I Roomed with the Gods: How a Virgin Nerd Survived Pledging a Fraternity in the 60s!

By Keith Mallory

My name is Keith Mallory and I started writing this book during the end of my sophomore year in 1963 as a nerdy introverted virgin pledge living in a fraternity house on a major college campus. I didn’t really fit in with the typical “cool” fraternity brothers. But luckily I had two people (my GODs), one another pledge and one a fraternity brother, who were totally different from me, and showed me the way to survive in that fraternity. We shared a room in the ZAP house and because of them I survived and thrived in what could have been hell. The eight handwritten chapters that I wrote in 1963 were lost in the junk that I carried with me after that sophomore year. When I accidentally found those scribbled pages in 2019, during the COVID world, I decided that I needed to complete the fictional story of that stressfully wonderful experience in that fraternity with my two GODs. So as an almost octogenarian, I completed seven more chapters of this book that fictionally described my fraternity life (dating, partying, dancing, drinking, some intense “making out” BUT mostly because of my “ADD”, studying and hiding in the library) as that nerdy pledge in those simpler times. Anyone who’s ever lived in a fraternity house (or even a sorority house) would understand what it might be like to be a nerdy pledge living with all brothers (or sisters) in that house! It could be like a continuous Hell Week! The two GODs that I roomed with at the ZAP fraternity on that college campus worked hard to help me survive being that pledge! To find out if they succeeded, you’ll have to read the book! AND ONLY PROVIDE GOOD REVIEWS OF THE NOVEL! For additional information: Write Keith Mallory at [e-mail]

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Jul 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781977269232

Keith Mallory

1944- Graduated Florida University of the North, BS Math 1965 Started writing I Roomed with the Gods in 1963 (first eight chapters as a sophomore), finished writing the last seven chapters in 2021 during the COVID world. I am a one-novel author (although I have written many unpublished poems and short stories). Some of those were written in 1963. And just to finish off this Simple “Nerd” bio, I love movies and my favorite is the 1933 uncut version of King Kong (Sounds like a real nerd!)

Book preview

Prolog

Readers, this book was started in 1963 by me as a 19 year old sophomore in college. It was handwritten on yellow legal paper (because I didn’t have a typewriter and it would never have been written if I had to use a typewriter) and was lost in a batch of papers over the years (1963 to 2019)!

As I was cleaning up the junk I had accumulated over 50+ years in trying to get ready for an eventual move to a retirement community, I accidentally found the first 8 chapters of the book. I could hardly read my handwriting and I knew I’d never be able to translate it into a digital document. My partner, a PHD scholar and university professor, offered to transcribe my chicken scratches into a digital document. She did an amazing job in a short period of time (during the height of COVID). And since I could now actually read what I had written back in 1963, I decided to try to finish the book. This was not an easy task because I was no longer a sophomore in a fraternity in 1963. My life had changed significantly but I was still mostly a nerd. That hadn’t changed much except I now had 56 years of experience in the real world that had dramatically changed from 1963. When I first started writing this as a sophomore, I had an outline for 22 chapters. Upon reading the original proposed table of contents, I realized that I could only remember details of 7 more chapters.

Writing this novel helped me remember the good times of my sophomore year and what it was like to be a fraternity pledge living in the fraternity house as a virgin nerd. My two Gods helped ground me and support me (and possibly made me less of a nerd) during this interesting time in my life.

This is a work of fiction based on many events that occurred that semester and many made up events and characters. The character’s names have been changed to protect me and others. And many of the characters and events are totally fictitious. The world of 1963 was certainly different (or maybe not) than the world we are living in now. And from what I read or see on the news, I am pretty sure that fraternity life hasn’t changed much.

I hope you enjoy this fictional description of what it was like being sort of an outsider in a fraternity world.

I dedicate this book to:

My partner who made the book possible and helped provide significant editing to improve the grammar, but helped keep it sounding like it was all written by a college sophomore.

My granddaughter who created the cover illustration.

Those interesting times in 1963 that are lovingly and fictionally described herein.

