July 25, 2008

Prank #2: Brokeback at ABAC

The old “pencil lead in eraser” prank I mentioned earlier got me thinking about a college buddy who is a reformed prankster himself (and will remain anonymous to protect the innocent and guilty alike :) ). He participated in a quite a number of hilarious pranks that he told me about. However one prank in particular really stood out as truly epic. This one deserves a bit of set up for the full effect. I must apologize for the length.

My friend, we’ll call him Leon, is very musically gifted. So gifted in fact that he was offered a scholarship to attend Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC) to study music. ABAC is a fairly small college located in South Georgia and is commonly referred to by its acronym, pronounced “Aye-Back.” As you might guess from the name, the school primarily teaches farming and ranching rather than the arts or engineering (at least at the time of this story). ABAC did however have a music department and some funding to offer as scholarships to help build the program up. One thing to keep in mind is that this took place many years ago, so any impressions you get of ABAC or its student body from this story don’t necessarily hold true anymore.

Leon accepted the music scholarship on a whim. It was free after all. He went there without really knowing anything about the school and didn’t even visit the campus before he accepted. On Leon’s first day, he found out he didn’t really fit in at all…

At lunch in the cafeteria the first day he sat down by himself to eat lunch. Shortly thereafter a guy with a cowboy hat politely asked if he could set down next to Leon to eat. Leon agreed thinking maybe he would meet a new friend. After the initial name introductions, the cowboy asked Leon where he was from. Leon stated he was from Lawrenceville, Georgia (changed slightly from his actual home town just to be safe :) ). The cowboy suddenly exhibited a look of disgust and said, “Yer a Yankee!” He then stood up, grabbed his food tray and walked off.

Leon was completely flabbergasted and didn’t even understand how anyone could think he was a Yankee, let alone be so offended by someone just by being from the north. A nearby student noticed the events unfold and said, “Around these parts, there’s something called the Macon-Dixon Line.”

Notice I said MACON-Dixon and not the Mason-Dixon Line. Instead of a boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland being used to separate the divisive Northern and Southern cultures, a horizontal line at Macon, GA is used to separate out the carpetbaggers from the truly Southern. Yes, some folks from South Georgia consider folks from Atlanta, Gwinnett County, even Winder, to be Yankees!

Compare the difference between the Mason-Dixon Line and the MACON-Dixon Line below:

This encounter is only one of the culture clashes that Leon encountered, but it certainly set the stage for stay at ABAC. He was by no means a stranger to Southern culture, but this was an entirely new ball game.

Leon did manage to find friends in other musicians, artistic types, and computer geeks. They all somehow managed to get stranded in a place that did not favor diversity in the least. Leon and his friends learned how to keep to themselves and avoid drawing any unwanted attention during their years at ABAC.

On the weekends, Leon and his friends would often escape by taking road trips various places. The most common destination was Atlanta. Georgia Tech in particular was a common point of interest because some friends from high school were studying there. Leon was amazed at how different things were at GT. The diverse student population in particular was a big contrast to ABAC. There were all sorts of international students, folks with multi-colored hair, etc. At some point, Leon noticed that there was a student club at GT called GALA – The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Georgia Tech (now known as the Pride Alliance).

At some point after that GT visit, Leon and his friends at ABAC were sitting around bored in their dorm. Idle discussion drifted to how much different ABAC was from GT. Leon noted how GALA could never exist at ABAC. Someone else said, “Well if it did exist, I know what they’d call the club….GAYBAC!!” Everyone broke into hysterical laughter and imagined gay cowboys on the campus.

After the laughter and joking settled down, someone else said, “You know, we should print up some flyers about GAYBAC and put them up around campus!” And so the prank was born. One of the guys had access to a computer with some special banner/flyer design and printing software. This is back when students rarely had computers in their dorms, and didn’t have internet, or PowerPoint. So it was a lucky coincidence to have the banner/flyer software and access to a printer.

Now you might first expect the obvious, where the guys make a flyer describing the creation of the GAYBAC student club. However, they were far cleverer and decided that the imaginary club had been around for a while and already had several members. On the flyer they listed the name, description, time and place for the annual kickoff meeting, as well as this line: “Help us increase our membership from last year’s total of 50 members to 100!!!”

