Weekend America

What's in a Pledge?

SEPTEMBER 15, 2007 Listen to this Story

Pledging

Recently, a university in Missouri attained an original sorority pledge that writer William Faulkner wrote for his step-daughter's friend. The pledge isn't published yet, but Weekend America decided to ask writers how they would re-imagine brotherhood and sisterhood. Writers Rick Moody, Christina Archer, Brendan Lorber and Pagan Kennedy share their pledges.

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Christina Archer's Pledge

This is not your everyday, hand-over-the-heart, swear-to-the-court, lean-on-the-old-book spiel. This is beyond an oath. It is a long line of knotted choices and the many hands it takes to unwind the answers. It is a sea of all sizes fit. The labor of granny's revolution. It is the borrowed shoulder and a soft voice. A serious matter that requires Earl Grey tea, mint chocolate and some matches. It is blood cuts and sleepover promises. At times, it is even a duel with the self. Or a duel with a stranger. At 2 a.m., it's hearing a cry in your sleep and knowing the conjured potion. It's how to heal the body without breaking the skin. And why braiding hair has lasted the years. It is why we make lockets. It's whom we talk to when our mothers don't understand us and our friends can offer nothing more. It is how our prayers are fulfilled when we don't talk to God.

To each other, we promise to be a link in this anchored tradition. A last line of defense. To call on each other in times of struggle and success. To raise a glass to our individuality and to bind our loneliness. Not to file in line or march to the same idea but to stand together. And to accept the way we look, the way we look at each other. How all of our smiles are a little tilted and pleasing. To each other, we are more than bloodlines. We are extensions of the shadow and at best, someone to drink wine with.

 

Pagan Kennedy's Pledge

We swear on all that we now, at 19 years old, hold sacred:
Henry Miller
clove cigarettes
glittery eye-shadow
Patty Smith's hair
French cinema
Marxist critiques of capitalism
the conviction that we can dismantle the war machine
We swear on all of this that we will forget you, AlphaDelt. We vow this is just a phase.

But we promise this to you:
We will always hold onto the dream of justice we have glimpsed in the garlands of cigarette smoke of your ratty living room. You have given us hope that we—spangled, boa-clad creatures—might throw our queer shoulders to the wheel.

We promise we will scatter across the country and settle into jobs as actors, writers, legal-aid lawyers and non-profit administrators. We will do our best, given the vagaries of our finances, to be dangerously compassionate.

Wven when we have forgotten you, our group photograph will hang on your staircase. Among the rows of faces, we will peer out, still young, still in love with our own bad-ass selves, still in love with the freaky dream of a free America.

 

Brendan Lorber's Pledge

I do hereby pledge that I will never disclose our secret handshake the one with two shakes and a squeeze - oh wait - I will never reveal that, starting now - or any other clandestine elements of the Brotherhood of the Noble Steed including our role in ruining the Sopranos finale, sub-prime mortgages, Owen Wilson's suicide, the Son of Sam, Pearl Harbor, Dick Cheney's annual virgin heart implant and the weird popularity of crocs and kakhis, none of which we had anything to do with so let's move on.

And I will totally not reveal that dogs can speak, they just choose not to because it works for them. I won't mention that Kennedy was never shot or that he was never even president. Or Lincoln. And if I ever violate such a solemn vow, say, just hypothetically, on my website Moredirtysecretsofthenoblesteedyoudidnthearfromme.org, then shall I be banished from these sacred halls immediately and forever except to dash in for a second to grab my decoder ring and novelty scepter. I left them on the table made of Pope Pius' teeth next to the secret entrance to the hallowed inner covert sanctum designed by 12th century masons that I will never tell anyone about. Okay starting now, for real.

 

Neal Pollack's Pledge

I've spent my whole life thus far getting pulled apart by twin demons. On the one hand, society demands from me earnest endeavor, success without pause, achievement without thought. On the other hand, I'm supposed to view everything with a certain ironic detachment, as though the world were just one big joke foisted upon us by cynical marketers. Both those positions seem like a load of crap to me, though by the previous statement, it appears as though ironic detachment has taken a momentary lead.

But here today, on this blasted heath, I take a solemn vow. I won't be seduced by the shibboleth of getting ahead, of "maximizing my potential." I realize that, in the end, the worms are going to get to my flesh in the ground, and that no one is going to care how hard I worked when I was alive. However, I also know that my life is now, and will hopefully continue to be, full of people who love and respect me. I'll leave my little footprint, have a good time doing it, and I won't screw too many people over in the process. Is that what you wanted to hear? Can I have a drink now?

 

Listen to Neal Pollack recite his pledge. (1:15)

Rick Moody's Pledge

There is no position I need to defend. I have no object I need to purchase. I have no argument I am required to advance. I have no book I need to sell. No movie that I need to see. There is no five-year plan. There is no 10-year plan. The vicissitudes of the world and its governments make no difference to me. They will rise and fall. I used to feel strongly about semi-colons. Now I could care less.

And while there are certain baseball teams I dislike, I feel certain that if I met some of the players on these teams I would find them driven, ambitious, and competitive in ways that are inspiring. Even smooth jazz has its partisans. I no longer care if the self-evident sentimentality of sunsets is uncool. I have only a finite number of sunsets left to me. My obligation is to attempt to be a reasonably personable person who is respectful under nearly all circumstances. I will allow those who weave in and out the interstate lanes to pass me without trying to box them in. I will wander in deserts far and wide saying less and listening more. I will leave no trace.

 

Shin Yu Pai's Pledge

I will write in line breaks with the liberal white space of silence surrounding my words.

I will examine my relationship to cultural production and waste from the orphaned widows of India to the trash heaps of Mt. Fuji.

I will publish and present my work on its own terms and terminate negative working relationships with the precision of a samurai sword—beheading antagonists where necessary.

I will not wear the yellow mask that anyone puts on me, (unless I choose to willingly wear it). I will learn Chinese and speak Spanish fluently.

I will redefine my parents' and their generation's perception of what it means to be an ABC.

I will aspire towards a deeper non-violence and a greater personal disarmament—the way of the true and gentle warrior—but let us remember, what good ever comes of practicing idiot compassion for anyone?

I will not allow others to sell my work to federal funding agencies based on my status as a young emerging Japanese poet, since I am really Taiwanese and now in my 30s.

I will contemplate the responsibility of what it means to be a "legislator of the world" and incorporate poetry into the toolbox of the anthropologist.

I will keep the Kula-shell choker—"some food we could not eat"—circulating around the archipelago.

The uncarved block, or the sculptor's stone, may I learn the stability of both.

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  CD: Trees Outside The Academy (Ecstatic Peace)

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