The two Gods that I roomed with at the ZAP fraternity on the FUN campus who worked hard to help me become less nerdy. They may have succeeded!

To find out if they succeeded, you’ll have to read the book!

Chapter 1

Back to ZAP

The car screeched to a rubber-burning stop in front of the ZAP Fraternity house (Zeta Alpha Pi). The red Oldsmobile Starfire, Larry the driver (a ZAP brother) and I were all winded after our long pilgrimage from New York City to Decatur, Florida (the University City.) We arrived just in time for classes that Monday morning after the Xmas vacation. The University in Decatur is the Florida University of the North or better known as FUN.

I was bushed. It was 6:45 AM and I hadn’t had more than two hours sleep on the whole trip, and to top it off I was scheduled to have a Phys. Ed. class at 8:30 that morning. My body was so filthy that it felt like it had been dragged through Farmer Alfalfa’s Manure Patch by a bunch of dirty pigs.

Since Larry had done most of the driving, he was feeling worse than me. But like a good frat man he helped me carry my luggage with the crap that I had accumulated over the Xmas vacation in New York. I had 2 suitcases full of clean wrinkled clothes, 10 new LP records, an assortment of booze (you only have to be 18 to get the stuff in New York, so I took advantage of the situation since I was a whole 19), and finally a box of a dozen 3-ply lubricated all-American prophylactics (rubbers).

We dropped off all my junk on the front steps of the ZAP house and I said good-bye to Larry. (He lived in an apartment off campus, the lucky SOB). I paid him the money for the trip–almost $25–that left me with about zilch money for the day. Oh, I knew I could manage because there was always some brother or pledge around who would be happy (ha, ha) to lend me a few bucks for a day or two.

By the way, I don’t know if you gathered from all the crap I’ve been feeding you so far that I’m some sort of big brother in this fraternity. Not at all. I’m just a low-life little pledge who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground according to the big tough fraternity brothers. But I have been pledging a whole semester now–well, actually only part of a whole semester since I didn’t want this frat at all. I joined up about a month after all the other guys in my pledge class. It took them longer to sucker me in than it did the other pledges. I guess cause I’m a sophomore and most of the other pledges are freshmen.

Well, here I was standing out in front of my new home at 7 AM in the morning. I call the house my new home because last semester I roomed in an apartment with 3 other students. After we were evicted at the end of the semester, I had to move into the ZAP house as a last resort. As I said before, I was standing in front of the frat house with my luggage and my finger up my ass because I didn’t know where I was supposed to be staying in the house.

I strolled up to the front door and anxiously looked inside to see if anyone was getting ready to go to an 8:30 class, but there was not a soul in sight. Damn it, where the hell was I supposed to be in this fraternity house? I dragged my luggage into the living room of the house. That was hard work and it even made me work up a little sweat–I’m not in the best physical condition.

I took a few deep breaths and went to look on the bulletin board to find a clue as to where I was to live in the house. The bulletin board is in a very good location in our (I’m not even a brother yet, but I’ll call it my house): it is directly across from the downstairs ‘john’ and the stairs leading upstairs, right next to the mail slots, the door leading to the outside world, and diagonally across from the basement stairs. You might say all roads lead to the bulletin board (I got that quote from my Humanities class). Actually no one ever really looks at the bulletin board so it wouldn’t matter where they put it.

I was somewhat relieved when I finally did look at the board to see my name splattered over a jagged piece of notepaper that covered the December Playmate of the month. The paper was right over the left boob of the Playmate, but ignoring that, I found the note to say that I was to go up to the second floor to Room 4. It was signed by one of my roommates from last semester, Leonard Lipschitz, better known to his friends as Len, Chief, or to his faithful followers and admirers like me, God.

Actually, Len was just one of two mortal Gods to occupy Room 4 on the second floor of the ZAP house; the other God, Arthur Sinski (better known as Arty), I really didn’t know too well, but I was soon to find out his ego reached almost the same height as God number 1 (Len).