The flyer was meticulously crafted in the design software late at night so no one could see what was going on in the office with the computer. They had to similarly be careful not to be seen printing and photocopying a stack of the flyers.

The flyer probably looked something like this:

Then it was time to execute the prank. The group stayed up until the early AM hours and snuck out of their dorms for the critical stage of posting the flyers. They were very careful to not be seen putting the flyers up and moved about campus on bicycles in case anyone figured out what they were doing then they would be able to make a fast getaway. Even with the risks, these flyers went up everywhere. Windows, doors, unlocked classrooms, phone poles, sign posts, you name it. One thing was for certain, anyone at campus the next day was going to know about GAYBAC. Leon and his cohorts headed to bed and eagerly awaited the morning so they could observe the response.

After daybreak, they carefully headed out onto campus in the most nonchalant way they could and took a gander at the various locations where the flyers were posted. What they saw was a far more intense response than they ever expected. Many of the flyers would be angrily ripped down. Others would be defaced with various homophobic epithets and threats. At more popular locations like the student center, groups of students were huddled around the posted flyers angrily professing their disgust. Students continued to arrive for class unaware of the controversy, witness the angry groups and try to push to the front to see the flyer or query other already informed students to figure out what they should be mad about as well. This continued ad nauseam for quite a while and maintained the intense vitriol. By lunch time the entire campus knew of GAYBAC and was embroiled in discussing the gay student group. Just who were these fifty existing members? How come no one knew the club existed until now? How did their school, where men go to learn to be real men, become infested with what they felt was a moral wrong at the basest level? While no one could answer the questions, one thing was sure. The flyer stated the time and place of the GAYBAC kickoff meeting, and the time was that evening. Different groups of cowboys schemed and plotted how they were going to show the homosexuals a thing or two.

At this point Leon and his friends were a bit worried about the prank. It had already worked to far greater effect than they had ever imagined and they hadn’t even reached the climax of the prank. Leon and friends were already outcasts and likely targets for blind accusations. They decided that they must be even more covert in observing the meeting location of the imaginary club than when they checked out the flyers earlier in the day. It was a train wreck that was on a precise schedule. So it was best not to be too close the action when the time came.

Leon and others decided that making observations by bicycle was the only reasonably safe way to watch the events unfold. About a half hour before the scheduled meeting time, a group of cowboys showed up. They were fully decked in their machismo regalia: big cowboy hats, giant belt buckles, and pointy leather boots ready to do some ass kicking. They stood outside the door of the building listed as the meeting venue with menacing looks, puffed out chests, and fists clenched. Any moment the gays were going to start arriving and they were going to be sent packing. There would be no more gays on campus after the cowboys were done.

Leon and his friends could only make fleeting observations of the building. They would ride by briskly on a nearby sidewalk trying not to be caught paying much attention or be seen going by too many times. They certainly weren’t getting close enough to hear any discussions going on; however Leon didn’t really need to hear much to understand the situation.

Shortly after that first group of cowboys showed up, another group was seen strutting towards the building. The opposing groups noticed each other and simultaneously reached the same conclusion. The gay cowboys on campus had been outed and were about to get an ass whuppin’ that they would never forget. Each posse stormed towards the other. Thankfully (because otherwise knowledge of the prank probably would have been taken to Leon’s grave), the groups came up just short of blows to allow time to each share their profane treatise on what they thought of each other and where they could go in a handbasket. This allowed just enough time for each group to have doubts about having in fact tracked down their target.

About the time their confusion peaked, another group would show up. Surely this new group was the gays showing up for the meeting of sinners. As one might imagine, this process of accusations, threats, and confusion continued, just barely avoiding blows and ending up on the evening news.

Eventually, the actual start time for the imaginary meeting arrived. The cowboys began to realize that they had been had. By that time Leon and his friends split because the cowboys were now no doubt looking for signs of pranksters. They went back to their dorms relieved they hadn’t gotten anyone maimed or killed and then proceeded to roll on the floor laughing their asses off.

This was no doubt one of the most comical events ever to occur in the history of mankind. I wish I could have seen it in person. :) I suspect this prank could be pulled off at various other schools, but I just can’t recommend this one for replication. The prank teetered on a fine line between hilarity and outright anarchy.

I wonder if any of the cowboy gangs realized the irony of being the only ones to show up for the GAYBAC meeting?