He was 14 years old, out of his mind and way over his head. It was the summer before Kenny was to enter High School as a freshman. He knew he was going to need lots of older, bigger, rougher buddies to help him in this first year in a new school. He’d heard about bullying that went on when Junior and Senior year boys ganged up on kids they thought easy prey. Most boys his age and slight build could expect pants-pulling-down in the school hallways. Or, if unlucky, they might find all their clothes missing when they came out of the showers after gym class.

Kenny knew he couldn’t count on any of his classmates for support or protection from bullying. But he thought if he could just make friends with some older kids in his neighborhood. maybe they’d sort of vouch for him and keep him safe from the rougher kids. That’s why he took the unusual, and very risky, step of asking his 16-year-old cousin, Mark, if he could join his dare-devil club.

Mark and his five best-buds were highly respected among the teenage Alpha-males, not only the sports jocks, but even the punk juvenile delinquents who made their lunch money off and terrorized freshmen like Kenny. It was a sort of twisted respect, in that the dares they did were always shocking, dangerous and often illegal. Street-cred to the crude street-crud.

After a lot of begging from Kenny, Mark finally agreed to set up a meeting that Saturday ( two weeks before Labor Day and the beginning of the school year. If all six agreed, Kenny would be allowed to try out for Brotherhood Club membership. “ But, of course, Kenny,” whispered Mark, “ you’ll have to undergo a rigorous initiation.”

Kenny expected no less. He’d heard of fraternity initiations and how humiliating they could be for pledges. But he needed these guys behind him, a gang who would have his back at school. So he told his cousin not to worry; he was prepared to do whatever he had to so as to get into the club.

MARK: “Your initiation is not going to be straightforward, Kenny.”

KENNY: “ What do you mean? Is it going to be complicated ... difficult ... or unusual?”

MARK: “ Only as difficult or easy as you want it to be. But by ‘not straightforward’ I mean we aren’t going to tell you what to do. You’re going call the shots, you have to determine ten things you have to do to qualify as a member. You’ll be graded so each task is worth ten points for a total of 100%.

KENNY: “And I have to get a passing grade of what? 70%?”

MARK: “ You need a B+ or about 95% to be sure of passing.”

KENNY: “So how do I know what gives me a better chance of earning a high grade?”

MARK: “Kenny, the point of any initiation is to see how much you want to belong ... how far you’ll go to get in ... how close to the utterly unacceptable you’re willing to accept. But here’s the thing: The easier you make it, the less likely it will be good enough to qualify. BUT the harder you make it, the better chance you have of getting in the club.

KENNY: “ And do you guys tell me if what I’m doing or what I say I’m willing to do is hard or easy ... Do you like give me a heads up on the grade I’d get?”

Mark: “ Absolutely not! The whole point is you set your initiation tasks without knowing if it’s going to be good enough. But we let you do all ten things and then we’ll tell you if you passed or not. Let give you a little hint though. The object of any initiation is Humiliation of the pledge. Try to make your tasks as humiliating as you think you can stand.”

KENNY: “ So do I write the tasks up and hand the list in before hand, like homework?”

MARK: “ Nope. It’s got to build up with us not knowing what comes next. That’ll make it more dramatic and more fun for us, too. But you have to start out stripping and don’t worry, we’ll invite a few older girls to watch ... you know, to get you started on the right foot.”

KENNY: ‘ I think I see, So ... just as a for instance ... if I say one of the things a have to do is to strip naked in front of you guys, I get get a low mark ... If it’s to strip in front of you guys and the girls you invited to watch, I get a much higher mark.”

MARK: “Yes, but that may not be embarrassing enough ... but maybe if you strip naked in a public place, like a park, and give those girls all your clothes and therefore have to run home buck naked ... you just might get lots of credit on that task.”

KENNY: “No way. I’d get arrested if anyone saw me!”

MARK: “You’re right. It would have to be done either very late at night or really early, like before first light of dawn. Your choice, eh? But it would have to be the tenth thing you did. So think about the other nine. So you’re going to strip first and that counts as task one, then you have to tell us what you’re going to do next. When you’ve done that, you tell us what’s number three ... and go ahead and do that ... then 4, 5, 6 all the way to the last one which, if you really want to get in our good books, will be running home buck naked, preferably with your hands tied behind your back ... you know, so you can’t cover up if anyone sees you. I’ll let you know when and where the initiation if going to take place.”

KENNY: “ Okay, I’ll do it. But I think it will have to be late at night, in case the initiation takes a long time and I have to run home naked, I want to be hidden in the dark, not racing to beat the rising sun. Let me know exactly when and where by Friday night, okay?”

And so that’s how 14-year-old Kenny came to be in Fulton Park at midnight. He came dressed in old clothes and worn out sneakers that he was going to throw out, anyway. He had decided running home naked for six blocks in the dead of night was probably safe because no one would be outside that time of night.

As Mark had promised, the whole gang was there, all five guys, plus five girls who looked about 15 or 16 years old. So Kenny had an audience of ten for his first task, stripping buck naked and giving all his clothes to the girls. His shoes, socks, t-shirt, khaki shorts and his underpants ... one item of clothing each ... given away and Kenny smiled as he told the girls to keep his stuff as a souvenir. The girls gladly accepted their gifts and, giggling and laughing, ran off with his clothes.

Then Kenny turned to Mark and his friends and said, “ That was task one and I hope it met with your approval. I’ll tell you right now that the tenth and final task will be my running home naked with my hands tied behind my back when the other eight tasks have been completed.