I went back into the lobby to pick up both my suitcases to carry them up to my new abode. But carrying them both proved too much of a strain for my frail bod, so I lugged up 1 at a time. The stairs in the house have the standard 13 steps, but that is where the standard ends. The stairs are covered from top to bottom with an endless conglomeration of paint, egg drippings, oil stains, and blood marks, plus there are 5 or 6 damaged steps out of 13 steps. Finally there is a banister that is not firmly attached to the wall, when you wanted to use it as a support. I managed the stairs and dragged my suitcase to Room 4 which just luckily happened to be right across from the stairs and the only water cooler on the second floor. I think I drank until my bladder was busting. The number 4 on the door looked like it had been sandblasted for a week or so because it was barely readable even to my beautiful 20-20 eyes.

But this was Room 4, so like the big frat man I’m supposed to be, I whipped open the door and jauntily strolled into what looked like the ruins of Hiroshima! It was still pretty dark in this dungeon-like room mainly because it was only a little after 7 AM. The golden rays of the bright Florida sun hadn’t yet penetrated the dirty screens on the windows of Room 4. I made out the faint image of three beds randomly situated around the room. There were suitcases and packed boxes strewn all over, along with a department store’s worth of clothes. There were also 3 empty desks and 4 dressers huddled together in one corner of the room with a nice vomit-green stereo perched upon one of the dressers.

Lying in a death-like trance on two of the three beds were my two new roomies (actually one new and one old). They were both clothed in the familiar sleeping garb of the fraternity and the dorm man–white jockey shorts. Len (God 1) was curled up in the characteristic fetal position and Arty (God 2) was half way between the dirty floor and the dirty sheetless bed. My coming into the room with my suitcase dragging behind me didn’t disturb them one bit.

About this time I was really dead! Seeing those two oafs contentedly enjoying a good night’s sleep sort of pissed me off. I really got ticked-off when I remembered that I still had to go downstairs again, pick up my other suitcase, and drag it up to the room. Goddamn, I was bushed; I almost didn’t have the strength to take a piss, but with my last bit of remaining energy I went downstairs and dragged (and I mean dragged) suitcase number 2 up to our Room 4 after which I fell into bed number 3 for a few minutes of well deserved Zs.

Chapter 2

Len and Arty

When I said a few minutes, I meant a few minutes. At 8:05 Len’s alarm went off like a cherry bomb going off in a closet and I yawned out of bed. Neither of those two bastards stirred from their comas. That seems to be a big problem for me, for since I got to college here in Decatur just a year and half ago, I’ve had roommates who were oblivious to the world when they slept. I was forced to wake them from their slumber like a mother waking her kids for school! I hate that bullshit because I usually feel guilty about disturbing their sleep even when I know they have to get up for their own good. It’s a big problem that once again I was faced with. I figured that since the alarm went off at about 8 AM there must have been a reason for this and the most logical one I could think of that morning was that someone had to go to an 8:30 class. (College helps one reason these things out.) Of course, I didn’t know who was supposed to be up, so I woke them both.

A first-run horror movie couldn’t have been more frightening than seeing those two when they first got up that morning. Len was one of the ‘slime’ people, while Arty could have passed for a ‘mole’ man at any Saturday morning kiddie show. Both of them stared at me glassy-eyed. Len rubbed his big brown eyes once or twice and Arty fondled his gonads (checking to see if they were still there, I guess.)

Hi ya, fellas! I moaned.

They both looked at me with a faint glint of recognition in their eyes.

When the hell did you get here? Len asked.

Throw the fucker out! were Arty’s first words.

"I just got here about an hour ago, Len. Did you have a nice

Christmas vacation? Hey, I’ve got an 8:30 class, if you’re goin’ to one too, can you give me a lift?"

Roll the fuck out! were Arty’s second words. You damned low-life pledges have no respect for your superiors!

By the way, Arty was a real live full-fledged brother of Zeta Alpha Pi; so you can see that our room was going to be real cozy with two ‘low-life’ pledges and one big cool brother. In fact this semester we were the only pledges living in the ZAP house.

Arty rolled out of bed and said in his usual sarcastic manner, How’ve you been, ‘Big Boy’? He calls everyone Big Boy or Skinman.

I said my hello’s to Arty and