our drinking bingo card was now complete.

The next night, Z and I were drunk again at GJ’s.  We were telling everyone about the previous night, how we just bum rushed the EAM house and had our own private after-hours.  Everyone loved it.  They wanted to go to Sammy’s, too.  So, just like the previous night, we got a group of drunken party animals together, and headed to the EAM house after the bar closed.  Just like Friday, we kicked the door in and walked towards the back where all the food and beer was.  We had forgotten that we cleaned them out the night before.  Refusing to admit we walked that whole quarter-mile for nothing, Z and I tore apart the kitchen looking for anything alcoholic.  After a few minutes, the whole EAM house came downstairs to confront us.  Their fearless leader came up and pleaded with us to leave.  He said that they had nothing left for us to eat or drink, as we had consumed their entire week’s worth of groceries the previous night.  We fucked with the guy for a little while, hoping he would slip up and say if they had alcohol, or even when the next time they went shopping would be (for a possible party at EAM night in the future).  Eventually, we decided to do the kid a favor.  He was obviously terrified to be the messenger for this bad news.  We gathered up our posse and left, still thirsty- but with another great story.  This would be the last great adventure Z and I had at school while undergrads, although we would have many more as respectable citizens.  Stay tuned...