First part:
As I open the door I am met with a bombardment of lights from flashlights, police cars, and drunk idiots running out of the house thinking they are saving their “scholarship”. I walk towards the light, shielding my eyes like I’m traversing a blizzard until I make out 4 silhouettes, each shaking from either fear or nicotine. I finally get close enough to make out that they are 4 other people who live in the house. A disembodied voice screams at me “Do you live in this house?”. I stop and admit defeat by saying yes, joining the 4 silhouettes, and nodding to them as if this was a climactic scene in an Avengers movie and we were about to fight some cops. The voice then says “let me see your ID”. I say “I left it inside” in the most confident way as if I was Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting thinking that would help. I am told to go back inside and get it.
As I leave the group of house guys I can faintly hear them getting questioned about “if there is beer inside” and “we are going to find the weed anyway”. I open the door to the house and give my eyes a second to adjust from seeing what I can only imagine what people mean when they tell old people to go towards the light. I walk up to my room while whispering to the 20 people following me asking “yo what’s happening?”, “are you getting arrested?”, “can I use the upstairs bathroom? I promise I’ll be quick”. I spend about 10 minutes in a confused drunken haze answering questions while shuffling my way to my room. I can also hear the 2 undercover cops talking to the people downstairs. As soon as I get to my room I realize my license was actually in my car. I stand in thought in the middle of my room as 2 scenarios play out in my head.
I either close my door and wait out the cops, hoping that they would think that only 4 people lived in the house even after I just said I did too. Or I could be a man and take my lumps by awkwardly walking back outside, past the lights and aggressive cops to my car, and grab my ID in the worst walk of shame imaginable. I decide to do that. I walk back through those same people asking the same questions while I mumble some bs to get them away from me and take one final breath of un-arrested frat house kitchen air before going outside.
Luckily, that 1 minute of an anxiety attack in my room was just enough time to get me off the hook as the second I walk back outside to get my ID and whatever charges, the cops were driving away and 2 more appeared out of the opened storm doors walking to their cars. My 4 housemates were huddled together like those videos you see on TikTok of abandoned kittens getting rescued. I talk to them and find out that they got charged with serving alcohol to minors and a noise complaint. I honestly felt bad because that small window of me deciding if I should go back out and take those charges too was the exact amount of time needed for me to not have to do that.
I then remember about an hour later after we kicked everybody out, I was sitting with those house guys talking about what we were going to do while one of the “I’m hot so that means I’m right” brothers was yelling at us for stopping the party. Needless to say, we were all pretty freaked out not just from what happened that night, but what might happen later. I still remember the song I played while we were all just talking to lighten the mood. “Long Distance” by Hoodboi.
It was a very surreal moment because the past month and a half we were split as a fraternity. But, we all came together to hate the cops, kick everyone out, finish whatever alcohol was lying around the house, and have as emotional a conversation we could as frat bros. The 4 who got charges ended up fine and the cops seemed to leave us alone after that. I guess if I could offer any advice it would be: sometimes it’s not good to have the biggest party on campus because you might make 4 basically innocent people pay a bunch of lawyer fees and make me scared for like an hour.
